onfocus

Hey, nice idea: public unit tests.

Background bird chirping in a YouTube video is mistaken for content under copyright. Highlights of a broken system ensue.

Horrible one-star Amazon reviews. [via MetaFilter]

Excellent thoughts on community moderation. "This is why community moderators have real power; they need that power to intervene, educate, and refocus the community's exuberance on more substantive content. People will fight you almost literally to the death over their right to be entertained, and to entertain others."

Hilarious gallery of terrifying horse mask pictures contributed by Amazon users. [via mlkshk]

"Dennis Delimarsky compared several weather APIs and decided that Google’s is best, despite having no documentation or support from the company." Looks nice!

A bit outdated, but full of good advice for tuning SQL Server applications.

"Eligible Kindle books can be loaned once for a period of 14 days. The borrower does not need to own a Kindle -- Kindle books can also be read using our free Kindle reading applications for PC, Mac, iPad, iPhone, BlackBerry, and Android devices." It's a start!

"...the Pro users of yesteryear’s products, the people with the biggest investment in old technologies, are not the people who should be calling the shots in the design of their successors." Let Beginner's Mind have a shot! [via torrez]

Bruce Sterling on Flipboard. "I would counter that what this thing really massacres is weblogs. Flipbook makes weblogs look archaic, much more than it makes magazines look archaic."

I always wondered about those people at library book sales with scanners. Now I know. [via TYWKIWDBI]

A browser extension that blocks all of those annoying 'Like on Facebook' buttons.

This work by a Slovenian painter in the early 20th century is eerily similar to our own century's Jim Woodring.

Learn the constellations the 1940's Navy way!

I don't care what science says, Mexican Coke is better! (Glass bottles alone are better.)

Looks like a good front end for Amazon S3 backups.

Why is Google offering DNS? "...they want to speed up people's Google search results."

Google takes aim at OpenDNS and John Gruber calls their response "Pure FUD". I agree, but any move Google makes has big repercussions. Distributed infrastructure is good.

Nice article about tapping into the Java chart component with ColdFusion to access chart types CF doesn't support.

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]

A Belkin employee used Amazon's Mechanical Turk to hire people to write positive reviews of a Belikin product they'd never used. The funny part is that Amazon is one of the companies he scammed. [via waxy]

Andy sets up a Mechanical Turk job: show yourself!

Looks nice!

Amazon bookmarklet that lets you add items from any site to your Amazon wishlist. [via glass]

a quick, straightforward explanation of data portability and why companies like Google should support it. [via battelle]

Flickr applies for a patent on "interestingness" as a way of determining which media objects are getting the most attention from users. [via kottke]

Using a bunch of Amazon metrics to track the popularity of game systems. [via AWS blog]