onfocus

Interesting thinking about the current state of weblogs. Will all blog-like activity be consumed by Facebook, or will new tools emerge to help with privacy? And how do private blogs mix with public tools like Newsreaders? Complicated questions to answer.

Nelson has a good roundup of the issues surrounding the Wikileaks story.

"Whatever restrictions we eventually end up enacting, we need to keep Wikileaks alive today, while we work through the process democracies always go through to react to change. If it’s OK for a democracy to just decide to run someone off the internet for doing something they wouldn’t prosecute a newspaper for doing, the idea of an internet that further democratizes the public sphere will have taken a mortal blow."

"If you host your content on a commercial provider or on a social network, there are different points at which you can be cut off." The Wikileaks case is pointing out a weakness in the completely libertarian web ideal.

The case for Instagram. I must be a photography snob. I can not see the appeal of a community based solely on heavily-filtered photos. 

Nice sanity check in the mobile Web App vs. Native App debate. Often a Web App will do.

"A naval officer told the present writer that he had often, when on deck, been both amused and surprised at the accuracy with which some of these girls used this form of signalling out of pure fun." People have always found ways to communicate over distances.

Interesting take on Montessori-inspired apps: "In a Montessori classroom, children work from the concrete to the abstract. I fear that exposing young children to virtual Montessori materials may hamper this important developmental process."

Tax patriotism is on the rise!

"There is an error in most photography scaling algorithms." Wha? This is hard to believe.

I think we're safely out of spoiler territory now so I can post this great analysis of Toy Story 3.

Neven Mrgan has a great point: when a satire gets too close to the subject it's taking down is it still satire?

Great 50's comic art.

Frozen bananas in a food processor = ice cream? I need to try this!

Great idea, I'd use them.

Jay Rosen's question/answer site that tries to wed unanswered questions with journalists. "The eventual plan is to recruit journalists, or partner with an existing news organization, to answer the ones that a.) interest the most people and b.) require reporting, investigation and explanation--in other words, real journalism."

What Jay Rosen will say at SXSW about desperately needed explanation of major stories in the news.

"We have all our story elements in place. It's all politics from here on. Bring in the sports and war metaphors and let automated processes carry the rest. Don't dig, just dine. The sausage-machine rocks on." A nice explanation of how journalism's stories need to change. [via mneznanski]

"Unicode 5.0 encodes exactly 98,884 graphic characters on different planes...we collect information on every single character."

Cartoon intro to Neil Postman's book.

I had this reaction to Avatar too, glad to see io9 spend some time explaining this problem. Hadn't made the Dune connection, that's spot on. [via mathowie]

argh, burned by this on my personal mail server.

Regex snark traced back to Unix snark.

Anil collects more thoughts on the coming storm of apps vs. open web. "This, for me, is a social issue, a cultural issue, and a political issue, not just a technological issue. Perhaps we need to speak of it that way more often, to make the stakes clear."

"...it's time for developers to take a stand. If you don't want a repeat of the PC era, place your bets now on open systems. Don't wait till it's too late." Tim O'Reilly on the coming platform storm. [via anil]

I find myself referring to this classic by Eric Raymond frequently. I can't believe I haven't bookmarked it already.

If you wonder why people care about Net Neutrality, take a look at this image. It's going to give me nightmares. [via torrez]

"It turns out that milder sanctions can be swifter and more certain." Interesting article in the Economist about alternate strategies for curbing crime.

A TextMate plugin that provides a better "find within project" feature. Nice!

A hidden mode in OSX that you can use to group open apps. Click in the dock, then Command-Tab to open others. Works well!

A nice collection of pictures of the new season from across the globe.

"Being a long-haired beardo has its ups and downs. One of the ups is that if you’ve got a dozen friends and a lot of beer and a questionable idea, you can make something like this happen."

President Obama reacts to his selection as the winner of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize.

Andrew Sullivan on Obama's Peace Prize: "...there are two obvious points: this is premature and this is thoroughly deserved. Both are right."

Some samples of single-pane comics by H.T. Webster. Sadly, his collections appear to be out of print and there aren't any at nearby libraries.

Scan of the 1955 book with wonderful caricatures by Ronald Searle. [via peacay]

"So, this is why I say white supremacy is the only functional form of racism; the only kind that actually works."

"...you’re just making a fool of yourself when you go around telling users of singular they that they’re wrong, because they’re not."

It's going to be that time of year again soon. These Thule chains look nice, but I'd rather see real people putting on chains in freezing weather in the demo, not spinning/floating CG.

Eight rules for writing a short story. [via merlin]

"The fundamental problems with the American health care system are all linked, directly or indirectly, to the fact that the vast majority of folks get insurance solely through their employers." Amen, and go Wyden! [via Kattullus]

"The problem is Twitter isn’t really open. For Twitter to be truly open, it would have to be possible to use “Twitter” without an any way involving Twitter the institution. Instead, all data goes through Twitter’s centralized service." I'm not a fan of people pushing content to Twitter like it's an RSS reader for social reasons as well, but that's probably just me.

All Unicode characters in a handy table. Includes snowman. [via waxy]

"On May 21st, 2009 the City of Vancouver passed a motion that directed City Staff to begin sharing the data and information the city collects, to share this data in open standards and to place open source on an equal footing with proprietary software." [via cshirky]

Lakoff is brilliant. A move from calling health care reform the "public option" to "The American Plan" would help build support. We've been comparing our options with what Canada, UK, France, and other countries have, but we like things invented here.