Changing Cocaine Base Penalties?

At the risk of incurring the AP’s wrath by even discussing this story, it seems that the Obama administration is asking Congress to do what the United States Sentencing Commission has been asking for well on a decade now:  reduce the glaring disparity between sentences for powder cocaine and cocaine base (commonly referred to as “crack”).  (AP via Yahoo!  I would have linked to a different story, but it appears no one else is writing about it without the AP’s byline.)

Currently, 21 U.S.C. § 841 penalizes possession (with intent to distribute) of 50 grams of cocaine base the same as 5 kilograms of  cocaine powder: 10 years imprisonment to life.  It takes roughly 10 pounds of cocaine powder to get to that threshold, but it only takes just 50 paperclips’ worth of crack.  You can see, then, why the Sentencing Commission has been sending reports to Congress stating that there’s really no justification for the disparity.

Indeed, the Commission recently acted on its own to change the Guidelines’ punishment rubric to do as much as it could within the existing laws to reduce the disparity.  As it did so, though, it sent a report to Congress stating that the 100-to-1 penalty disparity has come under “almost universal criticism” and that Congress should do something about it.  As that was 2007, though, Congress did nothing.

The 2007 report follows a report sent in 2002, which followed a report sent in 1997, which followed a report in 1995.  So forgive me if I don’t hold my breath waiting for Congress to do something that actually might be, I don’t know … fair.

Real-World Bandwidth Usage

So, as I’ve mentioned before, I’m looking at what sort of bandwidth is actually used when you take advantage of the many media offerings made available on the internet.  For a little over two weeks, I’ve been monitoring my usage, and I think most of the bandwidth caps that are being floated by various ISPs are ludicrously low.  This morning I hit roughly 30 gigs, which would extrapolate to about 60 gigs for a month.  I have done the following:

• Watched The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, 30 Rock, and The Office on Hulu.com;
• Watched three movies and a bunch of television shows (probably six hour-long episodes) on Netflix;
• Listened to music via Pandora;
• Downloaded and seeded three Linux distros via Vuze;
• Conducted legal research; and
• General web-browsing.

Furthermore, for the  past few days, I haven’t streamed much content because I’ve been busier than normal, so my numbers may actually be a little low for what would be my typical usage.  In addition, these numbers don’t take into account the bandwidth used by other people in my household.

Which brings up an interesting question.  If the ISPs are going to impose caps on users, and charge them for overages (sorta like cell-phone plans), are they also going to make it easy to find out what your bandwidth usage is?  Can you log into your account and check your stats, or are you totally at their mercy as to the determinations of bandwidth?

Brand Imprinting

Audi, and its parent company, Volkswagen, has been on something of a tear recently, with VW being the surprising best performer in the first quarter of 2009. Audi has been running ads for its “unmistakable” Q5 SUV, which got me thinking.

I’ve seen two ads for the vehicle: the one with the woman in the parking garage trying to find her car among a sea of beige Lexus RXs; and the one with the kids coming out of school to a flotilla of beige Lexus RXs. Putting aside for a moment the fact that Lexus has redesigned the RX, the commercials are rather interesting in the way that brand imprinting works.

First of all, I’d just like to point out that the notion of the Q5 being so very distinguishable from the RX is simply laughable. Compare their profiles:

The Q5:

The RX:

Virtually indistinguishable. Yeah, the Audi’s got slightly sharper corners and appears to have a slightly beefier stance, but the humor, to me, is the tag line: “identity theft can happen to anyone.” The suggestion is, of course, that the Q5 stands out. But the Q5’s styling is clearly ripped off from the RX, so who’s stealing whose identity? Audi must realize this, so it has simply asserted: the Q5 is radically different; buying it shows you are an individual. Maybe, as I alluded at the beginning, it’s working because VW sales are very strong.

The reason I’m thinking about Audi this morning is the momentary glimpse of the father in the second commercial, whose second-long appearance told us everything we needed to know about him, his life, his choice of vehicle, and why we, by extension want to also own an Audi.

See, Q5 Dad loves his kid, because he’s picking his kid up from school. He is therefore one of a few things: A) unemployed (unlikely, as he’s driving a $48,000 vehicle, though it could be his wife’s, but why would Audi want to suggest unemployment?); B) independently wealthy, which is always a good thing to be; C) powerful enough at his office that he gets to dictate when he comes and goes, like a partner at a law firm; or D) someone who works at home, like an intrepid entrepreneur. And look at him. He’s middle-aged, but responsible. Rather than give in to the stereotyped mid-life crisis response by buying, say, a Corvette, he’s gotten himself a nice luxurious SUV. But he’s better than a middle-aged schlub, he’s cool. He’s got the oops-I’m-sexy beard going (thank you, Six Feet Under), and he just looks dignified with the gray. And his eyes are kind. So he’s probably an architect. A successful one. He’s certainly not a conformist, whatever he is.

And it really irritates me that that amount of inference was built into that one-second shot of a guy in his car, but the point is, Audi wanted me to get all that information in that one-second glimpse of Q5 Dad. It makes me think of Visual Literacy, a class taught at the University of Texas, but similar ones are probably taught across the country under various names. One of the main lessons from the class was the power of brand imprinting. To demonstrate this, a series of logos were shown in quick succession, and the students were asked to recall which brands stuck with them. And it’s impressive just how powerful imprinting can be, and why I was able to glean all that information from Q5 Dad in that one-second glimpse of him.

(Disclosure: I own neither an RX nor a Q5, and never plan on doing so. And what does it say about blogging that makes me feel compelled to point things like this out?)

Battle Royale–Part the Second

When trying to discern the differences between the many computing system choices out there, it becomes clear very quickly that this is no easy task. For one thing, there are questions of what sort of form factor makes sense (i.e., netbook vs. laptop vs. desktop), what sort of power you need, and what it is that you’re going to be doing with your machine. Additionally, it can be maddening trying to distinguish the operating system from the many add-ons available and that come prepackaged with a machine bought at retail.

So I’ve decided that the best way for me to get a grip on everything, I will start with a comparison of what you would get if you obtained only the operating system. In other words, what would you get if you went to a store and purchased, say Windows Vista Home Premium, or OS X, or downloaded a Linux distro. What, in other words, is built in if you had only that installed on your machine and nothing else. It isn’t necessarily the most logical place to start. After all, if you don’t have Apple hardware, you can’t install OSX legally. And it is unclear to me that many people buy Vista at retail. (And to top it all off, Vista is a dead brand, soon to supplanted by Windows 7 and all of its many flavors.)

The reason I’m starting here, however, is because I want to get at the heart of what you get with the operating system, and what the value of the software is from that approach.

I think it’s important to look at what you get from the following categories: internet capability (i.e., built-in browser(s)); general productivity applications (i.e., word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, non-web-based email, et cetera); data backup; entertainment (i.e., media playback and games); photo management (i.e., ability to display, manage, and edit digital photos); and content creation (i.e., ability to create music and/or movies). Additionally, I have looked at miscellaneous goodies that are built-in, that aren’t necessarily things that are deal-breakers, but nonetheless may factor into a decision.

No CIA Prosecutions

At first blush, the Obama administration’s decision not to prosecute CIA officers for torturing (no, I’m not even going to use scare quotes) individuals facially makes sense.  After all, as a press release from the DOJ states: “It would be unfair to prosecute dedicated men and women working to protect America for conduct that was sanctioned in advance by the Justice Department.”

Makes sense, right?  If you seek legal advice, and you’re told that what you will be doing isn’t illegal, shouldn’t that shield you from prosecution?  Well, we have a stranger country than that.

The Sixth Circuit, for example, “has determined that reliance on counsel’s legal advice constitutes a qualified immunity defense only under ‘extraordinary circumstances,’ and has never found that those cicrumstances were met. … [T]he availability of such a defense would invite all government actors to shield themselves … by first seeking self-serving legal memoranda before taking action that may violate a constitutional right.”  Silberstein v. City of Dayton, 440 F.3d 306, 318 (6th Cir. 2006).  This is because, as the Supreme Court has said over and over again, every man and woman in this country is presumed to know the law.  See, e.g.,  Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800 (1982).  It is a legal fiction, but one that exists to facilitate “justice.”

Now, the dynamic changes a little, of course, when it is the Executive Branch, which is tasked with enforcing the nation’s law, that tells you “we aren’t going to prosecute you for telling you that you can do this.”  But doesn’t that sort of say that, for example, the District Attorney’s office in Harris County could tell the Houston Police Department that it’s perfectly peachy for HPD officers to tase anyone on sight?  I don’t want to get into a sliding-slope fallacy, but you get my point, right?

The Bush Administration introduced a variety of demons into our legal system, and we’ve granted immunity to a fair number of them (ISPs helping the NSA with warrantless wiretapping, for example).  The Obama Administration has voiced support for cleaning up the mess, and I guess the cleaning process is like Bismarck’s thoughts on watching democracy get made.

Battle Royale, Part the First

I just wrapped up a response to the USPTO on a trademark registration I’m working on, and to celebrate, I thought I’d do a little thought experiment.  I’ve noticed how Microsoft’s latest ads are getting the Apple-ites all riled up, which is funny in itself.

If you haven’t been paying attention, Microsoft has been running “Laptop Hunters” ads (where are Grant and Jason?) which show that laptops running Windows are cheaper than Apple’s laptops.  First, there was Laurena, and then the Giampaolo guy, and most recently, an 11-year-old kid with his mother (Lisa and Jackson).  (Am I the only one who thinks of Amy Sedaris when I look at her?)

To counter the obvious differential in up-front cost, Apple fans like to say something to the effect of “Look what you get built in with OSX, though!  To get your crappy Windows machine up to speed with my beautiful Mac, you need to spend more money, and then your cost savings are non-existent!  So, nyah!”

It’s not a bad argument to make.  After all, people buying cars are urged to take “total cost of ownership” into account when making purchasing decisions.  (Edmunds.com has a nice little tool called “True Cost to Own”, for example.)  After all, that $15,590 Mazda3 may cost less up front than this $16,260 Honda Fit, but after all is said and done, over five years, you come out just about even.   (See also, the Total Quality Index issued by Strategic Vision.)

So Apple has a point.  Maybe OSX comes bundled with so many goodies that the price differential disappears.  Of course, there’s one very noisy contingent that gets ignored in all these comparisons: all the various flavors of Linux distros: Ubuntu, Fedora, Mandriva, Linux Mint, OpenSuse, et cetera et cetera.  There are hundreds of variants, and almost none of them cost one penny.  What’s more, the software that works in that environment also costs nothing.  With Linux, generally speaking, your hardware is your only cost of ownership; it’s almost as if you bought a car, and your gas and repair bills were covered.

So this got me thinking about the economy and small business owners, about the true cost of getting a computer (or computers) for the workplace, and about what really makes the most sense.  Is it the general familiarity of Windows, warts and all?  Or is it the cool insouciance of OSX?  Or maybe it’s a nice solid Linux distro.  Over the next few weeks, I’ll be taking time here and there to look into this question, and at the end of the process, I hope to have come up with some sort of answer.

A few obligatory qualifications:  I currently run Windows Vista, generally like it, and haven’t had any problems with it whatsoever.  I also have family members who swear by OSX, and also have played around with it extensively since the time Jobs was there before he wandered in the wilderness for a few years.  And I have played with Linux on a once-awesome, now-sluggish laptop, didn’t especially like the experience, but will pick up the mantle once again.  So I really don’t have a dog in the fight.

And with that, this post ends.  My next post will be on the difficulties of establishing a baseline for comparing the many options available to consumers.

Time Warner’s Bandwidth Caps

PC Magazine has a write-up about TWC’s proposed bandwidth caps, which I briefly mentioned here.

According to PC Mag, TWC will offer a super-rock-bottom class of services with 768kbps down/128kbps up.  This will cost you $14.99 a month, and you will have only 1GB of bandwidth each month, with overages costing you $2.00 per GB.  TWC claims that 30% of its customers use less than 1Gb/month, but I find that hard to believe.  I’m currently running an experiment on my own bandwidth usage, and over 72 hours, I’ve already used nearly 17 GB of bandwidth, just watching things on Hulu and Netflix, along with 3 Linux distros I downloaded via bittorrent.  (I’ll post more detailed results later.)  Of course, with only 768kps down, you won’t be doing a whole lot of media streaming, so maybe you won’t bust through that 1GB ceiling, but I think that’s a ludicrously low allowance.

Of course, TWC says “hey, if that’s not enough for you, let me introduce you to my friends, Roadrunner Lite, Basic, Standard, and Turbo, with exanded caps of 10, 20, 40, and 60 GB respectively!  And if that’s still not enough for you, I can get you a cap of 100Gb for just $75, and if that’s not enough, I can get you unlimited bandwidth for the low low price of just $150 a month!”

Wow. What. A. Deal.

In related news, a consumer advocacy group is asking Congress to investigate bandwidth caps, so sayeth Wired’s Epicenter blog.

Fun with the AP

Following up on yesterday’s post about the AP and its “mad as hell” posturing, we are beginning to see some of the lunacy involved with its new approach.  TechCrunch, which I reached by going through Gizmodo, has a story about how an AP affiliate got a C&D letter for posting an AP video, which was hosted on the AP’s YouTube page.  Go figger.

Misappropriation and the AP

In my last post, about Blockbuster, I cheekily suggested that I shouldn’t link to the story, because it was on MSNBC, but was an AP story.  I said that because apparently the AP is “mad as hell” and isn’t “going to take it anymore.”  (I hope the irony isn’t lost on anyone.)

What am I talking about?  Well, Ars Technica talks about how the AP appears not to be content with simply going after Shepard Fairey, and with attempting to charge bloggers for even miniscule quotes ($12.50 seems fair for five words, right?).  Nope, now it’s brought misappropriation off the shelves, blew the dust off International News Services v. Associated Press, 248 U.S. 215 (1918), and is holding it up as exactly the sort of thing the AP needs to do to be totally awesome.

I was going to do a large exigesis on misappropriation, and then I discovered that it would take an awful lot of time to do that.  So I’ll make it quick by summarizing that the doctrine grew out of unfair competition concerns from the early 20th century, it has very little to do with traditional copyright, and everything to do with “hot news.”  Indeed, the Second Circuit has stated that there are five elements which are essential for a INS-style claim:

1. the plaintiff generates or collects information at some cost or expense;
2. the value of the information is highly time-sensitive;
3. the defendant’s use of the information constitutes free-riding on the plaintiff’s costly efforts to generate or collect it;
4. the defendant’s use of the information is in direct competition with a product or service offered by the plaintiff; and
5. the ability of other parties to free-ride on the efforts of the plaintiff would so reduce the incentive to produce the product or service that its existence or quality would be substantially threatened.

National Basketball Association v. Motorola, Inc., 105 F.3d 841, 852 (2d Cir. 1997).

But, no matter, what we’re seeing with the AP, and the recent moves against iTunes, Amazon, and Walmart, and ISPs with bandwidth caps, and television and movie companies with streaming video is that there is a conflict with consumers’ insatiable thirst for content and with providers’ ability to provide it.

Blockbuster Over?

So sayeth MSNBC.  Well, actually, so sayeth AP, so maybe I shouldn’t link this story… (more on that in my next post).  (Link.  Via Gizmodo, via via via…)

In any event, Blockbuster has apparently disclosed to the SEC that an auditor doesn’t see much future for the company.  Which is somewhat understandable.  Netflix was able to severely undercut Blockbuster pricing in exchange for not being able to spontaneously go get a movie.  Blockbuster’s shipped-DVD service never really caught on, even though they had a good idea with the whole get-it-delivered-return-it-at-the-store-get-a-new-DVD-immediately concept.

Now, a lot of people have already mentioned that Blockbuster going out of business would mean that the days of running out to get a movie may be over.  Countering that argument, though, are those that say “Go to Redbox” or use Netflix’s streaming ability.  And, who knows, maybe Hollywood video will expand to take Blockbuster’s place (yeah, right).

Redbox, though, isn’t a great option, in my opinion.  The few times I’ve tried to use it, there hasn’t been anything I’ve wanted to watch, or–more often–the movie I wanted to watch was already checked out.

Netflix’s streaming option is a questionable replacement, however.  I love the service, and I have made great use of it in the couple of months that I’ve had it.  But it has real limitations.  First, the selection is less than current.  If I had a sudden hankering for Cloverfield, I couldn’t watch it instantly.  Same goes for Kill Bill, Burn After Reading, Wanted, I’m Not There, There Will Be Blood, Slumdog Millionaire, Hellboy II, Body of Lies, The Incredible Hulk, The Dark Knight, or The Midnight Meat Train. (I like the name of that last one…)  What I can watch are Discovery Channel shows (I’ve enjoyed catching up on Extreme Engineering and Myth Busters), some PBS offerings (I highly recommend In Search of Shakespeare), some BBC things (Little Britain is cringingly funny) and some movies (A Clockwork Orange, The Big Tease, Back to the Future, Bottle Rocket, Dr. Strangelove …)  Netflix claims 12,000 options for watching instantly, and that’s good.  And as I’ve said before, watching movies and television as a streaming service is where we’re heading.  There are serious obstacles to the streaming future, however.

First, getting a good stream on Netflix, or Hulu, is dependant on your internet connection.  You need pretty robust–and reliable–speeds to have a satisfactory experience, and I don’t know if I’m the only one having this problem, but my AT&T DSL service oscillates between 5 Mbps and .7Mbps daily.

Second, you need a lot of bandwidth to watch a lot of movies.  With ISPs beginning to rollout monthly bandwidth caps, this will limit your ability to stream content.  For example, AT&T is testing caps in a few markets (so sayeth Gizmodo), and the plan is for there to be tiers of service.  Anything over the cap will be $1 per Gigabyte.  The caps aren’t terrible, but they aren’t overly generous either, ranging from 20 to 150 Gigagbytes per month.  (Other companies do caps as well;  Comcast has a 250 Gigabyte cap, and Time Warner is rolling out a plan in Texas where the top tier of service ($55 a month) is a pathetic 40 Gigabytes per month.  Link: Ars Technica.)  What’s interesting to me about the caps is that I warrant that very few people even know what they use in terms of bandwidth.  Yes, there are tools you can install that will allow you to monitor your usage (and we’ll all probably need to do that) (NetMeter is one I saw mentioned on a forum somewhere; I don’t vouch for its accuracy or safety), but it’s also interesting to me that there seems to be no set answer as to how much bandwidth gets consumed.  Doing a Google search doesn’t help much, and it’s unclear whether a DVD movie, which is, conservatively, 3.5 GB in size is what Netflix is streaming to you.  Does that mean that you will eat up your Time Warner bandwidth just by watching 10 movies on Netflix, with no other browsing?

Or should you calculate your usage with this formula that I found:   4 Megabits per second * 60 secs/min * 60 min/hr = 14,400 Megabits per hour.  Further conversion is required as 1 Megabit  is about 128 kilobyte (Link:  Wikipedia).  14,400 * 128 = 1,843,200 kilobytes per hour.  Which is well about 1.5 Gigabytes per hour.  (Is that right?  Really? You could blow through even your Comcast bandwidth in less than 20 hours?  That doesn’t seem right…)

I guess the point is that its tough to say that people actually know what their bandwidth usage is, and that, just as we’re learning in other areas, bandwidth caps mean ceaseless consumption just won’t be possible in the future.