The Economist: The internet in a cup (subscription required).

Nice story about how coffee houses used to be the place to meet for scientific or political discussions, planning a revolution, buying and selling, etc. I didn’t know about these coffee houses, and I didn’t know that the London Stock Exchange and Lloyd’s of London essentially started out as coffee houses. Sounds like interesting times. Ends with a parallel to today’s Stabucks with Wi-Fi, which is amusing. It’ll be interesting to see if wi-fi-enabled Starbucks patrons will actually start to talk to each other, or they’ll just sit and stare into their own laptop.