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Burning Man: The geeks that weren't there
Black Rock City - Still no real live geek sighting yet campers, but you'll be pleased to note that through the miracle of modern technology, you too can be on the playa without actually being on the playa! Scott Beale of Laughingsquid, a Burning Man attendee from way back, shows us how it's done with his recent fab roundup of the Burning The Man Early/Paul Addis debacle. Also not here are qDot of Slashdong.com fame, sex and tech writer Violet Blue (who nonetheless wrote a handy dandy BM Sex Tip Guide for all of us looking to get laid with alkali dust lube), and ...

Burning Man: We against the desert
BLACK ROCK CITY — The casualty list for the moment at Burning Man, the arts festival/endurance test in the high Nevada desert:Yours truly found herself a little bit faint on the open playa, and lacking Internet access to email for help, merely doused herself in water and hitched a ride on a passing art car. We have decided to become largely nocturnal, like all higher functioning desert creatures. Lane Hartwell, photo correspondent for Wired.com, has been taking gorgeous pictures as usual, but succumbed to a touch of the old heatstroke and electrolyte imbalance this afternoon. She is just dandy now with the application of Gatorade and a little lie-down. Those who breathed a sigh of relief that they would not end up on the Wired blog are now SOL.

: Draft: The geeks that weren't there
Black Rock City - Still no real live geek sighting yet campers, but you'll be pleased to note that through the miracle of modern technology, you too can be on the playa without actually being on the playa! Scott Beale of Laughingsquid, a Burning Man attendee from way back, shows us how it's done with his recent fab roundup of the Burning The Man Early/Paul Addis debacle. Also not here are qDot of Slashdong.com fame, sex and tech writer Violet Blue (who nonetheless wrote a handy dandy BM Sex Tip Guide for all of us looking to get laid with alkali dust lube), and

: Draft: We against the desert
Balck Rock City - The casualty list for the moment:Yours truly found herself a little bit faint on the open playa, and lacking internet access to email for help, merely doused herself in water and hitched a ride on a passing art car. We have decided to become largely nocturnal, like all higher functioning desert creatures. Lane Hartwell, photo correspondent for Wired.com, has been taking gorgeous pictures as usual, but succumbed to a touch of the old heatstroke and electrolyte imbalance this afternoon. She is just dandy now with the application of Gatorade and a little lie-down. Those who breathed a sigh of relief that they would not end up on the Wired blog are now SOL.

Robert Scoble: Let me tell ya about real friends, I got 5,000 of 'em
I wish Robert Scoble, the intermittent blogger, would take a break from making videos, too. In response to criticism of his incoherent videos about would-be Google killers, he's created a fresh set of incoherent videos explaining what friends are and how Facebook understands the meaning of your personal relationships. Again, he pulls out the whiteboard and marker -- green this time -- to "illustrate" his so-called point, a point that could be better made in a brief blog post. I've watched the painful videos so that you don't have to. But this time, there's some welcome good news.Robert Scoble is approaching the hardcoded limit of 5,000 friends imposed by Facebook. Soon, Scoble will no longer be able to add new friends! Hooray! And it gets better: Scoble says once he hits the limit, "After that... There'll be another Scoble." Huzzah, huzzah! Facebook expressly forbids a single individual from maintaining two profiles:... you agree not to use the Service or the Site to ... register...

Burning Man: For sale. One Burning Man. Slightly charred. ...
For sale. One Burning Man. Slightly charred. [craigslist]

Great Moments In Advertising: Federated Media's teeny-weeny remnant problem
Okay, this is ridiculous. On what planet is the bikini-wearing readership of TechCrunch sufficient enough to warrant Federated Media serving up the above ad on its site? None, of course. Federated Media founder John Battelle emails us to point out that the bikini ad from DivaVillage.com and other gender benders displayed to the site's mostly male readers aren't a result of targeting gone awry, but simply the result of Federated Media serving up low-paying, untargeted "remnant" ads when it's not able to sell ads at full price. Battelle also notes that it's TechCrunch's decision, not Federated's, to accept those ads. So there you have it, TechCrunch readers: Michael Arrington, according to John Battelle, thinks you want to buy bikinis.

Venture Capital: Sequoia expels the Yalies
Sequoia Capital, the top-dog Sand Hill Road venture capital firm, has kicked out Yale University from its stable of investors, or "limited partners," as they're known in the business. Why? The Ivy Leaguers don't want to participate in Sequoia's international and late-stage funds, just its hot startup money pools. According to a memo obtained by the Wall Street Journal, Sequoia is looking for partners who will pony up a "blank check", not partners who will dictate where their money is spent. No word on if Neil Shen and Chris Olsen, both Yale alumni and Sequoia employees, have gotten dunned by university fundraisers to make up for the shortfall.

Burning Man: The arsonist of Black Rock City
Paul Addis, the man accused of setting Burning Man's wooden statue aflame four days before it was supposed to go up in smoke, appears here in a mugshot for the ages. Scott Beale of Laughing Squid has details on Addis in his comprehensive post on the incident, including this fascinating tidbit: Addis portays Hunter S. Thompson in the one-man show "Gonzo." His arrest may put a crimp in plans to bring the show to the West Coast later this year. A photo of Addis on stage, after the jump.(Photo by Scott Beale / Laughing Squid)

Deathwatch: E for All videogame powwow implodes
The Electronic Entertainment Expo, the annual videogame trade show, was recently downsized from 60,000 attendees to a scant 3,000 or so. Why? Because exhibitors were sick of the exorbitant costs associated with putting together a booth in the cavernous Los Angeles Convention Center, and wanted an insidery event, not one open to all comers. Seeing a void left, IDG Entertainment, publisher of GamePro and the now defunct GameStar (a sort of Maxim for videogames), swooped in to host E For All. It's a public event, unlike the new E3's restricted-access gathering, and tickets for the four-day show go for $90. There's one problem: Exhibitors have no desire to attend. Every day the list of companies planning to avoid the show expands -- the number actually outnumbers confirmed exhibitors. So far Capcom, Microsoft, Midway, Sega, Sony Computer Entertainment of America, and Sony Online Entertainment have announced they will not attend. In fact the only confirmed, recognizable names are...

Exits: Google CFO George Reyes to retire
Does anyone really believe it's a coincidence that Google CFO George Reyes has announced his retirement so soon after the company missed Wall Street analysts' expectations for earnings in its second quarter? I only regret that I hadn't included Reyes in our ongoing "Toogle Many Googlers" series, in which Valleywag attempts to solve the binge of overhiring that led to Google's profit shortfall. After all, if the CFO isn't minding the payroll, who is? When reading these departing-executive press releases, just imagine that the fond farewells are in opposite-speak, and they begin to make sense.CEO Eric Schmidt says of Reyes:Though we fully appreciate his decision to step back from active management, we'll miss his thoughtfulness, good humor and wisdom.What he means:That Reyes sure made us laugh a lot, especially when he tried to make us plan budgets, didn't he?Google cofounder Larry Page adds:He has done an excellent job in keeping us financially disciplined while protecting the...

Spam: The Federal Trade Commission has realized ...
The Federal Trade Commission has realized that spammers may not be entirely truthful about the products they hawk. Really? So the agency is taking legal action. So far it's stopped Brian McDaid of Neutraceuticals from pimping diet pills and medications that don't actually work. [Techdirt]

Black Rock CIty: Burning Man arson suspect caught
BLACK ROCK CITY -- Around the charred yet still standing remains of The Man, the giant wooden statue literally at the center of the annual Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert, workers from the organizer's Department of Public Works are cordoning off the platform and pavilion on which The Man rests, preparing to salvage what they can. The plan is to rebuild the statue in time for Saturday's planned demolition. Soft weeping can be heard in the vicinity, as well as mumbled vows for vengeance. Since the whole point of the festival is the buildup to the official burn, last night's arson attempt is more than a disappointment to most. A few are cursing for a different reason, mostly because they have fostered intricate plans to burn The Man early for years now, but just never got around to pulling it off. Reportedly, the dastardly villain who torched the man was one Paul Addis, a well-known denizen of the San Francisco art scene, longtime Burner, and one heck of a loose cannon.The...

Chris Anderson: A drone debate leaves Wired's editor unmanned
Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail, blogger, and editor-in-chief of Wired, has a hobby that has confronted him with a dilemma. Anderson builds unmanned aerial vehicles -- also known as UAVs or "drones" -- and runs a UAV social network on Ning called DIYDrones.com. On that site, he shares his expertise in open-source fashion. Recently, Amir Aalipour, a resident of Tehran, proudly posted photos of his UAV sporting the Iranian flag that he built by following sources like DIYDrones.com. This alarmed and frightened the Wired editor. His knee-jerk reaction was not to seal up the windows with duct tape because a cloud of radioactive dust is going to descend from the jihadist's radio-controlled airplane and kill us all. No, Anderson's knee-jerk reaction was, instead, to worry that others would have that knee-jerk reaction, and put his hobby out of business.To be fair, Anderson has reason to worry about perceptions of his hobby. On the one hand, hobbyists' UAVs are slightly more...

Comments: "Vint Cerf adds weight to Google in the same ...
"Vint Cerf adds weight to Google in the same way that Whoopi Goldberg added mental tonnage to Flooz.com and Lee Majors added gravitas to Kozmo.com." -- GhostSites [Valleywag]

Online Video: Viacom, Google show indecision in legal battle
It's not odd at all for a media company to plug its properties on others. So there's nothing inherently surprising in video ads for Comedy Central's "Indecision 2008" appearing on political blog Talking Points Memo. Unless, that is, you're aware of the troublesome legal history between Viacom, the ad's purchaser, and Google, the company which placed the ad on Talking Points.Viacom and Google, last year, had agreed to experiment with distributing videos on Google's AdSense network, the system that Talking Points and other blogs use to carry ads. That trial, a Google spokesman told me earlier this year, had run its course and wasn't renewed -- unsurprising, as Google and Viacom revved up legal hostilities over charges of copyright infringement on Google's YouTube video site. That raises the question: Is this a one-off ad placement -- or a sign of detente between the online-video powers.

Careers: A Place For Mom, not for employees
The market for help in squirreling your folks away in some dingy nursing home is alive and kicking. A Place For Mom is a Web-based resource that helps you find a place to plunk unwanted elders. But the company that raised $9.5 million from Battery Ventures earlier this year apparently cares less for its employees than it does for senior citizens. Former and current A Place For Mom employees have bombarded a Seattle Post-Intelligencer blog entry about the service with complaints of poor pay. You'd think they worked in, say, a nursing home.

Quotable: "To try to sabotage him is completely wrong. ...
"To try to sabotage him is completely wrong. We wait all year long. This is an adult's Christmas party." -- Burning Man attendee Erica, on the attempted arson of the statue of The Man, the totem burnt in the Nevada desert at the end of the festival. [SFGate]

Breaking: The Man Burns Early
Black Rock City - It's Tuesday, and The Man is ON FIRE!! More as it happens!UPDATE: The fine Black Rock City FD has put the blaze out. You never saw so may hippies so conflicted.

Housekeeping: The return of CamelCase
If you're not a word nerd, you'll want to skip this post. But for those who pay attention to such matters, a few notes on style. Previous regimes at Valleywag have vociferously rejected CamelCase in company names, but I've reinstated it. While I cringe when I see people incorrectly capitalize the "W" in "Valleywag," I find it equally noisome when people write "Myspace" for "MySpace" or "Linked In" for "LinkedIn." With all due respect to my predecessors, I don't think it makes one look hip; I think, rather, that it makes you look clueless and lazy. Likewise, I'm breaking with the vile Luddite practice of lowercasing "Internet" and "Web," and insisting on their capitalization. Why?Because they're proper nouns. An "internet" is any interconnected network of networks; a "web," lowercased, is any connection of hyperlinked pages. The Internet, and the World Wide Web -- the ones we all connect to -- are the only ones we actually care about. If you insist on writing about "the internet,"...

Acquisitions: Why venture capitalists love your mom
On Sand Hill Road, MILF stands for "mothers I'd like to fund." The mommy-blog frenzy among venture capitalists will likely be fueled by Johnson & Johnson's acquisition of Maya's Mom, a social network for mommies. Johnson & Johnson already owns advice site BabyCenter, making Maya's Mom a logical add-on. It would all be innocuous news if Maya's Mom was not swaddled in controversy, thanks to TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington. Last April, Arrington wrote a brief but glowing review of Maya's Mom. In the original version of the post, he mentioned that founder Ann Crady Kennedy "is a former colleague and so my opinions may be favorably tinted." This disclosure was subsequently removed. Arrington was later accused of passing over a rival mommy network in favor of one he was more intimately acquainted with. Kennedy, of course, is now reaping the benefit of her ties to Arrington. And for the passed-over mommy sites? Don't worry. There's a lineup of venture capitalists waiting...

Comics: Steve Jobs and Bono explained
From cartoonist Hugh MacLeod, a concise explanation of why Apple CEO Steve Jobs keeps pushing his company deeper into the music business, and why rock star Bono has joined tech private-equity firm Elevation Partners.

Quotable: "When you see anything working, follow it ...
"When you see anything working, follow it as far and as quickly as you can. Uhm, we didn't even get to that stage because we were having trouble following other technology." -- Friendster CEO Kent Lindstrom, admitting that the once-pioneering social network he runs has trouble keeping up with competitors. The original Vator.tv video in which he made these comments has been yanked offline. Anyone keep a copy? Send it in. [Epicenter]

Social Networks: New Facebook app to link MySpace profiles
Recent University of North Carolina graduates Jess Martin and Drew Chen are launching a new Facebook application, SpaceLift, tomorrow. Martin and Chen write in an email: "See MySpace as you have never seen her before on Wednesday, August 29th. MySpace is about to undergo plastic surgery." Like many technically adept college grads, Martin is disdainful of MySpace, but he recognizes that it remains more popular than Facebook. On his blog, Martin posts that he's writing a Facebook app -- presumably SpaceLift -- to pull data from MySpace and "bridge the gap" between the two sites. Given the complaints that Facebook is turning to MySpace, Martin and Chen may well find that more people would rather burn that bridge than cross it.

File Sharing: After the Motion Picture Association of America ...
After the Motion Picture Association of America sued BitTorrent search engine TorrentSpy for copyright infringement, a federal court ordered the file-sharing searcher to log all user IP addresses and file traffic. To avoid violating its own privacy policy, TorrentSpy has instead opted to ban all US-based IP addresses. [TorrentFreak]

Blogging For Dollars: Boing Boing launches gadget blog
Does the world need yet another gadget blog? Probably not, but if we must endure one, it might as well be from Boing Boing, the venerable protoblog and "directory of wonderful things." While Boing Boing has featured a plethora of oddball gadgets over the years, its editors' tastes run to the esoteric. Boing Boing Gadgets, run by former Gizmodo editor Joel Johnson, promises to mix the offbeat with the mainstream. (Gizmodo, like Valleywag, is owned by Gawker Media.) Just one question: Does this bode an unseating for Dethroner, Johnson's own "lifestyle" blog?

Valleywag Jobs: Today in Valleywag Jobs
Looking to get out of your beleaguered startup? Check out at Valleywag Jobs: VP Sales & Marketing - Fuzzi Bunz, San Francisco, CA Marketing Analyst - AdBrite, San Francisco, CA Senior Software Developer - Tagged Inc., San Francisco, CA interactive design director - Confidential, memphis, TN PHP / Web Developer - Confidential, Atherton, CA Software Engineer - AdMob, San Mateo, CA...and moreFor only $25 your job could be here! Submit it today.

Search: CNN dumps Yahoo for Google
When Yahoo signed up CNN.com as an online-advertising customer in 2004, bumping out Google, it was seen as a victory that gave Yahoo's then-nascent search business a significant boost. Now, however, Google has reversed that loss, displacing Yahoo as both CNN's search tool and its keyword ads provider. CNN, one should note, is a division of Time Warner, a former investor in Google and a co-owner with Google of AOL. For Yahoo's search business, it's a staggering loss; for Google, a predictable victory.

I Hate It Here: Early risers are disgusting -- and disadvantaged
Peter Shankman -- "CEO, entrepreneur, adventurist" -- is a blogger and publicist running The Geek Factory, a NYC boutique PR and marketing firm. Shankman likes to think "a little more 'out there.'" He's "out there" all right. Shankman wakes up really, really early. I mean, disgustingly early. The publicist/blogger didn't always like mornings, and he knows it's insane, "but to be up and working this early has so many advantages," says Shankman. It also has its disadvantages.Shankman titles a blog post: "Sunrise: Not just for those who stayed up all night anymore..." Hmm, can this be? He has me baffled. He writes:Drives most people I know crazy, but I'm all about getting up at 4:30, 4:45am, and getting a jump on the day.This naturallly set off a running inner monologue. 4:30? Are you a farmer? You do realize it's just you, the other crazies, farmers, and farm animals, right? As a publicist and a blogger, you are missing the two prime times to socialize and network. In the late...

Clips: 5,000 Web apps in 333 seconds
Simple Spark, a directory of Web applications, is celebrating its 5,000th listing with a video displaying 5,000 web application logos in 333 seconds. Keep a close eye. The Web application logos flash on the screen and then disappear as fast as ... well, most Web applications.

Bloggers: Outraged that his New York Times salary funds ...
Outraged that his New York Times salary funds four separate family vacations a year, David Pogue's readers engage in class warfare in the comments of an otherwise innocuous, if anachronistic, blog post about hotel check-in kiosks. [Pogue's Post]

Great Moments In Advertising: Digg's targeted ad system is amazing!
No wonder Digg, the nerdly news-discussion site, is dumping Federated Media, John Battelle's online-ad network, as the source of its ads. Lately, FM has outdone itself in precisely targeting its clients' demographics. First, it delivered a $15 off coupon for midpriced casual clothing chain Fashion Bug for Michael Arrington's tech news site TechCrunch, perfect for that blog's target audience of middle-aged Midwestern moms. Now FM is displaying banner ads promoting the American Girl line of books and dolls whenever I visit Digg, as pictured in the screenshot above. John Battelle, how did you know I was completely obsessed with those books ... in fifth grade?Like, seriously obsessed. The way that Apple geeks are obsessed with Steve Jobs dolls, except with more hair-braiding. American Girl follows a specific formula -- create a plucky pre-teen character and set her in a romanticized historical setting. Model a matching doll with pretty hair, clothes, and accessories, sit back and...

Sad: Greg Stein, director of the Apache Software ...
Greg Stein, director of the Apache Software Foundation, an open-source nonprofit which makes Web-server software, was mugged. While already on crutches. Ouch. Supporters are taking up a collection. [Feedblog]

Breakdowns: Crystal Tower, the startup dorm, loses elevator service
Ever since Justin.tv moved in, Crystal Tower Apartments in San Francisco's Russian Hill neighborhood has gotten the reputation as a dorm for 20something startuppers. A recent elevator breakdown, now fixed, left some residents to hoof it all the way up the 12-story building. Justin.tv has moved out, but current residents include the entire staff of email startup Xobni and Web-page builder Weebly, as well as employees of Snipshot and Scribd. The connection? All four companies were backed by entrepreneur Paul Graham's Y Combinator incubator. And more are moving in soon, Weebly CEO David Rusenko says. The proximity is a bonus for the tightly networked group of companies -- but the elevator episode should be a sobering reminder to all of them of what happens when your startup has a single point of failure.

Craigslist: Would you pay extra to buy a Googler's bookshelf?
How much is having Google on your resumé worth? Apparently 20 percent more -- on your used bookshelf. On Craigslist, a white Ikea Expedit bookshelf, previously owned by a Google employee, is selling for $120. The ad even touts its "true Silicon Valley heritage." Meanwhile, at the far southern edge of the Silicon Valley metro area in Gilroy, Calif., a similar bookshelf is selling for a mere $100. Call it the Google premium.

Blogging For Dollars: Fake Michael Arrington launches CrunchFood
TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington's breathless writeups of Web 2.0 startups practically parody themselves. As does the incessant expansion of his "Crunch"-branded empire. But his overripe prose has met a near-perfect sendup in CrunchFood, a faux dot-comestibles blog written by a fake Michael Arrington. (Imagine that: a poser poseur.) CNNMoney's Jim Ledbetter writes, "Whoever is writing it has a seasoned grasp of Arrington's astonishing mixture of depth, conflicts of interest, timeliness, and hint of arrogance." A post about lemons and limes includes an obligatory disclosure about the fake Arrington's citrus-grove ownership. Whoever's behind it has a keen sense of irony. CNET, the tech publisher and particular Arrington bugaboo, has recently diversified into food writing. Given Arrington's knack for slavish imitation, could a real CrunchFood be so far off?

Quotable: Jason Calacanis in the first Read/WriteTalk ...
Jason Calacanis in the first Read/WriteTalk interview with Sean Ammirati: "I always look at entrepreneurs as samurai. It's a lonely pursuit at times and basically your life is to fight. And you get done with one fight. You clean the blood off your sword. You put it away. You walk 10 miles to another village. And then you got to clean up that village. A couple of people got to lose their arms. And then you clean the blood off your sword. You have a cup of tea and some rice. And then you walk to the next village. That's the metaphor I work under which is it's a war and you have to just be stoic. And you have to fight hard." What would executives do without the well-worn samurai metaphor to rationalize their coldblooded, mercenary behavior? [Read/WriteTalk]

Mysteries: What does Vint Cerf do at Google?
Vint Cerf, Google's Internet evangelist, really did invent the Internet. So we suppose it's okay for him to coast a little. But as with anyone with the word "evangelist" on his business card, we can't help but wonder what, exactly he does. A profile in the Times of London does little to clarify matters. Apparently Cerf worries about the security of Web browsers and operating systems -- never mind that Google doesn't make browsers or operating systems. Cerf got his job by emailing Google CEO Eric Schmidt and asking if he needed any help. Schmidt replied, "Yes." We're thinking Schmidt might be wondering now if he should have been more specific -- and if Cerf could be contributing to Google's little payroll problem.

Breaking: Burning Man statue burns -- a bit too early
BLACK ROCK CITY -- The entire point of Burning Man is, I'll remind the uninitiated, is to gather together in the desert to torch a giant wooden statue called, yes, The Man. But that's supposed to happen this weekend. It's 3 in the morning on Tuesday, and The Man is ON FIRE!! HOLY FUCKING MOTHER OF FUCK! More as it happens!Update: The fine Black Rock City Fire Department -- a volunteer organization, of course -- has put the blaze out. You never saw so may hippies so conflicted.

: HOLY FUCKIN MOTHER OF FUCK!
Black Rock City - It's Tuesday, and The Man is ON FIRE!! More as it happens!UPDATE: The fine Black Rock City FD has put the blaze out. You never saw so may hippies so conflicted.