Merlin Mann is the founder and writer behind 43folders. It is, or was I should say, a productivity blog written in the shadow of Getting Things Done and Lifehacker. Now it’s something very different.
It seems like, perhaps, Merlin has finally articulated the phenomenon that, although seriously consuming my time, I have been unable to fully comprehend.
What makes you feel less bored soon makes you into an addict… Politics, celebrity gossip, business headlines, tech punditry, odd news, and user-generated content.These are the chew toys that have made me sad and tired and cynical.
The more I read his posts, videos and opinions over the last few weeks, the more I’m convinced that he’s the probably first to picking up on (and lead the troops against) what I hope will be a particularly strong groundswell against niche blogs with shallow content, linkbaiting, SEO and social networks with very little value added.
So, yes. I am cutting way back on trips to the steam table of half-finished, half-useful, half-ideas that I both make and consume. And, with respect, I encourage you to consider doing the same; especially if that all-you-can-eat buffet of snark and streaming produces (or encourages) anything short of your “A” game.
If you’ll forgive my quoting the author to fill out my post, which is a flashing red marker of a hastily written article, I’ll admit that he explains this problem better than I would ever be able to.
via Merlin Mann.
I think its safe to say that economics is a zero sum game. It has to be. If we’ve learned anything over the past two years, it’s that money can’t be simply manipulated into existence. The best an economy can hope for is high consumer spending, industries that add significant value, and abundant natural resources. Accordingly, extravagant booms have to be met with depressing busts, and supply and demand realigned.
Unfortunately, the problem with the (ahem) experience of recession in Australia, is that it failed to readjust expectations in the real estate market. On the face of things, it seems that most of our job losses were limited to those in Generation Y (who are either just entering the workforce, or working part time during tertiary study), and the lesser skilled members of Generation X.
By comparison, the economic bull markets of the 90’s and 00’s perfectly positioned baby boomers to capitalise on cheap credit to purchase investment homes, and often, heavily leverage these investments. This heavy leveraging has pushed most other western economies into real estate (and financial) collapse.
However, when Australian baby boomers didn’t lose their jobs during the recession, their investment homes weren’t sold and the supply of available housing remained relatively stable (an effect encouraged by decreasing interest rates and high levels of real estate stamp duty).
Australia remains one of the most expensive countries in which to buy a home. I believe that we escaped only through a quirk of circumstance – and even then, only temporarily. In fact, I’ll call it now, Australia will have a second housing recession in the next 10 years – brought on by the retirement and inflated expectations of baby boomers.
Sent from my iPhone
The Google Books project, over which litigation recently settled, is a relevant example of issues of conflicting and unclear rights allocations. Controversially, Google had planned to digitise (for indexing purposes), both public domain and copyright works without the prior permission of the copyright owner – a process undertaken on digital text by search engines quite literally all day, everyday. The project has been described as the latest, and quite possibly the last, in a long line of struggles over rights in the book industry[4].
Although we may now never know, many have argued (loudly) that the limited content displayed by Google is consistent the fair use doctrine under U.S. copyright law [9]. Precedent from the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeal has made it clear that inline linking will not infringe copyright under fair rights exceptions, where the use of images are of significant benefit to the public, and do not interfere with the proven commercial use of the original rights holders[10]. This will be particularly made out where linked media is of a lower resolution or quality[11] or is intended for a fundamentally different use[12]. Combined with a more basic failure to dilute the market for the original product (see my last post), a good argument has been put forward that Google may not have been in breach for mere indexing. Whether the courts will ever be willing to extend this reasoning outside of the internet would have remained to be seen.
Unfortunately, since the Australian High Court’s decision in Dow Jones & Co v Gutnick[5], Australian copyright law is likely to apply to Google Book’s presence here in Australia. Despite the introduction of exceptions for format shifting of books in 2006, the problems posed by the service are equally unsettled. It appears that the legality of the service in Australia will fall to the issue of “intermediary copying”, or more clearly, ‘can a fair dealing exception be used by Google on behalf of it’s users?’.
Unfortunately, this is a problem that has so far gone unaddressed [6], as there has been a basic failure of the court system in this country to address copyright issues with any speed, urgency or clarity – and in turn, legalise services that are commonplace elsewhere. It is of note though, that our courts (unlike those in the US) have traditionally restricted linking and framing of content on the internet, and have granted (at the very least) interim injunctions retraining defendants pre-trial [7].
My gut feeling? It’s seems pretty unlikely that Google will be able to firmly demonstrate that a fair dealing applies to its library initiative here in Australia[8], but without any local litigation, and with any luck, it won’t need to.
[1] Black, H & Salter (2008) “When copyright and chutzpah collide: The Google Library project and fair use”, Media & Arts Law Review, 13, 186
[2] Ibid
[3] Ibid
[4] S Murray, ‘Rights Culture Authors, Publishers and the Digital Domain’ (2007) 40(1) Southern Review 5
[5] Dow Jones & co v Gutnick [2002] HCA 56
[6] Weatherall, K (2005) “Fair use, fair dealing: The Copyright Exceptions Review and the Future of Copyright Exceptions in Australia”, Intellectual Property Research Institute of Australia Occasional Paper No. 3/05.
[7] Shetland Times Ltd v Dr Jonathan Wills and Zetnews Ltd [1997] Civ 1190
[8] Ganley, P (2006) “Google Book Search: Fair Use, Fair Dealing and the Case for Intermediary Copying”, Working Paper, 13 January 2006.
Just wanted to make a quick post to point to a very interesting article about the failure of neoclassical economic theory to account for market imperfections, and how Bill Murray makes everything better. In particular, the article beautifully articulates a problem with neoclassical economic theory that I’ve had the most trouble expressing and understanding myself – to say nothing of trying to explain it to people without economics backgrounds – “Why aren’t we at a stable equilibrium right now?”.
Perfectly competitive equilibrium requires perfect information. Ignorance leads to errors that put the ideal state of equilibrium out of reach. Ignorance and error exist due to perpetual change. In a world where everything stays the same — except our knowledge of previous days — we can approach perfection.
