This is so incredible. There is no way I’d have believed anyone who said the S&P 500 would endure a nearly 200-point trading range today. To put in perspective, this chart (where I used the new Windows 7 “snip” feature — why do they still not allow typing?) shows today’s massive drop as compared to each of all the days of the year. We erased months of gains in only about 30 minutes, before an astounding rebound without which would have made today one of the most memorable stock market crashes in history. As it was, that 30-minute period was perhaps the most dramatic in all of stock market history.

Click picture for larger version. Sorry for the crappy mouse-penmanship.

What you see in this image may actually indicate where in the world you likely live!

To those in the west who are used to being indoors this picture can appear to show a family sitting in the corner of a room with a window through which vegetation can be seen outside. Show the same image to someone in Africa however and the perception changes; the rectangular room corner looks like a tree and the window appears as an object being balanced on the woman’s head.

I don’t normally care to go off on political discussions, but these are two of my favorite Americans, and Steve’s flickr commentary is an interesting take on things:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/4156526243/in/photostream/

Man, Oklahoma has been having some extraordinary weather this summer.  In addition to the amazing tornado footage from last month, Gary England posted this photo today of a “tiny” dust devil in Mustang, OK.

Dust devils have the same structure as a tornado, but are usually harmless.  They can be just a couple feet wide, or grow to several meters wide.

The real temperature, not the heat index, in NW Oklahoma today reached 115!

I grew up in Oklahoma and I miss most the dramatic weather, and Gary England’s frequent and exciting intrusions into our home during these extraordinary events.

Gary’s team just won a national award for their coverage last month of a particularly overwhelming day when multiple tornadoes (the plural appears to have more than one spelling) struck from a single storm system, and HD cameras captured a lot of it.  This video was their winning submission, and it is jaw-dropping.

A storm from just last month!

Here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5G2HWIQ6TM

This is just great:

Click here.

Pretty cool picture and explanation.

After some 15 years of actively surfing the internet as American’s new greatest pastime, and amid the many exotic, random, entertaining, and provoking displays I’ve found sprawled around everywhere, I can recommend this one single online video of one of the extraordinary TED lectures as the most relevant and necessary moment to experience in any 20 minute period of your choosing:

TED lecture by Sir Ken Robinson

Click on this link sometime, sit back, and give it your precious time.  Only 20 minutes.

poem by Frank O’Hara

Blue windows, blue rooftops

and the blue light of the rain,

these contiguous phrases of Rachmaninoff

pouring into my enormous ears

and the tears falling into my blindness

for without him i do not play,

especially in the afternoon

on the day of his birthday.  Good

fortune, you would have been

my teacher and I your only pupil

and I would always play again.

Secrets of Liszt and Scriabin

whispered to me over the keyboard

on unsunny afternoons! and growing

still in my stormy heart.

Only my eyes would be blue as I played

and you rapped my knuckles,

dearest father of all the Russias,

placing my fingers

tenderly upon your cold, tired eyes.

Rachmaninoff died just three days short of his 70th birthday, which was April 1.  He remains a favorite of mine.


 

“We all need somebody to look at us. We can be divided into four categories according to the kind of look we wish to live under.

The first category longs for the look of an infinite number of anonymous eyes, in other words, for the look of the public…

The second category is made up of people who have a vital need to be looked at by many known eyes. They are the tireless hosts of cocktail parties and dinners…

Then there is the third category, the category of people who need to be constantly before the eyes of the person they love. Their situation is as dangerous as the situation of people in the first category. One day the eyes of their beloved will close, and the room will go dark..

And finally there is the fourth category, the rarest, the category of people who live in the imaginary eyes of those who are not present. They are the dreamers.”

Here are the Wordles representing last night’s speeches:

Obama:

Jindal: