Steve Jobs steps down as CEO of Apple

The end of an era. In some ways, this marks the end of the Golden Age of home computing. Bill and Steve the contentious creators are still around, but they're leaving behind an incredible legacy that is not only responsible in a big way for the development of the communications age, but also for spawning the creation of hundreds and thousands of companies and jobs for employees who service, provide and develop for their creations. I wonder what guise Steve Jobs will assume now...Godfather to Apple innovation? Mentor to the incoming CEO or remain a personification for the ubiquitous brand.  

The following is the resignation letter from Steve Jobs to the Apple board:

Steve Jobs - now Chairman of the Board at Apple

I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know.

Unfortunately, that day has come.

I hereby resign as CEO of Apple. I would like to serve, if the Board sees fit, as Chairman of the Board, director and Apple employee.

As far as my successor goes, I strongly recommend that we execute our succession plan and name Tim Cook as CEO of Apple.

I believe Apple’s brightest and most innovative days are ahead of it. And I look forward to watching and contributing to its success in a new role.

I have made some of the best friends of my life at Apple, and I thank you all for the many years of being able to work alongside you.

Steve.

Steve Jobs Best Quotes

Skyping with an 85 year old.

I just Skyped my 85 year old Nana back in Dublin all the way from Vancouver. It's at times like this that I really get to appreciate this kind of technology by explaining to my elderly Nana how exactly she's seeing my face in a different country and at an entirely different time of day. The ease at which we can communicate these days is taken for granted and often just expected. But for a brief moment, I was grateful and in awe at where technology is taking us.

My Nana is in a geriatric home in a small suburb of Dublin, eight hours ahead of me. As we chatted, the music to the credits of 'Eastenders' was audible in the background and I could hear the jostle of the tea trolley as the nurses go around dispensing the pills for the evening to the other old folks. As I sat in Vancouver, just about to finish my morning coffee, I found myself looking at the small screen on my iPhone looking at my Nana's gorgeous face as she blew kisses at me for about 10 minutes. She left me beaming with smiles and it made my day. How amazing is it that I could have a video chat with my 85 year old Nana halfway around the world, for free and not only hear her voice but see her face also? The distance between us was cut in half and the precious time we share together was heightened just for a moment. 

Sometimes technology and expectations shift so fast that we forget how far we've come. I now see why Microsoft over valued this magnificent tool. It is invaluable.    

A trip down memory lane: La Belle France

In my life to date, the most memorable and formative snippets of time have been spent in France. For some reason France and its many cities, towns and villages has captured me and inspired from a young age. Well, young being 15 or 16 years old and formative being all the things that teenage boys do for the first time away from the watchful eye of their parents. Such liberation lead to many things: the conquering of girls, beer and Pastis amongst others.

The Bridge and the Mairie, in Brassac, France.

It all started in Brassac, a small village in the midi-Pyrenees, where I'd visit my sister over three summers during my last years in high school. This place will forever hold a place in my heart and mind that will never be replaced. I guess the trapping of nostalgia will always render this time and place a fond memory where my misguided youth and wholly well spent summer days were passed splashing in the river, to splashing through my first beers in the local cafes for the village summer fete. I revisited this place with Google Street View. It was a weird sensation. It gave me all I needed to feel like I was back there except for being there. The sights were the same, exactly the same. Things in my life have changed so massively; yet when I look at the familiar streets that I only knew for a few weeks at a time, over ten years ago, it is like I was there all my life and never left. This kind of technology halts nostalgia somewhat. It stops us day dreaming and allows us tap back in to a place and time that is stuck in our minds. A place that we know still exists, but when we're not there, it's impossible to imagine it existing. But, low and behold, it's still there, as quaint and glorious as ever.

One day I'll go back. This time camera in hand and I will take an abundance of pictures and idealize a romantic vision of rural France to frame on a wall in some room of my house that will undoubtedly be far away from Brassac.

How wonderful it is to have these memories and how wonderful it is to be able to see these places again. Nostalgia has been put in to context...Brassac is still there. It still exists. I can go back, and that makes me happy.

This song seemed fitting with my mood this morning as I took a trip down memory lane.

The Rise and Fall of the Berlin Wall

Something about the Berlin Wall still fascinates me. The more years that trickle away, the m,ore fascinating its existence and the historical context surrounding its conceptions enthrall me. As the years pass, the event is likely to feel distant and more like 'history', but it is still so recent and still so amazing.

Check out these great pictures that document the less documented side of the rise of the wall.

PHOTOS: The Rise and Fall of the Berlin Wall from Time Magazine. August 10th, 2011.

The Speech that prompted the fall of the Wall

Vancouver lights up like a Firework.

'Fire Shower'. Fireworks display for the Celebration of Light, Vancouver, 2011. View from Kitsilano towards English Bay.

Celebration of Light - Vancouver, August 2011.

When Summer hits Vancouver, it lights up like a firework. Literally. The infectious atmosphere that is embellished by the beaches, the sun, the people and that irrepressible stark summer sunlight lifts a city that is drowned for so much of the year, by more that its fair share of rain. The Fireworks display this week have been phenomenal, but even more so was the strong turn out of people, families, children and old friends gathering on picnic rugs, munching on snacks and sipping on drinks looking at the show.

Well done Vancouver. Very well played. Tip of the cap to you.

The Earth may have had two moons.

Interesting little development on the Moon. All this talk of the creation of planets and the elements whirring around space has me dreaming of a life in astrophysics. Maybe the childhood dream job at NASA isn't out of the question after all!

From BBC News and the Irish Times, August 3, 2011.

A new theory suggests the Earth once had a small second moon that perished in a slow motion collision with its "big sister".

Researchers suggest the collision may explain the mysterious mountains on the far side of our Moon.

The scientists say the relatively slow speed of the crash was crucial in adding material to the rarely-seen lunar hemisphere.

For decades, scientists have been trying to understand why the near side of the Moon - the one visible from Earth - is flat and cratered while the rarely-seen far side is heavily cratered and has mountain ranges higher than 3,000m.

The researchers argue that the Earth was struck about four billion years ago by another planet about the size of Mars. This is known as the global-impact hypothesis. The resulting debris eventually coalesced to form our Moon.

Slow-motion impact

But the scientists say that another, smaller lunar body may have formed from the same material and become stuck in a gravitational tug of war between the Earth and the Moon.

Moons colliding?

"And one outcome of our research is that the new theory goes very well with the global impact idea."Dr Martin Jutzi from the University of Bern, Switzerland, is one of the authors of the paper. He explained: "When we look at the current theory there is no real reason why there was only one moon.

After spending millions of years "stuck", the smaller moon embarked on a collision course with its big sister, slowly crashing into it at a velocity of less than three kilometres per second - slower than the speed of sound in rocks.

Dr Jutzi says it was a low velocity crash: "It was a rather gentle collision at around 2.4km per second; lower than the speed of sound - that's important because it means no huge shocks or melting was produced.

At the time of the smash, the bigger moon would have had a "magma ocean" with a thin crust on top.

The scientists argue that the impact would have led to the build-up of material on the lunar crust and would also have redistributed the underlying magma to the near side of the moon, an idea backed up by observations from Nasa's Lunar Prospector spacecraft.

In a commentary, Dr Maria Zuber from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, US, suggests that while the new study "demonstrates plausibility rather than proof", the authors "raise the legitimate possibility that after the giant impact our Earth perhaps fleetingly possessed more than one moon".

"Hopefully in future, a sample return or a manned mission would certainly help to say more about which theory is more probable."

The Far Side of the Moon

• It takes the Moon about the same amount of time to rotate on its axis as it does to complete an orbit of the Earth
• This is known as "synchronous rotation" and explains why the Moon always presents its familiar near side to Earth
• The near side is covered in smooth, dark lunarmaria (Latin for "seas") created by magma erupting on the surface
• The far side is more rugged, with a thicker crust pock-marked by impact craters; the highest point on the Moon is located on the far side.

When will Facebook make it easier to filter our audience?

It's happened to us all. We post something on Facebook intended for the circle of friends we spend most of our time with, unaware of the eyes of the 300 plus 'friends' we have collected over the years, some of whom you hardly know anymore. Included in that bunch are colleagues that have added you as a friend, a request that you haven't been able to ignore, so you accepted reluctantly. The floodgates get weaker with each reluctant add and then the inevitable happens. One day you go in to work and you have the typical Monday morning conversation with a colleague who says 'oh I know all about your weekend, I saw your Facebook post.' Immediately you realize that you need to lock down your Facebook page...again.

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO. Playing catch up?

I have made my page private numerous times. I have re-worked the security settings to my liking, I have followed Facebook's advisory updates over the years, I even started privatizing individual posts with the help of the little padlock which proved to be just too finicky. I have created groups, edited groups and managed my limited profile over and over again, but still the same problem still emerges. That same colleague who said a few weeks previous: 'Hey, Craig, why can't I comment on your wall or your photos? Do you have me on private or something?' Then the awkward response, knowing full well that they know what you've done. 'Eh, no, I haven't. That's weird, maybe it's like that by default. I'll check it out later and change it.' 

The lie stinks and they know it. Facebook lacks tact in this regard. As a friend it lacks subtlety. If Facebook doesn't want you in on the conversation, you're gonna know about it. The absence of a comment box or a profile with 'no pictures' is like a door slammed in your face. It's says I don't want to be your friend, but I'll let you want to be my friend. No one likes being ignored or excluded, and it doesn't help the awkward situation when Facebook draws it to your attention that you're clearly on a restricted 'list'. 

We do need privacy, but it shouldn't be at the cost of someone's pride by explicitly excluding them from your Facebook world. Surely discretion can be achieved with Social Media? You'd think that after all this time, money and popularity, Facebook would have innovated a bit and cracked down on this a bit more by now. It's probably coming, but only in catch up to Google+. Google did the research and saw that just like the way we wouldn't have the same way of talking to our colleagues as we do our girlfriend, younger cousin or foreign friends, we wouldn't want to share the same information with everyone. 

Simply put, we all have 'circles' Different circles of friends with who different things matter and different things count. We need to be able to filter out our audience as we like, and be able to do it easily without ostracizing our friends. Come on Facebook....get to it!