It can’t be fun running a car company. A century ago automobiles were the hottest thing since the railroad, but nowadays you’re considered a hopeless dinosaur loser–unless you’re Elon Musk, in which case you get to blunder around starting beef with the New York Times. Read More
Quinn Norton speaks out on what life inside the Aaron Swartz investigation was like. “This will not be the final word on Aaron’s story, nor is it intended to be. Two years later, these are the events as I remember them, and the feelings as I knew them.” [The Atlantic]
Former dotcom millionaire Jennifer Sultan plead guilty to selling prescription drugs and conspiring to sell a firearm in exchange for four years in prison on Friday. Ms. Sultan, who sold her company Live Online during the first boom, burned through her fortune after becoming addicted to prescription pain killers. Let this be a cautionary tale for bubble 2.0. [New York Times]
Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz took to Rap Genius this weekend to decode Andrew Mason’s goodbye letter. Swag? [TechCrunch]
If you got an email this weekend from Evernote that it had reset your password, that’s because the company suffered a major security breach. [The Verge]
SpaceX Dragon has successfully docked at the International Space Station, which is great because we don’t really need any more griping from Elon Musk right now. [Ars Technica]
Congratulations to every Redditor who has complained about a female friend not giving him the sexual attention to which his penis entitles him: Oxford Dictionaries has immortalized your horrifying plight with the official addition of “friend zone” into the lexicon. Read More
For the love of Christ, will you social media gurus please learn to change your passwords once in a while? A scant 24 hours after someone hijacked Burger King’s Twitter account and began pumping out pro-McDonald’s sentiment, it appears Jeep’s verified account has now been compromised. Read More
However broke the state of California may be, it’s also sitting on a treasure trove of unclaimed property that’s valued at over $6 billion. Holders like “corporations, business associations, financial institutions, and insurance companies” are required to report any unclaimed property annually to the state comptroller’s office. That means if you’ve forgotten about bank account contents or uncashed money orders, they’re sitting around with the comptroller. Read More
Six months after raising $4.7 million and less than three weeks after founder and CEO Jody Sherman committed suicide, Ecomom is liquidating. [PandoDaily]
Tesla CEO Elon Musk got around to publishing the data he promised would show that a New York Times review of his company’s electric Model S sedan was a “fake”: “We were played for a fool and as a result, let down the cause of electric vehicles.” [Tesla]
Times’ reporter John M. Broder answered Mr. Musk’s post point-for-point, reiterating that he followed the instructions of Tesla employees throughout his test drive. [NYT]
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings: “House of Cards now the #1 most popular TV show in the world, according to IMDb. And I still can’t get (Neftlix Chief Content Officer) Ted Sarandos to tell me how many millions are enjoying it on Netflix.” [Facebook]
President Barack Obama hosted a Google+ Hangout. [Daily Dot]
Stop calling it the Harlem Shake. Just stop, really. [Gawker]
A meteorite struck Chelyabinsk, Russia, injuring 400 people. [Mashable]
Have we told you how mind-numbingly excited Betabeat is for HBO’s forthcoming comedy, Silicon Valley? That the network’s inspired decision to hire the creators of Beavis and Butthead to write a TV show about startups thrust us into a fit of giggling anticipation? Read More
Today, In the Plex author Steven Levy has an interview with his favorite subject headlined, “Google’s Larry Page on Why Moon Shots Matter.” Well, naturally they matter a lot, we thought. Doing shots on the moon can get very complicated what with the no gravity and alcohol in an obvious collision course. Read More
Millennial icon Bill Nye the Science Guy, whom this reporter once had the immense pleasure of interviewing, currently serves as the CEO of the Planetary Society. There, he’s worked to raise awareness about the Curiosity Rover’s mission to Mars, as well as advised Elon Musk on what the space research community needs out of a commercial space program. (“We need cheap access to orbit,” Mr. Nye told us in an interview. “It’s the key first step. Getting to orbit right now is too expensive.”)
Mr. Nye is working to raise awareness about NASA’s gutted space exploration budget. Yesterday, his team published a YouTube video of Mr. Nye urging viewers to send a letter to the President, asking him to restore the budget. Read More
