The San Francisco mayor/golden child hasn't been seen in public since Oct. 30, and his staff had no idea if he went to Hawaii as reported because he didn't tell them anything. Now the local Board of Supervisors is debating whether Newsom might be hunkered down with a city-funded svengali, according to Brock Keeling at SFist:

It is rumored that the San Francisco Mayor spent little time with anyone else other than his life coach during the last few days of his gubernatorial bid. Said life coach also might have accompanied Newsom to Hawaii last week... Supervisor Chris Daly asked the city controller to look into whether or not city funds were used to pay Newsom's life coach.

It's a great move on Newsom's part: Making a grand show of his pain and introspection will only make his future claims that "I have truly changed!" or whatever all the more believable. Especially since, as Keeling points out, life coaches are well known to dedicated reality TV viewers. Those are any wife-fucking recovering-alcoholic gay-marrying mayor's core constituents! (Life coach footage below, via SFist.)

(Top pic: Newsom by darthdowney on Flickr)

Press enter to search.

Which reads to us as a slightly insulting, "Press enter to search, moron, you never needed the buttons to begin with," but maybe we're just sensitive. On other computers, Google.com is its old self. Maybe the search engine is testing out a pared down interface on select users, as it's been known to do before.

Either that or there's a new generation of hackers who don't actually steal anything but just make annoying little tweaks all over your computer and internets. In the meantime, Firefox users can just type their queries into the address bar and hit Enter, whenever they're "feeling lucky."

UPDATE: Looks like some people on Twitter are seeing a button-less Google, too, although they say the buttons "fade" in and out when you hover over their former locations, a feature we aren't seeing. If you know what's going on, clue us in.

No one is saying precisely what happened. But Calacanis, a Hollywood internet entrepreneur who tools around in a Tesla Roadster and is buddy-buddy with Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher, has tweeted that TechCrunch 50, which the men co-host, is over after its third iteration. He also "openly talked about a fight" with Arrington to others at the conference, Paul Boutin reports on VentureBeat.com.

Calacanis seemed to confirm all this to, of all people, a puppet controlled by New York humorist Loren Feldman (see left).

And Arrington, who publishes the influential Silicon Valley blog TechCrunch, isn't quite denying it either. Arrington cautioned in a phone interview that he wasn't familiar with all of Calacanis' public statements today. But he added, "I'm not going to say I didn't have words with him because I have words with people all the time." Besides, he added, things are crazy at the end of a long conference.

He wouldn't get into details, but did point us, in response to questions about the incident, to a blog post he recently wrote called Let's Not Let Silicon Valley Become Just Like Hollywood, in which he argues that the powers-that-be in the Northern California tech scene should avoid becoming as pompous and hierarchical as the folks in Hollywood, i.e. the people Calacanis likes to hang out with. Cryptic. But Arrington wouldn't be much more specific: "I'm not too concerned Jason is telling people he doesnt want to talk to me. I'm sure life will go on without Jason Calacanis and the drama he creates by talking to puppets."

Sure, life will go on, and in the meantime the rest of us have another tech feud to keep us entertained. It's been too long since one of these flared up.

(Speaking of which, we've logged several emails and instant messages to Calacanis and have yet to hear back. If you have any insights into what happened, please email us.)

(Top pic: Calacanis, left, and Arrington in happier days, by Frank Gruber.)

It has to be Peter Mattis, co-creator of the open-source image editor GIMP and a Google engineer. The clues are all right there in the Times article. A tipster helped lay them out for us.

"Harken Pretty" anagram: The apartment, once thought to be sold to movie stars Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick, instead went to an LLC called "Harken Pretty," which is an anagram of the first names of the buyers, according to the Times. Mattis is married to Kathryn Kimball; the couple are pictured in the image at left, taken from Kimball's Facebook profile (here's Peter's profile). "Harken Pretty" is the most coherent anagram for the couple's first names.

Young family: The buyers have a "young family," just like the trio of Mattis, Kimball and baby in the picture above.

Used to live in SoHo: The Times' mystery buyers want to escape "the hustle and bustle and celebrity of SoHo, where the family now lives." Mattis and Kimball used to live at 56 Crosby Street, according to sales records, before putting the property up for sale earlier this year. (Mattis implied in the Times that some of his coworkers might be jealous of his new home; perhaps they could take some relief in the fact he had to cut the price of his old home twice, reducing the asking price by a total of $650,000.)

Money to burn: The new apartment costs about $3.5 million more than the current listing price of the old apartment. But judging by Mattis and Kimball's political donations, they have plenty surplus cash to spend. Campaign records show donations to three different candidates in the last presidential election by the couple: $2,300 to libertarian Republican Ron Paul; $4,600 to Demorat Hillary Clinton; and $4,600 to Democrat Barack Obama in Mattis' name and another $2,300 in his wife's name (see here and here).

We've emailed Mattis at Google, Facebook and two old Berkeley email addresses. We'll let you know if we hear back. UPDATE: Mattis called; he wasn't happy to see his family plastered on a website and went out of his way to say he wasn't telling us anything on the record. (The photos above were taken from the public front of Mattis and Kimball's Facebook profiles.)

It's no new story that Apple goes to greater lengths to prevent outside leaks than just about any corporation in recent American history, but who knew that even employees working at Apple often have little knowledge of what's going on there?

Secrecy at Apple is not just the prevailing communications strategy; it is baked into the corporate culture. Employees working on top-secret projects must pass through a maze of security doors, swiping their badges again and again and finally entering a numeric code to reach their offices, according to one former employee who worked in such areas.

Work spaces are typically monitored by security cameras, this employee said. Some Apple workers in the most critical product-testing rooms must cover up devices with black cloaks when they are working on them, and turn on a red warning light when devices are unmasked so that everyone knows to be extra-careful, he said.

Apple employees are often just as surprised about new products as everyone else.

"I was at the iPod launch," said Edward Eigerman, who spent four years as a systems engineer at Apple and now runs his own technology consulting firm. "No one that I worked with saw that coming."

In a separate piece the Times dug into the mysterious circumstances surrounding Jobs' recent liver transplant, going so far as to insinuate that Jobs may have used his wealth and status to his advantage in order to obtain a new organ.

Waiting times for a liver vary in different parts of the country, and people who can afford to travel are free to go to a city or state with the shortest wait and bide their time until they have reached the top of the list, a donor dies and an organ becomes available. Indeed, some patients rent apartments or stay in hotels near a hospital and wait for the phone to ring. It may not seem fair, but it is not illegal.

It is even conceivable that someone could go to the time and expense of registering for the waiting lists of several transplant centers around the country.

"If you had access to a jet and had six hours to get anywhere in the country, you'd have a wide choice of programs," said Dr. Michael Porayko, the medical director of liver transplants at Vanderbilt University, one of the Tennessee centers that has said it did not treat Mr. Jobs.

This isn't the first time the Times has called out Apple for its secrecy. In a piece published last July titled "Apple's Culture of Secrecy," Joe Nocera took Apple and Jobs to the woodshed over their unwillingness to divulge information about Jobs' declining health, which he speculated was the result of another bout with cancer, with company shareholders at the time, saying that Jobs "needs to treat his shareholders with at least a modicum of respect." This provoked Jobs to call Nocera a "slime bucket" in the course of denying that he was again battling cancer.

Since then Apple appears content to feed stories to the tech reporters at the Wall Street Journal, as they did with the news of Jobs' liver transplant that broke on Saturday morning, as well as a story earlier in the month about how Jobs was "starving to death" during a months-long battle with a mystery illness that left him unable to digest proteins. Near the end of May the Journal also reported that Jobs was, according to Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, "healthy" and "energetic" and that he "doesn't sound like he's sick."

So while the Times persistent reporting on these matters may appear to be them lashing out at an entity they feel has disrespected them, the questions that they raise are valid and beg to be addressed, though one can hardly blame Jobs for doing everything in his power to hold onto to life. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal appears content to run with whatever scraps get thrown to them by Apple flacks, seemingly unwilling to question any of it out of fear of pissing them off, or not really caring one way or the other about the validity of any information they get fed as long as their stories get picked up by other media outlets.

Finally, at the risk of sounding morbid, you know how it's often rumored that rulers of totalitarian states have died, most recently in Cuba and North Korea for example, but that government officials are keeping it a secret from the people they rule, going so far as to splice together old film and audio clips to create updated propaganda and employing lookalikes and body doubles for occasional public appearances? It's not that difficult to imagine Apple doing the same thing when Jobs eventually dies, which is well beyond creepy, but sadly something that doesn't seem entirely outside the realm of possibility.

Apple's Management Obsessed With Secrecy [New York Times]
A Transplant That Is Raising Many Questions [New York Times]

Speculation had been thick that Jobs would put in a cameo at the conference. Late last week, the Wall Street Journal reported the CEO would likely return to Apple at the end of June, as planned, and might drop by today's event.

Instead, Jobs left senior VP Phil Schiller to handle his second major Apple event without the CEO.

Even barring a brief on-stage appearance, Jobs, at the tail end of his medical leave, had other options. He'd have been great for demonstrating the video camera on the new iPhone, for example, via a recorded greeting for the conference keynote audience.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.But if this is Apple without Jobs, it doesn't look so terrible. Early indications are that the company's new products will receive the customary lavish attention in the mainstream press, even though anyone who's got the old model will have to fork over at least $500 for the upgrade (read the fineprint) and the best new software features are still useless for American customers. Just like Apple's stock, the company's products can still muster cultlike interest, even in the cult leader's absence.

Farrance's son Sterling, who had a medical prescription for the drug, insists he only had about 15 pot plants growing the attic; police, who long suspected narco-violence, have said it was more like 100 plants, and several pounds of processed bud.

Either way, word of the stash got out. Maybe Sterling, then 19, bragged to one too many friends. Accomplice Cleothius Termaine Amos, who turned state's witness in a plea deal, said he and three others went to the Farrance house looking for the pot:, only to find two bewildered parents.

After the couple couldn't cough up any money, the robbers pistol-whipped the woman and shot the man:

Amos said his group talked about the shooting afterward in the getaway car.

"Montrell was telling Little Man he was stupid, and why'd he have to shoot," Amos said. "And Little Man said he only shot him in the leg. And they were arguing back and forth and I was calling Little Man stupid, too."

The men had obtained a pound of marijuana from the house, which they sold for $1,800.

The headline "Carol Bartz, Live and Uncensored" topped video of the Yahoo CEO's comments on All Things D, the Journal tech website, extending interest in the f-bomb that began when on of its reporters reported the incident on Twitter. The accompanying article referenced Bartz's "much-anticipated f-bomb." Yet the curse had been mysteriously excised from the video.

The paper quickly heard from aggrieved bloggers (including this one, although we weren't too aggrieved — we've seen plenty of Bartz's cursing elsewhere) . All Things D writer Peter Kafka urged patience:

Several hours later, the logistical problem had not been resolved. But the Journal insists it will, and attached a note to its original video to that effect:

But the interest in the "fucking" clip (ahem!) only illustrated the power of Bartz's salty talk, which listeners tend to equate with forthrightness. Her comments, blunt words and all, seem to have gone over well at D and perhaps even turned the Yahoo chief into a full-fledged Valley character ("I'm sorry we're starting late — Carol Bartz just trashed my hotel room," Swisher would later joke).

We have to hand it to Bartz: Any executive who can stage-whisper "fuck you" to a WSJ reporter and come out on top is handling herself admirably.

The more spirited non f-bomb moments of the Bartz-Swisher exchange are excerpted in the video above. We'll update if and when f-bomb video becomes available.

Given the widespread belief that Obama invented the Internet, many will scoff at the idea that the Bush White House had a Twitter account. But it did — and the administration handed over twitter.com/thewhitehouse at noon on Inauguration Day, just like it did with the whitehouse.gov website. Google still has the old account, with Obama's tweets, in its cache.

Valleywag alum Paul Boutin suggests on Gadgetwise that this is a simple rationalization of accounts, matching the definite-article-free "whitehouse" username the Obama team uses on Flickr and YouTube. But Obama's Twitterers didn't just change the username on the account; they started fresh, wiping out all of the White House's existing Twitter followers, and the entire archive of messages.

Perhaps it's safe to assume that the dwindling fans of the Bush White House wouldn't want to transfer their allegiances. And many of the Bush tweets were just broken pointers to pages on 43's now-archived website. But there ought to be something about the White House that transcends its occupant. A new president doesn't move his residence from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. There's something about this move that smacks of change for change's sake.

Update: It's alive! The White House Twitter account, previously protected, is now tweeting. Nothing personally typed by Obama yet.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Jobs is still in charge, with little-known COO Tim Cook running things day to day. Wall Street analysts expect a minor shift after Jobs returns to work in July — Jobs becoming chairman, say, with Cook as CEO.

Yet there seem to be some fears on Apple's campus — perhaps of Apple's long-term prospects without Jobs at the helm, or perhaps of something else happening inside the computer and smartphone maker. The Journal reports that Apple's rivals are finding it easier to poach people from Apple:

Job recruiters say they aren't seeing significant employee turnover at Apple. But executives at several Silicon Valley companies say they are getting more interest than before from Apple managers, particularly those in the mid-to-upper levels. Most recently, Greg Dudey, one of the lead engineers for Apple TV software, left the company to work for Dell Inc. Mr. Jobs's health is not necessarily the driver of such job moves, according to these people.

Palm, which is rolling out the Pre, a smartphone which hopes to compete with Apple's iPhone, has hired away several people. We also hear that an engineer working on a secret project to build an Apple-branded videogame console is being wooed by other Valley companies. And the company's efforts to improve its online services has been stymied, we hear, by difficulties in hiring the right talent.

Jobs, despite his reputation as a tyrant, has always been an excellent recruiter. Most recently he pried longtime IBM executive Mark Papermaster away from Big Blue, despite a legal fight. Will the industry's best brains want to work for an Apple without Jobs at the helm?

(Photo by Getty Images)

The answer is pure self-interest. $4 million is nothing to a 97-year-old venture capital firm like Bessemer. It could easily write off its investment in Wikia, an attempt to capitalize on the anyone-can-edit wiki concept popularized by Wikipedia.

But Levine has invested his reputational capital in Wikia. Admitting he made a mistake in backing Wales means Levine would lose face with Bessemer's partners, who will be more likely to question his subsequent investments. (That he has also invested in Yelp and Diapers.com surely does not burnish his record.)

Levine would have us be impressed by the fact that Wales "volunteered to forgo his Wikia salary." This would be more impressive if Wales had not long ago forgone any pretense of doing any work to earn that salary. When Levine first invested in Wikia, Wales promised to spend 90 percent of his time on Wikia and 10 percent on Wikipedia. In fact, he spent nowhere near that proportion of time on either, focusing instead on an increasingly lucrative speaking career.

I'm inclined to feel sorry for Levine, who was clearly deceived by Wales, but is stuck defending him, lest he admit to the con. We will give Levine this much. In a recent blog post, he wrote, "Valleywag reported some nonsense about Jimmy getting fired because of a bogus expense report. Nothing could be farther from the truth."

What is uncontestably true: Levine was enraged when he learned that Wales tried to get Wikia to reimburse him for a $1,300 dinner with a private-equity investor, at which he primarily discuss ways to profit off of Wikipedia, not Wikia. But it is quite possible that Wales's attempted expense-account flim-flam was the least of his sins as CEO of Wikia, and that Levine actually fired him over more serious matters. If so, why doesn't Levine wash his hands of Wales, write off the investment, and tells us what Wales did? Otherwise, he'll find that he's only just begun his career of lying on Wales's behalf.

Developers/Senior Developers (Santa Monica)

Reply to: job-894125901@craigslist.org [?]
Date: 2008-10-26, 10:07AM PDT

Do you know that you're amongst the very best, but can't find a company that appreciates you or gives you the opportunity you deserve?

Mahalo.com is a human-powered search engine. It is one of the hottest startups on the planet right now. We're well-funded by the same people that backed Google, Yahoo and YouTube (Sequoia), a well as Newscorp, Mark Cuban, Elon Musk (Paypal) and CBS. Our human-curated results are the very best starting page for any topic you can think of, blowing away machine-only search engines. And our growth curve has been phenomenal: this coming year ought to be downright amazing.

We're looking for top-notch Developers and Senior Developers to get us to the next level.

Skills we're looking for include the following (you should have a subset of these, all are not required):
* Python, PHP
* C/C++, Java
* MySQL
* Familiarity with MediaWiki
* memcache, squid
* Strong command of PHP5
* Familiar with general Internet technologies including HTML, XML, Javascript, HTTP, CSS, cookies, etc.
* Knowledge and experience in Apache, MySQL, Linux

Bonus:
* Hadoop / Hbase
* Lucene
* Nutch
* Spread

You are a HANDS ON implementor, a get-it-done kind of developer. The right person is a self starter with the "general get it factor". You work well with a team of like-minded engineers, and have a genuine desire for excellence.

We work with cutting-edge technologies. You will learn more here in a month than most companies will teach in a year.

Although we work hard, we offer a laid-back environment, competitive salary, benefits and stock options. This is a potentially life-changing opportunity — the kind that is usually only available in Silicon Valley, and is extremely rare in Southern California. If you're excellent, we invite you to come join us.

Please send a RESUME.

Location: Santa Monica
Compensation: Commensurate with experience + Options
Principals only. Recruiters, please don't contact this job poster.
Please, no phone calls about this job!
Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.
PostingID: 894125901

Brian Ussery, who noted the change on his blog, is a professional search-engine optimization (SEO) consultant — he helps website owners raise their Google rank. Ussery thinks Google has "a renewed emphasis on rooting out paid links passing PageRank and/or low quality links." Years ago, site marketers realized that they could simply pay "relevant" sites — say, the site that comes up first for "Pacific Heights real estate" — to link to their own sites, boosting their own rank in Google results.

When Google employees said, "Have other relevant sites link to yours," they meant "build a site that people who run other relevant sites will consider worth linking to." What they didn't mean was "pay them to link to your crummy site." As Ussery implies, that's pretty much how everyone does business on the Internet now. Google's graph of all the Web's links, once an elegant directory of reputation, has been corrupted by payola.

What does Google want? Their guidelines should spell it out: Dear Webmasters, please stop spending your budget buying links. Instead, buy our ads.

After giving a short speech to attendees, in which he praised their efforts to break the "feudal" system of network television, Gore promised "By tomorrow, I'll be on Twitter." Then he left. Come on, Al. How hard would it have been to sign up for Twitter on the spot, then stick around for a few minutes to lob an inconvenient truth or two across John McCain's puss during the opening leg of the debate? Instead, here's the message Gore sent: Twitter is for kids. (Video by Laughing Squid/Scott Beale)

Now hardly seems like the time. The pension funds and college endowments which invest in VC funds have been pulling back, as of late. And investments in consumer Web startups — Miller and Levinsohn's specialty — are not looking as wise as they were a year ago. If the duo do raise money in this climate, it will be an impressive feat. If they don't? Then their second careers as venture capitalists may come to an abrupt end.