Actually First Sale doctrine is still in effect and would allow retail purchasing; some entities have refused to sell via retail channels to redbox in the past, but there are of course numerous ways to sidestep that.

Disclaimer, I'm currently on a software contract at redbox. I'm an uninformed tech monkey who has little information and no decision making power when it comes to business decisions. These statements are my own opinions and do not reflect past, current or intended behaviors on the part of redbox, its owner Coinstar, or any employees, contractors or vendors of either entity.

"Cloud" is vague.

Microsoft, new, (3 yr old) privately-held company with less than $1M in revenue? Go BizSpark, and heavily consider leveraging Azure.

In general, cloud/SaaS equates to rental, and right now, in the long run, it's still cheaper to own your datacenter, if your needs are extensive and not highly elastic. However, cloud/SaaS also equates to low cost of entry and incremental costs to expand, as well as outsourcing of non-core proficiencies you probably don't need to waste time or money on right now.

I'd recommend any startup go cloud/SaaS where it fits their budget and needs and growth expectations, while keeping an eye on longterm goals/costs/capacity needs, because at some point, it may make sense to bring things in house. Then again, netflix hosts their content with CDNs and their website with Amazon AWS, so to some, wholly outsourcing the datacenter is apparently a feasible solution.

--ab

My cursive has gone to crap. Well, crappier crap. I've always been a typing guy. Cursive and me are archenemies. Not even frenemies, just all-out hate each other.

A few years of early 20s partying too much, not sleeping enough and I saw my spelling skills go downhill a bit ... picked up books and started reading again, problem solved.

The funny died in that 10 years ago. Please die in a fire now.

Way to fail to follow the post's parent. Or were you going for the "Mr. Obvious of the Day" award? Or perhaps "Moot Point Guy of the Month"?

Depends on the neighborhood. Two different occasions in Rochester, NY, within two weeks of my moving out, people were killed within eyesight of my former homes. One was a robbery/murder, the other was a gangland initiation, totally random killing of a guy riding his bike on a bridge over the Lower Falls of the Genesee River. The latter neighborhood, my apartment was up on a hill, and some weeks, in the summer, it was very much like being in a war zone -- multiple shots, or bursts of shots, from multiple directions, throughout the night, many nights in a row. There was a mob beating of a woman around the same period. There was a drug raid across the street a few weeks previous. There were open-air drug markets on either side of my neighborhood, and all the accompanying violence.

My favorite recollection here was the time I heard what sounded like two people with pistols shooting at one another, because of the rapidity and succession of the shots. Turns out it was two teens shooting at an old lady after a botched robbery attempt, and despite 10-12 shots fired, neither one managed to hit her.

Hallucinations? Oh yeah. Starting around day #3. Not like "there's a big blue bunny on my couch," but shadows were moving, sense of motion in my peripheral vision especially, auditory hallucinations, the feeling that someone else was in the room when they weren't. I ended up playing Yahoo! Euchre on autopilot for something like 24 hours towards the end. I didn't consciously know what card I was going to play, or why, but my hand moved the mouse and I played it, and played about the same level as I always did at that time. (I had been playing a lot of Euchre that year.)

Lame -- the device is being used to display contextual data in a relevant fashion. This is an excellent use of this device and its interface metaphor.

Also, FWIW, MS powers some of the world's tightest access/egress systems.

I enjoy sitting at home, enjoying a single malt, catching up on movies and books ... but SNOWBOUND? 4WD, 9" of clearance and knobby tires baby, snow doesn't bother me in the least.