Google wants to get into the LOLcat business, but Steve Yegge is damned if he's going to help; the engineer told a tech conference that "I am officially quitting that job on national TV." Also in today's Valleywag roundup: Google is showering programmers with 50 percent raises and trips to Paris; Karl Rove advertised in his favorite gay sex app; and a tech writer is minting money off a single review.

  • Google engineer, noted blogger, and accidental Valleywag spy Steve Yegge dramatically "quit" on stage at OSCON in Portland, saying, "my boss is finding out at the same time you are." Only after making Hacker News did Yegge clarify he's not actually quitting Google, just quitting the project he was on to build a LOLcat competitor for Google Plus. "Google is frigging awesome," he wrote. Translation: I am very well paid, now.
  • Speaking of which: Programmers are exceptionally well paid, now! Betabeat surveyed tech recruiters about what sorts of deals engineers and tech execs are finagling for themselves. One CTO got a $500,000 personal loan, on top of his $350,000 annual pay package, to exercise stock options from his old company and to pay off income taxes. One Googler in Chelsea's office parlayed an outside job offer into a raise, to $240,000 from $180,000, and a posting to Google's Paris office. Now just imagine what sorts of pay packages got a record 13 people to reject Google job offers last quarter.
  • Right wing GOP strategist Karl Rove ran ads on Grindr, a smartphone app that facilitates quick gay hookups. Commercials for his Crossroads GPS advocacy group felt "out of place under thumbnail pictures of shirtless men," said Roll Call. But maybe they shouldn't! Crossroads said, "If an ad appeared on that platform, it was triggered by the user's history and profile meeting the targeted demographic criteria." Translation: We can't help it if conservative Republicans secretly cruise for casual sex with sweaty studs. Fair enough!
  • Tech writer John Siracusa's review of the new Mac operating system ran to 19 pages, so Condé Nast's Ars Technica decided to publish it both on the website and as a Kindle book. Some 3,000 copies were sold in the first 24 hours at $5 a pop, for a nice $15,000 take. Siracusa didn't see a penny of it. NB to John: If you publish independently next time, the money will go into your bank account instead of into Graydon Carter's bar tab. I hear the new Mac operating system might be handy for such a purpose. Think about it.