That's because the social network has codified this new state of affairs right there into its written "Privacy Policy." A comparison of the new and old policies reveals this addition:

Certain categories of information such as your name, profile photo, list of friends and pages you are a fan of, gender, geographic region, and networks you belong to are considered publicly available to everyone, including Facebook-enhanced applications, and therefore do not have privacy settings. You can, however, limit the ability of others to find this information through search using your search privacy settings.

Facebook users have just begun to realize this is happening. Reuters' aggressive financial columnist Felix Salmon took note of this exciting new "privacy" feature when his critics on an investor website published a list of his Facebook friends, presumably for hate-mailing. Former Gawker editor Doree Shafrir blogged this morning about how her once-hidden friends, network and fan-page subscriptions have suddenly been published.

I've now set my privacy settings so that only friends can search me [and find out you're a fan of Howard Kurtz! Oy! -Ed.]…which seems sort of counterproductive to the whole enterprise, doesn't it?

Indeed it does, and it's scant protection: Shafrir's friends are still listed to strangers on her profile page, if you can find it. There's a way to turn this off, too, according to Salmon (see update to his column), but anyone who shares a friend with you will still be able to see all your friends (I'm looking at Salmon's now, and we're not friends).

Really, as gossip bloggers, we at Gawker should be happy about all this; it certainly makes it easier to hunt down people willing to confirm gossip about their acquaintances. And it's satisfying to have our conspiracy theories confirmed — and quoted by civil libertarians at the Electronic Frontier Foundation who, along with the ACLU, have raised serious objections these "privacy" changes.

But there's something maddening about watching Facebook bumble its way into another privacy debacle, one approaching in its disastrousness the launch of the Beacon advertising/stalking system a few years back. If only Facebook's investors agreed. But then they're not exactly a pack of civil liberties advocates, now are they?

(Top pic: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, by Simon Doggett)

"The CrunchPad is now in the DeadPool," writes TechCrunch founder Mike Arrington. "The entire project self destructed over nothing more than greed, jealousy and miscommunication... I'm enraged, embarrassed, and just…sad. "

It seems Arrington's supplier on the project, Fusion Garage, decided to cut TechCrunch out of the project, save for an "evangelism" role, and just sell the tablet itself. Arrington now says "multiple lawsuits" are a near-certainty. There's a lesson here for all the media companies looking to jump onto the tablet computing bandwagon: When you yourself know nothing about tech manufacturing, you will tend to get pushed into the backseat on any tech manufacturing project. Also: Never accept an award from Popular Mechanics.

(Image via)

Consultant "John" and Cornell Business School employee "Lisa" are both married, Guest of a Guest reports, though now that their pictures and email thread are being seen by the entire world those relationships are severely endangered. Blame John's denial fetish: without all that sexual teasing he so clearly relished, he might not have been "WAY TOO FUCKING HORNY" to think straight at work and properly operate Outlook or whatever.

The full email exchange, apparently copied under the leaked email, is an odd mix of sexual panting, taunting and discussion of the mistress' children (who John apparently met) and their eating habits. It's pasted below, but here are some highlights, via Guest of a Guest:

(Top pic: Fredonino on Flickr)

Full thread:

From: John >

Date: November 6, 2009

To: Lisa >, $JSEvents >

Subject: RE:

Thanks! Tell him Hi right back at him when ya see him later!

Hey, can you re-send me that link to the article about Obama, and the one world, NWO? I misplaced the link to that, and hadn't finished reading it yet.

GOD, I can't stop feeling like you're tickling me, and I can't stop TASTING you!!! This is all VERY DISTRACTING!!! :)

From: Lisa

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 1:58 PM

To: John

Subject: RE:

Trevor wanted me to be sure to tell you hi he's up here with me today or around here somewhere (I think he took the bus up to the mall).

From: John

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 1:56 PM

To: Lisa

Subject: RE:

Ha! At the very LEAST!!! :)

From: Lisa

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 1:55 PM

To: John

Subject: RE:

That's how I hope to go, only to be revived so we could do it all over again. I guess that would mean doing it TWICE!!!!!!!!!!

From: John

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 1:54 PM

To: Lisa

Subject: RE:

Ha! Yes, my thoughts exactly!

Tickled and licked and orgasmed to death!!! :)

From: Lisa

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 1:34 PM

To: John

Subject: RE:

I don't think you will either (she said with a devilishly shy grin), but what a way to go.;-)

From: John

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 1:32 PM

To: Lisa

Subject: RE:

GOOD LORD HAVE MERCY ON ME!!!

And by this method, you bring me right to the edge of release, over and over and over again, yet each time I'm denied,and fiendishly tickled even more???

I don't think I'll survive!!! :)

From: Lisa

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 1:23 PM

To: John

Subject: RE:

I see me sitting in your lap straddling, really.facing you with my legs draped over your restrained arms and then wrapped around you and your chair holding you in place you're pinned and unable to move. I'm leaning back ever so slightly with my hands braced on your desk, helping me to grind my pussy against you.

From: John

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 1:21 PM

To: Lisa

Subject: RE:

OH DEAR GOD HELP ME!!!

You are pushing buttons that are getting me WAY TOO FUCKING HORNY for being stuck at work!!!

And just WHAT am I supposed to do now??? I can practically FEEL your torturous little fingernails flitting across my stomach, and they're making me ACHE with the desire for RELEASE!!! :)

From: Lisa

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 1:07 PM

To: John

Subject: RE:

I have visions of strutting into your office in nothing but a trench coat and CFM heels locking the door duct taping your hands to the arms of your chair teasing your with my nails and tongue, tickling, poking, prodding..and then straddling your rock hard cock. Only to stop just seconds before you cum..and start all over again.

From: John

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 1:03 PM

To: Lisa

Subject: RE:

Ha! Again, I SECOND that motion! (No pun intended!!! :))

From: Lisa

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 1:02 PM

To: John

Subject: RE:

Yep, that sounds EXACTLY like something I would do.forget twice, I'd be doing it over and over and over and over again!!!

and I'd give anything to be doing exactly that right now!

From: John

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 1:00 PM

To: Lisa

Subject: RE:

Yeah, you are CERTAINLY THAT for me also Baby! And I second the motion on time to hold you in my arms.

I think about the time spent on your couch often, in that regard. Plus, I also recall looking deep into your eyes, touching your face, and kissing you SO DEEPLY

And I also recall your naughty little hands getting very playful, snaking their way down my shirt to tickle!!! :)

From: Lisa

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 12:57 PM

To: John

Subject: RE:

AMEN to that sweetie.you are my ounce of sanity in a very insane world right now .thank you so very much for that.I just wish I could spend more time hiding in the safety of your arms..

From: John

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 12:55 PM

To: Lisa

Subject: RE:

Yeah, me too!

And you are CERTAINLY THAT for me also Baby, among many other wonderful things! :)

From: Lisa

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 12:51 PM

To: John

Subject: RE:

(I like the private porn star best of all hehehehehe)

From: John

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 12:48 PM

To: Lisa

Subject: RE:

ALL OF THE ABOVE BABY!!! :)

From: Lisa

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 12:46 PM

To: John

Subject: RE:

I knew I could count on you!!! You're my hero!!!! My knight in shining armor!!! My private porn star!!!!!

From: John

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 12:44 PM

To: Lisa

Subject: RE:

OH, I can SERIOUSLY help you with both of those Baby, don't worry!

And I will be SO FUCKING HORNY after I get done SPANKING that FINE ASS of yours for hours, you'll be FULL for a week after you swallow me! And I hear that CUM is an excellent source of protein, as well as other nutrients!!! :)

From: Lisa

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 12:39 PM

To: John

Subject: RE:

Because more than half the time, I'm actually just fixing for just Jake as Trevor has already eaten half the house by the time I get home. And the minute we come in the door, Jake is heading straight for his highchair and wanting fed before I even have my coat off. So I fix him something quick (grilled cheese, omelet, etc.). Or over the weekend I'm make a big pot of something so we can have leftovers, which Jake and Trevor don't mind, but I get sick of them within a day or two and resort back to popcorn.I'm bad, I know.I think I need a good spanking.and to be put on my knees and force fed.

From: John

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 12:34 PM

To: Lisa

Subject: RE:

Well, the my willing to feed you part goes without saying Baby!

So when you're fixing dinner for Trevor and Jake, why don't you just make enough for you also?

From: Lisa

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 12:30 PM

To: John

Subject: RE:

It's the same thing I had yesterday honey.truth be told, I really don't eat very well anymore. I'm so busy with Jake that I don't have much time to fix anything decent for myself it's easier for me to fix him and Trevor dinner and then throw a bag of popcorn in the microwave for myself.BUT, if you're willing to feed me, I'm willing to swallow each and every time!

From: John

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 12:27 PM

To: Lisa

Subject: RE:

Leftover chicken from last night. And a diet Mountain Dew!

A bagel is your lunch??? You need to CUM up here more often to I can feed you properly!!! :)

From: Lisa

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 12:25 PM

To: John

Subject: RE:

A bagel and a soda.what are you having?

From: John

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 12:24 PM

To: Lisa

Subject: RE:

Ha! I hear ya!

What's for lunch today?

From: Lisa

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 12:16 PM

To: John

Subject: RE:

.I'm just sitting here eating my lunch and giggling at this whole conversation, we just crack me up!!!

From: John

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 12:15 PM

To: Lisa

Subject: RE:

Yes, you CERTAINLY WOOD Baby!!! :)

From: Lisa

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 12:01 PM

To: John

Subject: RE:

I'd have you up in the front seat right next to me.and although my car is an automatic, I do know how to drive a stick shift.and I'd be sure to have a stick to shift on my way home.

From: John

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 11:59 AM

To: Lisa

Subject: RE:

Ha! EXACTLY where I was going with this sweetie! See, we are on the same wavelength, as usual!

You have me in the back of your car right now, tied up in the back seat. And you're sitting on me, giggling and tickling, giving me sort of a preview of what I can expect when you get me home! And I am sitting here SO FUCKING HARD from thinking about this!!! :)

From: Lisa

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 11:54 AM

To: John

Subject: RE:

That depends on your definition of concerned But if I'm lurking in the dark to get you then conversely, you could be lurking in the dark to get me and just the mere thought of that doesn't concern me, but makes me very wet.

From: John

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 11:52 AM

To: Lisa

Subject: RE:

Ha! Too funny Lisa!

So let's see you like bats, the dark, and the idea of tying me up, kidnapping me, and then mercilessly tickle torturing me!

Should I be concerned??? :)

From: Lisa

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 11:49 AM

To: John

Subject: RE:

LOLOLOL.see, even the powers that be knew how much I liked the dark, so they just shut power of .sadly it came back on which is just as well, cause I was too far away from your desk any way!

From: John

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 11:21 AM

To: Lisa

Subject: RE:

Ha! Oh? And why is that??? :)

From: Lisa

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 11:07 AM

To: John

Subject: RE:

That's on my schedule for Monday.first thing.actually, if Don leaves Sunday night, I'll be making a night time raid.after all, I work best after dark.

From: John

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 11:05 AM

To: Lisa

Subject: RE:

Ha! What was it you said to me last week? Something about tying me up and taking me home, never to be seen again??? :)

From: Lisa

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 10:56 AM

To: John

Subject: RE:

You're sooooo willing.one of the many admirable traits I find so endearing about you.

From: John

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 10:54 AM

To: Lisa

Subject: RE:

OK!!! :)

From: Lisa

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 10:53 AM

To: John

Subject: RE:

Let me cum up there and feel ya.I need to see for myself.

From: John

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 10:52 AM

To: Lisa

Subject: RE:

AT LEAST!!! The way I'm feeling right now!!! :)

From: Lisa

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 10:50 AM

To: John

Subject: RE:

Yes it would.at least twice!

From: John

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 10:50 AM

To: Lisa

Subject: RE:

That'll work!!! :)

From: Lisa

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 10:48 AM

To: John

Subject: RE:

I'd do a private showing for you babe.just you, me, and your lap.

From: John

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 10:47 AM

To: Lisa

Subject: RE:

Only if YOU'RE dancing there Baby!!! :)

From: Lisa

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 10:44 AM

To: John

Subject: RE:

You and me both baby.so any big bachelor plans for the weekend?? Kumas? (hehehehe.)

From: John

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 10:43 AM

To: Lisa

Subject: RE:

Don't I wish!!! :)

From: Lisa

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 10:06 AM

To: John

Subject: RE:

It (and me) are only a bus ride away.

From: John

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 10:05 AM

To: Lisa

Subject: RE:

Wow! I just LOVE that idea! And it would require no extra seasoning, seeing as how it would have your savory juices all over it!!! :)

From: Lisa

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 10:01 AM

To: John

Subject: RE:

Uh,a bright blue thong.if you want more specifics you;ll have to just see it for yourself.it could be your lunch;-)

From: John

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 9:59 AM

To: Lisa

Subject: RE:

Well, be specific please!!! :)

From: Lisa

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 9:57 AM

To: John

Subject: RE:

A thong of course.

From: John

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 9:56 AM

To: Lisa

Subject: RE:

That sounds VERY SEXY to me!!! What kind of panties do you have on??? :)

From: Lisa

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 9:53 AM

To: John

Subject: RE:

I really hate the weekends anymore, how pathetic is that?!!?

On another note, I look like a damn schoolgirl today. Jake was up at 5:15 this morning and full of piss and vinegar so I had very little time to get ready. My hair's up in a pony tail and I've got on sneakers, jeans, and a sweatshirt.

From: John

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 9:51 AM

To: Lisa

Subject: RE:

My thoughts EXACTLY Baby!!! :)

From: Lisa

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 9:50 AM

To: John

Subject: RE:

Damn.wish I could be a bachelorette this weekend!

From: John

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 9:49 AM

To: Lisa

Subject: RE:

Ha! That's it exactly!

That was a GOOD ONE Lisa! Thanks! I'm going to start calling them that!!! :)

From: Lisa

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 9:47 AM

To: John

Subject: RE:

So you get to be a bachelor this weekend, just you and the kamikaze birds.

From: John

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 9:45 AM

To: Lisa

Subject: RE:

Hard to say, my wife is on her way down there now, and the family is divided on what to do at this point.

From: Lisa

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 9:43 AM

To: John

Subject: RE:

How's your mother-in-law? This must be such a difficult time for all concerned.

From: John

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 9:42 AM

To: Lisa

Subject: RE:

Yeah, me too! I thought about you bunches yesterday!!! :)

From: Lisa

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 9:41 AM

To: John

Subject: RE:

Glad you're back. I've missed you for sure. but then again, I'm always missing you!

From: John

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 9:38 AM

To: Lisa

Subject: RE:

Hi Baby!

Much better, thanks! Here at work now.

From: Lisa

Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 8:33 AM

To: John Wilson

Subject:

Good morning sweetheart.you've been MUCH on my mind this morning. I'm worried and anxious to hear how you're doing this morning.

The minor fire at Google quickly turned into a real-life re-enactment of that Onion video, "Police Slog Through 40,000 Insipid Party Pics To Find Cause of Dorm Fire" (see below). Luckily, we have Twitter to sort through the pictures, along with the editors at PaidContent. Google intern Jed Christiansen tweeted that the fire started in a fifth-floor barbecue; he presumably heard this second hand since, as his picture below indicates, he was in a pub at the time. Not like the fellow who "narrowly escaped death."

In addition to copious photos, the best of which are collected below, the tweeting masses have also come up with plenty of jokes, including "Let's hope they had a good firewall" (groan!) and, our favorite, "Employees searching for a fire extinguisher found 1.4 million results."

By Google software engineer Nicholas Roard.

Via noileum on Twitter.

Roard finagles an iPhone picture while fleeing in terror. Excellent! (via PaidContent, since removed from Roard's Twitter stream.)

Google intern Christian's shot of the pub, after the fire brooke out.

Pub, part 2.

Smoky haze outside, by Berian Reed. Now that's a BBQ!

The grill is finally tamed. David Sim.

Something like this has happened before. The last time we checked in with the Yahoo-owned site, it had irreversibly deleted 1,200 of a paying user's photos for posting excessive comments on the White House Flickr stream. To console the user, Flickr offered a $25 gift card, but that was it; Yahoo customer service VP Heather Champ told the user it was impossible to retrieve old photos, implying the site had no backups.

Now comes Morgan Tepsic, a photographer and soon-to-be art student in Taipei, Taiwan who said he spent "thousands of dollars" developing the photos in his paid Flickr account. A hacker — sounds like an old flame, perhaps — somehow joined a hotmail account to his Flickr account, then nuked his photos. Tepsic aruges, persuasively, that Flickr should have done more to protect his account, at the very least emailing him to confirm the Hotmail account or at least the account termination. Instead, he says he woke up to these three emails:

1. [redacted]@hotmail.com has been added to your account!

2. Your password has been changed!

3. Your account has been terminated!

Flickr support was a nightmare; at one point Tepsic was told Flickr had no phones, an assertion quickly disproved using Flickr itself (in a photo captioned "Too many phones... at Flickr HQ"). Last weekend we sent Yahoo questions about Tepsic's case and more generally about its backup procedures. Monday a Yahoo spokesperson said the company was looking into our query; we still haven't heard back.

If the struggling internet company wants to retain its paying Flickr customers, and compete with photo-saturated Facebook, it should be more careful with customer data. And Flickr users, of course, should emphatically back up their stuff. Keeping data in "the cloud" isn't all its cracked up to be.

(Pic: Taken at Flickr HQ, by Daniel Catt)

From the Guardian:

About 200 youngsters showed up, not all of them intent on behaving themselves.



Up to 70 police officers from two forces, including dog handlers and a helicopter team, were needed to break up the party,

Keep in mind that the teenagers who organized the event didn't even include their address in the invitation, and had the apparent cooperation of parents. But Facebook + teenagers + alcohol = "Lads were jumping over the fence from other gardens and we ended up with about 150 in our garden," as one of the parents put it.

Far better is something with some built-in social friction, like a written invitation, or a painful-to-use website like, say, eVite!

(Pic: A prior Facebook riot, which erupted last year, started as a "small private gathering" to drink cocktails on the London tube. Getty Images.)

The AltaRock project north of San Francisco is hardly Google's first foray into electricity production; the company has hydroelectric projects scattered across the country.

But AltaRock is special, what with its capacity for triggering deadly seismic activities. With investors like Google, Kleiner Perkins and the federal government, it's no wonder the company has, according to the New York Times, denied an inconvenient truth: that a similar geothermal project in Basel, Switzerland "set off an earthquake, shaking and damaging buildings and terrifying many" in December 2006, according to Swiss government seismologists cited by the Times.

And, yes, it could happen here:

Seismologists have long known that human activities can trigger quakes, but they say the science is not developed enough to say for certain what will or will not set off a major temblor.

It's been easy for politicians to convince themselves that what's good for Google — a high-paying employer that doesn't make its money polluting — is good for their communities. That's an assumption they may have to shake off.

[Times]

An unrepentant Yahoo won't say what, exactly, Johnson did wrong. His comments were about Barack Obama's support of a bill allowing the government to suppress torture photos. They were attached to seemingly relevant images from the president's recent trip to Cairo to ring in a new era of U.S.-Middle Eastern relations.

"I thought, this is an opportunity I can use to let the administration know how I feel about some of its policies," Johnson told us in a phone interview.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.The Virginia man's initial 10 or so comments, which went up Wednesday night, were deleted without explanation by Friday. That night, Johnson posted roughly ten more to different White House photos, this time linking in another Flickr user's Abu Ghraib picture, as allowed by Flickr's comment formatting (see Johnson's reproduction of his comment, left, taken from his post to freedom-of-information hub Cryptome).

In the midst of this second round of commenting, Johnson found his account was gone. There had been no warning of any sort from Yahoo, he said. Johnson would later work his way up Flickr's customer service tree, eventually leaving a message for the vice president of customer service and other bigwigs. He even left a message for Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz — a noted fan of frank discourse — on Bartz's home answering machine.

Johnson, who lives outside Richmond, still has no answers. More crucially, he also doesn't have access to any of the 1,200 pictures he uploaded to Flickr under his paid "Pro" membership. Many of the pics, he said, were "completely irretrievable — I didn't back them up on any disks, I just spur-of-the-moment loaded it up and deleted the flash" memory originals.

Asked about all this, Yahoo issued us a statement (see below) saying its policies prevented it from discussing Johnson's account and pointing us to Flickr's community guidelines.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.But if the company expects people to move their data to its servers, via sites like Flickr and Yahoo Mail, it's going to have to do better than that. Users won't feel safe moving their data into Yahoo's "cloud" if it can vanish without a trace with no warning.

Similarly, Flickr's user base of photographers is notoriously sensitive to any hint of censorship, so the company would be well-advised to come up with a coherent explanation for why the most powerful man in the world needs to be so ruthlessly protected against a slightly aggressive internet commenter. Where's Carol Bartz's straight talk when you need it?

[via Cryptome] [top image by vanson on Flickr]

Flickr statement:

In accordance with Flickr's policy, we cannot disclose information to third parties concerning a member's account. However, in joining Flickr, all of our members agree to abide by our Community Guidelines. These guidelines require that all of our members be respectful of the community and flag content that may not be suitable for "safe" viewing. Our members have always done a great job of identifying inappropriate and offensive content on Flickr and bringing it to our attention. We encourage all members to continue to make Flickr a safe place to share photos and videos.


Flickr is a very large community made up of many types of members from all over the world, and we respect the viewpoints and expressions of all of our members. In crafting the Community Guidelines, Flickr weighed the rights of the individual vs. the rights of the overall community, and built a system that would enable members to choose what they want to view. As with any community, online or off, there are members who may disregard the Community Guidelines. When this happens, Flickr may have to take action accordingly towards building a respectful community. For more information: http://www.flickr.com/guidelines.gne

It came via Twitter! The microblogging service is notorious for its downtime, but is thus far holding up like a real trouper. Wonders never cease.

UPDATE: The social news network is back. For now.

The newspaper probably wouldn't need to go begging for special favors from the search engine if it simply ran its Web operations with basic technical competence. Instead, the Times murdered the website of the International Herald Tribune tonight.

The goal was to fold iht.com into nytimes.com. Fair enough; combining the two sites could have resulted in more juice for the newspaper under Google's PageRank algorithm by combining the strong reputations of the two major newspaper sites.

But the Times executed wrong. Instead of redirecting old iht.com links to the same stories on the new nytimes.com server, it simply redirected all content to the same new landing page. When you click through the landing page, you end up not on the story you were looking for, but on the general global.nytimes.com homepage.

So instead of having 993,000 IHT hits in Google, as the search engine now estimates, the Times will soon have just one. For example, a search on the word "paris" within iht.com brings up 588,000 hits; they all appear to end up on the same general homepage, and thus will be collapsed together by Google.

The Times' longtime online chief, Martin Niesenholtz, recently whined that a Google search on the word "Gaza" didn't include any of his content on the first results page. And yet he just nuked 121,000 of his own articles containing that keyword.

That doesn't sound like the behavior of a self-improving, down-and-out newspaper exec but of a self-destructive long-term welfare recipient. As a certain newspaper put it 16 years ago, those sorts of people do themselves and their dependents "little good" and are the marker of a system that "isn't working very well." Google should tell the Times to take its own advice and fix its own systemic problems before asking for endless handouts.

1. The Dramatic Opening Scene:

2. Bar Scene One: Tucker Max Has A Way With Women And Dudes Better Not Give Him Any Shit Bro:

3. Bar Scene Two: Tucker Max Can Steal Your Sorostitute You Dumb Frat Boy So Watch Out Bro:

If we have the stomach, we'll bring you more lowlights soon bro!

In fact, since details of Decker's plan leaked last week, Yang has little to say about them at all except to insist that Patel get the gig. This despite vocal protests presumably similar to the one we got from commenter bluepurple:

I'm appalled a the above comments implying that Ash is even remotely qualified. In my time he was focused on looking the part of an executive. Flashy car - check, Steve Jobs uniform - check, ridiculously expensive watch - check. He's unable to inspire, is a terribly unfocused speaker, and had no concept of how to execute. His teams were mostly shuffling around throwing out words like "platform" and "innovation". He was a non-factor at Yahoo. Placing Ash (who was not part of Weiner's team) in such a large role is clearly Sue seizing control of the entire company. Ash is just a stand in.

Entities who probably didn't bomb PayPal

• The Decepticons: A transformer was the suspected cause earlier, but word is this was a bomb.
• Cat from Zero Wing: While "somebody set us up the bomb," PayPal's employees were uninjured, so they in fact had chance to survive make their time. Furthermore, all their base still belong to them.
• Someone who got back eBay feedback: That's not PayPal's department, stupid.
• PayPal co-founder Max Levchin: Too busy running startups and getting photographed for BusinessWeek.
• Competitive force from Google Checkout: Google only attacks with lasers.

Blast at PayPal forces evacuation of 26 employees [Mercury News]
Earlier: EBay building bombed: Exclusive IMs from an eBayer inside the building [Valleywag]

A live TV report from last night is available at KRON 4. If you have any information, photos, or first-hand accounts, e-mail tips@valleywag.com. A reader sends the following IM conversation they had with an eBay employee in the building.

My friend was working late at eBay tonight when there was a large explosion within the building.

Here's the breaking news story:
Firefighters Respond to Explosions within eBay Building

And here's the IM thread of them telling me a few minutes ago.

friend-at-ebay: http://www.nbc11.com/news/10205869/detail.html

me: wft?
you there?

friend: Crazy shit! A bunch of us were there working late and all of a sudden BOOOOOOM!!!!
I ran outside looking for a plane crash.
But is from inside the building. Some are saying it was a transformer.
Windows were blown out.

me: top floor? basement? or somewhere in between?

friend: Bottom floor hallways were filled with smoke. I had to run through the buildings and yell for people to evacuate because....get this...
There were no fricking fire alarms to pull.

More after the jump.

me: no fire alarms?

friend: The bomb squad and hazmat are on site searching the buildings.

friend: Yeah. Crazy. Couldn't find one anywhere. And I looked high and low.

me: everybody OK afauk?

friend: Yeah...no injuries.
Just a lot of rattled nerves.

=== 45 minutes later ==

friend: Whoa. It was a bomb.
http://cbs5.com/local/local_story_305004735.html
Man, I never even considered that. I ran over there straight past the location of the bomb and was just thinking about making sure everyone was okay.

me: wonder if it was Halloween punk kids. office near anything residential?
friend: Dude...it was a huge explosion.
friend: Rattled all the buildings on campus.