My work truck was broken into Wednesday night at the Holiday Inn in Mesquite, Dallas TX. They have a "decoy" cop car parked in the lot. My car was behind the cop car. The other car that was smashed was parked next to the cop car.

Things I've noticed missing so far:

Black & Decker 750W inverter $65.00
Blackberry AC charging cord $10.00
Microsoft Streets & Trips 2009 $75.00
Valutz 64 disk case $20.00
Caroline Spine - Huge - signed in concert in '97 $25
Caroline Spine - Collection $24
Caroline Spine - Attention Please $5
Caroline Spine - Anza 39
Hootie & the Blowfish - cracked rear view $7
Green Day - American Idiot $13
Stabbing Westward - Wither Blister Burn + Peel $5
Primitive Radio Gods - Rocket (My first purchased CD, at age of 15) $16
Gorillaz - Gorillaz $11
Daughtry - Daughtry $10
Blink 182 - Greatest Hits $13
Matchbox Twenty - Exile on the Mainstream $14
Linkin Park - Minutes to Midnight $13
Nickleback - All the Right Reasons $10
WOW Hits 2007 $17
WOW Hits 2008 $15
WOW Hits 2009 $12
Wow Hits 1 $11
Now hear This! Fall 2009 $2
Alanis Morissette - Jagged Little Pill $15
Alanis Morissette - Jagged Little Pill Acoustic $15
Velvet Revolver - Libertad $9
Fall Out Boy - Infinity on High $13
Garden State - Music from the Motion Picture $10
The Last Kiss - Original Soundtrack $15
My Chemical Romance - The Black Parade $13
Total $483.00



Plus I don't know how many others... I'll try to remember and add.

I used to keep all my music on my laptop hard drive as MP3, but recently our employer made it clear that we needed to get music off of our work computers. I did so, and didn't move the files, just deleted them.

Plus I'm pretty sure there were some computer game disks in there, but I'm not positive which ones...

"Let us make one thing very clear: Human cloning is illegal. As illegal as filesharing."
-yowhound

Dear Sirs,

Welcome to the age of the internet. I'm glad to see that you've decided to join the rest of us here. I know that it can be scary at first, but you've made great strides from where you were to where you are now.

I would like to take a moment to point out some flaws in your current internet distribution model. In addition, I will propose an alternative business model which would cost relatively nothing to implement.

I see here that you are attempting to use two different distribution methods for content: Streaming and purchase-download.

The quality of your streaming shows is horrible. Not since 2002 have I seen video with such large square pixels.

Thank you for allowing the show to pre-cache during the streaming. This is great, as it allows some buffer to build. It does not help, however, to have that hiccup four times per show at each commercial break. Would it kill you to include the commercials in the same streaming file?

Your seek function does not work. Sometimes I have to leave my show in the middle of the episode to take care of real life. I know that you don't have one, but most of us viewers do. When we click to the timestamp of where we were, we want to watch from that place.

For those of you offering direct downloads of your shows, Bravo! There are a couple of minor complaints I have on this. Why is there DRM on my files? Didn't I pay for this? I obviously want to support your brand, as I already gave you money.

Why are you using an expensive third party to distribute your content? Don't they end up eating a huge portion of your potential revenue?





Here are my suggestions on how to better improve your service.

Improve on your product placement. iRobot was horrible at this. The current model of using only one brand of vehicle for your show, or zooming in on the cellphone that a character is using, that's what I like. Don't blow it by using fake software on the devices though. Only show us what can actually be done. If a killer app is developed by a third party, and it fits in the context of your show, get in touch with them.

Give up on streaming shows. It doesn't work right. Instead, utilize the format that is already available and near-free to the distributor. Bittorrent works. If it didn't work, we wouldn't use it.

Use quality control in your commercial selection. Make sure that the commercials you use fit with the brand you want to display.

I would love to one day go to your website and find all of your most recent broadcasts available via bittorrent. I honestly wouldn't care if there was adverting already in the video file. You could easily show how much of an audience your advertising reached by maintaining the tracker yourself. You could reach a much larger audience for a lower overhead.

Yes, people will go in and strip out your commercials and re host the video file. They already do this. The money you spend on your anti-piracy police may as well be flushed down the toilet. By scrapping that expenditure you will increase your net profit margins.

Don't bother with DRM. It is a slap in the face to the people who are willing to watch your shows and provide you revenue. If it is too hard to use, others will circumvent it and make it available.

Throw in some random out of syndication shows. As this is a new age of media, we don't have access to it yet. Yet again you will increase revenue without increasing expenditures.



Thank you for your time.

-WayGroovy

somebody's dead...somebody's dead...somebody's dead...somebody's dead...somebody's dead...somebody's dead... see it at hopeitchanges.com

On Money
I. The Federal Reserve
First of all, I firmly believe that the concept of Money is broken in America. Our money is created by this entity called the Federal Reserve.

http://dissolvingdollars.com/money-creation-101
http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse/chapter-6-what-money
http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse/chapter-7-money-creation
http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse/chapter-8-fed-money-creation
http://www.lovethetruth.com/federal_reserve.htm

Our entire financial structure's growth, at this point, is based on the annual debt of the government to the fed.

If our government does not spend more money than it taxes, then it does not sell bonds to the federal reserve. If there is not more money put into existence by this, or some other, mechanism, there is not enough money in existence to pay loans.

Our money system is broken. Health-care one way or another will not affect this disaster. I am fully pro monetary reform, but until that happens I'll continue to work with the base system we are presented.