Gawker: valleywag, mine is faster

The Jason Calacanis inusufferability index to reach new heights with arrival of Tesla Roadster

Jackson West — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 18:00:00 EDT

Mahalo founder Jason Calacanis is eagerly awaiting Tesla Roadster #16, which he's having painted Tang Orange. Expect lots of updates about how much better a steward of Mother Earth he is than you are. He's also teasing readers with the offer of a Tesla Roadster giveaway, but he needs 30-60 million pageviews to do it. If you could get that much traffic to go Mahalo's way, shouldn't he be offering you the position of CEO? [Calacanis.com] (Photo by wmmarc)

Moffett Field becoming a country club airport for Valley ultra-rich

Jackson West — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 13:40:00 EDT

The Google Party Plane isn't the only aircraft using Nasa's Moffett Field to shuttle tech execs in and out of the Valley. An eagle-eyed plane spotter caught Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk's Dassault Falcon taking a round trip between Moffett and Orange County's Van Nuys airport this week. "It must be nice," says the tipster, implying a breathy sigh. My question is, as one of the few people with a Tesla Roadster in his garage, why didn't Musk drive that to the Southland instead of burning gallons of jet fuel? Oh, right, that's well outside the roadster's range.

Larry Ellison drives an Audi R8 to the gym

Jordan Golson — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 18:40:00 EDT

A tipster writes in:

Larry Ellison spotted driving out of 2882 Sand Hill Road in Audi R8, probably coming out of the gym where he is rumored to work out.

We haven't got a picture of Ellison in workout shorts, but what about the Oracle CEO's car, the Audi R8? Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson described it as "like smearing honey onto Keira Knightley." Try not to think about Ellison smearing honey onto Knightley while watching Clarkson's review:

(Photo by AP/Eckehard Schulz)

Mahalo employee can afford a binary-tagged Audi A6

Nicholas Carlson — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 13:20:00 EDT

We reported — and CEO Jason Calacanis didn't really deny — that Mahalo grosses about $9,000 a month. But don't worry about Mahalo employees. Here, for example, is Mahalo employee Sean Percival's Audi A6. It costs between $43,725 and $57,075 . ~~Obviously, Percival is not a Mahalo guide.~~ Surprisingly, Percival is a Mahalo guide. They only make $30,000 to $35,000, we hear. By the way, if this handy binary to text conversion tool is correct, Percival writes 011000100110000101100100 code. (Photo by Eric Rice)

Why the Valley should buy a high-speed rail ticket

Jackson West — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 11:00:00 EDT

A California state ballot item planned for November would secure $10 billion in bonds to begin building a high-speed rail system by 2009, with a 20-year estimated building schedule and a total price tag of $40 billion, all of it in publicly traded bonds more stable than, say, subprime mortgages. Millions have already been spent on planning — and influencing lawmakers with trips to visit Japan's shinkansen. But Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has helped derail two previous efforts to let California voters make the decision, even though 58 percent of voters statewide support the idea. A new public-private partnership amenable to the Governator's self-interest might finally break the ice. Why should the Valley care? Here are four reasons.

Japan and France both have one: If there's anything Californians love more than stuff from France and Japan, I'd like to know what it is. Hell, even China has a bullet train, and they're supposedly Communists.
Breakfast and dinner at home, meetings in LA: Woo Hollywood talent away from the studios with promises of stock options without having to abandon the family for the night. Hell, invite them down to meet you in San Diego after work.
It keeps transportation spending in California: We don't manufacture our planes or our cars, why not build trains? Like Tesla's effort to make California an electric-car hub, a bullet train here would breed engineers and contractors with experience in high-speed rail projects for an untapped North American market.
It's actual cleantech, no greenwashing necessary: No traffic idling, no planes circling, no highway-induced sprawl. Atherton residents would probably even approve a new nuclear reactor to power it. In Nevada.

The train makes all sorts of sense for the Valley, and the fact that it'll probably end in a boondoggle doesn't concern me — I just want it to end, soon, with a wicked fast train. (Photo by Clayton Parker)

Another vanity-plated monument to German engineering in Mozilla Foundation parking lot

Jackson West — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 20:40:00 EDT

Those Mozilla foundation folks sure do love their silver, European sports sedans.

I enjoyed your article the other week about the sort of cars Firefox bug fixes buy. Today I got cut off by an Audi S4 with the numberplate "S4ZILLA". I stopped by the Mozilla parking lot later and what do you suppose I saw...

With a sub-$50,000 base price, I figure the owner is probably a driven mid-level engineer ambitious to join the ranks of the Valley elite.