Militarized Police

What's going on in Ferguson really shouldn't surprise anyone.

Could you have guessed that these were cops?

Even if things turn around quickly, though, it won't erase the memories from this past week or end the debate about tactics. Chief among them are decisions like deploying heavily armed officers and using military equipment, which some experts say helped to make a bad situation even worse.

"The tactics they are using, I don't know where they learned them from," [Retired Lt. Gen. Russell] Honore said Thursday on CNN Newsroom. "It appears they may be making them up on the way. But this is escalating the situation."

This is just a real-life demonstration of the Law of the Instrument, aka Maslow's Hammer -- "If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail."

Strategy is shaped by tactics and tactics are shaped by tools, i.e. your weapons' capabilities dictate what you can do. So if you arm your police with military-surplus weapons and equipment, why is anyone surprised when the police start using military-style tactics?

"Authors to rebuke Amazon over Hachette dispute with full-page NYT ad"

From AppleInsider:

Nearly 1,000 authors affected by the ongoing e-book spat between Amazon and machete have signed their names to a letter — set to run as a full-page advertisement in the Sunday New York Times later this week — imploring the online retailer to settle the dispute and calling on readers to voice their displeasure directly to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.

To my literary brothers and sisters, I say, "booyah." You can read the letter here; and here's a good perspective from the New York Times on how this is affecting individual authors.

Apple vs. DOJ e-Book Case: Judge Cote's Guilty Verdict "Impossible"

On Friday, Judge Denise Cote reversed course and signed off on the Apple-DOJ plea bargain, thereby eliciting the single best explanation I've seen as to why the Appeals Court should overturn Cote's guilty verdict against Apple in the e-book anti-trust case.

"Antitrust experts in particular were outrage at the verdict as under that section of the law it should be impossible for a 'vertical' reseller (like Apple) to join a 'horizontal' conspiracy amongst publishers. Cote also ignored evidence that other booksellers had previously urged publishers to force Amazon to use the 'agency' model (where publishers set prices) before Apple even began planning its iBookstore business as Amazon's predatory pricing at the time was preventing competitors from joining the market."

Note the word "impossible." Analysts love words like "impossible" because they set up a binary choice that usually isn't hard to evaluate — something is either impossible or it's not. 

Never mind the verdict's other problems which I've listed off and linked to before — anti-trust experts are asserting that, as a matter of black-letter law, a vertical reseller like Apple can't be part of a horizontal conspiracy like the one DOJ says existed among the publishing houses...legally, it's "impossible." That's no mere technicality. If that's true, here's the binary choice:

1. DOJ prosecutors and Judge Cote were incompetent and didn't understand the relevant case law; or

2. They did know the law and ignored it for reasons I won't speculate on here.

Incompetence or bias. If the anti-trust experts are right, there are no other possible conclusions.

Amazon's Faulty Math on the Literary Market

Amazon posted a statement explaining its motives in trying to strong-arm Hachette (and, inevitably, other publishers if it succeeds) into slashing the wholesale prices of e-books. A few choice bits:

"If publishers lowered prices, they would sell more books, which would create more readers, which in turn would sell more books, it argues...The argument of profit-through-volume rings hollow coming from Amazon, however, with its price-to-earnings ratio of 500. The company has yet to be able to achieve any sort of meaningful profit despite growing to nearly $20 billion in quarterly sales across a huge range of products."

By it's own profit-through-volume logic, Amazon should be the richest company on the planet. Instead, Amazon has rarely ever posted a profit in its entire 20-year corporate history and just reported a $126 million loss for the last quarter alone.

"Amazon, by its own admission, was previously losing $3 to $5 per e-book when it sold e-books at the $9.99 price point before the Department of Justice stepped in to force publishers to adhere to a wholesale model. However, profits of the publishers did not go up significantly during the same period, suggesting that in fact publishers cannot sustain a $10 e-book price when it would only see $3.50 of each sale as Amazon proposes. In part, this is due to the fact that lower e-book pricing was previously demonstrated to have a deleterious effect on hardback and other printed book sales, as well as harming physical bookstores. These outlets continue to be the main profit centers for publishers, and the main way readers find and buy new books, despite the growth of e-books."

Yep. Steve Jobs called it four years ago.

"Coalition of Authors Blames 'Thuggish' Amazon for Hachette Dispute"

Yep. Take a look at some of the names on the list. Chances are pretty good that at least one of your favorite authors is on it.

Amazon's response is simultaneously insulting to authors and disingenuous towards readers.

In a harshly-worded statement, attempting to discredit Preston as a spokesperson for the movement, Amazon says that customers have "clearly expressed a preference for e-books priced less than $10. Even four years ago, when readers expressed such a preference, Mr. Preston responded by saying publicly, 'The sense of entitlement of the American consumer is absolutely astonishing.' It's pretty clear it's Mr. Preston who feels entitled. And what's 'astonishing' is that he thinks readers won't recognize an opportunist who seeks readers' support while actively working against their interests."

I suspect that if Amazon started selling first-run e-book novels from major publishers for $.99, consumers would express a preference for that price point, too. But the question isn't what price consumers prefer for e-books. The question is whether publishers can turn enough profit on $10 e-books to stay in business when e-book sales make up 50%+ of the market.

The answer so far seems to be "no."

Apple vs DOJ e-Book Case: The Plot Thickens...

Called it. Judge Cote wants the deescalation clause pulled from Apple's settlement agreement with the DOJ.

"U.S. District Judge Denise Cote in Manhattan said she found 'most troubling' a clause requiring Apple to pay only $70 million if an appeals court reversed her finding that the company is liable for antitrust violations and sent it back to her for further proceedings.

Speaking on a teleconference, Cote questioned if that would be fair and what might happen if the appeals court reversed her ruling on a minor issue."

A lawyer for the plaintiffs said he doesn't think that's likely and, given the problems inherent in retrying such a case, $70 million "would be a good outcome for consumers."

When a judge insists on a settlement amount from a defendant higher than the law requires and the plaintiff requests, it's probably a good sign that the judge dislikes the defendant.

Read the whole Rueters article here.

The Craft of Writing: The Little Notebook

High on my list of "indispensable writing tools," probably just below "my MacBook" and "Scrivener," sits "The Notebook."

Anyone serious about writing should have a small notebook that goes with them everywhere. I've heard many graphic designers, artists, architects, and other creative types from many different fields say the same thing and for a similar reason -- you never know when a good idea will cross your path or enter your head, and you don't want to risk losing it. For writers, it's ideas about characters, plot, dialogue, interesting facts, places, etc etc etc.

It's a practice that many great thinkers throughout history have followed. (Don't let the article title or the linked website fool you...this is great advice for anyone, regardless of gender).

"The list is hardly comprehensive; the practice was so widespread among eminent men that it would likely be easier to compile a list of famous men who did not use them, than did."

No endorsement intended, but mine is an old FranklinCovey binder that I keep filled with lined pages and which I've carried around for a decade now; some people use iPads and iPhones and an app like Vesper or Write for the same purpose , but a cheap $2 notebook can work just as well (so would an iPad or iPhone). No one who says they're serious about writing gets to plead poverty on this one. Find something that works for you and start carrying it everywhere. You'll find pretty quickly that you feel naked without it.