NEW MUSIC: ELIMINATE by AMIGO. (Prod. by T'hudi)

New Kid on The Block debuts with a rousing song that's set to shake up the airwaves. With this grand entry, AMIGO is here to ELIMINATE any fears that there are no fresh talents out there.

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Real Benjamin Buttons Brothers: Matthew and Michael Clark Are Aging Backwards

By the looks of their home, Tony and Christine Clark are raising two rambunctious 7-year-old boys. Model train tracks and Monopoly pieces are scattered on tables and cartoons flicker on the TV set. 

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Chinua Achebe at 82: “We Remember Differently”, By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

 
I have met Chinua Achebe only three times. The first, at the National Arts Club in Manhattan, I joined the admiring circle around him. A gentle-faced man in a wheelchair.

“Good evening, sir. I’m Chimamanda Adichie,” I said, and he replied, mildly,  “I thought you were running away from me.”

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How To Add A Table To Blogspot Posts Without HTML Coding

by Jackson Nwachukwu of NaijaTechBlog.

Blogger platform by default has no widget or means to create a table automatically from its post editor. This has remained a problem for many users, especially those whose posts require they add tables for proper description of items. While this can be achieved using the simple HTML coding system (for those who can play HTML Codes) there is now an automatic way of creating or adding a table to your blogspot posts without doing any coding. 

While going through some updates this morning, I stumbled on an online table generator called Tableizer. This tool helps you create HTML tables out of spreadsheet data on the go. Like I said, it requires ZERO knowledge of HTML Coding, just draft your content in a table format, copy and paste and the toll does the rest of the coding. 

The following are the steps to make it happen:

Step 1: Type your work on an Excel sheet or any other spreadsheet just the way you want them to appear in the table

Step 2: Go to Tableizer, copy and paste the write up from your spreadsheet on the Tableizer editor as shown below:

The Tableizer tool will remove the extra markup from your table and leave you only with a lean table code.

Step 3: Next will be to customize the table in terms of font type, font size and the color of the table heading if you want.

Step 4: When you are done and satisfied click the Tableize It! button to create your HTML table.

The tool will generate a set of HTML and CSS codes for you to copy, and show you preview or what your table looks like.

Adding the Table to Your Blogger Post Editor

By now, you should be having the codes generated for you by the Tableizer tool. To add it to your post on Blogger copy the codes provided and paste it on your post editor.

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I just saw The Homeland

Short Review it is for the short movie series (:p well deserved). With just 12 episodes, it’s the only movie series I ever finished in a day.

metro.co.uk: “Homeland season one is a masterclass in high-wire tension” Yekpa! Super Yimu! Lies o. lol
When I first heard “Homeland”, first thing that came to mind was DHS so I thot this was gon be a movie about Department of Homeland Security and their operations. (you know CTU in Jack Bauer 24 na). But I was disappointed. The whole 12 hours wouldn’t even reach one episode of 24. Only people who know how breath-taking 24 is would understand sha.

It was too slow. It’s like they had so much time on their hands. Unnecessary sex scenes. Overemphasis on Crazy Carrie’s mental state. In fact, everything was stretched. Lil Miss Brody’s rudeness, Nick Brody’s passivity, overhyping of a sniper and his spotter (brody and walker), blah blah. The only near flawless character there would be Saul Berenson (Mandy Pantinkin).

It would have made too much sense if all that 12 hours was made into a 150 minutes movie with a wonderful trailer and all that. And the way it now ended again, people would be looking hungrily forward to the Part2. I must confess I’m really looking forward to the next season. I just hope there’s more action, more guns, more brutality, and awesomeness like 24. lol. C’mon these guys are supposed to be terrorists na. And the love of Saul’s life should please come back.

ps: it was unfair comparing Homeland with 24. I’m sorry lol.

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Chevening Scholarships for International Students

The Chevening UK Scholarships is one of the world’s top scholarship schemes for international students. It is the flagship scholarship scheme of the British Government which provides scholarships to around 1000 leaders from over 130 countries to study in the UK every year.

The Chevening Scholarships offers exceptional candidates the opportunity to undertake postgraduate study at leading universities in the UK. It is aimed at future leaders, opinion formers and decision-makers.

Areas of Study: 

Chevening scholarships are targeted towards a broad range of fields and disciplines. Depending on the priorities of the UK Embassy in your country, applications are welcome for the following fields: Development, Public administration, Governance, Journalism/media, International Relations, Human rights, Economics, Finance, Banking, Law, Human rights, Management, Project planning, Political science, Diplomatic training, Environmental studies, Civil Society, Religion, etc.

Eligibility: 

Chevening UK Scholarships are for high calibre international student graduates with the personal, intellectual and interpersonal qualities necessary for leadership. Applicants should be:
• Motivated to make a career that will take them to positions of leadership in their own country within ten years of their scholarship
• Able to use their studies and experience in the UK to benefit themselves, their countries and the UK
• Natural influencers and talented communicators, with energy and ambition
• People who value networking and who can demonstrate the value of networks to their studies, and to bringing about change on a global level
• Intelligent, with demonstrable academic potential
• Strong characters with integrity, drive, and the ability to self manage and work independently

Applicants must:
• Have good English Language skills and an IELTS score of 6.5 (or its equivalent) for admission to postgraduate courses
• Meet the academic requirements for their courses of study

Scholarship Worth: 

Chevening UK Scholarships are full scholarships which cover tuition fees, monthly stipend and various one-off allowances as well as international travel to and from UK. Most scholars undertake a one year master’s degree.

How to Apply: 

There is no coordinated global launch of the programme. British missions around the world will advertise Chevening separately, so timings will vary. Some Embassies will advertise as early as late autumn (September), while others will start as late as spring (May-June). The deadline varies per country but falls around January-June 2013.

Please check your local British Embassy or High Commission website, and your local British Council website, for details about how the scheme will operate in your country, including information about deadlines and whether criteria about areas of interest have been applied.

For more information about this Scholarship, visit the Chevening Scholarships for International Students Webpage.

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Australian Development Scholarships

Australian Development Scholarships (ADS) are scholarships for international students who wants to study in Australian Universities. Scholarship holders are required to return to their country of citizenship for two years after they have completed their studies to contribute to the development of their country.

Australian Development Scholarships are available for vocational education and training courses, undergraduate degrees, postgraduate degrees, and PhD degrees at participating Australian universities and Technical and Further Education (TAFE) institutions.

Fields of study: Study programs must relate to your country’s priority areas for development. These are listed on the participating country profiles.

Number of Scholarships: Up to 1000 Australian Development Scholarships are awarded each year across 31 countries with scholarships awarded equally between men and women.

The number of scholarships and fields of study are determined annually by each ADS participating country and in accordance with the Australian Government’s bilateral development assistance program. Some countries may limit the level of study (technical, undergraduate or postgraduate) and give priority to certain fields of study to better meet development needs and Australia’s specific aid objectives for each country.

Scholarship Worth: ADS are offered for the minimum period necessary for the individual to complete the academic program specified by the Australian higher education institution, including any preparatory training. The following benefits generally apply:

• Full tuition fees

• Return air travel—payment of a single return, economy class airfare to and from Australia, via the most direct route

• Establishment allowance—a once only payment of A$5,000 as a contribution towards as accommodation expenses, text books, study materials

• Contribution to Living Expenses (CLE) is a fortnightly contribution to basic living expenses paid at a rate determined by AusAID. From 1 January 2012, CLE payable to Scholars studying under an ADS is A$28,000 per year.

• Introductory Academic Program (IAP)—a compulsory 4-6 week program prior to the commencement of formal academic studies covering information on life and study in Australia.

• Overseas Student Health Cover (OSHC) for the duration of the award (for award holder only)—provided to cover the student’s basic medical costs (with the exception of pre existing conditions).

• Pre-course English (PCE) fees—if deemed necessary PCE may be available for students for in-country and/or in-Australia training.

• Supplementary Academic Support may be available to ensure a Scholar’s academic success or enhance their academic experience.

• Fieldwork (for research students only)—may be available for eligible research students for one return economy class airfare via the most direct route to their country of citizenship or within Australia.

Eligibility: To be eligible to receive a Scholarship, applicants must:

a. be a minimum of 18 years of age at the time of commencing the Scholarship

b. be a citizen of a participating country (as listed on AusAID’s Scholarship website) and be residing in and applying for the Scholarship from their country of citizenship

c. not be married or engaged to or be a de facto of a person who holds, or is eligible to hold, Australian or New Zealand citizenship or permanent residency, at any of the application, selection or mobilisation phases or while on-scholarship in Australia

Note: Residents of Cook Islands, Niue and Tokelau with New Zealand citizenship are eligible but must apply for an AusAID 576 student visa.

d. not be current serving military personnel

e. not be applying for another long-term AusAID scholarship unless they have returned to their home country and resided there* for twice the length of the total time that they were in Australia (for example, a previous Scholar who has been on AusAID scholarship/s in Australia for four years will not be eligible to apply for another AusAID scholarship until they have been home for eight years)

f. not hold or have held an Australian Government-funded scholarship (e.g. Endeavour Award) in the preceding two years, at the time of application

g. satisfy any specific criteria established by the applicant’s country and/or government of citizenship

h. be able to satisfy the admission requirements of the institution at which the Scholarship is to be undertaken (this may mean that Post will need to withdraw a Scholarship offer if the recipient cannot satisfy the institution’s admission requirements. This may not be known until Post requests a placement at selected institutions)

i. be able to satisfy all requirements of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) for an AusAID Student Visa 576 (this may mean that Post will need to withdraw a Scholarship offer if the recipient cannot satisfy the visa requirements)

Application Instructions: Only applications for ADS Master Awards for Africa is open at the moment. Check the open and close dates for your country, and select your country of citizenship/residency from the list of participating countries for specific information on eligibility, priority areas and how to apply.

If you intend to apply, you must read the Scholarships handbook. Some countries encourage and allow you to apply online while others require hard-copy applications. See your country page for specific information for your country.

There is usually one annual selection round in each country. Each Country Program has different timelines but deadline falls around March-April annually. The deadline for ADS Master Awards for Africa is on 14 December 2012.

It is important to read the how to apply page and visit the country specific pages, and the official website (link found below) for detailed and updated information on how to apply for this scholarship.

Visit the Australian Development Scholarships Webpage for more information about this Scholarship.

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Norwegian Quota Scholarship Scheme for Developing Countries, 2012/2013

The Norwegian Centre for International Cooperation in Education (SIU)  is a public Norwegian agency promoting international cooperation in education and research. It has many programs, one of which is the Quota Scholarship Scheme.

The Norwegian government provides students from developing countries in the South and countries in the Western Balkans, Eastern Europe and in Central Asia with financial support to study for a degree in Norway under the Quota Scheme

The main objective of the Quota Scheme is to contribute to capacity building through education that will benefit the home country of the students when they return. The Quota Scheme is also intended to strengthen relations between Norway and the selected countries and thus contribute to internationalization at Norwegian institutions of higher education.

Scholarship Description: The Quota Scheme currently provides funding for a total of 1,100 students, 800 of them from developing countries in the South and 300 from countries in the Western Balkans, Eastern Europe and in Central Asia.

The Scheme is quite popular both with the Norwegian institutions involved and among eligible students, most of whom are highly qualified in their field of study. Every year the number of applicants far exceeds the number of students admitted under the scheme.

Eligibility: If you wish to participate in the Norwegian Government Quota Scholarship Scheme,

- You must apply directly from your home country.
- You must have stayed at least one year in your home country directly prior to the planned course of   study at the Norwegian university / University College.
- you must be able to find your home country on the list below:

Eligible Developing Countries: 

Afghanistan, Algeria, Angola, Bangladesh, Benin, Bhutan, Bolivia, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, China, Colombia, Comoros, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Djibouti, East Timor, Ecuador, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, El Salvador, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Iran, Ivory Coast, Jordan, Kenya, Kiribati, Laos, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Maldives, Mali, Marshall islands, Mauritania, Micronesia, Mongolia, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar (Burma), Namibia, Nepal, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Niue, North Korea, Pakistan, Palestinian territories, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Republic of the Congo (Congo- Brazzaville), Rwanda, Sao Tome & Principe, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Solomon islands, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Swaziland, Syria, South Africa, Tanzania, Tchad, Thailand, The Democratic Republic of Congo (Zaire), Togo, Tonga, Tunisia, Tuvalu, Uganda, Vanuatu, Vietnam, Western Samoa, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Yemen, etc.

Selection criteria: All candidates should typically have the following basic qualifications:
- Secondary school certificates
- Minimum two years of higher education from their home country
- Some exceptions apply for certain professional educational courses at Bachelor’s level.

Scholarship Worth: 

Each student receives the same amount of money as a Norwegian student would do in an equivalent educational programme. 40 per cent of the amount is given as a grant and 60 per cent as a loan. However, the loan portion may be waived when the student returns to his/her home country after completing the course of study. Students who stay in Norway after finishing their studies or take up residence in another country than their home country must repay the loan. Travelling expenses for entry into Norway may be reimbursed (fixed price).

How to Apply: 

Applications forms are available from the websites of the universities and university colleges. All applications should be sent directly to the International Office at the university/college to which the student is applying.

Download the List of Institutions offering scholarships under the Quota Scheme here.

Scholarship Application Deadline: 

The deadline for applications for the Quota scheme is usually 1st of December every year. Some courses and educational programmes may have other deadlines. Please contact the International Office at the university/college to which you want to apply for detailed information. The Letter of Admission is normally sent to the successful candidate by 15 April every year.

Please NOTE that SIU is not responsible for the admission of students . The institutions of higher education that are part of the Quota Scheme handle all applications from prospective students. Information about the application procedure for the Quota Scheme should be available at the participating universities’ and university colleges’ websites.

For more information about this Scholarship,
visit the Norwegian Quota Scholarship Scheme for Developing Countries Webpage.

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Did you know that: Carrots Were Originally Purple?

Sounds funny, right? Well, I was onto Dan Lewis' archives and I found this; So I had to go check it out myself...and I found stories. Carrots have History. lol 

The Carrot has a somewhat obscure history, surrounded by doubt and enigma and it is difficult to pin down when domestication took place. The wide distribution of Wild Carrot, the absence of carrot root remains in archaeological excavations and lack of documentary evidence do not enable us to determine precisely where and when carrot domestication was initiated. 

Over thousands of years it moved from being a small, tough, bitter and spindly root to a fleshy, sweet, pigmented unbranched edible root. Even before the introduction of domesticated carrots., wild plants were grown in gardens as medicinal plants. Unravelling its progress through the ages is complex and inconclusive, but nevertheless a fascinating journey through time and the history of mankind.

The Wild Carrot is the progenitor (wild ancestor) of the domestic carrot.  It is clear that the Wild Carrot and Domestic Carrot are not the same species and both co-exist in the modern world. It is a popular myth that domestic carrot was developed from Wild Carrot, probably because of its similar smell and taste. Botanists have failed to develop an edible vegetable from the wild root and when cultivation of garden carrots lapses a few generations, it reverts to another ancestral type, a species that is quite distinct.

Wild Carrot is indigenous to Europe and parts of Asia and, from archaeological evidence, seeds have been found dating since Mesolithic times, approximately 10000 years ago. One cannot imagine that the root would have been used at that time, but the seeds are known to be medicinal and it is likely the seeds were merely gathered rather than actually cultivated.

Wild carrot has a small, tough pale fleshed bitter white root; modern domestic carrot has a swollen, juice sweet root, usually orange.   Carrots originated in present day Afghanistan about 5000 years ago, probably originally as a purple or yellow root like those pictured here. Purple, white and yellow carrots were imported to southern Europe in the 14th century and were widely grown in Europe into the 17th Century. Purple and white carrots still grow wild in Afghanistan where they are used by some tribesmen to produce a strong alcoholic beverage. Over the ensuing centuries, orange carrots came to dominate and carrots of other colours were only preserved by growers in remote regions of the world.

Nature then took a hand and produced mutants and natural hybrids, crossing both with cultivated and wild varieties. 

Carrots are mutants?

Well, orange carrots at least. It is considered that purple carrots were then taken westwards where it is thought  yellow mutants and wild forms crossed to produce orange. Overtime, some motivated Dutch growers took these mutant orange carrots under their horticultural wings and developed them to be sweeter and more practical. The 17th century Dutch carrot growers managed to cultivate these yellow and white ones carrots into the orange ones were are familiar with today.

 It's a long story

Bonus Fact: Eat too many carrots and beware: you may end up with carotenosis — a condition wherein excess beta carotene turns your skin orange-ish yellow...

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Defusing Africa's Population Bomb

 

The front page of New York Times last Sunday, informed readers that “in a quarter-century, at the rate Nigeria is growing, 300 million people—a population about as big as that of the present-day United States—will live in a country the size of Arizona and New Mexico.” The capital alone houses 21 million people and has all the accompanying strains—ungodly traffic, potential for political unrest, upward pressure on food prices, insufficient hospital capacities—which the article uses as an example of how a “population bomb” will hurt sub-Saharan Africa.

The article implies Nigeria and other sub-Saharan countries must figure out how to engineer a decline in family size and birth rates before achieving economic progress—in this account, people start having two kids instead of 12 and can invest much more time and money and education in each child.

But limiting population growth isn’t necessarily a precursor to economic development. In fact, it’s the other way around: Economic development is usually a precursor to limiting population growth, and scare-mongering about exploding populations isn’t helping solve any problems.

Small families are basically a luxury. It shouldn’t be surprising that poorer countries like Nigeria, Mali, and Uganda have some of the highest birthrates among countries around the world, while wealthier nations like the United States, Germany, and Japan are near the bottom. When people achieve a certain level of income, they can afford to worry about having fewer kids and investing more in each because they no longer have to worry as much about concerns like whether enough food will be on the table.

Sky-is-falling overpopulation stories have roots in the 18th century, when economist Thomas Malthus warned that unchecked population growth would threaten food supply and lead to a Soylent Green-like dystopia. The Times’ “population bomb” rhetoric is tired too—it was the title of a 1968 book in which Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich predicted mass starvation to come in the 1970s and 1980s due to overpopulation. It sold like funnel cake at the state fair. He received a MacArthur Foundation “Genius” award in 1990 and wrote another bestseller, in 2008, chock-full of similar themes.

But as early as the 1960s, eventual Noble laureate economist Simon Kuznets worked on seminal research about the relationship between economic growth and other factors like population and environmental quality. His research provided evidence that rising income correlates with slower population growth and better environmental quality.

Kuznets even argued that population growth was a net positive. In the long view, more people means more brains to dream up innovations like books, penicillin, the internet, Peruvian chicken, and ideas to solve to problems like rising population growth and pressured food supplies. Kuznets’ work influenced University of Maryland professor Julian Simon, who for decades crusaded against population growth doomsayers.

MIT economists Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo provide an in-depth and sober look at population growth in the developing world in their 2011 award-winning book Poor Economics, noting that people in developing countries don’t have large families due to a lack of self-control or “backwards” cultural norms. Instead, it’s an economic calculation.

“For many parents,” they write, “children are their economic futures: an insurance policy, a savings product, and some lottery tickets, all rolled into a convenient pint-sized package.” Families in rural Africa might have a lot of children because they need as many hands as possible to work in the fields, or a Lagos mother may think that having 12 kids gives her better odds of seeing one grow up to be a doctor or other professional.

There are tangible reasons for higher population growth, like contraception not being widely available in much of sub-Saharan Africa, or people choosing not to use it. While ensuring that women have the opportunity to control their reproductive choices is important, making those choices for them isn’t very effective. Consider the problems caused by China’s one-child policy, or the experience of India in the 1970s, when the country offered incentives like land and money for citizens who volunteered to be sterilized and a few states even considered compulsory sterilization laws. Banerjee and Duflo point out that by the 1977 elections, Indians so resented the civil liberties violations that resulted from sterilization programs—sometimes, for instance, male villagers were rounded up, falsely arrested, then forcibly sterilized—that a popular slogan became “Get rid of [incumbent Prime Minister] Indira and save your penis.”

Just like Indians or Americans or anyone else, sub-Saharan Africans make a practical and rational calculus about how many children to have—or at least as practical and rational a calculus as can be expected from anyone, given the process that precedes pregnancy.

While population growth clearly strains infrastructure in cities like Lagos across sub-Saharan Africa today, in 50 years, doomsayers and “population bomb” true believers are more likely to look like Chicken Little than Cassandra.  

Article by TATE WATKINS.

 What are your thoughts on this? Do you think we should really have that law that stipulates the number of children a couple can have in Nigeria? 0r Not?

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Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish

"I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That’s it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out? It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: “We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?” They said: “Of course.” My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college. And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents’ savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and began dropping in on the ones that looked interesting. It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends’ rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example: Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it fascinating. None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss. 

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down – that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over. I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple’s current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.I’m pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. 

You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle. 

My third story is about death. 

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor’s code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you’d have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes. I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I’m fine now.This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept: No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary. When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960′s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions. Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much."

Steve Jobs gave the world the i-pod, i-phone and i-pad. He was the CEO of Apple Computers and Pixar Animation Studios. He gave this commencement speech at Stanford University on June 12, 2005. Steve Jobs died at 56 on the 5th of October, 2011. 
Adieu, Steve Jobs

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