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10 incredible tiny houses in Japan: a photo tour

In Australia, everyone seems intent on buying bigger and bigger houses. In fact, I read recently that we have the biggest average house sizes in the world. But bigger is not necessarily better, as these teeny tiny Japanese houses prove.

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Day (463) – 4 Years of my Life

A great column in which Evan Sanders says that while university might well be the best years of your life, it’s not necessarily so: that the best years can be all the years you are living, even if there are struggles along the way. It’s a lesson in making the best of what we have.

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Beg, Borrow, Steal – Art, copyright and the internet

Here’s a thought-provoking take on the controversial question of copyright and how old laws need to be revised to accommodate the internet.

Moon Under Water's avatarMUW

Image of the Vermeer painting "Girl With a Pearl Earring" with a copyright symbol drawn over the face

When Shakespeare plays were originally performed, it was not allowed for audience members to bring in paper for fear that they would write down and steal the plays. To counter this, furtive audience members would go to performances and each remember different sections of the plays, then meet later and write down all they could remember. Each section was then stitched together, and the works were stolen regardless.

With the development of the printing press, pirated material began to be spread rapidly. Action was taken politically to attempt to stop intellectual property from being copied or stolen. In 1662 the Licensing of the Press Act was passed to restrict the reprinting of material without advance permission from the owners. This act planted the seed for the establishment of copyright law.

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My friend and former colleague, Kenny, makes some great points about suburban newspapers.

considerthesauce's avatarconsider the sauce

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My appreciation for and reliance on our suburban press for finding out what is going on in my community have both deepened significantly in recent years.

This process has been hastened by my metropolitan newspaper career fading to memory, at the very time those newspapers fight for survival and seem often to be pre-occupied with major sport, federal politics, shock/horror and click bait.

And, until recently, I was even working on either a regional newspaper (Geelong Advertiser) or its free, weekly “giveaways”, and even (more recently) for the proprietors of one of our three suburban titles.

As well, doing Consider The Sauce has really heightened my desire for information about what’s going on in the greater western suburbs. And I’m not just talking about restaurant reviews – reading the suburban press has hipped me to many festivals and community events, as well as providing information about local politics…

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This is a brilliant piece about the way renters are treated by letting agents, especially when they have been instructed to sell a property. What is it with these people? Why can’t they be nice?

skinnywench's avatarA Word in Your Ear

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About a week before I was due to go on holiday I received a phone call.

“Hello Sue, my name is Nadia and I’d like to arrange a meeting to talk to you about selling the house”.   After 2 years of renting, this was how we found out that the landlady had decided to put the house up for auction!

Since that call we have had nothing but trouble.  Nadia did not turn up for the initial meeting (which I left work early for), correction she did turn up, put a ‘For Auction’ sign up on the fence, got in the car and drove off without even a  knock on the door tell us what she was doing or to cancel the meeting.    When I rang to complain she tried to tell me that I’d got the date wrong then tried to rearranged the meeting for the bank holiday Monday.

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Introducing The Crayon Files

I’m Caron Eastgate Dann, a writer, journalist and academic based in Melbourne, Australia. This blog investigates rediscovery, from old books to childhood hobbies, from discussing favourite recipes to travelling back to favourite destinations. It’s not a nostalgic trip down a clichéd memory lane, however: rather, it will discuss how aspects of the past can be very much part of the present and can be integrated with new media and 21st-century ideas. I started thinking about this a few years ago when a technician was doing some work on my computer system. I asked if I needed a new modem, because the one I had was quite old. “Actually, it’s fine,” he said. “Not everything old has to be thrown away”.

If you’d like to know where the title The Crayon Files comes from, find out here.