“For a lot of captains of industry and the celebrities, it was a chance for them to go and be a normal person at the party like anybody else. But bringing in servants is where it’s become a bit of a problem. It’s pushing buttons related to class war in San Francisco.” Felix Gillette in Bloomberg: The Billionaires at Burning Man.

+ “He hurled a book across the room and told her he could do better. Mom suggested he do so. According to her, the tipping point for Dad’s full commitment to porn, five years later, was my orthodontic needs.” NYT Mag’s Chris Offutt: My Dad, the Pornographer.

+ “He’s like Tiger Woods in his prime. You don’t like the person, but you like the golfer.” ESPN’s Mike Fish on Billy Walters, the world’s most successful sports bettor: A Life on the Line.

+ “I had given the wrong answer. I had lost $225,000 in about 10 seconds. My time on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? had come to an end.” In Slate, Justin Peters explains how failing colossally on a game show changed his life for the better.

+ Vanity Fair’s Mark Seal with a look at Sony’s hacking saga, as it happened.

+ Syndicated from Kottke: Jessamyn West writes about the nuts and bolts of dealing with the death of her techie dad, including wresting control from the hidden computer controlling his house and digitally impersonating him to use his apps and cancel cable.

+ John Herrman in The Awl: The Next Internet is TV. (Phew, I thought he was gonna say it’d be a book…)