Scoble is playing with a NEC Tablet computer. “This thing might ruin your marriage.” Thanks to Dave Winer for reminding us that Scoble works for NEC, but even so he makes one very good point — namely that unless Apple gets an OS X tablet out there soon, the company might lose its stranglehold on the graphics-design community. [Scripting News]

Variation on a theme of Lessig: no. 1

“One of the surest of tests is the way in which a poet borrows. Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different from that from which it was torn; the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion.”

T.S. Eliot, “Massinger”, in The Sacred Wood

Creative Commons. About a week ago, Creative Commons launched the first version of their licensing project.

It’s a well-designed site. They explain the licences clearly in non-legal jargon and have a form where you can say what you want to do with your work and they suggest the appropriate licence.

I’ll be adopting one of their licences for everything on this site in the near future. [Status-Q: Quentin Stafford-Fraser’s notepad]

The new new firm: Bush, Poindexter and Orwell

“The Bush administration is planning to propose requiring Internet service providers to help build a centralized system to enable broad monitoring of the Internet and, potentially, surveillance of its users.

The proposal is part of a final version of a report, “The National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace,” set for release early next year, according to several people who have been briefed on the report. It is a component of the effort to increase national security after the Sept. 11 attacks”.[More]

Someone’s selling a town on eBay

“NYT” story. Asking price: $775,000. It’s in California, natch. Wonder if I could apply for the post of Sherrif? Update December 27: It was sold for $1.8 million.