Towards beauty, what is pain?

Today was my first day at TechCrunch and I am absolutely thrilled to be writing and breaking news about emerging technologies.  I love what this company is doing and I love all my coworkers (except for Mike Arrington, who is a monster*).

I’ve enjoyed helping the SF Weekly grow online as its Web Editor and I couldn’t have made so much progress without the help and support of Tom Walsh, Will Harper, Andy Wright, John Boitnott and an amazing editorial and production team, not to mention the superb Bill Jensen, Erin Broadley and countless friends, to whom I’ll always be thankful for their guidance and faith.

Together we made SFWeekly.com a destination, a place that San Franciscans continue go to as an essential source of news and entertainment, and we should all be proud. I hope you will continue to follow my newest adventures.
 
Many many thanks to old friends and new,
 
 
Alexia
 
 
* FOR THOSE WHO DO NOT UNDERSTAND MY SENSE OF HUMOR, I AM JOKING HERE.

[Via Gizmodo]

Featuring Darth Jobs dueling Microsoft’s Bill Gates with a lightsaber, tasering Gizmodo’s Jason Chen, slicing the fingers off an iPhone 4 user (“If the hand doesn’t block the phone, there would be no problem.”), and manifesting hologram-style to an enthralled press at Thursday’s Cupertino event, this Taiwanese animation might just be the most accurate telling of the iPhone 4 saga yet. I’m not even going to get into the really disturbing depiction of the Foxconn suicides.

Here’s to the future of media.

Follow me on Twitter at @alexia.

Photo: Mbaratz

Most interesting tidbit from Clair Cane Miller’s “Techmeme Provides Tech News at Internet Speed”:

“Now that Twitter serves as a broadcast platform, Techmeme plans to include cogent 140-character Twitter posts written by influential people as headlines.”

If Techmeme decided to include influential tweets in its headlines, therefore giving them the same value as more labor intensive articles and posts, it could change the game for a lot of bloggers and possibly Twitter itself.

Will we start seeing Twitter accounts rise in the ranks of the Techmeme leaderboard?

In any case … Congrats guys!

Follow me on Twitter at @alexia.

Human Centipede Cat Toy via Etsy/Maya Baratz

[Via Failblog, what else?]

Follow me on Twitter at @alexia.

Fuck.

Judging by this CGI rendering of an asteroid’s impact on Earth, there would be at least a couple hours between initial hit and total world destruction; i.e. poisonous gases and heat traveling to the other side of the planet. It’s safe to say that the rates of condom usage would fall immensely.

Happy Father’s Day.

Follow me on Twitter at @alexia.

Is it just me or do the words “Internet,” “Kill” and “Switch” strung together in this Zdnet headline send chills down your spine? Okay former almost Vice-President Joe Lieberman, you’re kidding right? Please tell me you’re kidding. Because if you believe the U.S. government (an organization that most likely prints out emails because most higher-ups “don’t like to click on links”) should have online override in times of national emergency then you clearly don’t understand the nature of the current revolution in human communication.

The Internet exists, primarily and inherently, and especially in the case of corporate behemoths like BP, to keep absolute power in check, because absolute power supposedly corrupts absolutely. Giving the government a monopolistic “kill switch” on this now ubiquitous socially mediated system of checks and balances is just weird, cc: @JoeLieberman.

Any company on a list created by Homeland Security that also “relies on” the internet, the telephone system or any other component of the US “information infrastructure” would be subject to command by a new National Center for Cybersecurity and Communications (NCCC) that would be created inside Homeland Security.

What company *doesn’t* rely on the Internet or the telephone system? This stricture basically means “We have the power to shut down all your online communications, whoever you are,” — A statement which seems disproportionate considering the fact that the government spends more on military annually than the market cap of Google and Apple combined. If the country’s most viable protection in times of crisis is the conceptual equivalent of unplugging a lot of computers then yes, yes, you’re doing it wrong U.S. government.

To sweeten the deal for industry groups, Lieberman has included a tantalizing offer absent from earlier drafts: immunity from civil lawsuits. If a software company’s programming error costs customers billions, or a broadband provider intentionally cuts off its customers in response to a federal command, neither would be liable.

Immunity from civil lawsuits? Is it just me, or do the words “sweeten the deal for industry groups” give you the creeps? Here’s to this never, ever, ever, passing. I’ve never been such a proponent of the, however vaguely and awkwardly phrased, stiff opposition.

Follow me on Twitter at @alexia.

His calls probably get dropped as much as anybody else's.

A parable:

One night a man had a dream. He dreamed he was walking along the beach with Steve Jobs. Across his iPad flickered scenes from his life. As each scene transitioned he noticed two sets of footprints in the sand. One belonging to him and the other to Jobs.

When the last scene of his life flashed before him, he looked back at the footprints in the sand. He noticed that many times along the path there was only one set of footprints. He also noticed that it coincided with the very lowest and saddest scenes of his life.

This really bothered him and he questioned Jobs about it. “Steve, you said that once I decided to follow you, you’d walk with me all the way. But I have noticed that during the most troublesome times in my life there is only one set of footprints. I don’t understand why when I needed you most you would leave me.”

Jobs replied, “My precious, precious child, I love you and I would never leave you! During your times of trial and suffering when you see only one set of footprints, that was when AT&T dropped you.“

#goosebumps

[Context here: Also, check out the cute little footsteps that follow your cursor.]

While the rest of us were out “networking,” Valleywag Ryan Tate spent his Friday night drinking and emailing with Steve Jobs about — among other things — whether Bob Dylan invented the word “revolution,” whether porn should be free, and something about how shitty Flash is.

I’m not going to get into any of that.

What is most striking about the after-midnight emails is how abruptly the thread ends, with Jobs,  possibly the most culturally influential person alive, asking Tate, a blogger at the beginning of a promising career:

“Btw. What have you done that’s so great? Do you create anything or just criticize others work and belittle their motivation?”

Oh BTW!

Sorry Steve, didn’t know you were in some sort of existential pissing match with humanity. Sure you envisioned the iPad or whatever, but I just quit smoking and filled out my census form.

Okay so ontologically I’ve got nothing on the tech and media mogul. But maybe you do? In any case what would you answer?

(And please put ‘em in the comments, I’m compiling the best ones for a Sfweekly post.)

Follow me on Twitter at @alexia and @sfweekly.