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Playa Phone

https://playaphone.com/
69•cutoff•59m ago

Comments

isoprophlex•41m ago
phone rings

    Stoned burner picks up, mumbles "Uhhh, hullo, who dis?" into the horn while eyeing two giant wasp-colored octopi overhead making love 

    "Hello sir and or madameperson. I won't take up much of your time. See, your number was posted to the pre-eminent forum for everything that goes fast and breaks things."

   "Uhhh, yeah whatever man"

   "I'll cut right to it, seeing that you're an important, busy man like myself. I will just take one short minute to talk to you about our lord and saviour, *VC Money*."
cuu508•33m ago
"You already have impressive event experience going, but do you know if AIs are recommending it? I will set up llms.txt for free for you, no pressure, not trying to pitch anything. If not interested, just reply 'not interested'".
tclancy•15m ago
"Have you accepted the Living Musk into your life?"
mxuribe•6m ago
[delayed]
dole•38m ago
Burning man livestream here, still early and setting up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BgytKvsORM

Page says it's on "Chomolungma" but it's "Ceiba" on the maps, just in case you can spot the phone on the stream.

krogenx•35m ago
Would be fun to read if the calls were recorded and transcribed.
criddell•18m ago
Or leave them as private, ephemeral experiences for the two involved parties.
throwayay4929•28m ago
Is Burning Man fun? I got the rather cynical impression that it's mostly very well off tech people and even better off finance/political people.

Not trying to be flippant, genuinely curious if my impression is based on reality or am I making things up.

vincnetas•24m ago
yes, being rich makes being self sufficient much much easier :) But there a lots of less well of people and it depends on your definition of "fun". But with right crew and right mood enchanters it can be a blast. But mostly you get what you put in. If you expect to be entertained so this is not the right place.
lelandbatey•21m ago
It is fun, but in a miserable (hot, dusty, muddy) kind of way. You hear a lot about such rich/out of touch folks, but with 60 thousand people there, they can't all be do-nothing rich people. Someone has to set up all the art and volunteer to help burn down the buildings, and those folks are the most interesting by far. Go there to see all the cool fire art and ask the folks who make it how they did it, what was difficult, other projects they've worked on, etc. better yet, bring your own art or volunteer your labor on another art project. You'll have an amazing time, and see plenty of genuinely interesting folks, as well as contraptions you've never imagined. But beware it takes a lot of effort to participate.
01284a7e•21m ago
If you can make it to Burning Man, then your life is what you make it. And if that's true, then it could be fun.
dfxm12•19m ago
readthenotes1•27m ago
Did the original founders intend burning Man to be a parody on the trash heap that is 21st century human civilization?
criddell•23m ago
No.

If you are genuinely curious, here are the original ten principles of Burning Man that were established when the event was still in San Francisco:

https://burningman.org/about-us/10-principles/

DonHopkins•6m ago
And don't forget to donate to this important campaign!

Build A 300-Mile Wall Around SF During Burning Man

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PO_r6ndZRZY

>A community effort to construct a 300-mile wall in one week and prevent Burning Man attendees from returning to the Bay Area.

>"I'm asking for your help crowdfunding the most ambitious Burning Man project ever a wall that's built around the entire bay area during the week of Burning Man."

languagehacker•19m ago
So happy to see that the comments so far are just Burning Man hate. I appreciate SomaFM's impact on my appreciation for electronic music and alternative music streaming services back in the '90s, but outside of that I'm pretty sure it's mostly been a net negative from a cultural standpoint in total.
solfox•10m ago
Our first time out on the playa together, my girlfriend and I stopped by this phone booth and made a couple of calls. And because we stopped, we saw the FSM camp next door, and a giant sign saying "Weddings Here", so we inquired. They offered us free rings and then announced our wedding over a loudspeaker. In 2 minutes we had an entire wedding party, complete with best man, an elder to give away the bride, 25+ guests, and an officiant. My newly-minted best man even gave me one of my favorite playa gifts ever as a wedding gift. We opted not to "make it official", though they offered. It was a truly incredible experience. Thanks FSM!
hackingonempty•9m ago
Brad Templeton did this 20 years ago, https://www.templetons.com/pq/build.html
nandanadileep29•6m ago
Would be fun to see how the calls went lol
ape4•3m ago
I looked but I don't see how it works. How does it get power? I suppose it uses a some single board computer and VOIP.
It is what you make of it, you can just consume or take a creative role, but once the price/attendance ballooned ~20 yrs ago, they kinda changed their audience. You might have a local group that does similar things if you want to get a taste without such a large commitment.
awnird•18m ago
It’s a bunch of tech bros pretending to be counterculture while hanging out with Grover Norquist, Elon Musk, and Eric Schmidt.

If you want to hang out with those people it will be fun for you, but be honest with yourself about what it really is.

satvikpendem•18m ago
My friend went in order to network with tech people and now has met some people pretty high up, some of whom are funding his angel round for his startup. Make of that what you will.
solfox•18m ago
It has always been a challenging, but highly rewarding experience for me. It is what you make of it - if you choose to be cynical about rich tech bros, that's all you'll see. But Burning Man is multitudes. For me, it's about witnessing pure human creativity and playfulness. Your first time out on the playa at night will likely be one of those lifetime memories you'll appreciate having.
flexagoon•15m ago
Haven't went myself either, but I've heard from some people that the smaller Burning Man spin-offs retain more of the original vibe and are often cheaper even when you include costs of travel. A lot of people come to AfrikaBurn from all over the world, for example.

That being said, the very nature of the event involves spending thousands of dollars to live in the desert for a week. So the audience is obviously mostly people who have the money to do so.

NickNaraghi•12m ago
No don’t go, it sucks! It’s dusty and hot!
phoghed•11m ago
For what it’s worth one of my coworkers has been going for over 20 years and he still loves it. Most people giving you an opinion formed it by reading comments on social media.

I’d encourage you to talk to people that have actually been if you want to have an informed opinion. I don’t know shit about it since my n=1 sample size, but he’s someone who’s opinion I trust so I’d personally probably check it out if I was inclined.

pdntspa•4m ago
They're the fringes, along with the increasingly large contingent of tourists/festies/sparkle ponies. The majority are actual burners and they are a wild and unorthodox bunch. Look up the 10 Principles if you want to understand the actual culture

https://burningman.org/about-us/10-principles/

A Matter of Millimeters: The story of Qantas flight 32 (2023)

https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/a-matter-of-millimeters-the-story-of-qantas-flight-32-bdaa62d...
1•bookofjoe•31s ago•0 comments

Concrescence

https://www.guidavid.com/writing/concrescence
1•gdss•41s ago•0 comments

Impacts of Mid-Latitude Ionospheric Dynamics During Nov 2025 Superstorm Event

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2026GL124645
1•ortusdux•48s ago•0 comments

GPS Glitched Across the US by as Much as 33 Feet

https://www.sciencealert.com/gps-glitched-across-the-us-by-as-much-as-33-feet-scientists-have-nev...
1•ortusdux•1m ago•0 comments

Building native plugin systems with WebAssembly components (2025)

https://tartanllama.xyz/posts/wasm-plugins/
2•cxr•6m ago•0 comments

How Big Tech Captured American Schools

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/23/business/schools-big-tech-google-microsoft.html
1•obscurette•6m ago•0 comments

Ex-Congressman George Santos Receives Kalshi's First-Ever Lifetime Ban

https://www.wsj.com/politics/ex-congressman-george-santos-receives-kalshis-first-ever-lifetime-ba...
1•JumpCrisscross•7m ago•0 comments

Who Taught the Models to Do That?

https://www.dbreunig.com/2026/08/30/who-taught-the-models-to-do-that.html
2•Brajeshwar•7m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Review large code changes in your terminal, one chapter at a time

https://github.com/mtford90/revue
1•mtford•8m ago•0 comments

Americans Hate Data Centers. Why?

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/31/opinion/data-centers-ai-populism.html
4•jbegley•8m ago•0 comments

Songs created by AI banned from Australia's music charts

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c20vl4vm2pno
1•benkan•10m ago•0 comments

Running a Software Factory Efficiently at Uber Scale

https://twitter.com/ubereng/status/2093444169037762840
1•bigwheels•10m ago•1 comments

Natural Ways to Relieve Joint and Muscle Discomfort at Home

https://how-to-relieve-pain-at-home.subscribepage.io
1•hot-info•11m ago•0 comments

OpenAI to cut off AI models for SpaceX-owned Cursor, escalating feud with Musk

https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/openai-end-partnership-with-spacexs-cursor-2026-08...
3•benkan•11m ago•0 comments

Enjoy Sushi

https://www.sushi-jiro.jp/en/tips
3•structuredPizza•12m ago•0 comments

WordPress as a Desktop Environment

https://openstation.me/
1•keiferski•12m ago•0 comments

Americans Aren't Sold on Businesses Using AI in Advertising

https://news.gallup.com/poll/713222/americans-aren-sold-businesses-using-advertising.aspx
2•hn_acker•13m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Manner – Developers create AI clones that clients can hire

https://manner.run/
1•sanasar737•15m ago•0 comments

Show HN: My AI spent $15 on a test order, so I built a payment guardrail

https://github.com/felixpg13-glitch/spendshield
1•felixpg13•15m ago•0 comments

Collecting Batteries

https://www.ericwrobbel.com/collections/batteries.htm
2•austinallegro•15m ago•0 comments

The Undiscovered Human: psychology as a pre-Mendeleev science

https://undiscoveredhuman.substack.com/p/the-undiscovered-human
1•undiscovrdhuman•15m ago•0 comments

Expat 2.8.4 released, fixes 4 vulnerabilities

https://blog.hartwork.org/posts/expat-2-8-4-released/
1•spyc•15m ago•0 comments

Show HN: RepoFlows – Interactive architecture diagrams for GitHub repos

https://www.repoflows.com/
1•emirgumus•15m ago•0 comments

Building a Python Library in 2026

https://stephenlf.dev/blog/python-library-in-2026/
1•tosh•16m ago•0 comments

Show HN: MCP Locker: One private endpoint for your MCP servers and skills

https://mcplocker.com/
1•devconcierge•16m ago•0 comments

H5i-dev/h5i: a headless browser purely written in Rust. no Chromium, no V8

https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/1w3h5lz/github_h5idevh5i_a_headless_browser_purely/
1•syumei•16m ago•0 comments

Andy Weir on writing an accidental best-seller (2019)

https://thecreativelife.net/andy-weir-on-writing-an-accidental-best-seller/
2•Eridanus2•16m ago•1 comments

Artificial Deadlines: Evidence of Fraud in Influential Study on Procrastination

https://datacolada.org/138
1•stefan_•17m ago•0 comments

Launch HN: Almanac (YC S26) – AI that knows your company

https://usealmanac.com/
7•kushagrchitkar•17m ago•1 comments

Linking 539k Library Genesis and Z-Library books to Goodreads metadata

https://github.com/mazieres/MajinBook
1•mazr•19m ago•0 comments