Readable everything. Readability is a bookmarklet that strips all the unnecessary clutter from the page you’re reading right now. Only works on some pages I tested it with, but where it works, it does make a difference.

In the beginning there was heaven and Web. Bruce Sterling explains, in words even I can understand, what Web 2.0, this Cloud and other fusses are all about:

Let me throw in a few more Web 2.0 oxymorons here because, as a novelist, these really excite me. “Web platform,” of course — that one really ranks with ‘wireless cable,’ there’s something sublime about it…

And some words of wisdom about the end of the world:

I’ve never seen so much panic around me, but panic is the last thing on my mind. My mood is eager impatience. I want to see our best, most creative, best-intentioned people in world society directly attacking our worst problems. I’m bored with the deceit. I’m tired of obscurantism and cover-ups. I’m disgusted with cynical spin and the culture war for profit. I’m up to here with phony baloney market fundamentalism. I despise a prostituted society where we put a dollar sign in front of our eyes so we could run straight into the ditch.

So now what? Dmitry Orlov’s Social Collapse Best Practices is an hour and a half long, and it’s scary and funny and informative.

The activist test. Interesting observation from Ethan Zuckerman:

Sufficiently usable read/write platforms will attract porn and activists. If there’s no porn, the tool doesn’t work. If there are no activists, it doesn’t work well.

But you knew this already. More words of wisdom from the famous greed/fear philosopher and noted luminary Warren Buffet (PDF):

Approval, though, is not the goal of investing. In fact, approval is often counter-productive because it sedates the brain and makes it less receptive to new facts or a re-examination of conclusions formed earlier. Beware the investment activity that produces applause; the great moves are usually greeted by yawns.

(Via Fred Wilson)