Upon a recent trip to my soon-to-be-home in Singapore, the three of us noted our surroundings and felt compelled to take a picture:

Tonight, with the passing of Steve Jobs, I can only say: look how you changed our lives!

That same week, this was the Newsweek headline:

I decided to make a little graphic today after another historic occasion in the stock market…

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.