Hope Sergei and Larry and Eric and all the rest of the Googlers and Nooglers are having a spiffing time out on the Playa. For everyone else, there’s this:
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FTP: Now That’s What I Call A Burn
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What Do Google and Gangsters Have In Common?
The idea that Google and Gangsters have some things in common is cautiously expressed in a fascinating article from Makeshift Magazine, which quotes from a book “The Misfit Economy”. Forbes introduces it with their own article and headline, highlighting Makeshift and the revolutionary new movement called “Maker” … Continue reading
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Naked Capitalism Bursts the Bubble
A great story from Naked Capitalism by Lambert Strether: Has the Burning Man Bubble Burst? It’s worth reading in its entirety, they’ve broken down the Tin Principles. Even if you don’t agree with their interpretation, they bring up some great things … Continue reading
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Silk Road Move Over, a New Bazaar Is In Town
WIRED magazine has a report on Agora, the new online drug bazaar “marketplace of anything”. It is based on Agorism, a philosophy that a free, stateless society can be achieved via disruptive market means. Forget counter-culture, that meme jumped the … Continue reading
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“If You’re 35 And Poor You Deserve It”
So says Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba.com, which went public last Friday in the biggest IPO in history. His stock, whose largest shareholder is the Billionaire Burner-founded company Yahoo, had a healthy 38% “first day pop”, though it was soon eclipsed … Continue reading
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Creating God In The Digital Age [Updates]
We’re building an artificial god. A digitally constructed consciousness simulator, with sensors absorbing all the world’s data, monitoring and tracking our every move, connected to hundreds of acres of powerful computer farms running Artificial Intelligence algorithms. Ask Siri “are you listening?”, and … Continue reading
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Ello is AfrikaBurn, Twitter is Burning Man
The UK’s Telegraph has an article comparing Burning Man with the rise of the social media network Ello (I’m @zos). It seems social media has become full of squares and obsessed with monetization; so the cool kids are looking for something new. … Continue reading
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Saving The World With Apps
This year Open Garden’s Firechat smartphone app debuted at Burning Man. Although it was just another of dozens of uses for smartphones at the festival, it seems its peer-to-peer networking may become the foundation infrastructure of an “Asian Spring” political revolution. Firechat … Continue reading
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“I’m Up For A Sherpa Myself”
CBS News did a video story on “Silicon Valley Elite Accused of Ruining Burning Man”. Larry insists that they’re not, that people have been saying “Burning Man is ruined” since the beginning, and in fact every demographic migration enriches the culture. So … Continue reading
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Deep History of Drugs
Benjamin Breen at The Appendix has written this fascinating overview of the scientific discovery of illicit drugs. It’s concise, rather than comprehensive, but it makes for a good Sunday read. It skips Ecstasy, which was invented by pharmaceutical giant Merck just before World War … Continue reading
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Geeks On Ice [Update]
Slashdot brings us a story about An Algorithm To End The Lines For Ice At Burning Man: Any gathering of 65,000 people in the desert is going to require some major infrastructure to maintain health and sanity. At Burning Man, … Continue reading
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Behind The Scenes At A Sound Camp
MC2 Audio has a story about what goes into the sound at Ooligan Alley. It’s heavy on technical details, which will be interesting to some readers. A team from the UK brought out a serious system, featuring 12 Funktion1 speakers and … Continue reading
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AirBnB CEO on the Sharing Economy
McKinsey and Company is an ultra-high end management consulting firm. They help set the direction for the Fortune 500, and their advice in the past has included Burning Man as an example of “how to excite your customers”. They’ve just published … Continue reading
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2014: Year of the Silk Road 2.0
Earlier this year, we reported on the arrest of Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, who was nabbed in a public library in the Mission, a few blocks from BMHQ. We wondered if Burning Man’s “Caravansary” theme was an attempt to cash in on … Continue reading
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What’s In My Baggie?
Be careful Burners. That Molly might be Bath Salts. “Molly is the moonshine of today”. As the documentary shows, what people think they’re taking, may not be what they’re really consuming at all. A recent Reddit thread discussed how a Burner … Continue reading
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A Carnival of Smoke and Mirrors
The new theme has been announced. As per the rumor we leaked on November 16, it’s circus-related: This year’s theme is about mirrors and masks, mazes and merger. It will be a kind of magic show that takes the form of … Continue reading
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What’s In A Name?
Burning Man. What is it? A rave in the desert? An arts festival? A Temporary Autonomous Zone? An experiment in new ways of living together as a community, relying on each other to survive, without the trappings and comforts of … Continue reading
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Gifting To Create a World of Plenty
It’s nice to be able to write a positive story about goodness. Free goodness coming to this community and the world, thanks to the generosity and innovation of Burners. One of the great things about Burning Man is if you need … Continue reading
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Submission to NZ Venture Capital Fund Bill
Today I was invited by the New Zealand Parliament to address their Finance and Expenditure Committee about my submission to the 2019 Venture Capital Fund Bill. Here’s my submission: There were a dozen submissions in total. I was pleased to … Continue reading
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