Remembrance

There has been an outpouring of grief, reflection, and remembrance over the last 24 hours, as people around the world wrestle with the news that Steve Jobs has passed away. I wanted to collect a variety of pieces that have stood out; feel free to share your own in the comments.

A few quotes:

"Thanks for showing that what you build can change the world." - Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook

"Steve Jobs was our da Vinci." - @GuyEndoreKaiser

‎"Three Apples changed the world: The first seduced Eve. The second fell on Newton. And the third one was offered to the world half bitten by him." - trending on Twitter, source unknown.

"Steve's iLife is over, but now he's looking down at us from the iCloud." - former Apple employee, on Facebook 

"If there isn't a heaven, Steve Jobs will invent one." -  @SoniaTaitz

xkcd posted a rare Thursday cartoon. The alt-text reads: "There's always the hope that if you sit and watch for long enough, the beachball will vanish and the thing it interrupted will return."

My friend Jeremy Latour made this, based on the famous Think Different ad:

My friend Jamal Coleman sent me this photo link:

He also shared this poignant comic, by Scott Johnson:

MacRumors posted a great collection of statements and photographs chronicling the reaction to the news. You can read the full post here, including this photo they published from outside 1 Infinite Loop, Apple headquarters in Cupertino, CA. Flags at half-staff.

Outside an Apple store in London. This is happening around the world, including at the Apple store fifteen minutes from my house. The photo is from the New York Times, which also posted this story about the outpouring of grief around the world and throughout the internet. In it, they mention "Twitter briefly buckled under the mass of Jobs-related messages, a veritable technology 21-gun salute."

Nightline broadcast a full-episode tribute last night, including an interview with Apple co-founder Steve "Woz" Wozniak. It was respectful, reflective, and reasonably comprehensive. You can watch it here:

ABC just posted this story of designer Jonathan Mark's re-imagining of the Apple logo, with Steve's silhouette as the "bite":

It seems appropriate to end with a quote from Steve Jobs himself. This is an excerpt from his Stanford commencement address in 2005, on the topic of 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.

[…]

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.

Please share your own thoughts, tributes, and favorite findings around the web in the comments.