Something strange in this map of software startups, published today in Valleywag:

The map, by a site called StartupWarrior, purports to show “76 startups on either side of the 101 [sic!] between McAllister and Grove streets in San Francisco.” The only problem? Those blocks are occupied by City Hall, the Opera House, and the War Memorial Building.

I don’t think so!

A year after Meraki, a startup with a grassroots model for blanketing an area with wi-fi signals, gained its first foothold in San Francisco, and ten months after the city’s first attempt with Earthlink collapsed, Mayor Gavin Newson is supporting Meraki’s model as a way to get wi-fi to a majority of San Franciscans.

When I spoke to Meraki last summer, their intention was to pay for the free wi-fi by putting an advertising bar in the browser of everyone who uses them to connect to the internets. I’ve never been able to find one of their signals, so I don’t know if they’re still doing that.

See my original post from July 2007 for an explanation of their scheme.

While most people were enjoying a pint at the parade or getting dressed for the Brides of March, hundreds of members of the group Anonymous descended upon the Church of Scientology headquarters in San Francisco to protest what they feel is a cult that has been given religious and tax exempt status. They also believe the CoS has committed many crimes including extortion and murder just to name a few. The protest loosely coincides with the birthday of church founder and science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard which was on March 13th. The protest was very orderly and while multiple attempts were made to give brochures and pamphlets to the Scientologists entering and exiting by the side door, none took the material as long as I was there. It was by far the best protest I’ve been to in a very long time for the entertainment factor alone. I mean how often do you get to see Cthulu in a party hat?

Since some people couldn’t make it out I’m including a list of further reading materials I received from some of the protestors.

www.enturbulation.org
www.xenu.net
www.xenu-directory.net
www.whyaretheydead.net
www.youfoundthecard.com
Operation Freakout
Operation Snow White
Fair Game Policy
Lisa McPherson
Scientology and Me

I swear to whatever deity I need to though if I never hear Rick Astley again it will be too soon…

Click here for more photos of the protest

Just 24 hours after a troubled 3rd year law student at UC Hastings threatened a suicide leap off the school’s landmark tower, a high ranking diplomat from a “Rogue State”, made a brave appearance in the same potentially contentious academic environment. While not as visually dramatic as the hysterical student with her cellphone in hand being talked down by police negotiators from her 21st floor perch, the ground floor speech by the Syrian Ambassador (and fellow blogger) Imad Moustapha dealt with matters of a far more grave consequence than a student’s bizarrely botched love life.

Mustapha, made an eloquent spokesman for a nation that most Americans can’t fathom, find on a map, and perhaps hear only about when a Fox News correspondent mentions it’s candidacy for the Bush administration’s “Axis of Evil”. Just steps from the plaza named after the United Nations he spoke of some of the inner machinations of that body that left his countrymen a bit more than puzzled.

He spoke of a need for better relations between our two countries, and that the smaller Syria would prefer less bullying & bluster from the current administration. Unlike the reception that awaited Iran’s President Ahmadinejad at Columbia in New York, Imad Moustapaha found a far more colloquial reception at the state’s oldest law school.

He claimed he turned down speaking at the local Commonwealth Club in favor of appearing before law students, as a deference to his life before international diplomacy took him away from his job teaching computer science in Damascus.

Fluent in four languages, co-author of the UN-sponsored “Human Development Report in the Arab World”, Moustapha holds a Phd he earned in the UK, and was Dean of IT at the University of Damascus before accepting his Ambassadorship in 2004. Equally parts charming, witty and defensive of Syria’s political positions, the Ambassador relayed tales of his transistion from simple academic life driven by science to life on the diplomatic frontlines, and his small country’s larger perspective on world events and relationships. He brought to San Francisco his perspectives from 4000 year old Damascus, the world’s oldest continuously inhabited city, and he referred to Cairo and Baghdad as baby cities , since they are only some 1000 years old.

Moustapha, standing under a rotating slide show of his country’s treasures and sites, gave brief introductory statements, but spent most of his hour with the students engaged in Q&A. Unfortunately, not that many questions came down the pipe because some of these were “big” questions, not easily answered in short soundbites when involving complex and sometimes confrontational geo-political issues.

More after the jump…

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The NY Times today ran a piece on Healthy San Francisco, the city’s attempt to provide health care for some 80,000+ uninsured residents. If you haven’t heard of it, that’s likely because you don’t live in Chinatown. The only two clinics offering these gratis services since earlier this summer are in Chinatown.

That’s supposed to change by next week as over a dozen new clinics are added, but my attempts to log onto a supposed Healthy San Francisco city website went on for hours to no avail.

Maybe you’ll have better luck, go ahead try it:
( http://www.sfhp.org/HealthySanFrancisco )

Of course the fact that the website is down currently, and all the people who thought this up & are in charge of this program are simultaneously writing resignation letters due to the mayor’s personal personnel issues, either does or doesn’t bode well for the success of the program. Supposedly taxes won’t need to rise because expenses are just a few hundred million a year, rationalized as basically what’s being spent on emergency care in SF already.

That all sounds dandy, but I just don’t quite see how this form of “care not cash II” scheme” will magically eliminate the bulk of emergency care expenses. Those bills aren’t just going to simply disappear because the city offers more casual clinical care as well. We’ll still have our gun battling boys, crazed crackheads, random red light runners, drunk driving dudes, and tawdry tangential tragedies all getting into medical mayhem monthly won’t we?

At least Gavin got a nice photo op with Michael Moore out of it so far, and the lady featured in the NY Times who moved here from China last year is being seen, so good for them…

So who knows about what will happen for the rest of us, just stay tuned …

Uh,
I’m no doctor, but my advice is, if any of you have existing health insurance, don’t quit your day job…

Just a couple hours ago, while Willie Brown cavorted in the lobby with some ladies, and Sister Flora Fauna of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence proclaimed and invoked a chant to create a special state of sainthood for the deceased proprietor of the O’Farrell Theater, guests drank, ate and cemented the memory of notorious strip club operator Jim Mitchell into their personal histories.

Drinks were spilled, as were many stories, most likely tall tales…but none colorful or tall enough to meet the higher than high & wild standards he’d been setting in that same building since 1969. While he certainly had his political and professional enemies, all who’d have no problem deriding his morals & methods over the years…

As if anyone there ever gave a flying f*ck about any of that crap…

(especially the world’s youngest pole dancer…)

Like any party held there over the years, the mood remained as festive as possible under the conditions. The women were gorgeous, the oysters from British Columbia were delicious, as was the gumbo, and the drinks at the usually dry theater were quite possibly stiffer than the d*cks for once, while the girls pranced & danced through the crowd.

It wasn’t quite the good ol’ days, but what ever is?

More observations & a few extremely rare pics from the deep innards and archives of the infamous O’Farrell theater after the jump…
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If you’ve been around the Inner Mission over the last few days, you’ve probably noticed these posters. Wi fi for everybody? Isn’t the city still arguing about how it’s going to make that happen?

This isn’t the municipal wi-fi effort, but an end-around by a private company, Meraki. By putting up wireless antennas around a neighborhood, then selling small “repeater” antennas to individuals, they aim to create a “wireless mesh network” across selected neighborhoods of the city.

Curious about the plan, I spoke on Wednesday to Sean Gaddis, Meraki’s head of marketing.

What are you guys trying to do?

Gaddis: The vision of the company is to bring internet access to the next billion people, to make the internet universal and accessible for all. The way we do that is to change the economics of internet access, providing access where it wasn’t possible before, by empowering individuals to create wi fi communities.

How’s it work?
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As we head into a long weekend, here’s a summary of some things bubbling under in the Bay Area’s busy biz community…

more after the bump in the blog…

Facebook Facelift : The 23 year old CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg spoke about opening up the company’s software development to about 750 invite only programmers attending the company’s first developer conference this week at The San Francisco Design Center. Facebook who claims 55% of it’s members are now outside of college, also announced 65 companies who have already created 85 apps for the new platform, including Amazon.com, Warner Bros Records, Digg, Microsoft, and Twitter. Amazon’s app gives Facebook users the ability to embed product & book reviews into their online profiles.

WiFi w/ That SUV ? With AC Transit already offering wi-fi for rush hour commuters, Avis rental car will be testing wi-fi service within cars rented at SFO and through it’s San Jose and Oakland airport locations later this year. The service will be called Avis Connect and will run an additional $10.95 a day . Avis customers will be reminded that the service is not intended to be used by the driver while operating the vehicle.

Bay is Big in Nano Tech : The SF Bay Area is apparently in the top 2 of emerging nano technology research hubs in the country, the other city being Boston, according to the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies’ website and a new interactive map made available online . A story recently published by ZD Net reports that the map could be a tool for “local community groups concerned about the dangers that specific types of nanotechnology could potentially cause in their community if not regulated properly”.

Cash to Burn For Feedburner, The RSS metrics & ad service Feedburner who maintain a west coast HQ at 336 Brannan, are reportedly in mid deal and about to be gobbled up by Google for about $100 Million. The main company HQ is in Chicago and it’s unknown whether the (as yet unconfirmed) acquisition will mean transferring more of their the workforce out west or not.

Pac Bell Hotel ? :The San Francisco Business Journal is reporting that the Old Pacific Telephone Company building on New Montgomery may become a luxury hotel according to a developer trying to purchase the 26 story deco-esque tower built in 1924. Their would be condos too, as well as a spa, restaurant and bar if WMS and financial partner Stockbridge Capital Partners get the their way. First they must get the building from AT & T and that alone iis likely gonna cost somewhere around $118 million, before the remodeling begins.

More local biz blurbs after this bump in the blog…
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SFIFF wraps up today with a lineup of more great films. If you haven’t been able to check out any films at the festival yet, today’s the day!

I felt that it was appropriate to end my SFIFF coverage with the French film, A Parting Shot (Pas Douce). The story follows Fred (Frederique), a nurse who loses the will to live. Fred attempts to take her life with the rifle her father showed her how to shoot, but ends up mistakenly shooting a teenage boy instead. She has to deal with this impulsive mistake as the boy’s nurse, and ultimately ends up forming a bond with the boy, who has no idea that she is responsible for his injury. The characters in this story are colorful and intriguing, and are really the backbone of this film. Quite recommended.

A Parting Shot has its last SFIFF showing today at 4:30 at the Kabuki.

The festival closes with the west coast premiere of La Vie en Rose, a film about legendary French singer Edith Piaf. La Vie in Rose screens tonight at the Castro Theatre at 7pm, with a Paris-themed wrap party at Mezzanine thereafter.

It may be hard to imagine that 6th & Mission once had it’s own miniature golf course, but here it is in a 1930’s photo from the SF Public Library collection. Nowadays the recreational pursuits in the neighborhood are quite different, and hardly as wholesome looking.

The current strip of nightclubs along SF’s seedy 6th Street strip and it’s offshoot alleys provide a classic study in contrasts. Fresh faced suburban bred 20-somethings careen intoxicatedly in and out of clubs looking to partake in some sort of overpriced quasi-glam nightlife activities, whilst dozens of ever present ne’er do’ells, derelicts and addicts of various sorts bob about, some actually laying sprawled on the concrete.

Word filters out that after a good few years of pioneering the attempted hipster takeover of the block, The Arrow Bar operators are tired of struggling and are calling it quits. This weekend is the last hurrah, with Monday night being the last chance to grab a PBR at their farewell blast. The place had been for sale since early this year, and the business opportunity to own your own urban squalor centric club was listed for about $160,000. I’m not sure who the new caretakers of the license might be, but we’ll wish ‘em luck.

You might notice how empty the Arrow Bar bar is in this real estate website photo, and that’s either because the cover charge to get into the 900 sq ft dump was normally so high on a typical Monday that no one bothered to come in, or that everyone is quite possibly in the bathroom getting high…

Me thinks that white powder ain’t leftover Comet bathroom cleanser on the handy counter by the sink y’all…

Meanwhile, over at the sleek 1000 capacity Mezzanine club on Jessie, the cavernous concrete club was packed with dancing fools last night gulping down $8 & $10 cocktails while grooving to the U.K electronica mash maestros Soulwax. The “no ins & outs” Mezzanine is seemingly raking in dough from it’s captive audience, where even a 60 cent roll of lifesavers can set you back $2…

The joint is staffed to the gills with 4 bars pumping out top shelf drinks, there’s state of the art sound, video and ventilation systems, a comfortable VIP area and backstage replete with shower & eye pleasing art, furniture, fridge and dimmed recessed lighting.

Meanwhile the largest demographic segment of tenants in the square mile around 6th street are people making under $10,000 a year and most literally don’t have apot to piss in, unless you count a communal toilet down the hall…

If you’d like to read more on the 6th Street Strip and trivia and travails of Club Six and it’s neighbors, follow after the jump. We’ve even got a link that’ll get you onto the guestlist for a private JetBlue sponsored showcase at Mezzanine this Tuesday night, May 1st with Sweden’s current hottest musical exports The Teddybears STHLM…
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