1 minute. Withdrawal! Confusion! Meta!

3 minutes. Brian Conley, live from Tumblr! Fear his angry "back side"!

7 minutes. Twitter's gothically geeky operations engineer John Adams implores you, put your pitchforks down.

And pro headphones, and a backup keyboard, too:

Check the duct tape. Why rough it, refreshing Facebook over and over from your own too-small "Lower Nob Hill" work-from-home studio, when you can stroke your Wacom pen in public, surrounded by others just like you? And why not grab a $4 latte while you're at it? Everybody — the cafe owners, the city of San Francisco, the pushers of the Always-On Internet High life — wins.

(Photos by MGG)

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom may be known nationally as the patron saint of gay marriage, but back home, Newsom has built his career on things like buying fleets of hybrid vehicles and installing windmills near the Golden Gate Bridge.

Small problem — as Curbed SF points out, Newsom has never built a windmill or anything else energy-related anywhere near the Golden Gate Bridge. Not that such considerations would quell admiration from right-coast hacks looking to promote handsome, young politicians for the benefit of the party machine.

If you live in New York, you might think San Francisco's Gavin "Gavvy-gav" Newsom is some sort of John Lindsay-handsome but Michael Bloomberg-effective miraculous wonder. He married the gays! And instituted universal healthcare! And tans his hot bod with solar panels! It's okay, we understand — you guys have never had as firm a grasp on left-coast reality as you thought you did. In truth, Newsom's administration has failed on such basic points as violent crime, public transportation, and affordable housing.

While local New Yorker correspondent Tad Friend chewed on Newsom's presentation hook, line and sinker, even he can't be entirely blamed. The regional press corps has been filled with unapologetic boosters since the gold rush days. With Nancy Pelosi, our local political machine's grand inquisitor, running the House of Representatives, it's only natural that we press a lanky golden-boy type upon you poor suckers statewide. For my sake and yours, however, don't believe the hype.

Gavvy-gav was, and is, a ditzy jock who just happened to be related to somone endeared to the Getty oil fortune. As a perennial ringer for upwardly mobile softball teams otherwise stacked with the obliged noblesse, he rose quickly from above the muddied ranks of local activists and condo association street fighters. Picking topics which cost him little political capital locally while presenting them as daring moves nationally, Newsom has cemented the perception of his position firmly between the socially center-left and economically center-right.

Which, honestly, is about the perfect balance for the pot-smoking, free-market and gay-loving populace which forms his constituency. Still, it's no frame to hang an Obama-level cult of personality on. Newsom's feather-light shoulders and uncannily cheery countenance really can't take the weight of serious responsibility. Take pity, east coasters, and please don't bother to burden him with it.

(Photo by Franco Folini)

By banishing computers from their lives, Erasmus's reclusive colleagues are able to nourish what he calls "attention surplus disorder," the ability to focus on and think about one thing for a long time. Erasmus's order passes its trains of thought from generation to generation — a Church of the Long Now.

By contrast, the video and telecom-addled civilization that bustles outside their walls is full of shallow and incorrect knowledge. People who've never taken time to study anything feel they know everything. Constantly distracted by their jangling electronic gizmos, they can't comprehend the powerful ideas and complex systems wrought by thousands of years of civilization. Their smart machines make them dumb. Inevitably, they look to the cloistered nerds to save them.

I've pledged not to do a review until September 9th, but I'll tell you Stephenson's worldview is contagious from page one. It's been following me around in the real world — I haven't hated normal people this much since I was an MIT freshman. You say you're a "geek?" Let's see you unplug your iPhone for a month. Surely you have something more interesting to do.

Ever since the Allies bombed the Axis into submission [See? I told you Adbusters is fun] Western civilization has had a succession of counter-culture movements that have energetically challenged the status quo. Each successive decade of the post-war era has seen it smash social standards, riot and fight to revolutionize every aspect of music, art, government and civil society.

Now, one mutating, trans-Atlantic melting pot of styles, tastes and behavior has come to define the generally indefinable idea of the “Hipster.” An artificial appropriation of different styles from different eras, the hipster represents the end of Western civilization – a culture lost in the superficiality of its past and unable to create any new meaning. While previous youth movements have challenged the dysfunction and decadence of their elders, today we have a youth subculture that mirrors the doomed shallowness of mainstream society.

The hipster represents the end of Western civilization – a culture so detached and disconnected that it has stopped giving birth to anything new.

Here we go again. New graffiti on the sidewalk at 18th and Dolores claims nothing short of "Mission Exploitation" by Google employees. A decade ago, the Mission Yuppie Eradication Project posted flyers urging Valencia Street's self-styled "artists" to vandalize luxury cars. Some did. In 2008, most Web 2.0 workers aren't rich enough to draw the righteous anger of their slightly-less-privileged neighbors. Except for Googlers who dare move into the city's youth-culture ghetto between Cesar Chavez and Market.

The company's unparalleled success sparks rage in the hearts of permalosers who never, ever want to look at anyone whose career is doing better. Somewhere under the sheer jealousy is a legit issue: San Francisco was once a low-rent haven for hippies and a sanctuary for political refugees from all over the world. Dotcom money and disingenuous "live/work" lofts — I signed a contract declaring I was an "artist" to move into one in 2003, enabling the loft's developer to collect $2,700 a month without paying local school taxes — helped drive SF's cost of living higher than much of New York.

But the antiyuppies aren't playing straight, either. Progressive economist Paul Krugman has cited rent control as a major contributor to San Francisco's housing shortage. No one ever quotes him on that. Instead, if Google keeps growing, expect a resurgence in white-on-white carbashings and hatemongering handbills. O cool, grey city of love! (Photo from San Francisco Wiki)

"It was a sugar marathon that would predictably peak in the middle in a weird haze of digital SLR flashbulbs, Twittering iPhones, and San Francisco body odor," wrote Cagle of the blogging, livestreaming, and actual tasting of cupcakes. "Apparently, it is more important to prove you were there than to actually have fun, which is especially ironic when you can't stop bitching loudly about 'the damn media.'" We have met the media, and it is us. We just haven't figured it out yet.

(Photo by SFBG)

Because it's a nasty breeding ground for predators and there's nothing women can do about it. These guys are far worse people than the kind who stalk you on the way home from work or rape their girlfriends or hit their partners or molest their own kids: they have access to your photos from sunning with the girls in Cabo. The most terrifying part about being sexually victimized is the breach of trust and the painful powerplay, and no one can go there like a guy you've never met messaging you for sex. Especially if his name is ~*-joe69 is my game*~!. And especially if you recognize him from LinkedIn. Only your modesty and your Delete key can keep the bad men at bay.

Because we don't know any better than to overshare. When presented with an open text box and an Internet connection, women have proven that they can't be trusted. Whether that's our adolescent sisters flashing it, or elder ladies dating and mating in public past what they refuse to accept as their prime, women cannot keep it in their pants. A set of modest server-side restrictions could help. Rather than face temptation daily, we could also consider removing the Internet from those institutions where its use among girls goes unmonitored. The future of women in computer science could be ushered in by tasking these same young ladies with developing the next NetNanny. For the already of-age, it's not too late. Ask yourself, what trusted man could you give your email logins to?

Because there's nothing worse in this world than being called a slut and online it lasts forever. (As long as it's indexed, anyway.) The most potent insult to sling at a girl is to brag that she may have once gone off in pursuit of an orgasm. Even when we do it ourselves. As soon as you, Ms. Aspiring CTO, pose for the wrong photo, or text the wrong Twitter, your career is done for. Besides, being subject to whispered compliments at one's prowess at adult sexual activity is something that even the most professional woman should not have to suffer.

Because we're giving it up for nothing! Who will pay for monthly recurring billing on a subscription-based business model like marriage when you offer the cow for a complimentary trial period? It's old hat now for girls to go posting a facial comeshot to their tumblelog, but even baring a little Flickr cleavage could ruin a girl these days. Breasts are thieves in the attention economy, I say. If you're not getting paid and paid somehow, you're getting ripped off. A little "angel investment" may be the only way to save your reputation. Not even whores do it for free.

Because men don't believe we're real women anyway. Tits or get the fuck off? Just watch us.

(Photo by The Internet Women's Temperance League)

Update: All clear, and that was fast. Noting the wet tile sidewalks, scruffy entrepreneur Schlomo Rabinowitz quips, "They even washed the hippy off the street."

To all the commenters saying "stfu and stop whining": the thing you're missing is the false advertising on Google's part. Google doesn't tell you when you're going through their intense and selective recruiting process that your job is going to be crap.

Google managers like Paul Carff *specifically* make plans to dress up the job descriptions of what are essentially CSR positions, to lure top talent from top universities. Where they do mention CSR-type work, it's often called a "minor" or "infrequent" part of the job.

And regardless of the position, if you're accepting something on the order of 0.01 percent of applicants like Google is, and you're asking the kinds of quantitative+creative interview questions for which they're known, you are GOING to get a lot of intelligent, highly talented people. Lying to these people and putting them in dead-end positions is a recipe for disaster, which is why Google Support has such incredibly quick turnover.

You have to realize that high-caliber recent college grads are probably friends with lots of other high-caliber recent college grads. This means that, when they get lured across the country to the Bay and end up in a crappy CSR job they didn't sign up for, while their friends get much more appropriate roles in companies like Bain, Salesforce, and McKinsey, they aren't happy about it — and they shouldn't be.

Great post on Marissa Mayer. I can attest to its truth.

Second, the management within Google, especially AdWords and AdSense (the money making machines of the entire company...engineering gets the glory but advertising brings in the big bucks) are completely disorganized and chaotic (in a BAD way- because Google sometimes tries to spin the whole 'chaotic' thing in a good way).

I'm surprised that you guys don't shed more light on this, but AdWorders only make $45,000 base plus meager bonuses that are only a few hundred per quarter. It's the worst department because everyone hates their job "Hello, this is AdWords, how may I help you?" The dreaded phone shift, chat shifts, answering emails is the core job. They don't tell you that when recruiting and hiring kids from elite universities.

Managers that started as entry level and 'made it' to manager level are extremely paranoid and neurotic because they only have measly community college bachelor degrees and feel threatened (and rightfully so) by the new hire managers that are straight out of Harvard, Northwestern, INSEAD & Stanford MBA Programs. Yet they can't get the boot because they're well-connected and the people who suffer from their poor management are lower on the totem pole and could never risk the backlash that would undoubtedly result.

I know of one manager who everyone hated, yet nothing ever happened to her. Instead, her direct reports just prayed that they'd get to switch managers within the quarter. Her name is Tracy-Lee Blumberg. I know of at least 6 different employees who cried every single day that she was their manager. THREE were male. And other bad managers include Heather Huffman and Stacy Brown-Philpot.

It really is a crazy system because everyone is cut throat and if you happen to land a good project or get an opportunity (to work on a coveted project or work from a remote international office) people really try to bring you down.

(I happen to be an engineer and don't have a great manager but I can deal with him. I just keep hearing horror stories from my Adwords buddies).

I am an assistant manager at Google and I'm horrible at my job.

I'm a micromanager, I don't take criticism well (but I LOVE giving it out), and I am very manipulative and deceptive.

I believe that no one can tell me what to do. If I don't like you, you are screwed

I've been a super bitch lately and it's not just because I'm pregnant. I'm ALWAYS a bitch.... pregnant or not.

I've been at Google for several years, so I'm "well-connected"...Emily White loves me. So be careful...I know people and if you make me upset I will destroy you.

I'm pretty sure my bosses at Google are going to find out that I suck at my job and so I will need a new job once I'm let go....if anyone out there has a job for me, I'd appreciate it. Thanks.