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The problem with Burning Man lines is the regular screw-ups at the gates every year. They cause lines that are many miles long with people stuck in their cars for half a day or longer. And those screw-ups are frequently technological.

http://blog.burningman.com/201...

Waiting in line for an hour to get ice while chatting with other burners... not a problem, and if it really bothers you, just come back another time.

someone told me that DARPA types test out their latest mind control E-M gadgetry at Burning Man...

but to be more on-topic, Burning Man might be a good experience for a "geek"...

forget all the nonsense 'gift economy' techno-hippie blah blah...it's a bunch of artists, weird academics, ravers, drug experimenters, *rich people* who want to pretend to be those things at a high per-day cost, and of course creepers looking to scam or take advantage of people

it's camping in the desert with 60,000 people

now, in my observation, if you ask a typical burner "What is Burning Man all about?" you'll see an interesting linguistic phenomenon: recursive language ontology

the answer to the question is (all too often) not a fact or statement...the answer to "What is Burning Man all about?" is in part **the act of explaining the experience in a mystical, mysterious way**

it's the status of having been there, to say that you know what it's about, not the act of doing drugs or camping or looking at desert art

behold: http://www.burningman.com/what...

now, that said...if you're curious, GO FOR IT!

just do your thing and enjoy the nonsense for what it is...there is some really cool art and tech on display

I think a reasonable person could have interpreted that to mean they should read elsewhere for safety tips.

The underlying assumption here is that burning man first time attendees will all be reasonable people. As I've said, I've seen first-years disregard the guide and get injured, dehydrated etc. The drinking water thing really needs to be drilled in because most people have little experience in desert climates -- loosing water without perceiving that you're sweating, etc. Then again, one man's modus pollens is another man's modus tollens.

There are seriously crazy people who show up to Burning Man. Some dude in 2003 stabbed a dude to death in a van on the way there and then tried to join DPW looking for work.

But let's say it's not inconceivable that by giving people an easy way, I encouraged some people to come who were less prepared. On the other hand, if you steer people towards the hard way of doing things (driving there from Louisiana, bringing a bike on the back of your car), that has safety consequences too. Driving that distance, you might have an accident, your car might break down in the heat, etc. Your own bike might be in less good shape than you think, and might cause an accident at BM or fall apart leaving you to make a long and strenuous walk back to camp.

You're right about this, but statistics are not available on road injuries and accidents etc. Anecdotally, I've never heard a story about any of these type of problems happening to anyone. However, the general incidence of these problems is far lower than the proportion of people who get medical treatment at Burning Man. At Burning Man 2012, there were 5,758 people who needed medical attention out of approximately 60k attendees, that's about 10%.

A lot of those incidents could be avoided by people using the shortcuts I recommended. Those incidents, including safety hazards, are a cost of doing things the hard way, and I think it's a fallacy not to count them because either (a) they happen outside the gates of BRC or (b) people see a bike break or cause an accident and it never even occurs to them to think that it could have been avoided by steering that person towards a rental bike.

There are no statistics for (a), so who knows -- but anecdotally I've never heard about such incidents -- and (b) is rather imaginary. I have heard of zero accidents on the playa due to a bike breaking. You usually just come to a stop if the thing breaks. It's far more likely the operator of a bike involved in an accident was highly intoxicated and crashed into someone else highly intoxicated, that will occur regardless of rental or not bike usage.

As for (2) the culture, I don't know of any camps that let you just "pay and show up". They're usually running a theme and require you to contribute a certain number of hours towards participating in the theme, immersing you in the aspect of culture that they are contributing to Burning Man.

Again, your inexperience is really showing here with this wildly inaccurate declaration. This is a major issue that's been raised even on the official Burning Man blog and was the main story in the BRC Weekly newspaper in 2011 . There are many camps like this that cater to "plug and play" campers. When I first started burning, this was largely restricted to the super-wealthy (we're talking $5M+ net worth), but catering has gone downmarket. There are people who will get you an RV, load it with costumes, supplies, and have professional staff members getting paid to help you in camp.

Perhaps Burning Man could pre-emptively disallow "motel" camps that allow spots to the general public where you just "pay and show up". Presumably that would allevia

If Burning Man was easy to get to, and attending was as simple as using money to purchase things rather than organizing/creating things on your own/contributing, it would become Coachella. The fact that Burning Man is so difficult to get to, has a harsh desert climate, requires you to bring your own water etc helps ensure that more committed/invested people attend rather than tourists. Making it easier for people to get to the playa cheaply and without connections to Burning Man culture would increase the number of tourists on the playa, and change the festival drastically. It would also surely increase the amount of people in the medical tents and put a strain on emergency services, since they are unlikely to read the guides/adequately prepare.

I've met first-years who merely skimmed through the guide and thought it was "exaggerated" and came with no warm clothes and summarily froze every night. They later ended up in the medical tent for dehydration and a broken ankle. How could you think going to a web site and easily booking a flight and then bus ride to Burning Man would not increase the number of clueless tourists, who are potentially a safety hazard to themselves/others?

OK, you're right, my goal was to make it easy to get to Burning Man, and if you're assuming that in itself creates problems, then yes that changes everything.

But maybe a way to stop people from coming unprepared is to give them preparation advice which is really, actually correct. The official Burning Man website still tells people that there are community bikes lying around that you can use to get from place to place:
http://www.burningman.com/on_t...
NO YOU CAN'T!! There are never any community bikes available!! What they should have said is that if you're not driving in with your own bike, you can pre-pay to rent a bike from a bicycle camp. But despite three different pages on the site about bikes:
http://www.burningman.com/on_t...
http://www.burningman.com/prep...
http://www.burningman.com/prep...
they never mention the on-playa bike rental option once.

Some people did show up unprepared -- they found the bicycle rental camp and hoped that they could rent a bike, only to be told that the bike rentals were all booked up long ago -- and the reason they showed up unprepared is because the Burning Man website lied to them.

If you want people to show up prepared, let's at least try the approach of giving people correct and complete information on how to be prepared.

If Burning Man was easy to get to, and attending was as simple as using money to purchase things rather than organizing/creating things on your own/contributing, it would become Coachella. The fact that Burning Man is so difficult to get to, has a harsh desert climate, requires you to bring your own water etc helps ensure that more committed/invested people attend rather than tourists. Making it easier for people to get to the playa cheaply and without connections to Burning Man culture would increase the number of tourists on the playa, and change the festival drastically. It would also surely increase the amount of people in the medical tents and put a strain on emergency services, since they are unlikely to read the guides/adequately prepare.

I've met first-years who merely skimmed through the guide and thought it was "exaggerated" and came with no warm clothes and summarily froze every night. They later ended up in the medical tent for dehydration and a broken ankle. How could you think going to a web site and easily booking a flight and then bus ride to Burning Man would not increase the number of clueless tourists, who are potentially a safety hazard to themselves/others?

OK, you're right, my goal was to make it easy to get to Burning Man, and if you're assuming that in itself creates problems, then yes that changes everything.

But maybe a way to stop people from coming unprepared is to give them preparation advice which is really, actually correct. The official Burning Man website still tells people that there are community bikes lying around that you can use to get from place to place:
http://www.burningman.com/on_t...
NO YOU CAN'T!! There are never any community bikes available!! What they should have said is that if you're not driving in with your own bike, you can pre-pay to rent a bike from a bicycle camp. But despite three different pages on the site about bikes:
http://www.burningman.com/on_t...
http://www.burningman.com/prep...
http://www.burningman.com/prep...
they never mention the on-playa bike rental option once.

Some people did show up unprepared -- they found the bicycle rental camp and hoped that they could rent a bike, only to be told that the bike rentals were all booked up long ago -- and the reason they showed up unprepared is because the Burning Man website lied to them.

If you want people to show up prepared, let's at least try the approach of giving people correct and complete information on how to be prepared.

If Burning Man was easy to get to, and attending was as simple as using money to purchase things rather than organizing/creating things on your own/contributing, it would become Coachella. The fact that Burning Man is so difficult to get to, has a harsh desert climate, requires you to bring your own water etc helps ensure that more committed/invested people attend rather than tourists. Making it easier for people to get to the playa cheaply and without connections to Burning Man culture would increase the number of tourists on the playa, and change the festival drastically. It would also surely increase the amount of people in the medical tents and put a strain on emergency services, since they are unlikely to read the guides/adequately prepare.

I've met first-years who merely skimmed through the guide and thought it was "exaggerated" and came with no warm clothes and summarily froze every night. They later ended up in the medical tent for dehydration and a broken ankle. How could you think going to a web site and easily booking a flight and then bus ride to Burning Man would not increase the number of clueless tourists, who are potentially a safety hazard to themselves/others?

OK, you're right, my goal was to make it easy to get to Burning Man, and if you're assuming that in itself creates problems, then yes that changes everything.

But maybe a way to stop people from coming unprepared is to give them preparation advice which is really, actually correct. The official Burning Man website still tells people that there are community bikes lying around that you can use to get from place to place:
http://www.burningman.com/on_t...
NO YOU CAN'T!! There are never any community bikes available!! What they should have said is that if you're not driving in with your own bike, you can pre-pay to rent a bike from a bicycle camp. But despite three different pages on the site about bikes:
http://www.burningman.com/on_t...
http://www.burningman.com/prep...
http://www.burningman.com/prep...
they never mention the on-playa bike rental option once.

Some people did show up unprepared -- they found the bicycle rental camp and hoped that they could rent a bike, only to be told that the bike rentals were all booked up long ago -- and the reason they showed up unprepared is because the Burning Man website lied to them.

If you want people to show up prepared, let's at least try the approach of giving people correct and complete information on how to be prepared.

If Burning Man was easy to get to, and attending was as simple as using money to purchase things rather than organizing/creating things on your own/contributing, it would become Coachella. The fact that Burning Man is so difficult to get to, has a harsh desert climate, requires you to bring your own water etc helps ensure that more committed/invested people attend rather than tourists. Making it easier for people to get to the playa cheaply and without connections to Burning Man culture would increase the number of tourists on the playa, and change the festival drastically. It would also surely increase the amount of people in the medical tents and put a strain on emergency services, since they are unlikely to read the guides/adequately prepare.

I've met first-years who merely skimmed through the guide and thought it was "exaggerated" and came with no warm clothes and summarily froze every night. They later ended up in the medical tent for dehydration and a broken ankle. How could you think going to a web site and easily booking a flight and then bus ride to Burning Man would not increase the number of clueless tourists, who are potentially a safety hazard to themselves/others?

OK, you're right, my goal was to make it easy to get to Burning Man, and if you're assuming that in itself creates problems, then yes that changes everything.

But maybe a way to stop people from coming unprepared is to give them preparation advice which is really, actually correct. The official Burning Man website still tells people that there are community bikes lying around that you can use to get from place to place:
http://www.burningman.com/on_t...
NO YOU CAN'T!! There are never any community bikes available!! What they should have said is that if you're not driving in with your own bike, you can pre-pay to rent a bike from a bicycle camp. But despite three different pages on the site about bikes:
http://www.burningman.com/on_t...
http://www.burningman.com/prep...
http://www.burningman.com/prep...
they never mention the on-playa bike rental option once.

Some people did show up unprepared -- they found the bicycle rental camp and hoped that they could rent a bike, only to be told that the bike rentals were all booked up long ago -- and the reason they showed up unprepared is because the Burning Man website lied to them.

If you want people to show up prepared, let's at least try the approach of giving people correct and complete information on how to be prepared.

Thanks. This is indeed a valid objection -- I just think it depends on the proportion of people who are in this situation.

After all, if everybody has no idea when they're leaving, then they'll just all use the non-priority queue, which will just become the regular queue, and we'll be no worse off than we already are.

On the other hand, I met a lot of people who drove there but were not running a major theme camp, they just drove there and parked because that's how they got there. I think they could probably pack up on a fairly predictable schedule. When you move people out of the old-style queue into the license-plate-priority queue, you reduce average wait times for everybody, and you at least don't make things worse for people in the old-style queue (at least, as long as the gatekeepers are still letting people through the old-style queue while merging them with the license-plate queue).

My suggestion was based on the information in the Burning Man FAQ:
http://www.burningman.com/prep...
which says that the main reason they don't use a priority express-lane system is that registering, and verifying registrations on exit, would be a huge hassle. So I was trying to come up with a way that avoided a registration system or a cumbersome verification process. If there are other problems with a scheduled registration system, then yes, that changes the problem. If most people have no idea how long it will take them to pack up and leave, then the idea falls apart. It seemed to me though like a lot of people who came in cars wouldn't take that long to pack up.

Well, I had fun, and I didn't trip on any drugs except Benadryl. I like music and art. I also like sex, but the despite a pretty-even ratio of guys to girls at the event (only 53% male according to http://afterburn.burningman.com/11/census/ ), the ratio of unattached men to women (i.e. single, or poly, or otherwise available to have sex), is pretty high. So only the tallest and best-looking men (or, if you're an idiot, the "most confident") have much of a shot, so I didn't bother trying very hard. Besides, I didn't have a lot of space in my aforementioned single-occupancy tent.

You really can see a lot of mind-blowing things there without the sex and drugs. I grew up on the Mad Max movies and never dreamed that I'd be hanging off the side of a real-life Thunderdome watching a fight.

The Burning Man festival noted that with all the Nevada rebates on solar panels, net was effectively the cost of installation.

Burning Man has access to a large amount of volunteer labor, so they can effectively put up solar panels for free. They setup panels to power parts of the event (the man), then move them to Gerlach once the festival is over. As I recall, the goal was to provide all the power for the towns nearest the festival.

I wish other states were as forward-looking. At this point the benefits (to the state) of encouraging the infrastructure probably outweigh the costs.

(Yes, I know. Just getting to burning man uses an enormous amount of fossil fuels. What's your point?)

Have you ever been? It is the population density of a city, modulo the multistory units (except for the nuts who do build those). I don't know what the plan this year is (I'm missing it this year, sniff), but last year, the camp radius was 2100 feet, putting the vast bulk of those 50K people in a 1-mile diameter area. Not many people camp in "deep playa" (the burner term for the area outside of the radial roads but inside the trash perimeter).

Back on topic, there's been signal there for at least the last three years, but it became useless once the gates opened and the hordes descended. My take is that cell service during the main event is going to be a net negative, but it is inevitable. It will become something akin to the ongoing war on glow sticks - a bunch of us will mercilessly mock glow-stuck cellphone users and try to shame them into putting the fucking things down and be present, and it mostly won't work.

Those of us who do LNT (Leave No Trace, the massive cleanup effort post event) will get to ground score cellphones, though. People lose everything else.

I've never been to Burning Man, I've been to other free-love-get-high-hippy-alt-fests so I "get" the point of it, but I don't understand how the Open Source community can stomach Burning Man's copyright claims.

On paper it sounds really good. "We have a bunch of nudists and hippies (and exhibitionsts) that show up and walk around naked for most of the event. We don't want voyeurs to be getting their rocks off on them."

Then they went after private photographers own galleries, and the Wiki Commons. Oh, and they sell their own DVDs. Complete coincidence, there.

Unfortunately Burning Man itself has kinda become mainstream. It's less about art and free love and the like, and more about college guys getting drunk/stoned and harassing girls, trying to get them to strip. I imagine there are other, better, alt-fests around, but the closest thing I get to Hippydome is reading Brad Warner's series of Zen books.

Burning Man is looking for developers to help with their open source projects. You can't get much cooler than that.

If this doesn't work, their next option is to wall off the Gulf of Mexico, drain the water, and let the entire thing fill with oil like a gigantic bathtub. Then, we'll get a bunch of old hippies together, throw in a giant effigy, light the whole thing on fire, and have the best Burning Man festival ever!

As somebody that goes to Burning Man every year, I can tell you that this plan will never pass the environmental and Leave No Trace policies set by the BMorg and burners.

Honestly, is this really an impassioned defence of any form of anarchism as a workable method of organizing anything larger than a trip to the donut shop? You will have better luck joining the flat earth club.

We had anarchy for much of human history, and it was a bloodbath of epic proportions. We ran screaming from it as soon as we had enough collective brain cells to do so and never looked back.

Anarchism is the cry of a wailing infant. It appeals to the red faced baby inside us that still shouts I DO NOT LIKE TEH RULES!!! And some few of us have enough ignorance of history and human nature to confuse it for a real political philosophy.

You do realize that social animals always form rules by which to organize themselves, and means to enforce those rules, don't you?

Counterargument: "But this one time, teh rules were not written on parchment, so it's still teh anarchy, woooo!"

Anarchism is so immediately awful that pro-anarchists have an extraordinarily difficult time finding any examples of successful societies which live by their principles, but even the few they tend to cite are usually not anarchist in anything but an incorrectly applied label, because they still depended on rules to work, and those rules were still enforced collectively (regardless of whether that enforcement happened via informal forms of coercion, such as beatings and lynchings, or people in uniform). Yes, if you twist it enough, you can call any damn thing anarchism and work the outsider cachet. ;)

I love that you cited burning man, you utter fool. Yes, burning man is laden with rules.

http://www.burningman.com/press/pressRandR.html

It's the perfect example that an irrational desire to never organize will create misery that people - even many anarchists - will immediately move to alleviate.

Oh, you went to burning man back in the day, and had a great time, right? So there was no reason for the rules, since their absence didn't affect you. Hence, waaaaaah.

Is there going to be a Dying Man film festival and art show now?

Yes BM is an LLC but for good reasons explained here. They don't accept investors, have any commercial sponsorships, or endorse any products. They don't allow outside vendors and only sell coffee/tea and ice at the event. They definitely aren't out to make a lot of cash and have very few year round staff. A lot of the event staff is volunteer.

Such typical responses...

First of all the photo policy is rarely, if ever used. When it is, it is because some asshole went to the event with primary intent of taking pictures of nude people so they can sell them. That we don't tolerate, period, end of discussion. You don't like it, don't by a ticket.

Ticket prices? Ever wonder it costs to pay for porta-potties for +-50,000 people and have them serviced twice a day? Go here and read the afterburn reports, they contain a full accounting of what it costs to put this event on. Give you a hint, it is over 1 million dollars just so people can take a shit.

And yes, I attended the even for 5 years running, and I worked for the event, so yes I know of what I speak.

Yes, the terms do say that the copyrights are absconded with. See part 9. It says that if a third party uses your pictures commercially---even without your authorization---you are required to give your copyright to Burning Man so that they can sue the third party. That means that not only does it prevent you from authorizing commercial use of those photos, it also means that your copyright can be taken at any time without notice even if you did nothing wrong. That's an agreement to assign copyright, pure and simple, and according to Title 17, such an assignment requires a signature.

There are a lot of other things dubious about these terms and conditions, too. For instance, this is in effect a perpetual option to acquire (for no compensation) a copyright. Normally, such agreements would only be valid for a certain period of time. At least in business contract law, if a contract does not specify an expiration date, it is considered to only be valid for a reasonable period of time. The definition of reasonable is open to interpretation, of course. In any case, the contract term is nowhere near as clear cut when interpreted according to the legal framework. I've never seen a copyright assignment option that was open ended like that. That is highly nonstandard and should raise a lot of red flags.

The fact that there is no additional compensation for photos confiscated under this clause likely invalidates the contract. By law, a contract requires mutual consideration or else it isn't a contract.

The terms also prohibit descriptive use of their trademarks. I suspect that's a legally dubious contract term, as again it is an open-ended term that binds you forever. IIRC, such perpetually binding terms are generally not permitted in contracts between businesses and individuals.

In any case, read http://www.ehow.com/about_5120969_business-contract-laws.html and http://www.expertlaw.com/library/business/contract_law.html for a better understanding of why this contract likely isn't worth the bits it is written with.

Actually the entirety of the terms are written on the back of the ticket and it explicitly states that by using the ticket you agree to the terms. More importantly, every single person entering the event is personally greeting, this is mostly to give critical information to newcomers, but people are all told about the rules regarding cameras and how they can use the images. If they don't agree then they don't need to go in. The bottom line is that this is used to prevent people from taking advantage of participants and selling their images for profit. There are TONS of burning man pictures available online and the biggest repository is at the burning man website. http://images.burningman.com/index.cgi?image=34274

I've been to burning man 7 times ... its an amazing place and a lot of what makes it special would be ruined if you knew that people were videotaping you doing something odd and then trying to sell that video.

That is the basis of this rule ... and this is the only time I ever know of it being enforced.

To PROTECT people's rights ... not limit them.

In fact there are TONS of videos of burning man on Youtube, and http://www.burningman.com/ has a repository of photos from almost every year.

They just don't want the Girls Gone Wild assholes to sell images of you without your consent.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/05/national/05VIDE.html

http://archives.cnn.com/2002/LAW/08/26/ctv.burning.man/

My assumption is that they ask/force people to take down images and videos that show extremely reckless illegal activity so as to keep the Powers-That-Be from having evidence to get the event shut down.

Except, of course the fact that there are cops at Burning Man already.

There is a good reason for this. As it says in the article "Burning Man strives to celebrate our individuality, creativity and free spirit," this is true, very true AT Burning Man. There are few rules and lots of fun. The press rule is there to protect the participants. Many take this opportunity to express themselves but don't really want to show the world their Burning Man side. At Burning Man, you are not supposed to take picture without permission but inevitably this happens. This press rule allows participants a way to protect themselves. It's not abused by the Burning Man Organization.

While Burning Man is NOT a nonprofit, they don't accept investors, have any commercial sponsorships, or endorse any products. They don't allow outside vendors and only sell coffee/tea and ice at the event. They definitely aren't out to make a lot of cash and have no need to advertise. Word of mouth grows Burning Man fast enough, almost 50,000 participants at the last burn. They'd much rather make their participants feel safe.

"My assumption is that they ask/force people to take down images and videos that show extremely reckless illegal activity..." Agreed, for the most part. IANA lawyer, but I did just read the T&C's here: http://tickets2.burningman.com/info.php?i=2386 They make it pretty clear that pics/video you take (and even post) for PERSONAL use is all well and good. They don't seem interested at all. It's the NON-personal ($$$) stuff they're getting uptight about. In other words, "don't make money using our name without letting us know so we can wet our beak too." And the third party stuff reads like this: "If you put your stuff on YouTube, and someone grabs it and puts it in a documentary, we're going to sue those people." I dunno...maybe I'm oversimplifying here, but I don't have much of a problem with any of it...?

You make a good point, except I don't think most of the people here have any sympathy for the "anti-rave" law in the first place. Would GB allow Burning Man? I've heard it has been policed more in recent years, but they certainly haven't shut it down, either.

Maybe he thought Burning Man was this week....

Last I saw him, some chick in a crotchless monkey suit had gotten him totally pissed and convinced him to rip the antenna off of his aircraft to roast wieners over the coals of The Man.

can you honestly tell me that if there were a fire convention, you wouldn't go?

It's called Burning Man.

The Burning Man crowd likes stuff like that. It's too late for this year's Department of Mutant Vehicles registration, though.

By playa standards, this is unambitious. Check out the Neverwas Haul, a steam-powered 3-story Victorian house on wheels that moves under its own power.

You want to see some neat engineering? Most is not practical at all which means it's all that much more awsome. Go to Burningman

Along the lines of this:

http://burningman.com/sections/homepage/theman.gif

Since Burning Man is a city that gets built and destroyed every year, Burning Man Earth is hoping to be able to use overlays to show the art from different years and allow time travel. Burning Man Earth started as Virtual Playa, which consists of Microsoft Flight Simulator models of objects found at Burning Man. I converted them to Flight Gear and then uploaded them to Google Earth. Andrew Johnstone and others then redid many of the models in sketchup and uploaded them to Burning Man Earth

Since Burning Man is a city that gets built and destroyed every year, Burning Man Earth is hoping to be able to use overlays to show the art from different years and allow time travel. Burning Man Earth started as Virtual Playa, which consists of Microsoft Flight Simulator models of objects found at Burning Man. I converted them to Flight Gear and then uploaded them to Google Earth. Andrew Johnstone and others then redid many of the models in sketchup and uploaded them to Burning Man Earth

Since Burning Man is a city that gets built and destroyed every year, Burning Man Earth is hoping to be able to use overlays to show the art from different years and allow time travel. Burning Man Earth started as Virtual Playa, which consists of Microsoft Flight Simulator models of objects found at Burning Man. I converted them to Flight Gear and then uploaded them to Google Earth. Andrew Johnstone and others then redid many of the models in sketchup and uploaded them to Burning Man Earth

It's strange, because I thought I saw LEDs from GE, and advertisements on CNN, so I would presume if they're for sale, that LEDs, especially white light LEDs (combo of the colors) were thereby viable.

And a large crowd of people are using them at Burning Man this year, according to all the list chatter.

Unfettered from monetary exchange, however, most denizens of Burning Man gravitate toward a gift economy. Acts of giving range from the mundane to the extravagant: the accordion player who serenades those in the porta-potty line with his renditions of AC/DC; the massage therapist volunteering her services; the water-gun brigade, spraying people down for a moment of cool relief from the midday sun; or the man who brings along a week's supply of dry ice so he can serve cold ice cream every day.

As puzzling as how open source projects organize themselves is why. To the casual outside observer, it appears that open source developers spend enormous amounts of time developing software that, in the end, they are simply going to give away without the prospect of compensation in return.

For several years [at burningman], there was a project called Solaria. It was a scale model of the solar system, where not only the distances between objects were proportional, but also the size of those objects relative to distance was proportional. Each object was a light source, with the sun represented by a small lamp about the size of a bowling ball. On that scale, Pluto could be reached only by a three-mile bike ride across the playa. Not even the Smithsonian can put on an exhibit of that scale.

and, I have gone long enough, I hope that this helps you understand the inclusion of burningman in the book. for more information: burningman.com
funded art of this year
my burningman pictures

Unfettered from monetary exchange, however, most denizens of Burning Man gravitate toward a gift economy. Acts of giving range from the mundane to the extravagant: the accordion player who serenades those in the porta-potty line with his renditions of AC/DC; the massage therapist volunteering her services; the water-gun brigade, spraying people down for a moment of cool relief from the midday sun; or the man who brings along a week's supply of dry ice so he can serve cold ice cream every day.

As puzzling as how open source projects organize themselves is why. To the casual outside observer, it appears that open source developers spend enormous amounts of time developing software that, in the end, they are simply going to give away without the prospect of compensation in return.

For several years [at burningman], there was a project called Solaria. It was a scale model of the solar system, where not only the distances between objects were proportional, but also the size of those objects relative to distance was proportional. Each object was a light source, with the sun represented by a small lamp about the size of a bowling ball. On that scale, Pluto could be reached only by a three-mile bike ride across the playa. Not even the Smithsonian can put on an exhibit of that scale.

and, I have gone long enough, I hope that this helps you understand the inclusion of burningman in the book. for more information: burningman.com
funded art of this year
my burningman pictures

Burning Man is NOT anarchy and has never claimed to be.

Neither has Zawinski. Stick to the point.

Burning Man is a (non-profit) corporation.

Non profit? try facts. It's an for-profit LLC that just happens to operates at break even, after making tons of art grants.

http://afterburn.burningman.com/04/financial_struc ture.html

"Our problem, however, was that we could not afford to work at guiding and creating Burning Man without being paid."

This comes straight from the horse's mouth. how do you argue with that?

"If you don't agree, then don't go."

Er, he's not. That's what he (Zawinski) is saying.

It's a shame that the abuses of a few end up ruining perfectly good artisitic opportunities for others.

I've had to realize, myself, that there is tons of hypocrisy at BM. It's not a "city" - we are not "citizens". We do not elect representatives or vote. We are not a democracy. Burning Man is a private event. Most of us may be participants (although the ratio is getting rather pronounced), but that just means we are consuming opportunities to interact in novel ways, rather than passive entertainment or art itself.

It's curious that, more recently, Burning Man is so busy encouraging the political worldview that the event nurtures to be spread back to the world, while it takes such strong measures to remain unnoticed by the world it's trying to effect.

Also bear in mind that bitching and moaning is one of Zawinski's favorite pastimes. Or is that two pastimes?

I wear shorts and a t-shirt, as do most all my camp mates.

If you go to Burning Man Decompression in that outfit, you'll have to pay twice as much. Your outfit is Not Approved.

http://burningman.com/blackrockcity_yearround/spec ial_events/decompression/decom2005.html

Anyone, including you, who try to describe it with such a broad brush end up only describing a small slice of it. It is a little bit of what everyone tells you it is...really, only a little bit.

I've never gone, but I have friends who go every year. I used to support them by going to various performances and fundraisers (my friends are fire dancers), but it's gotten to the point where I'm just like... meh. Fire. Devil horns. OK, you look cute with the devil horns, and the fire... ok, maybe not fire because you can't get a permit, but glow sticks, hula hoops... Meh.

I support Burning Man in principle, as long as they stick to principles, but I've just never felt an overwhelming desire to attend, given the tastes of it I've had.

It actually moved out to the Black Rock desert in 1990, well before the dot-com boom. Dot-commers were very well represented during the boom, though, largely because they had scads of imaginary money to spend on supplies.

Here's a timeline. Note that they were only at around 800 people when it got too big for Baker Beach.

My favorite phrase from this year's burn: "Burning Man nostalgia isn't as cool as it used to be."

Correct, it is an LLC.

They do publish a yearly report on where the money goes.
http://afterburn.burningman.com/04/financial_intro .html
http://afterburn.burningman.com/04/financial_chart .html

Mostly its pretty obvious stuff, and the amount of money is not huge (annual revenue is only something like 10 million); grants to artists, cleanup costs, BLM land use fee, emergency services (fire, police, etc), property acquistion and development, payroll for staff.

Where exactly do you think there is a shroud of secrecy? It all looks pretty open (and obvious) to me.

I challenge you to find *any* weeklong event that costs less than $150/head, let alone one sufficiently interesting to attract 30,000+ people to a rather remote area. Its only absurd if you go for 2 days which they actively discourage anyways.

Correct, it is an LLC.

They do publish a yearly report on where the money goes.
http://afterburn.burningman.com/04/financial_intro .html
http://afterburn.burningman.com/04/financial_chart .html

Mostly its pretty obvious stuff, and the amount of money is not huge (annual revenue is only something like 10 million); grants to artists, cleanup costs, BLM land use fee, emergency services (fire, police, etc), property acquistion and development, payroll for staff.

Where exactly do you think there is a shroud of secrecy? It all looks pretty open (and obvious) to me.

I challenge you to find *any* weeklong event that costs less than $150/head, let alone one sufficiently interesting to attract 30,000+ people to a rather remote area. Its only absurd if you go for 2 days which they actively discourage anyways.

The sad thing is that this plant would be sited near the Black Rock Desert because the air is so clear. Even sadder is that power would go to Los Angeles, yet the plant is too dirty to site in California.

TWO MEN ENTER, ONE MAN LEAVES!

Ok, I'm going to go boldly off topic here and pass along one of the funniest things I ever heard. Remember that it was your fault.

At Burning Man there was (and probably still is) a group of people who build a Thunderdome replica and have fights. One night years ago it somehow became clown night. Clinging to the bars, you'd look around and only see painted faces and red noses.

As the clown combatants entered the arena, everybody began to chant:

two clowns enter, nine clowns leave
TWO CLOWNS ENTER, NINE CLOWNS LEAVE!

gee... that sounds a lot like Black Rock City http://www.burningman.com/

you paint one of these little bikes [dodgetomohawk.com] red or blue, and ride around somewhere roomy [www.saltflats.com].

Back in my day, we used to call that:
Going to Burning Man

Yea, but what about these:

http://images.burningman.com/index.cgi?image=16757

i couldn't find a toyota specificly.
http://iloveoregon.com/images/Big%20Air%20windsurf ing%20float.jpg
http://images.burningman.com/gallery/jbain.56.jpg

I'm still cleaning off dust from Burning Man.