Bee’s Musings

If only there was a way that we really could save Pandora - wouldn’t we? How many great artists have you discovered on Pandora? How many otherwise unbearable work days has Pandora saved us from? And now, loyal listening ears, where will we be when Pandora leaves us?

From Wired.com:

Pandora — practically the poster child for online radio — says it will shut down if royalty rates enacted in March of 2007 are not altered soon.

Despite all of those warnings, the rates remain intact and must be observed by webcasters, even as the battle over them continues. Aside from a few concessions to small webcasters and those with lots of unique streams, Washington lawmakers have not altered the rates, which currently require Pandora to fork over 70 percent of its revenue to labels and artists.

Of course, with all this fuss, there are a few options. A radio conglomerate, like Clear Channel, could attempt to buy out Pandora and the music genome project. You would probably lose the ad-free formatting, but it would allow us to keep listening. Pandora could start charging a subscription fee, joining the ranks of XM radio. They could try to run more ads on their site (which probably get very few clicks, since most people run Pandora in the back ground while they do something else). Most listeners are spoiled, and would likely pay a nominal charge. Its not clear if it would be enough to really provide the revenue needed to continue their unique brand of programming.

Either way, the day that we lose Pandora will indeed be a sad day for our computer speaker systems.

Sure, there are all kinds of jokes about how long a woman can spend in the bathroom. In this situation, however - its just not funny.

WICHITA, Kansas (AP) — A 35-year-old woman who sat on her boyfriend’s toilet for so long that her body was stuck to the seat had a phobia about leaving the bathroom, the boyfriend said.

Read more from CNN

Its a sad, scary situation when someone has withdrawn so far into themselves that they won’t leave their house. Its worse when they’re in just one room. This case just takes it to the extreme. I’m not only saddened, but disgusted. I hope this woman gets the help that she obviously needs.

First - the shootings. For those who haven’t read the news yet, 4 people were killed today in 2 separate (but potentially related) church shootings in Colorado. The first shooting was in Arvada; the second in Colorado Springs.

I was reading the story tonight on NY Daily News (because it was the top link in GoogleNews, not because I regularly read their coverage). What horrified me more than the actual events was the comments from their readers.

Read them here.

What type of insensitive, uneducated, and narrow-minded person really reads about a tragedy like this one, and then has the audacity to say “Where is your God now?” These are people - each of these people was someone’s child. Someone’s best friend. Someone who was looking forward to sharing the upcoming holiday season with people that they love. They weren’t out tormenting people, wreaking havoc in the lives of someone. They were simply worshiping in their own way. Rather than judge them for where they were at the time, I would hope that we as people could extend sympathy to their loved ones rather than raise this kind of criticism.

I’m seriously giving up shaking hands with new people after reading the latest story from Discovery Health about men and handwashing.

One-third of men didn’t bother to wash after using the bathroom, compared with 12 percent of women, said the researchers, who spied on people in public restrooms. They reported their latest findings Monday at a meeting of infectious disease scientists.

Ick. Ick ick ick.

Read more here.

Well, Fort Collins made another list - this time the Fast Company list of “30 Fastest Cities”. Its included with Seoul, South Korea and Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina as an R&D Cluster City. Of course, its based on the research that comes from the multiple tech industries in the area, as well as… well… the beer.

Read more about Fort Collins and all of the Fast Cities from Fast Company.

I thought I’d heard about just about every kind of child abuse, and every kind of domestic violence. Ok, maybe not EVERY KIND, but plenty.

This one takes the cake:

Mom allegedly used baby to beat boyfriend