The world is spinning with extra torque this week, and the whole blogosphere is watching. Unrest is tearing up the Middle East, an earthquake rocked America's East Coast like a hurricane, and a certain gentleman who started Apple Computer stepped down as CEO, causing its own monumental Earth-shaking, epicenter Cupertino. Surveying the wreckage, Bruce R. Miller tweets: "Who says the #Kardashian wedding wasn't a sign of the apocalypse?" In Libya, rebels have Moammar Gadhafi on the run, and the MSNBC photo blog says one of the oddball items discovered in the fleeing leader's ransacked compound is "a photo album filled with page after page of pictures of Condoleezza Rice." Wowie.

On Tuesday, a magnitude 5.8 earthquake with a northeast Virginia mailing address shook parts of the Eastern seaboard from Georgia to Montreal. Once the opening moments of panic passed, Americans proceeded with our own special brand of online snark. Gawker rounded up quake reactions and reported "a surprising number of idiots tweeted things like: "I just felt an Earthquake, better check into Foursquare.'" Because DC felt the shake, there were plenty of political quips. ("Krugman says it wasn't big enough.") And a photo of a toppled plastic lawn chair went viral as evidence of the earthquake's "devastation" in DC, causing a few chuckles - and sad head-shaking for anyone who remembered the horrific quake catastrophes in Japan and Haiti. Hollywood Reporter noted that some people heard about the tremors via Twitter just before feeling them in person, leading xkcd to note a bit of prophecy behind its earlier comic strip that said social media is faster than seismic waves. Often a voice of reason, Seth Godin sagely blogged: "The first thing that happens after we encounter an earthquake is to wonder if anyone else felt it. The need for group validation is widespread and happens for events that don't involve earthquakes as well."

Amid it all, West Coasters are confident that the biggest blast to the landscape this week is Steve Jobs' resignation from Apple (hey, in California, earthquakes and shrines to Condi Rice are a dime a dozen). Gizmodo says it's nearly impossible to imagine Apple without him. TechCrunch blogger John Biggs turns deep purple with a poetic eulogy titled The End of an Era: "We all know the broad strokes: He isn't well. He's stepped down. Another Buddhist (or near enough to one) said 'The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.'" Between The Lines has assembled the obligatory Twitterverse commentary (warning: adulation and deification). Like this: Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce.com: "Steve Jobs is the greatest leader our industry has ever known. It's the end of an era." Social Times says Jobs "has defined what we know today as mobile technology." PCMag rounds up newspaper covers and headlines: "Front pages all over the country featured Jobs' photo, with some taking a somber tone and others going the pun route: iQuit and iResign. " Mashable presents 10 amazing Steve Jobs moments. Epicenter gathers some classic Jobs quotes ("Don't be evil is a load of crap.") So does Digits. Okay, okay, we like our iPhones.

At Slate, Farhad Manjoo says Apple is "not even going to stumble" without Jobs, and he advised Apple fans to buy the stock after it was sure to plummet briefly on Thursday morning (it barely dipped). He writes that Apple will carry on with the central notion of Jobs' approach, which is to make products that consumers covet and charge a premium for it: "I know this sounds obvious to the point of being ridiculous, but this strategy is considered passé by much of the rest of the tech world. Companies in Silicon Valley give away their products for free or even sell them at a loss, hoping to make money from ads, digital content, tech support, or various other low-margin ancillary services." TUAW relates a personal story about new Apple CEO Tim Cook, and it appears we have a fine new leader to worship: "No one can ever replace Steve Jobs, the man, the genius. But Apple is not only Steve Jobs, no matter what anyone thinks. Apple is the interns and executive assistants; it's the retail employees and the designers; it's the marketing and PR departments, it's Scott Forstall and Jonathan Ive; Bob Mansfield and Phil Schiller; it's the dozens of other names you see on all those Apple patents that we talk about every week. Apple is not any single one of these people. It is the sum of them all, run by a leader who possesses enough wisdom to know that everyone in the company matters, that everyone's concerns are valid and deserve attention. Tim Cook is such a leader." Hedging his bet, Mark Evans Tech figures: "Apple will continue to roll along but it may never enjoy the same kind of amazing momentum it has seen over the past five - with or without Jobs as CEO."

Other Blog Roundups This Week on Blogs.com:

• Farewell Steve Jobs - End of an Era
• New Social Network from Twitter Founders
• America's Royal Wedding, Kardashian Style
• Are You an iPhone Optimist or an Android Pessimist?

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