He made it happen.

“He dreamed of a better world.”

 There's no real trick in that. I don't think there is anyone among us who hasn't dreamed of a better world; who hasn't wanted to change things. 

But Steve Jobs made it happen.

 Love him or hate him or Apple or the products it makes, Steve Jobs changed the world we live in. He had a passion that he pursued with single-minded intensity for his entire adult life. And the world we live in is a better one for it.

I type these words on a computer made by Apple that is the descendant of the original Mac and the Apple II: the first computer to really be useful to ordinary people. You read these words on the “World Wide Web”: a creation of the technology that was first invented on a computer built by NeXT Computers which Steve Jobs built when he was forced to begin again after being pushed out of Apple.

 There are only a few in each generation who as individuals shape the world we live in; fewer still who shape it for the better.

 Goodbye, Steve.

A good man died yesterday...

A friend of mine, Derek... ...well, really a friend of a friend—someone I'd only met in person perhaps once, died yesterday, and I feel the sadness of it. He was only 41.

How do I know he was a good man, then, if I knew him so little? People I did know well—people who have been my friends for many years—knew him and they thought he was a good man. And I knew him through his many blog posts; most of which over the last few years dealt with his impending death from colorectal cancer. Even in the face of the knowledge that his cancer would kill him, he wrote with gentle humor and if he was angry and scared from time to time, he almost never let it show.

Just the other day, I was wondering why he hadn't posted for a little while, but now I understand. Still, it was only 6 days from his last post on April 27 until his death, and I hope that means that his ending was as peaceful as it could be.

I'm sad for the loss of him, I'm sad for my friends' loss, I'm sad for his family.