
You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."
~~~~ Dr. Adrian Rogers, 1931
Photography web site Photojojo suggests documenting your life by taking a photo every day for a year; they call it Project 365. The author gives a few reasons why you might want to do this, most compelling to me being:
Your year-long photo album will be an amazing way to document your travels and accomplishments, your haircuts and relationships. Time moves surprisingly fast.
At first I thought the idea was along the lines of the popular YouTube video where the girl takes a picture of herself every day for three years, but it's actually broader than that. You take a picture of anything (the Photojojo post suggests varying your themes) and post it somewhere (like Flickr) where you can keep all 365 of your photos.
As photo uploading gets easier and cameraphones get better, the commitment required to do something like this isn't that bad. Alternatively, if you have a webcam or something along those lines on your computer (like an iSight), going the picture of yourself every day route seems even easier. So if either of these ideas trip your trigger, it's time to get documenting.
If you've ever taken on similar photo-documenting projects, share them with your fellow life hackers in the comments. — Adam Pash
Project 365: How to Take a Photo a Day and See Your Life in a Whole New WayImagine not being able to check your favorite blogs or even read the news every day. Whether because you can’t afford the newspaper or because the local government doesn’t allow access to the news, it would put you in the dark permanently. It’s a fact of life for countless people in the world. In Monrovia, Liberia, Alfred Sirleaf is striving to bring information to the people. Every morning since 2000, he has headed to his public bulletin board and painstakingly writes out the day’s news on the blackboard for all to see at no charge.
Here are the best websites that have launched this decade:
Launched: 2004
What did we do before sites like Yelp? Trust food critics? The problem with reviews is that they really boil down to one person's opinion. And even if that opinion comes from an educated source, it might not be the right opinion for us. That's why Yelp is one of the best websites this decade. Rather than trust what a single person has to say about a restaurant or auto repair shop, we can see what everyone things about it.
Launched: 2002
Google has launched a lot of great websites and innovations in the past decade, but Google News tops the list. Aggregating news sources from all over the world with categories ranging from local and world news to technology to sports and pairing it with the world's most comprehensive search engine has created the ultimate website for any news junkie. Now no matter how broad or how specific, you can find the news.
Launched: 2004
Spearheading the rise of social news, Digg has created an empire out of digging the best articles on the web while burying the worst. You can think of it as combining the best elements of Google News and Yelp -- Digg takes anything from the web (submitted by the users) and lets everyone vote on the quality, thus making it a great site for finding the best articles on the Internet. Even after Yahoo got into the game with Yahoo Buzz, it couldn't topple Digg, making it one of the decade's best websites. (Learn more about Social News.)
Launched: 2007
In just two short years, Hulu is already becoming a household name. While YouTube is a great resource of user-submitted videos, Hulu is where you go for full-length television episodes and movies. Hulu is a joint venture between NBC, Fox and ABC/Walt Disney and offers video streaming to the United States. In addition to watching on your computer, Hulu can be streamed to the TV via MediaMall's PlayOn software.
Launched: 2004
The ultimate photo hosting and sharing site, Flickr brought the idea of remote hosting to the average user. Gone are the days when you shared your Thanksgiving photos by burning them onto a CD and sending it out to friends and family. Nowadays, we simply upload them to Flickr and mass email the link. Easily one of the best websites for photo hosting and sharing, Flickr has become a popular resource for bloggers and journalists due to the ability to mark photos with the appropriate creative commons licensing agreement.
Launched: 2003
With an estimated 521 million accounts enjoying free Skype to Skype calls and some of the most inexpensive long distance on the planet, it's a wonder that some people still haven't discovered the popular Voice over IP service. While it is true that it requires an Internet connection, it works fantastically and offers video conferencing as well as phone calls. You can even buy a special Skype phone to plug into your computer if you miss the old days of picking up a phone and dialing. (Learn more about Skype.)
Launched: 2005
The site that redefined the viral video, YouTube is a user-submitted video hosting and sharing site that allows you to watch anything from movie trailers to television clips to music mashups to stupid pet tricks. YouTube also hosts premium channels like the Oprah channel, and you can even learn to play an instrument simply by searching for how-to videos on YouTube.
Launched: 2001
The bane of all Encyclopedia Britannica salesmen, Wikipedia launched at the beginning of the decade and led the charge of crowdsourced information. An encyclopedia written and edited by the people, it has quickly grown to become the world's most extensive source of basic information on just about any subject. Easily one of the best websites of the decade, Wikipedia has become something of a phenomenon, showcasing some of the best (and worst) that crowdsourcing has to offer. (Learn more about Wikis.)
Launched: 2004
While MySpace was becoming the social network of choice for the younger crowd, Facebook was quietly transforming itself from a social network aimed at college students and high school students into the defacto standard of social networking for all ages. In the past few years, it has not only surpassed MySpace as the most popular social network, it has also branched out with the Facebook Developer Platform and Facebook Connect, a universal login system. (Learn more about Social Networking.)
Launched: 2006
You can't turn on the television without hearing something about Twitter these days, so it should come as no surprise that that popular service comest out on top as the best website of the decade. Starting out as a microblogging website, Twitter has grown into a social messaging platform that has redefined how we find and even report on news. This was never more evident than during the political unrest in Iran following the presidential elections, when even after being banned in Iran, Twitter was used as the main source of news about the unrest. (Learn more about Twitter.)