<indulgence type="self"> Hey, I just noticed that Brent Simmons gave me a plug last week. Thanks Brent! </indulgence>

Oops! More self indulgence. This one is fun!

Every once in a while, I have to rave about Wannabe. Wannabe is a really small, infinitely fast (even on my old IIvx) text-based web browser for the mac. It doesn't have many features, but it supports Sherlock plug-ins and internetConfig, and plus it's small, and really cool.

I've been talking to David Pierson (the author of Wannabe) about making it into something like notespace, which would be really nice.

I started using the Subhonker Filter today. Very cool as well.

The Standard on UCITA. There are so many dumb laws being passed (and a serious dearth of smart ones) that I'm starting to think anarchy is the way to go. It works on the web, anyway. "One of the key provisions in UCITA is the transformation of what is now a sale – such as buying a copy of the Windows 2000 operating-system software, or the e-book version of Stephen King's latest novel – into a lease."

If it passes, this one belongs at dumblaws.com.

Quake as a performance medium. [via usr/bin/girl]

PeterMe has some interesting observations about the layout of coffeehouses that relate well, though somewhat abstractly, to what I talked about a few days ago.

Great article by Stewart Alsop on digital property. He points out that while Microsoft arrogantly defies the government in the monopoly case, it is copyright laws that give them that monopoly in the first place.

He also mentions that there are quite a few business plans floating around that deal with unprotected music. I wonder if any of them look like this?

I think the most interesting part was when he said this: "Of course, as a spur to these discussions, I would love to grant you blanket permission to copy this article freely, but I don't own the copyright." That would be the most interesting thing about the web - if the source of information is efficient, then there's really no point in duplication; you can just point to it.

Barlow wrote about this a long time ago: "most information is like farm produce. Its quality degrades rapidly both over time and in distance from the source of production." And in reference to the Grateful Dead" "our intellectual property protection derives from our being the only real-time source of it."

(this sums up Microsoft's situation rather humourously)

Sylvia is getting one of these today:

400MHz G3 Processor, 128MB Memory, 13GB, dual 400 Mbps FireWire ports, video editing software, slot loading DVD drive, stereo speakers... I'm jealous.