My Top Three Commencement Addresses

Northwestern University finally held their commencement ceremony on Friday, so I think every possible member of the Class of 2010 has now officially graduated. Before the pomp and circumstance are too distant from everyone's minds, I wanted to share the three best commencement addresses I've ever heard. And, no, they do not include the addresses at my two NU commencement ceremonies (John McCain in 2005 and Barack Obama in 2006). It's amazing how much more heartfelt and eloquent speakers can be when they're not running for President of the United States...

If you don't have time to read/listen to these right now, be sure to bookmark them for further study. They are exceptionally well-written and contain tons of insights to chew on.


#3 Wynton Marsalis, Northwestern University, 2009

Our tour of commencement excellence (commenxcellence?) begins in Evanston, where the announcement of jazz prodigy Marsalis as speaker was greeted far too frequently by "Who's that?" from students. Due to a pending monsoon on the day of the ceremony, Marsalis had to shorten his speech, reading only the first and last pages. Even so, I was blown away by the force of his ideas, the eloquence of his prose and the awesomeness of the New Orleans ditty he played to close out his address.

EXCERPT: "See, we are always in the process of becoming ourselves. So, enjoyment – whatever it means to you – is something to pursue. Just like you lay out plans to be rich or in shape, plan to be happy. When something makes you happy – chase it. And if you’re not good at it, work on becoming good at it. And if you can’t be good at it, be happy being bad. The positive frame of reference and the power of affirmation create good health. Affirm people around you, and you will be affirmed."

VIDEO: Watch Marsalis's abbreviated speech and see him wail on his trumpet.

AUDIO: Fortunately, Marsalis agreed to record a full version of his speech, which I urge you to download and put on your iPod. I know I did.

FULL TEXT: Read it all here.


#2 David Brooks, Wake Forest University, 2007

I forget exactly how I came across this speech, but I liked the fact that so much wisdom was delivered with so much humor. I also really liked his definition of journalist.


EXCERPT: "Now, commencement is a ceremony when the university gets a rich and successful person to tell you that being rich and successful is not that important. Well I've got bad news for you. I'm not that rich and I'm not that successful. But I have been around successful people. You see, I'm a journalist. If you go to a stadium and you see the crowd doing the wave, there are some people who just sit there watching. Those people are journalists. We lead boring lives while hanging around people who lead interesting lives."

AUDIO: Click here to download the MP3 of the speech. This one is also on my iPod.

FULL TEXT: Read it all here.


#1 Tony Snow, Catholic University, 2007

This is the most powerful commencement address I've ever read. Delivered just a little more than a year before Snow succumbed to colon cancer at age 53, it's written with the compelling combination of faith and wisdom that so often seems to manifest itself in people who are staring down the barrel of a gun and wrestling with their own mortality. There's no multimedia version of this one, but it's well worth reading.

EXCERPT: "And once you realize that there is something greater than you out there, then you have to decide, "Do I acknowledge it and do I act upon it?" You have to at some point surrender yourself. And there is nothing worthwhile in your life that will not at some point require an act of submission."

FULL TEXT: Read it all here.

So those are my favorites. The best part about commencement addresses is the fact that there is a new batch of wisdom being unleashed on graduates every year. What other fantastic and inspiring commencement addresses are out there?

Leavin' on a Jet Plane...

...Don't know how I'll kill 12.5 hours up there. My bags aren't packed yet, but in less than 24 hours, I will be en route to Doha, Qatar.

I've spent the afternoon packing up all the technology that I'm taking with me and it's kind of a ridiculous list:

• 1 MacBook Pro and associated cords
  
• 1 Sony HDV Handycam and associated cords
• 1 lavaliere microphone
• 1 shotgun microphone
  
• 3 Handycam battery packs
  
• 10 Mini-DV tapes
  
• 1 iPod loaded with all the music I could find
  
• 1 Digital Camera
• 4 AA batteries
  
• 1 Vado HD hand-held camcorder

Maybe I'll just open Doha's first Best Buy when I get there. Or do they already have Best Buy in Doha? These are the questions I will seek to answer.

On that note, I should probably start packing the other essentials, like my swim trunks. I'm not sure how frequently I'll be blogging on this site while I'm in Qatar, but I will surely be contributing to the official Northwestern Qatari Adventure Blog (with photos and video, too!), so follow along here. Feel free to comment, but keep it clean! ;-)

If anyone needs me, I'll be 7,000 miles and 9 time zones away from home!

UPDATE:
I just found a YouTube video of a virtual tour of the plane I'll be taking to Doha. After seeing all the legroom and watching the seat fold into a bed, maybe it won't be that hard to spend 12 hours up there after all...

One More on Twitter

I really should have included this in yesterday's post. It's more than a week old, so it's kind of made the rounds already, but, if you haven't already, watch Old Man Stewart Shake His Fist At Twitter:

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Twitter Frenzy

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things w/ Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Jim Cramer

Lastly, I forgot to address another strange aspect of the micro-blogging service (Micro-blogging? Someone must have invented Twitter after coming across my long-winded, mega-blogging style): It makes some celebrities accessible to their fans in a way that the impersonal fan letter never could. There are a lot of fake celebrity Twitter accounts out there, but some of them are legitimate (or have really good ghost-tweeters) and the celebrities actually respond to followers who Tweet them.

Jimmy Fallon is making this the basis of his show on some nights (The Bryan Brinkman Experiment) and soliciting ideas from fans through his Twitter account.

Rainn Wilson might Tweet with you. Shaq, too. (No guarantees that you'll understand what he's saying though...)

Now do you want to join Twitter?

Why Didn't David Schwimmer Say Hello?

It was a long day and I have nothing of interest to say. Oh, wait. I was in the same room as David Schwimmer today, but I didn't know it until after he left. Does that count as interesting?

Probably not, but this does. Learn about the origins of the credit crisis with a slick video visualization:

Make Your Own Web Comic Strip

Have you always thought you should write for xkcd?

Stripgenerator (not nearly as dirty as it sounds) allows you to create your own Web comic strip and live out your cartoonist dreams through a simple drag and drop interface. Here's my effort:



OK, so apparently they don't embed very well.

While we're on the subject of comics, I recently came across a rather entertaining blog that basically re-posts daily comics and offers sarcastic commentary. It really makes you wonder if anyone actually reads traditional comic strips these days. Are people actually rushing to the newspaper each morning to follow the developments of an archaic comic's plot line?

When I was young and foolish (and going through my extended Dick Tracy phase thanks to the underrated Warren Beatty movie), I would look at the Dick Tracy comic every Sunday and try to follow the action. Unfortunately, there was no action. Every strip seemed to be a tired exchange of meaningless non sequiturs. Where were all the Tommy guns and cool villains? No Madonna, either. From that day forward I stuck with Calvin and Hobbes and The Far Side.

Make Every Site a Sight for Sore Eyes

Have you noticed that the Web is getting a little too busy? If it's not a pop-up ad, it's a strip of contextual Google ads or an animated banner ad or one of the most annoying ads on the Internet with the talking smiley faces or the "Congratulations! You've already won!" announcer. Who in their right mind would ever create a Web advertisement with audio that you can't turn off? We're all doing our best to ignore the ads as it is. Don't give us extra reasons to hate your product.

But these problems are a thing of the past. Now you can read the content you want to read without any of the visual clutter you couldn't care less about. Readability is an experimental service provided by the arc90 design firm. Through the use of a Bookmark (in Firefox) or a Favorite (in Internet Explorer), you can instantly transform any Web page into a comfortable reading experience. No ads, no images, no banners--just the text of an article or blog post.

Readability allows you to customize the style, font and margin width of the stripped-down page to ensure maximum viewing pleasure. Now that I think about it, this could serve as a fairly nice printer-friendly page, especially if you want to print something out in a larger typeface for your offline relatives.

Watch the video below for full details. Obviously my site is so well-designed and engaging that it probably wouldn't be a good page to experiment with, but I guess you could give it a try... ;-)

Get Your Game On With Groupon

I always forget that the vastness of the Internets is a great place to look for deals on stuff. Saving a few bucks can be as easy as Googling "[Online store of choice] coupon code."

But sometimes you want to get a deal that you didn't even know you could get. That's what's great about sites like Woot that offer phenomenal daily deals on stuff-you-don't-really-need-but-sure-would-like-to-have-at-that-price. How about a daily deal on a random Chicago excursion, sporting event, show or restaurant? Sound good? Check out Groupon.

The premise is simple, but potentially awesome:

"1. Each day we feature something cool to do in Chicago at a huge discount.
2. You only get the discount if enough people join that day - so invite your
friends!
3. Check back the next day for another awesome Groupon"

While I have little to no interest in today's deal on $5 tickets to the Golden Gloves Boxing Tournament, I'm encouraged to see that enough people signed up to make the discount a reality. I look forward to the deals that will soon be filling my inbox on a daily basis and you should, too!

Lenten Promise: One Post Per Day!

It's that time of the Catholic year again and I'm hoping for a better Ash Wednesday than I had last year.

Also, in addition to giving up Facebook and soft drinks again this year, I am making a commitment to write something on this blog every day, even if it's just a short post with a fun link or a random observation. I'm fairly certain it will be a better use of my time than Facebook and that's reason enough.

We'll start with this:



Happy Lent?

Christmas Break: NU Names Morton O. Schapiro as New President

We interrupt your regularly scheduled Christmas blog posts to bring you an important news flash!

This morning, Northwestern University announced that its next president will be Morton O. Schapiro, current president of Williams College. Check out the video interview I produced below and visit the nifty new president Web site for more coverage.

New Site Discovery: Covering the Mouse

For me, the world of RSS feeds is a vicious cycle of unread information. I'm always finding new sites that I immediately subscribe to, but every time I log into my Google Reader, I'm taunted by the bold blue 1,000+, indicating that I have an impossible amount of catching up to do.

Nevertheless, I have found another cool Web site and I thought I would share it. This one comes from my brother, my family's avowed Disney fanatic.

The site is called Covering the Mouse and it features a new cover version of a Disney musical classic on an almost daily basis, so it's great feed reading material. The best part is that you can hear the entire song, and--if you know where to look in the site's source code--you can grab the file for future enjoyment.

Not all of the tracks are fantastic and some of them--like any cover version of a popular song--are only worth hearing to satisfy your morbid curiosity or because the recordings are so rare. Covering the Mouse is definitely worth a look though, and I found a few gems while trolling the site last night:

Chim-Chim-Cher-ee
from Mary Poppins
Performed by Louis Armstrong

Under the Sea
from The Little Mermaid
Performed by The Suburban Legends

Grim Grinning Ghosts
from The Haunted Mansion
Performed by Barenaked Ladies

Google Hoax (Beta)

It's no secret that I love all things Google. From Gmail to GCalendar to GChat to Google Reader to Google Analytics, the company always finds new ways to improve the quality of my online life.

Every April 1, I'm reminded of another reason why Google is awesome: They have a fantastic sense of humor.

I hate to break it to any Gmail users who didn't get the joke, but today's newest Gmail feature--"Gmail Custom Time"--is just the latest in a long line of Google-rific April Fool's Day hoaxes.

Since Google is such an innovative company, it's in a perfect position to propose a completely ludicrous new feature and leave you wondering if it could possibly be real. These prank features are written in such a normal, matter-of-fact tone that I always seem to buy into it at first, until I either A) remember that it's April Fool's Day or B) read a line that blows the whole thing completely out of the realm of possibility.

Here are a few of my favorite Google hoaxes from over the years (some more believable than others):

Google AdSense For Conversations (2008)
"Now, in just a few simple steps, you can begin displaying ads that are relevant to the topics you're discussing -- in an unobtrusive screen above your head."


Google MentalPlex (2000)
"Search smarter and faster with Google's MentalPlex. MentalPlex technology senses electronic field variations created by concentrated thought and can interpret those field variations as broad categories of content."

Gmail Paper (2007)
" Now in Gmail, you can request a physical copy of any message with the click of a button, and we'll send it to you in the mail."

Google TiSP: Toilet Internet Service Provider (2007)
"Google TiSP (BETA) is a fully functional, end-to-end system that provides in-home wireless access by connecting your commode-based TiSP wireless router to one of thousands of TiSP Access Nodes via fiber-optic cable strung through your local municipal sewage lines." (I love the photo on the home page with the toilet in the background.)

Google Romance
Google Romance is a place where you can post all types of romantic information and, using our Soulmate Search, get back search results that could, in theory, include the love of your life."

See the complete list.

Lunar and Grammar Rarities

Now here's something you don't see every day. Two somethings, in fact.

1. A total lunar eclipse
Be sure to look at the moon on Wednesday evening around 9:26 CST, as it will appear to be orange or deep red in a total lunar eclipse. The moon will be under the Earth's shadow for almost an hour, which apparently won't happen again until December 2010.

2. A properly used semicolon
New York City transit riders experienced the rare joy of a properly punctuated advertisement featuring that most fastidious of punctuation marks--the semicolon. Rarely attempted because it is so difficult to employ, I must commend Neil Neches for his daring. Anyone who says a semicolon is pretentious probably doesn't know how to use one.

Also, you've got to love the fact that the Times' story on this punctuated perfection featured a small (but ironic) typo of its own, when the reporter forgot a comma in the title of the fantastic book Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation.

Now that I think about it, the comma can sometimes be trickier to employ than the semicolon. Just don't use a comma in place of a semicolon; nobody likes a comma splice.

High School Journalism Day Links

This post is for all of the high schoolers who attended Medill's High School Journalism Day festivities. Below you'll find links to the sites that I mentioned in my presentation, as well as other links that I didn't have time to cover. Good luck!

Background
EPIC 2014
This Flash project by Matt Thompson and Robin Sloan offers a bleak potential outlook on the media landscape in 2014, but some of their theories on user-generated content are already coming true (in a much more positive way, I think!).

Journalism 2.0
Mark Brigg's "Digital Literacy Guide for the Information Age." This is required reading for anyone who wants to be a journalist in today's world.

RSS Feeds and Feed Readers
RSS FAQ
A good starting point for understanding the wacky world of Really Simple Syndication.

Google Reader
The most useful feed reader you can find. Subscribe, star, share and send items from your Google Reader.

Web Sites and Blogging
Blogger
Create a blog like mine. Well, not exactly like mine. Find a niche and write with passion. Remember--it's not a journal, it's a conversation.

WordPress.com
Create a blog or perhaps even a simple Web site for your high school newspaper, as I demonstrated during the presentation.

Web Site Analytics
Google Analytics
Extremely user-friendly and it offers comprehensive statistical visitor analysis for your site.

Feed Burner
Tracks RSS subscriptions and visitor stats for your site.

Miscellaneous
Web 2.0 API List
Loads of cool new Web sites and services. You could probably spend days on this.

Resources for Web Workers
Mindy McAdams' launching pad for online journalistic success. If you're interested in improving your knowledge of Web design, this is the place to start. HTML, CSS and Flash are all covered here.

Useful Web Sites You Should Know About

Sure, this blog is mainly an excuse for me to write. But sometimes it should be a public service, too. With your well-being at the forefront of my mind, I offer you now a small sampling of useful Web sites I have recently or not-so-recently become aware of. If one of these sites saves your life, you don't have to thank me, I only ask that you leave a comment. Likewise, if you know of a site that you think I might like, share the wealth.

Mi Casa, Su Casa
Ever wonder how much that huge house down the block is worth? Now you can at least get an educated guess. Type in the address and Zillow will give you an estimated price, the square footage, bedroom and bathroom numbers and even a stalker-ish bird's eye view of the home in question. To quote Jason Bourne, "You look tired." And I know how much your house is worth.

Cheaper prices? Woot!
I don't know if I'm the last one to the party on this or not, but Woot! is a nifty site that features a ridiculously good deal on one item per day. I've seen everything from vacuum cleaners to laptops and the prices are pretty sweet, or at least comparable to sale prices elsewhere. Today is a special day in the land of Woot, because the site is having a "Woot Off," where the deals are flying fast and furious. As soon as one product is sold, another is advertised on the site and so on, until the "Woot Off" is finished. Just in the time that I've been writing this entry, I have seen three different items, including an iRobot Roomba. See the variety for yourself. Woot!

Believe the Hype
I love music and the Internet expands my musical knowledge every day. I hope you already know about the song-suggesting power of Pandora. And that you can stream the full version of any song in the Napster library for free.
But you might not know about the Hype Machine. Type the name of an artist or a song and this site will search numerous music blogs across the Net. You can either listen to your search results on the Hype Machine site itself or go to the original blog post that contains the link to the MP3 file. If you do, chances are good that you can save a local copy of the file (and 99 cents). Usually I just wind up trolling through one of the music blogs that I find and discover new music that way. Today's new-to-me track is Somebody Made For Me by Emitt Rhodes and comes from a blog called The Canals. Doesn't this sound like a lost Beatles tune? Anyway, the Hype Machine will help you find music you didn't know you liked.

P.S. You can also use Google to find free MP3 files that people have uploaded to their Web sites.

Get Shorty
One thing that slightly annoys me is when an e-mail contains a really long link that it's almost impossible to easily copy into a Web browser. But Tiny URL has answered my prayers (as long as everyone I know starts using this site). It's pretty self-explanatory. Thank you in advance.

Convert, my brothers and sisters!
Saw a video on YouTube that you'd really like to keep forever? Now you can! Zamzar and Vixy will allow you to convert YouTube URLs into .AVI or .MOV video files for your eternal viewing pleasure. If you just want the audio from a YouTube video, the sites can do that, too, along with a host of other media-converting abilities. Hurry up, before YouTube removes gems like this!

In the News

A few quick hits for a gloomy Wednesday afternoon.

Of Mite and Men
I have given a name to my pain and it is the oak leaf gall mite. Details are sketchy, but this microscopic annoyance mite (tee hee) be responsible for the strange and numerous itchy red bumps that have been plaguing my entire family since last week. The bumps don't seem to heal or fade away, they just get more intensely itchy. They also don't look much like mosquito bites, so we were at a loss for what the cause might be. Apparently, so is everyone else. On the upside, I guess this means we don't have West Nile Virus. By the way, if you don't want to get your own coating of attractive red bumps, doctors are offering a very useful summertime tip: stay indoors.

"Tribute" is such a strong word
August 16 is the 30th anniversary of Elvis Presley's death and his daughter Lisa Marie is celebrating by doing what any respectable daughter of a deceased music legend would do--shoehorning her less-than-stellar vocals into one of Daddy's beloved hits. On Friday she will honor the King's legend with the release of a video duet of "In the Ghetto." (I'm not sure why she chose this particular Elvis song. Maybe because of its eerie similarities to her gritty experience growing up in Graceland.) But don't bother waiting until Friday--there's an even better Elvis tribute to be had online. Check out Wing's cover of "Love Me Tender." No, not Wings, it's just Wing. She's got a pretty good version of ABBA's "Dancing Queen," too. Long live the King!

Stretch Run or Stretch Walk?
With the baseball season quickly winding down, there's more "will they or won't they?" tension between the Cubs and the playoffs than there ever was between Jim and Pam. For once, the Cubs are talented enough (or the rest of the Central Division is just lousy enough) to make the playoffs the old-fashioned way, like they did in 2003. Unfortunately, the team's will to win seems to ebb and flow with the Lake Michigan tide. One day they play like champions, the next day they look like they might struggle against my softball team. This is what I've come to expect as a Cubs fan though, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Actually, I did have it another way last year, when the Cubs finished in the basement of the Central Division and the only (de)pressing question was "will they lose 100 games?" This kind of tension is preferable. (SOX FANS PLEASE NOTE: I wrote an entire paragraph without making a single disparaging remark about your team's horrendous season.)

I (feed) read, so you don't have to

I spend a lot of free time during the day surfing through my Google Reader and I come across a plethora of Web sites, stories, links and videos that I otherwise would never see. If you don't use Google Reader or another RSS feed reader, what are you waiting for? For the uninitiated, it's a fantastic way to aggregate the new content of Web sites that you check on a regular basis. Rather than using bookmarks or favorites to visit each site individually, your RSS reader will show you which of your favorite sites have new content and provide you with summaries and links to that content. Click here for more basic info about RSS. Like so many Google products, Google Reader will change your life if you let it.

In the mean time, enjoy the fruits of my labor with some interesting links I discovered today.

Brother, can you spare a dime?
This guy can't. He somehow landed the job of carrying the world's most expensive dime across the country. The saga of the $1.9 million dollar dime is laughable enough on its own, but the reporter decided to use a somewhat strange tone and included such winning lines (not quotes, mind you) as "Feigenbaum did not actually take the dime out of his briefcase, as it is suspicious to stare at dimes." I was not aware of this.

InDecision 2008
Don't know your Huckabee from a hole in the ground? Print out this handy chart to see who's running and what they stand for. Surprisingly, some key candidates are listed as "unknown" on some key issues. Journalists, isn't it your job to help fill in these blanks? Get busy.

Facebook Foibles
Poor Caroline Giuliani. She simply attempts the 21st century version of rebelling against her Dad and now the whole country is scrutinizing her Facebook profile. But you know what? I don't really care if she's "One Million Strong For Barack." All I really care about is whether or not she "will go slightly out of her way to step on that crunchy-looking leaf." Let's stick to the issues here.

More Love for Google
Lifehacker (awesome site with tips and shortcuts for computing and life in general)chimes in with a link to a Google Cheat Sheet that includes a list of all the Google products, as well as "advanced search operators" that help you improve your search results and find exactly what you're looking for. Check out the section for using Google to find (free) music and movie files that are just sitting on people's Web sites, waiting for you to find them.

To see more, click on the "Matt's Shared Items" link on the right side of this page. I frequently update that as I come across links that I like. Also, if you have any suggestions for RSS feeds that will rock my world, tell me about it in the comments.