Hmm. You know, that disturbing, but it’s just sort of vaguely disturbing. Is there any gasoline we can throw on that fire?

For the link-adverse, someone at Apple unwisely copied the interface of an existing third-party app into one of those charmingly anachronistic black-and-white drawings and stuck it into the company’s patent application. And when the Macalope says “copied” he means copy. If this app had appeared on the front page of the , this would be the next to the article.

The Macalope’s no patent lawyer (after all this complaining about patents wouldn’t it be funny if he were?), so he can’t tell you whether Apple’s actually trying to patent what Where To? does. Heck, can’t even figure that out. Frankly, just reading patents makes the Macalope’s head hurt. Then he has to lie down and summon the nymphs who massage his brow.

(You don’t have brow-massaging nymphs? Oh, you should. It’s a perfectly legitimate trade, you know. No hanky-panky, just quality brow-massaging.)