Merlin Mann of 43 Folders interview

My writing partner, Danny O’Brien likes to say that geeks are the canaries in the coalmine for the problems that will eventually affect most “normal” people. For example, geeks had spam before most normal people had ever even heard of AOL. Additionally, the problems of overload and attention deficit that seem to be spreading so rapidly these days have been staples in the geek world since time immemorial. Most geeks would rather die than be bored for five minutes, and that kind of disposition can lead to some odd works habits and some very intriguing problems.