Much rides on Coates's tail. His previous boss, Salim Ismail, was fired, in part due to Fire Eagle's delays. His new boss, Chad Dickerson, has flown down from San Francisco to watch the launch.

The Microsoft takeover comes down to this: Bill Gates & Co. think they can outcode Jerry Yang's minions. Can they? Or does Yahoo actually know what it's doing? Coates's presentation tomorrow will form part of the answer.

Everyone's famous on the Internet! And the webstars really shine in Scott Beale's Wednesday photos from O'Reilly ETech 2006. In this edition, Ted Rheingold of Dogster, 3/4 of the Boing Boing crew, and an episode of escalating violence.

Ed Batista, attention pimp.

Dogster's Ted Rheingold and ex-Technoratian Niall Kennedy give the white man's gang sign.

Simply Hired's Dave McClure, moments before shrieking "Your sun! It burns me!" and running back to his Gevil lair.

After the jump, it's all fun and games until someone loses an eye.

"Dear team: kicking into high-gear networking mode. Send more striped shirts."

Mark, Xeni, and Cory of Boing Boing rest between glamorous international spy missions.

Geek-hobo proliferation reminds O'Reilly what they left out: "Oh damn! We always forget the CHAIRS!"

"Hmmm, I just might have a 'project' I could fit this pipe into, IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN."

Ted didn't actually use his laptop — just sat there all day posing. It's tough being pretty.

"Sure, you could use these gadgets for their intended purposes, but where's the fun in that?"

Tech writer Annalee Newitz blasts away at MAKE Magazine's marshmallow shooter.

And she stood there for an hour, waiting for something to happen.

This would've been the perfect moment for Ted's "I play trumpet in a ska band" hat.

The marshmallow projectile beaned a bellhop and neatly severed the Internet connection. Only the latter got noticed.

MAKE Magazine pits Roombas in an armed fight to the death.

"House meeting, everyone. Okay, have we learned our lesson about shooting and fighting today? Now I want you all to make Annalee a nice 'Get Well' card."

ETech 2006 Photos [Laughing Squid]
Earlier: Geeking out: ETech 2006, Tuesday [Valleywag]
And: Geeking out: ETech 2006 [Valleywag]

AOL exec Jason Calacanis and VC Fred Wilson recommend spending a homeless year or two. [Calacanis.com]
Technorati engineer Kevin Marks goes manic for microformats. [Epeus' epigone]
Dan Hon coredumps a hefty set of conference notes. [DanHon.com]
He also publishes meticulous notes on danah boyd's "G/localization" talk. Gold star, Dan. [DanHon.com]
JR's brain is full, and the sun glinting off the skin of a thousand geeks has blinded him. [Noded]
All these and more, linked from the Planet ETech multifeed. [Plagger.org]

Photo by Scott Beale [Flickr]

dotBen: he's missed the idea of creating a position emotion when you're trying to sell a product. We're all feeling miffed listening to REM

seanbonner: Do we have any RIAA people here? Can someone sue him for this?

TomCoates: doot doot doot doot

TomCoates: doot doot doot doot

h8ianxpress: is that Freedom rock? well, turn it up!

TantekC: i'm not shiny nor happy right now.

***TomCoates waves his cigarette lighter

danhon: would it distract him if we started singing along?

mathowie: REM is trying to play him off, Oscars style

bigtank: making people happy is easy. making them shiny AND happy is a pain in the ass

Every good conference (or every terribly boring one) has its IRC channel, a chat room where attendees can trade notes or, more often, snark about the speaker. ETech 2006 attendees and non-attendees can access #etech on irc.freenode.net, but the conference is just winding down.

Sean Bonner shows what you missed — he's posted an unedited transcript of the IRC logs during Monday's keynotes.

Stamen Design shows it even better, with a spiderwebby chat visualization and a map of the chatters.

ETech IRC Logs - March 6 Keynotes [Sean Bonner]
backchannel [Stamen Design]

ETech 2006 rolls on, and Scott Beale keeps photographing the folks who make the Internet. Tuesday's highlights include Tim Bray's Indy outfit, Esther Dyson's spelling, and Jen King's primal scream.

Wired futurist Bruce Sterling Sun Microsystems demigod Tim Bray pops in from his Indiana Jones 4 audition.

Tribe.net's Chris Law isn't a friend of Kevin Burton. He just plays one on the Internet.

After the jump, Gob Bluth visits ETech. (Not really.)

ETech 2006 Photos [Laughing Squid, used with permission]
Earlier: Geeking out: ETech 2006 [Valleywag]

"And my Starbucks? Can you merge a tag folksonomy into my Starbucks?"

Simply Hired's Dave McClure: "Does your Google interview story involve a Rubik's cube and an attack dog? Yeah, everyone has that story."

Flickr'ing futurist "Esthr" Dyson: "A pleasre to meet you, I'm chrmed."

Designer Derek Powazek looks like a younger, taller Paul Giamatti. Just sayin'.

Technorati engineer Kevin Marks: "Well, if you don't like the new bubbly look, we'll just change the — no — no, shut up, I'm doing it now — we'll just change the site right back."

Weblogs Inc's Jason Calacanis is not just making a sign; he's worried and would like some peace, please.

Metafilter founder Matt Haughey: "If you bought the Segway to get laid, um, why'd you bring it to a tech conference?"

At the Yahoo party: "Heehee...hi, Mr. Semel? Mr. Terry Semel? Do you have Prince Albert in a can? WELL YOU'D BETTER GO OUT AND CATCH IT. Wait, wait, I messed up. Can we start over?"

Scott says, "[Berkeley student] Jen King's reaction to hearing web 2.0 for the 1000x time."

"Going Overboard Hair Club for Men.com. Works wonders, and it uses Ajax."

It's an old photo. But now it appears at fancytrousers.com. Kevin explains why the next-generation Internet crafters put their resources toward the above.

Kevin Burton: we were giving them crap about how you can't call them knickers and trowsers
since fancy pants != fancy trousers

Valleywag: them? the brit contingent?

Kevin Burton: y[es]
"them"
we were giving htem shit since British sounds so funny
knickers, bollucks, trousers, etc
minga
shiite

The most brilliant minds of emerging tech converge on one space, and you get...knickers and bollocks.

Fancy Trousers [fancytrousers.com]

Become gangsta O'Reilly, of the fuck-you-up mustache?

Does the dude have to look edgy for ETech? What's up?

Tim O'Reilly [Dan Farber on Flickr]
Tim O'Reilly, March 7 [Richard Giles on Flickr]

The O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference (or ETech for the impatient) is in full swing today, after a rousing start on Monday. The event sold out ages ago, but through the magic of Scott Beale's photography, we can pretend we made it in. (If you want to pretend you met Cory Doctorow and he loved your sci-fi story idea, have that fantasy on your own.) Here are highlights from Scott's meticulous Monday photojournalism.

BBC blogger Ben Metcalfe is so tired of your bullshit.

"Just stand very still and do not make eye contact, and Tom Coates will walk away."

After the jump, Doc Searls kills a man with one bare fist.

UI designer Ben Cerveny chills with, I assume, a White Russian in a coffee cup.

Gavin Bell to Cal Henderson: "For the last time, I know that you are Cal. Now stop. Saying. It."

Cory Doctorow: "Ohhh man, this post is gonna need a unicorn chaser."

"I am pleased to see my 'impress the ladies with the clever nametag job title' plan has succeeded."

Moments later, Technorati's Kevin Marks tragically rolled over and was crushed by a surprisingly heavy inflata-chair.

"Look, it's okay if you want to wear a kilt too, but bow to the superiority of my tartan, okay?"

TailRank's Kevin Burton waits for the perfect "So, wanna buy me?" moment.

Blogfather Doc Searls answers all dumb questions with a jab to the face.

ETech 2006 Photos [Laughing Squid]