So here's how the story goes: plucky, fresh-faced tech geeks put together some new web gizmo that quickly becomes one of those things everyone loves. Plucky, fresh-faced tech geeks quickly make a lot of money for doing something that doesn't make a lot of money, but is based on their potential for money. But since plucky, fresh-faced tech geeks run the company themselves with no affiliation to any of the Big Boys, Big Boys slowly lick their chops and move in for the kill, either by buying them out or by competing against them. Say goodbye to plucky, fresh-faced tech geeks and say hello to evil media conglomerate. Why do we bring this up? Because it's happening to YouTube....

Proving yet again that life is very, very, very unusual, here is a photograph of the SFist softball team...on a gigantic General Electric billboard in Times Square...making an obscene gesture. The story behind it is this: back in February, GE was soliciting Flickr users to submit pictures of themselves doing "healthy" things for use in a GE ad campaign. We didn't care what the product was; we only cared that their marketing people had requested......