Every year, plenty of lost cameras are handed into PlayaInfo, looking for their rightful owners.  And every year, we do our best to reunite them, through the efforts of our Lost and Found team, and by putting identifying pictures up on our website.  Ender writes in from Arizona, offering this brilliant idea to make sure that if your camera is lost, you’re sure to get it back.  Check it out:

“Write down your serial number, make and model for all important items (cameras, bicycles, etc) and have it in your manila folder (that would contain your health insurance information, health conditions/allergies, emergency contacts, serial numbers, etc.) in your vehicle.  Have pictures of your items too (for the thoroughly prepared).

Write your name, playa information (playa address & playa name with which you can be found in PlayaInfo) and default world mailing address/contact info (ie: email address or phone number) on a sheet of paper, in large font/marker. Kick down your camera’s megapixels to the smallest setting, and take the first picture on every clean memory card that you’re going to take to BM. This will become the first picture (depending on your camera setup) seen when someone checks out your found camera, to see who it belongs to - or when someone checks out that memory card they found laying on the playa.  Even better, snap a picture of yourself, with that information legibly visible next to your grinning face.

If your camera has internal memory, turn it on and do the same. Internal memory stays with your camera, even if your card is out playing somewhere.  You can also make a (usually much smaller) image and upload it to your card or camera if you’re technically sophisticated enough - in almost all cameras it will display the same size as a full-sized picture on the camera’s LCD screen.”

And to this, we’d like to add:

For cameras that take video, filling out your Personal Use Agreement for permission to shoot video in BRC has two advantages - not only will you get a tag for your camera and permission to shoot imagery and use it for sharing with friends and family, but if your camera is lost and turned in to Burning Man, we will do everything in our power to find your contact info by using the tag number to search for your PUA and reunite you with your camera. Yet another good reason to register! PUAs are available at the Greeters, Playa Info, and the Ranger Stations.  Or you can download a PDF of it.

Blogher08 has come and gone and the pixels are settling, and the blogseeds are sprouting. The weirdness of the final session has stayed with me - the exchange between Jenny the Bloggess and Dooce - which has been well blogged here and elsewhere. But from that session was a real gem that came straight afterward in [...]

Despite being plagued by the tyranny of timezones (Australia) and some technical hitches with the vid feeds and audio, I really enjoyed what I was able to experience of this great conference from within SecondLife. However, for much of the content - especially the breakout sessions, which were not streamed into SecondLife - I am [...]

Despite the tyranny of timezones, I managed to catch the opening session and icebreaker event at BlogHer08 - one of the world’s biggest conference events on the topic of blogging. At it has a great lineup of speakers and topics, from Security in SecondLife to business and politics in the blogosphere. Teal and I were [...]

It’s the typewriter Douglas Adams used to write the “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” and it’s been offered for sale for £12,250. The typewriter is signed by the author. BoingBoing’s article notes the particular wear on the letter X and wonders about its significance. It was almost certainly used to black out deleted paragraphs. But [...]

Yes I was there last year via SecondLife and intend doing the same again - this is a great conference. So yeah, I’ll be geeking out this weekend And good luck to all those who will be in San Francisco for the live events! Wheeeeee! Cheers Jerry blogging BlogHer08 conference New Mediablogging, BlogHer08, conference, New [...]

The British Steam Car Challenge aims to break a world steam car record set by a Stanley steamer that has stood for 100 years. But if you thought this is some romantic harking back to an Edwardian world using Victorian technology, think again. This is today’s technology right now. Your plug-in electric car uses it, [...]

Greetings from your friendly Burning Man Web Team …

We wanted to let you know that we’ve recently updated our First Timer’s Guide on the website, which is an ideal resource for getting newbies oriented as they undertake the thrilling process of heading to their first Burn. Remember your first time? Whether you’re a Burning Man first-timer yourself, or know one who could use a primer, head over there … it’s a great place to start.