Today's portable telephone orgasm is only hours away from beginning, which makes this the perfect time to read this—an interview with someone who knows all about how Apple controls journalists.

It's not easy being Michael Arrington. To kickoff TechCrunch Disrupt SF this morning, the Uber investor directed a fierce and poignant native ad for his CrunchFund investment Uber—right there on stage, in real-time. With Uber CEO Travis Kalanick by his side, it was a veritable duet of damage control! But then Lyft investor Peter Thiel had to spoil the cozy fireside mood by acting just like Arrington.

Just two months after allegations of rampant sexism at Tinder—and a month after Tinder denied those allegations—the hookup app is settling out of court with Whitney Wolfe.

Silicon Valley tried to settle away a $9 billion wage-fixing lawsuit, which alleges that companies including Apple and Google colluded to suppress employee wages. But a federal judge nixed the paltry $324.5 million pay out, saying it was not enough. Now the companies behind the conspiracy are appealing, insisting the lowball figure is adequate.

This weekend, the CEO of Reddit tried to defend r/TheFappening, a section of his website trafficking in illegally obtained nude photos of young female celebrities. His argument? "Every man is responsible for his own soul." Not long after, Reddit backtracked and shut the page down anyways. Perhaps it was out of concern for Reddit's upcoming A-list Silicon Valley investors?

Forget about the driver with five different phones running—this guy's quest for a five-star means providing riders with a dash-mounted Super Nintendo.

Silicon Valley has already pumped out some of the stupidest billboards in the Western Hemisphere, but BitTorrent's latest might be the most mind-bendingly moronic one yet.

Bitcoin crusader Charlie Shrem pled guilty in court yesterday to charges related to Silk Road, the Deep Web drug market. The 24-year-old sounded much less defiant than he had just earlier this week. "I knew that what I was doing was wrong," he told the court, "I am pleading guilty because I am guilty."

As citizens continue to criticize America's increasingly-militarized civilian police forces, cops across the country are descending upon Oakland for the controversial Urban Shield war games conference. Mother Jones' Shane Bauer has been roaming the conference's showroom floor, where drones that "drop stuff 'like the Hunger Games'" and "keep calm and return fire" shirts are sold. He also found that Silicon Valley's hottest startup is footing part of the bill.

Nasty Gal had its third round of layoffs this year, according to WWD. TechCrunch says the online fashion shop dismissed up to 10 percent of staffers. Just a few months ago, founder Sophia Amoruso was being feted in magazines and dispensing best-selling advice from business memoir #GIRLBOSS.

If Google Glass gets you thrown out of a bar, how will onlookers respond when someone wearing a Google Cartographer thuds by them in the hall? This week the company revealed its plan to bring Street View's prying eyes inside buildings through a backpack called the Cartographer.

Being an investor—particularly one in overvalued, bubbly tech startups—is perhaps America's easiest job. Don't believe me? Look at this guy:

Here's something grotesquely unethical: Vox's Timothy B. Lee, rapidly becoming one of the internet's worst voices, is boasting today of how he's investing in Bitcoin, a cyber-currency propped up by media attention.

With every tech boom, we get an awkward and doomed walking replacement. First there was Segway, heralded by Steve Jobs as being "as big a deal as the PC" and now strictly used by gross tourists and mall cops. Now, San Francisco's "tech hipsters" are tooling around town on "self-balancing unicycles."

Some CEOs paid the people who worked for them.

In about a week, Apple will announce a new phone. This will become national news, and coverage of a piece of metal, plastic and glass will dwarf that of human suffering here and abroad. You've probably already read some exciting things about the iPhone 6, even though it doesn't technically exist yet, and is a "big secret." That's not an accident—Apple makes reporters do their advertising.

Do any of you still use Twitpic, the image hosting service once synonymous with posting pictures on Twitter? TOUGH SHIT: the site is shutting down because Twitter threatened to sue them.

Jared Leto is the modern renaissance man: award-winning actor, acclaimed musician, and serial tech investor. He's only recently started hyping the latter role, but he has already charmed his way to the top of TechCrunch's favorite celeb list.

Megan Smith, formerly of Google's shadowy "X" facility, is the new Chief Technology Officer of the United States, tasked with maintaining a technological edge for the entire country.

Uber hates rules. Laws, regulations, checks, balances—they're all barriers. The company is so accountability-averse that it's suing the city of Columbus, Ohio to keep its driver insurance plan in the dark.