As the election approaches, more bloggers are noticing ads from backers of Proposition 8, the gay-marriage ban appearing on Californians' ballots, courtesy of Google. The search engine's algorithm is mindlessly matching them to phrases like "gay marriage," regardless of whether the blog in question is for or against. Scott Beale, who blogs about Internet culture at Laughing Squid, has blocked the yes-on-8 ads, and, for good measure, taken Google's ads off his site altogether until after the election. He's not alone; one fashion website adminitrator tells Valleywag she's taken similar measures.I haven't heard of any cases of the opposite happening, but I wouldn't be shocked if some socially conservative bloggers were similarly offended by no-on-8 ads placed on their blog by Google. Which returns me to my original question about these ads: If Google's algorithms are so good at placing ads, why aren't they able to gather whether a blog's audience generally supports or opposes gay marriage, and target ads where they'll do the most good? (Screenshot by Scott Beale/Laughing Squid)

It's time for the annual bacchanal of burning fossil fuel and using drugs known as Burning Man. According to a tipster, "Google has a total of five big-rig hospitality trucks camped out at Burning Man for the Google elite and some other Valley bigwigs." Hope they stocked up on water, condoms and 2C-B! For those of you who would prefer to stay home and relish the widespread availability of parking, Scott Beale has assembled a handy guide to experiencing the scene on the playa without getting any sand somewhere uncomfortable. [Laughing Squid] (Photo by Dana Robinson)

Ubiquitous San Francisco icon Frank Chu cages a smoke from a fellow party-goer at last weekend's 13th anniversary party for artsy ISP Laughing Squid. Can you suggest a more kryxocryogenical caption? Do so in the comments. The best one will become the new headline. Friday's winner: groslac for "Google to acquire invisible hand of markets." (Photo by Andrew Mager)

Laughing Squid photographer Scott Beale, shooting pictures at this week's Web 2.0 Expo, was rebuffed by marketers staffing the Google booth. Company policy, they said, forbade photography of the booth. Beale complained on Twitter, and word rapidly issued from the Googleplex: It was actually okay, they said, to publicize Google's attempt at gathering publicity. Can you suggest a better headline? Leave it in the comments. (Yesterday's drew no deserving suggestions.) (Photo by viss)

Laugh with a squid, say goodbye to a Yahoo, and relax with a flick, all in this weekend's Valleywag Calendar.

There are a lot of posts popping up from various Rackspace customers apologizing to their customers and readers for the Web host's downtime caused by an errant truck. Here is a selection:

37signals

Remember the power mishap in July that brought down 365 Main, the San Francisco datacenter? A similar incident took place today at the Dallas datacenter of Rackspace, a San Antonio, Texas-based firm which serves several local Web outfits. Unlike the July outage, which killed all the websites we waste time with — LiveJournal, Craigslist, and so on — this one took out some sites which really mattered. Laughing Squid, Scott Beale's popular Web-hosting company, went down, taking a long list of customers with it, and 37signals, the maker of Web-based software, went out — a serious matter, since 37signals actually charges for using its software. So what exactly happened at Rackspace?

Julia Allison, the Star editor-at-large whose Diane von Furstenberg dress made a chesty, low-cut appearance at Friday's TechCrunch9 party, where she was hunting for geek boyfriend/sysadmins, also turned up at Saturday's Laughing Squid "Paradise Lost" event. But apparently no one had told her anything about the event, held in San Francisco's down-and-out Bayview neighborhood — like the fact that it was a community-arts fundraiser. Here's what happened when the New York slickster tried to swan her way through the door without paying.

Are you coming to this Thursday's Web Infinity Plus One SloshCon? Of course you are! It's free and there's an open bar!

• Are you going to eat all that? No? GoDaddy will take it, thanks. [Monkey Bites]