I bought my first e-book
It is not the first e-book I have read (no by a long way), but it is the first I have bought. It is (of course) DRM free. It is also a book (actually two books ) I would never have bought if the previous books in the series had not been free downloads. (more…)
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National Portait Gallery and everlasting copyrights
I had not intended to blog about the National Portrait Gallery threatening to sue Wikipedia over the latter’s publication of copies of paintings in the gallery, as I thought it would be obvious to anyone that this is a blatant attempt to use physical possession of a work to get around the expirations of copyrights. Tactics like this can effectively extend copyright indefinitely. (more…)
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Google hatred
The usually intelligent Willem Buiter has written a great example of the irrational hatred that Google seems to sporadically evoke. He attacks them with a list of charges, all of which are easily refuted.
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Linux is fruit juice, Windows is cola
A discussion about why Linux has been so slow to take off made be realise that, essentially, Windows is like cola, Linux is like fruit juice. Its marketing that matters. (more…)
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Product specifications and consumer stupidity
New research provides more evidence that people simply are not rational in choosing what they buy, a fundamental assumption of economics. I have previously discussed problems including consumers inability to understand many products.
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Patent on patenting others’ inventions
Halliburton (it would be) have patented an aspect of patent trolling: reverse engineering other people’s trade secrets using a patent, patenting the (former!) trade secret and then suing the original inventor. (more…)
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If this is the market working, what is failure?
Brain Caplan thinks markets work fine despite having to wait 19 years to be able to a product with a tiny marginal cost of production: i.e. he spent 19 years waiting on the supplier’s whims just to buy allowed to buy some music. (more…)
Why tax havens are fraudulent
I usually enjoy reading Economic Logic, but this post defending tax havens seems badly wrong headed to me. It misses the essentially fraudulent character of tax havens. (more…)
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Alan Sugar fails to understand education
Alan Sugar has called for “enterprise lessons” in schools. While a capitalist economy may benefit from there being some people like Alan Sugar, I see absolutely no evidence that we need more of them. (more…)
Beyond capitalism?
This blog post by an academic economist raises a question that I am convinced we can already see part of the answer to. Industries that have a negligible marginal cost of production (media, software, etc.) demand a different economic system. (more…)
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