onfocus

"...there’s a nearly infinite universe of things you might wish to express that simply can’t fit into 140 characters. It's not that the Twitter form forces triviality upon us; it's possible to be creative and expressive within Twitter’s narrow constraints. But the form is by definition limited. Haiku is a wonderful poetic form, but most of us wouldn’t choose to adopt it for all of our verse." [via sippey]

Greenwald on Cronkite, Russert, Halberstam, Lapham, Hunter Thompson, and journalists as celebrities.

Modern take on classic propaganda posters: "Loose tweets sink fleets."

"This Friday, June 12, TV stations nationwide will cease broadcasting analog signals and switch to digital-only broadcasts...Starting Friday, I can no longer get TV on the radio." Didn't think of this, what a bummer. I've used this trick occasionally too, especially when the power goes out. [via MeFi]

"...new kinds of lock-in in the era of [cloud computing] will be owning a namespace." That's Chris Messina paraphrasing Tim O'Reilly on Web 2.0 in general, applied to Facebook's new vanity URL feature specifically.

"I tried to alternate the charming children's covers with the creepy modernist covers, but I soon lost the ability to tell one type from the other." Excellent collection of early 20th century graphic design in Japan. Be sure to check out the previous post with book covers too.

This is a sharp bike. It's 8-speed, has a carbon drive belt instead of an oily chain, and includes fenders for Oregon weather. Officially on my wish list. [via mathowie]

"What are some books that people are particularly likely to be assholes about?" Another fun thread gathering books that people are, umm, passionate about.

"You know the one. I can't think of its name. It's the one they always use." Hilarious thread that catalogs overused songs in movies and TV.

"...you can use LineIn to play sound coming in through a microphone or any other device plugged in to your Sound In port..." Used this today to pipe my iPhone through the computer speakers.

MetaFilter is turning ten and we're celebrating with meetups across the globe. We have members planning meetups on six continents. We just need to find a MeFite in Antarctica to cover them all.

A collection of pictures and postcards from Portland's past. The design is wacky but the stories are good. [via MeFi]

Fun discussion of the song Aquarela do Brasil, WWII propaganda, Frank Sinatra, and Disney.

Why are passenger trains slower today than in the 1920s? Short answer: more freight, interstates, jets. [via MeFi]

Ryan Tate on Oakland bloggers: "...I often found that bloggers were the only other writers in the room at certain city council committee meetings and at certain community events. They tended to be the sort of persistently-involved residents newspapermen often refer to as 'gadflies' — deeply, obsessively concerned about issues large and infinitesimal in the communities where they lived."

"They certainly don't make SF book jackets like they used to." Fun post about classic Penguin book covers. I enjoyed browsing through the Penguin Covers on Flickr as well, and I recommend Penguin By Design by Phil Baines for even more design inspiration.

Eric Johnson covered on a Nintendo. He mimicked the guitar tones (including harmonics) well. I can almost picture the side-scrolling shooting spree this could back. [via waxy]

Lifehacker brings down the hammer on commenters. Interesting to see what will earn someone an instant ban from their site; it's a catalog of bad online behavior.

The White House is on Flickr with great photos.

Jesse talks with Brooke Gladstone and Bob Garfield about their excellent NPR program On The Media. It's the only NPR show I listen to religiously, and it's fascinating to hear some behind-the-scenes info.

Interesting Twitter demographics. "...45-54 year olds are 36 percent more likely than average to visit Twitter, making them the highest indexing age group, followed by 25-34 year olds, who are 30 percent more likely."

How lulz were had with a Time poll. [via waxy]

"Joe Raiola, Senior Editor of MAD Magazine will present his one man show, The Joy of Censorship." Sounds fun. At the Corvallis library April 4th, 7pm.

A recording of The Decemberists in Austin. [via protherj]

This little plug computer that runs Linux looks like it'd be fun to play with.

Cameron expands on the Economist article: "...while the average Facebook user communicates with a small subset of their entire friend network, they maintain relationships with a group two times the size of this core."

"...people who are members of online social networks are not so much 'networking' as they are 'broadcasting their lives to an outer tier of acquaintances who aren't necessarily inside the Dunbar circle'..."

SBJ's talk at SXSW about the future of news. "...in times like these, when all that is solid is melting into air, as Marx said of another equally turbulent era, it's important that we try to imagine how we'd like the future to turn out and set our sights on that, and not just struggle to keep the past alive for a few more years."

"Las Vegas casinos increasingly pay attention to their customers - their likes, dislikes, moods and patterns - in order to create an engaging experience." This was my favorite talk at Gel 2008.

"What Bruce Sterling Actually Said About Web 2.0 at Webstock 09."

"It makes increasingly less sense even to talk about a publishing industry, because the core problem publishing solves -- the incredible difficulty, complexity, and expense of making something available to the public -- has stopped being a problem."

Paintings of alchemists in their laboratories. Posted to Flickr by the Chemical Heritage Foundation.

"People went to Google to find specific information about the President-Elect and the ceremony. People go to Twitter and Facebook to share the experience with one another. That means, Twitter and Facebook are delighting users more than Google, because they are keyed into natural human needs and emotions that trigger far greater and more addictive endorphin rushes than just finding a piece of information." [via msippey]

Tom Armitage on journalists learning to code: "Learn to think like a programmer. What's really important is to not understand how to do magical things with code, but to learn what magical things are possible, what the necessary inputs for that magic are, and who to ask to do it." [via rc3.org]

"None of which is saying you shouldn't be talking to your sources, and questioning what you're told, and trying to find other means of finding stuff out from people. But nowadays, computers are a sort of primary source too. You've got to learn to interrogate them effectively - and quote them meaningfully - too." [via migurski]