onfocus

"The motive of the algorithm is still unclear." We live in a cyberpunk novel. [via new aesthetic]

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."

Good description of a handy tool that helps test mail server settings.

The annual state of the world.

"The global brain is still in its infancy. We can raise it to help us make a better world, or we can raise it to be selfish, unjust and short-term in its outlook." Fantastic article by Tim O'Reilly describing a more practical form of global consciousness.

"Pictures Under Glass sacrifice all the tactile richness of working with our hands, offering instead a hokey visual facade." Bret Victor on imagining more tactile experiences with technology.

Interesting look at "password padding" to create memorable AND secure passwords. [via Ask MeFi]

"We’re not going to have a jobless recovery. We’re going to have a jobless future." Painful post to read but it makes sense. Now what?

"When people say there are no easy solutions to our problems, I don’t think they are thinking hard or creatively enough. If our problem is that we don’t have enough technically trained Americans, why are we not focused like lasers on educating people?"

"The kind of naming policy that Facebook and Google Plus have is actually a radical departure from the way identity and speech interact in the real world."

A preview of a future release of ColdFusion. Goodbye JRun, some nice shortcuts, some teasers.

"The HTML5 history API is a standardized way to manipulate the browser history via script." The key to fixing our collective Ajax back button woes in modern browsers.

A jQuery port of Prototype's PerodicalUpdater method that includes a polling interval decay if updates aren't happening.

"...if after a few Ajax polls there’s no data, there probably won’t be for a while. Maybe the site is overloaded or the queue is backed up. In those circumstances the continued polling adds additional unwanted strain to the site." Another polling approach: increase the interval every time.

"And the greater risk is not of Flickr’s deletion of customers, but of the market’s deletion of Flickr. Because, after all, Flickr is a business and no business lasts forever. Least of all in the tech world." Valid concerns about Flickr, advertising, and how we fund the Web.

Noteworthy photos from Google Street View. [via rafe]

Pictures from the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway.

Still an interesting question: what do cities and travel mean in a world of instant communication? [via peterme]

Schell expands on his Gamepocalypse idea presented at the end of his DICE talk earlier this year. He makes dozens of predictions that all seem plausible, creepy, and somewhat fun.

Images of the future I'm supposed to be living in! Manned space flight art by Chesley Bonestell in the 50's.

Brazilian visual arts magazine. You can read them here in a Flash reader.

Nice way of summarizing the stories of the World Cup teams by finding similar American sports stories/teams.

Matt has a great summary of South by Southwest Interactive 2010.

Google Tech Talk by Amy Jo Kim about "Applying Game Mechanics to Functional Software".

Jesse Schell talks about Facebook games, moving beyond them, and the scary future of achievements unlocked in real life.