empeg stolen

My serial number is 090000822
The empeg was in the canvas empeg logo bag.
It was on my desk at work and someone took it there. I'm pretty confident that whoever took it probably doesn't know what it is and will make contact for questions and/or a docking sled.

I am deeply saddened by this tradgedy because of the pride I had in owning this product and being part of this movement.

If you could keep your ears peeled. I would appreciate it.

Sorry to hear about you loss.

I will keep a eye out ...

Sacramento California, USA.

Very sorry to hear it. Does your company have video cameras around anywhere? We have them at our front door and in the parking lot for security. If you have them and let the security people know, I'm sure they could pull a tape and look to see if anyone's walking out with an Empeg-sized bag.

We do, but we employ several thousand workers here so chances are slim.
I'll certainly follow up my report with this question.

Sorry to hear of your loss. I wonder what you miss most, the empeg or the bag? I have backup empegs, but only one bag. I would be more pissed about the bag.

Sorry to hear of your loss. I wonder what you miss most, the empeg or the bag? I have backup empegs, but only one bag. I would be more pissed about the bag.

Rob, that is, quite possibly, the most screwed up logic I've ever read on this BBS. The Empegs cost $199 at least, whereas a perfectly acceptable replacement for the Empeg bag can be found for under $20. You can even sew an Empeg logo on there if you need it. Unless you're made of money, I think losing the Empeg is just a bit more upsetting than losing the bag.

The bag is irreplaceable. I have never seen one as perfect. Is that wrong?

PS - I'm not made of money, but I took extreme advantage of the sell-off.

I'll trade you an original blue empeg bag for a new RioCar.

Having both colors would be nice, but no thanks. I would have to worry about losing two bags!

As stated in a couple of places in the FAQ, please contact support with your serial number.

Having both colors would be nice, but no thanks. I would have to worry about losing two bags!

Oh I get it, so it's money here, mouth there. Are you *sure* you weren't just stretching the truth a little bit to make your point that the bags are cool?

I love the bags too, but they ain't worth no $199!

Already did.
That's one thing I won't miss about this community.

I am not talking about money. Here's the deal... I am very odd. You should see some of the crap I have in my house. I keep a Betamax around in case I ever need it again. Same with a LaserDisc player. I know I will almost certainly NEVER need these things again. I also know that I will probably be dead before they're thrown out.

Once something becomes unavailable, I start hoarding it. I will not tell you how many empegs I bought because you may have to lock me up. Not to mention tuners, remotes, sleds, screens, etc. Losing the bag would really get to me. Everytime I would carry the empeg out of my car I would remeber the bag, mumbling to myself. This would likely go on for years before I got over it. Losing the Rio fleece would be just as bad. Both are irreplaceable. I was just trying to see if anyone else would miss the bag more than the empeg. Yes, I am aware this behaviour is wrong. I can't do anything about it. I am a sick bastard.

I just thought of another example. My parents are moving and there is a bunch of my stuff still in their house. For example, a bunch of 286, 386, and 486 machines. A case of 256k ISA VGA cards. 9600bps modems. A 40MB hard drive that weighed 25 lbs. Unfortunately, I don't have enough space at my place and they don't want to take it to the new house, so I had to let those treasures go.

Okay I understand, you're an eternal pack rat. Nothing wrong with that, except I would hate to have to clean your basement. Living in a 2BR apartment I can't hoard stuff quite as easily.

You're leaving yourself wide open for the follow-up question though... Why didn't you buy 10 empeg cases when they were available?

Why didn't you buy 10 empeg cases when they were available?

They were never available from the US store. I meant to buy them from international, but never got around to it. I probably would have only bought a couple though, not 10.

By the way, I live in a 1 bedroom appartment. My dining room table has stuff all over it. Every inch of floorspace not necessary for walking has a/v equipment and computers on it. I don't even know what's in my closets anymore. MTV should do an episode of Cribs at my place. It would be astonishing.

I also have a thing with telephones. I have 5 phones hooked up in that appartment. 2 would be enough.

Sometime this year I will have to get rid of my stuff. Having girls over is getting too awkward.

Remember, you are not a pack rat. You are a collector. ;-)

You need to find a girl who is also a pack rat.

Calvin

what a weirdo ! not laughed so much since I noticed the 'thanks to strongbow cider' credit printed on the PCB inside the empeg .... (anyone else spot that ?)

lol your my hero rob, 5 phones in a 1 bedroom appartment

Awesome. Finally someone that can understand my fascination with keeping old junk. My friends pester me all the time for all the crap I keep around. Moving into my new apartment last September was a painful and arduous process. To this day, there are still boxes of computer parts, an old HP 286 case (you never know), legos, magazines, school papers, books, floppies, etc sitting in my dad's storage loft. I have been called a pack rat on multiple multimple occasions. I didn't sleep right for weeks after moving out, cringing at the sight of my old room at my dads house - vacant.

Trouble is, I also like things neat and organized. Somehow things come together into a happy medium. My things are chronologically ordered into "piles" on my floor, shelves, desk, etc. And who said that the floor was an unacceptable storage location? As messy as my old room was, I always knew exactly where something was whenever needed.

My room in my apt actually has a floor, though. I took thorough advantage of the quadrupled closet space I acquired.

Think of it this way, at least if you took up the deal and got the extra blue carry case, then you would have a backup!

I hope you get is back, the rest of us will be vigilant I'm sure.

Haven't you ever seen Fight Club? As Tyler Durden said, the things you own, end up owning you.

I have Fight Club on DVD. One of the best movies I've ever seen. Oh, did I mention I own 3 DVD players? Only one is in use.

Greetings!

Sorry for your loss. What capacity was it, in case we see it on ebay?

Originally a 12Gb. A second IBM Tavelstar 12GB was added post purchase. It had the green lense.
You can almost still see where Hugo had signed the empeg branded label on the top, although his signature is illegible as he can attest.

It's name was Sarah... (tears)

I felt bad enough for you without knowing you had named your baby. That was touching. I hope it turns up somehow.

I'm so sorry 4 U. How sad.

Rob,

Would you consider selling me one of your many backups? I could use one, especially after reading this.
See you at the Boston meet.

Thanks,

Doug

Assuming that 'lowlife' plans to install it in his/her car:
1. They will need a sled
2. Assuming they aquire one you can search the car park for cars with empeg sleds installed
bmiller, I'm truly sorry to hear of your loss fellah, truly.

Looking forward,
What about a replacement boot partition in the eeprom that performs some kind of user chosen check at boot, i.e. user chosen button press sequence every 100 reboots or every 10 hours of play which makes the player unusable until a correct validation is applied?
To subscribe the owner would register on a www site, enter serial no. (checked against a database of stolen players) and download a tailor made binary to write to the bootloader only. As part of the registration, the original (legitimate) registrant could supply a password to get an unlock code for their own player if they forgot/misplaced the unlock sequence. Additionally, upon registration the owner could possibly state the terms and frequency of re-validation required on their player. I am assuming that the factory serial no. is already stored somewhere in the flash (boot block?) and that the initial installation would verify this before proceeding. I am also assuming that firmware upgrades to date do not alter the eeprom boot partition. I'm thinking that while any cracker worth his salt could break this system easily it's unlikely it would happen.

Even if this suggestion is plausible it won't prevent crackers breaking things. In terms of probability and available cracker resources it's possibly worthwhile e.g. how many cracker hours are out there to do bad things to the Empeg given the few that (presumably) have been stolen to date?

To summarise, I know that potentially locking up an Empeg in the hands of a thief won't prevent theft but it must make the bereaved owners feel happier that their lost Empegs aren't benefiting the thieves?

Man that really sucks.

I wonder if you could persuade your company to send a corporate-wide email pointing out that the unit is useless to the thief, and requesting it's anonymous return.

Bmiller...

I am very sorry for the loss. We will keep our eyes open. I can't bare to think of how sad I would be in the same situation.

May luck be with you!

Doug

nothing to say here

I'm not full of myself. I asked a question to the guy that lost his empeg and bag. Someone thought it was odd, so I had to explain myself.

I am not proud of my packrating. I know it's wrong. Medicine is not the answer. Getting up the nerve to throw everything out (cold turkey) is the answer.

Getting up the nerve to throw everything out (cold turkey) is the answer.

I can offer a little bit of insight about that...

Many years ago I lived out in the boonies, two miles from the nearest paved road, 15 miles from the nearest fire service area. So it was somewhat of a shock when my wife and I returned from the laundromat to find a smoldering pile of ashes where our house had been. (Don't feel sorry about the house -- the property value probably went up 20% when the house burned down.) So there I am, sitting there in my snow plow truck, everything I owned in the whole world literally up in smoke except for two garbage bags full of clean laundry.

Being an organized sort of person, I sat down and made up a list of the things I would have to buy immediately just to keep on going, figured I could borrow a couple thousand dollars from my mother to somehow see me through. Imagine my surprise when the total list came to less than $40. A razor, couple toothbrushes, a pair of shoes (I was wearing heavy winter boots)... spent the night with friends, next morning rented a furnished apartment, and never, ever, not even one time, missed any of the things that were gone.

It was an amazingly effective lesson to me about what is and is not important.

If the same thing were to happen to me tomorrow -- I would replace my TiVo and my empeg (but wouldn't lose any sleep over having lost them) and the rest of my stuff I would buy new ones only as I needed them.

tanstaafl.

Well put.

Did the $40 include Walden?

Sorry about your loss. maybe post signs up that you want to by an empeg for an out rageous price? Maybe you can smoke the thief out.

tanstaafl, While I am sorry to hear you lost your house at some stage too, I don't think $40 is quite the price for those 'priceless' things. I've had much the same thing happen to my home except I had to watch it burn. $40 wouldn't replace all the photo albums, nor the jewelry my mum lost, nor the 5 fruit boxes of lego we'd collected since kids... Yeah, they're all material things but I'd still prefer not to have lost them. You don;t know how much you miss something til it's gone.

If you've never heard "Farthest Shore" by David Wilcox you really should give it a listen. In the song he talks about seeing his cabin burned down and a favorite guitar gone with it, but that what he really treasures is not material. . .

(It's probably not your style, but a very insigtful song)

> Looking forward,

How about when the Empeg is hooked up to a computer it will send a broadcast signal over the Internet to a specified IP address along with traceroute data back to the thiefs computer?

Of course, that would require some programming in Emplode, but it wouldn't be that hard.

I like the idea but while nothing is 100% infallible my guess is it would be reasonably straight forward to remove the 'phone-home' feature on the stolen unit simply by re-applying the Empeg software. This is what made me think about dropping something into the flash's boot partition - AFAIK there's never been software released around these parts that writes to this part of the flash.

Well, not to mention that a thief would most probably NOT read this board and as such would know nothing of the ip-trace being run. If you don't know what to look for, who would know what to remove? And if they're good enough to defeat all that, they would be better off using their skills at a marketable trade, and thereby be able to afford buying one.

Damn, that sucks. I'm sorry to hear about your loss. Personally, I don't think I could go to work the same after a cow-orker heisted my empeg. I think i'd have to take moratorium leave to clear my head.

All this talk has me paranoid as %$&* about having my empeg
(or car with sled) stolen. I've already crafted a contingency plan to build my own biodegradable replacement sled out of cheese doodles and glucose binder. Wish me luck!

I used to pack things too. Mostly electronics and electronic parts.. after years of intensive psychotherapy and shock treatment, I've finally been able to throw away the 5.25" drives I had in storage "just in case". *twitch*

Is it normal that I have all these feelings of FUD in my guliver after reading this thread? I love my empeg. I don't want some faux-gold wearing Tupac listening white thug stealing my empeg only to pawn it off for a few pieces of crack (it's worth at least an oz of crack, i'll tell you). I'm scared

I bring it into work with me, but often leave it in the car over night, cuase i'm lazy. I'm gonna have to start bringing it inside all the time, but what about the sled? If the sled gets nabbed, I could find a replacement wiring harness and wire it myself, but i know nothing about machining and sheet metal, i wouldn't even know where to begin on crafting a new sled.

*cry* damn you sonicblue for EOL'ing the empeg

I remeber a couple months back someone was able to get a sled meant for old 70s and 80s pullout stereos. Apparently car audio shops have a ton of them around. You would probably be able to cut the proper hole for the wiring loom.

the international store still is selling sleds, and they will ship to US

Here's the link to the International store.

https://www.empeg.com/store/acatalog/Empeg_World_Sales_Car_Player_Accessories_1.html

Get 'em while you can!!

Doug