onfocus

Axoplasm with some valid critiques. I'm still not convinced this logo isn't a joke. If it isn't, imagine the meetings.

oof.

"HOW quickly the unthinkable became the irreversible."

14 features of Eternal Fascism. This is an article from 1995 but it feels very timely. (RIP Umberto Eco. Thanks for giving us frameworks for thinking like this.)

This is Andy Baio's annual round-up of online movie piracy. This year: HD video makes leaked screeners irrelevant. "Already, with a month to go before the ceremony, 89% of this year’s nominated films have already leaked in high quality online, more than last year."

I had no idea that Oregon tried to keep minorities out in its early years. It's a depressing article but it's important to understand our history.

"...half of the nation's deadliest shootings occurred after the [federal assault weapons] ban expired [in 2004]."

What does it take for a society to be sickened by its own behavior and to change its attitudes? Where is our threshold for self-awareness? [via kottke]

News filter by Mule. Their description: "It's a summary of the day's news, written by an actual journalist, with links to the best reporting in the world, published once a day."

Jay Smooth speaks the truth. Conspiracy theories often work to mask the real problems in plain sight.

There's a nerdier way to get your public IP then whatismyip.com. Skip the ads and run curl icanhazip.com.

A good infographic about media consolidation. This is why it's important to find, consume, and support independent everything.

"So maybe, instead of waiting for the MPAA’s next law and changing our Twitter avatars for a few days in protest, it would be more productive to significantly reduce or eliminate our support of the MPAA member companies starting today, and start supporting campaign finance reform."

Russ Cox explains how the retired Google Code Search used to work. It includes links to a similar project you can install locally to search code using the same method.

Great talk from Clay Shirky that tells some of the history behind SOPA and why it's dangerous. "They [media companies] want us all back on the couch: just consume."

"Once the market matures, the pirates go away. They always do. Legitimate markets work better than pirate markets."