In Pursuit of Mysteries

Burning at Burning Man

As a number of people have heard, there was arson last night at Burning Man. Around 3:00 AM, the Man sculpture was lit on fire. Fire crews came from the surrounding area and eventually put the Man out.

Eventually, San Francisco artist Paul Addis was arrested for arson. Details aren’t clear right now but a mugshot that has been called “surreal” was made available by the Reno Gazette Journal:

I recognized Paul from the play, Gonzo, that R and I attended earlier this year. Paul played Hunter S. Thompson in this relatively well done play. One of my shots from this can be seen below.

I have no idea why he did it (or proof that he did though I am going to assume he did do it at this point). The grin on his face in the mugshot certainly doesn’t give the impression of a remorseful soul or one caught for a crime he didn’t commit.

I’m sure more news will be coming out over the next day or two. You can watch the updated article at Laughing Squid on this matter.

---

Update: I can’t believe I’m actually quoting Valleywag as a source. It makes me cringe. Here is an excerpt from their article on the matter:

The facts as they stand are thus: Addis climbed to the left foot of the man armed with fireworks of some kind, lit them, and set The Man prematurely aflame. Local police now have him in custody, and word is that Burning Man organizers are going to press charges to the fullest.

We speculate that had it been up to Burning Man’s Department of Public Works, the notoriously hardcore, grizzled crew that spends months in the desert to construct, tear down, and clean up Black Rock City, the perp would have been hogtied with electroluminescent wire — a popular art-car decoration — and torn to shreds by a sunburned, stinky, enraged mob underneath The Man’s smoldering embers. But for now, vigilantes do not rule the streets of Burning Man.

Rick Abruzzo, an acquaintance of Addis (and former Valleywag correspondent), mentioned that Addis had been asking for a flare gun or similar object the evening before The Man lit up. Not that anyone obliged. Acquaintances say of Addis, “He has all the ambition to be a Hunter S. Thompson, but without the elegance.”

One witness, who also did not wish to be named, said she actually saw Addis setting the blaze, and was told that he had been bragging about it beforehand to some campmates. The campmates were apparently also the ones who turned him in.

Laughing Squid has reported that Addis is now out of jail on bail paid for by friends, who had to convince him to give his name to the police, which he had been refusing to do for some reason.

Thesis Update from Mentor

My thesis mentor wrote to me this morning. He’s the head of my three professor committee of readers (as well as being my mentor).

He wrote to me to tell me that he had signed off on my thesis and sent it to the other two readers, recommending that they approve it as well. He wanted to offer his congratulations but thought it was premature until the others signed off.

As a side note, he said that he appreciated the work I’d gone through to reign in the overall length of the thesis since he had seen both the original outline, one of the overly long and problematic chapter drafts, and had gone back and forth with me on it.

So, that’s one milestone completed. Once the other two read it and (hopefully) sign off, it then enters the red tape maze (like the mines of Moria) to emerge as an approved thesis on the other side. It has to get past the formatting guidelines Balrog and his MLA orcs though.

Meeting Culture

I caught sight of an article in the New York Times by my former boss, Dean Hachamovitch, on meeting culture and laptops. As some of you may know, Dean is the General Manager of the Internet Explorer team at Microsoft. I worked with him on both IE and MSN Explorer before leaving Microsoft in May, 2006 for greener and more fulfilling pastures.

The article caused me to reflect on the difference in meeting culture at Mozilla and Microsoft. In both instances, pretty much everyone who has a laptop brings it to meetings. Of course, at Microsoft, there were a LOT more meetings than Mozilla forces anyone but key management to enjoy.

I recall a number of instances on the IE Team during the daily war meeting or the like in which people got so exasperated with the lack of attention caused by people focusing on their laptops that people really did try to close laptops on people or make everyone in the room close. Eventually, there was a (short lived) rule that unless you needed your laptop open to take the official notes or to look up data for something of yours in the meeting agenda, the laptops had to be closed.

In comparison, most Mozilla meetings have people lounging about with laptops wide open. People are often checking bugs, logged into IRC (where we live, really) or otherwise multitasking during meetings. It’s all very casual and no one seems to make a major issue out of it. Of course, that isn’t an excuse to just goof off or not pay attention but I think that people don’t really expect everyone to drop all other tasks to sit around a table for an hour, waiting for their turn to speak. We have a lot to do and software to ship!

The overall atmosphere is just a bit more relaxed around the laptop issue and, because people are neither rude in their use nor make a big deal about it, things manage to work out. Of course, this might not be the case if we spent hours and hours in meetings every day but, like I said, we have things to get done and software to ship. :-)

This is probably not the most insightful post in the world but the article did cause me to compare and contrast things. I certainly don’t miss the hundreds of my hours lost, never to return, every year to meetings either.