// HAPPENING TODAY

Salesforce.com’s Dreamforce conference kicks off in San Francisco.

The November issue of Vogue China hits newsstands with Apple’s iWatch on its cover.

Retina MacBook Air Rumors to Continue for Foreseeable Future

Apple may well have a new MacBook Air with Retina Display in the pipeline, but it’s not going to unveil it this week. Sources familiar with Apple’s plans tell me that the company’s latest reimagining of the ultralight laptop won’t be shown off at its Thursday event. As I reported earlier this month, this event will be headlined by Apple’s latest iPads, a new hi-res iMac and OS X Yosemite.

Salesforce.com CEO Proud of Making San Francisco a Total Nightmare This Week

Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff on San Francisco during its Dreamforce event: “The city will completely shut down.”

Nothing Like a Public Shaming to Prioritize Gender Issues

If issues of equal pay and recognition for women in tech weren’t already top of mind at Microsoft they are now, following CEO Satya Nadella’s disastrously “inarticulate” remarks at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing last week. This according to Harvey Mudd College president and Microsoft director Maria Klawe, who tells Reuters that she suspects the company’s board, which hasn’t paid much attention to the issue of pay raises for women in the past five years, is likely paying quite a bit more attention to it now. “I think [Nadella’s comment is] going to take us all to a better place,” she said. “I’m pretty sure he’s going to be thinking really hard about pay equity.”

I’m Sorry, What Did You Say the NSA’s Ethics Officer’s Name Is Again?

Jason Leopold, Vice: “Former National Security Agency Director Keith Alexander has held investments in a corporation that identifies itself as a ‘world leader in cloud solutions.’ And in a ‘data gathering and research’ firm. And in a company that develops software that improves the quality of images captured by surveillance cameras. And in a radio frequency business that, among other things, manufactures amplifiers for air traffic control, radar, and surveillance. The NSA once said that if revealed, this information would threaten national security. … Attorney Shadey Brown, who is the NSA’s ethics officer, said in a July 23 letter that the NSA has routinely denied requests for copies of its officials’ financial disclosure reports under the National Security Agency Act of 1959.”

Apple Finnished Us Off

Finland has fallen on hard times in recent years, and Apple may well be to blame — if you’re willing to take some extraordinary liberties with cause and effect. According to the country’s Prime Minister, Alexander Stubb, the decline of the Finnish paper industry and the Greek tragedy that ultimately destroyed Nokia can both be linked back to Cupertino. “One could say that the iPhone killed Nokia and the iPad killed the Finnish paper industry, but we’ll make a comeback,” Stubb told CNBC today. “We just have to keep at it.”

The NFL Beats Fines? List Them Under the “Screw Bose” Budget Line.

San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick is forbidden from wearing Beats by Dre headphones during televised interviews thanks to an NFL marketing agreement with Bose, but he’s wearing them anyway. Evidently, the $10,000 fine for ignoring the Beats ban isn’t much of a deterrent to Kaepernick, perhaps because it may not be coming out of his pocket. Asked if Beats has agreed to cover his fines, Kaepernick offered the following non-comment: “We’ll let that be unanswered.” Hardly a definitive answer, but plenty suggestive. And what it likely means is this: Beats’s new owner Apple is paying him, and presumably many other players, to flout the NFL ban. Which is a pretty savvy allocation of ad spend.

Too Busy Counting All the Money They Were Unknowingly Making Off You, I Imagine

Pewdiepie creator Felix Kjellberg on his partnership with Machinima: “During the time I was a member of their network, I grew into the world’s biggest YouTuber — and they didn’t even know I was with them! They didn’t get in touch a single time, except when I wanted to leave — then their CEO emailed me once.”

These Pills Taste Like Crap …

David Shultz, American Association for the Advancement of Science: “Clostridium difficile infections kill approximately 14,000 Americans every year, often because the diarrhea-causing bacteria are highly resistant to standard antibiotics. Now, scientists have found an unusual way to combat the bugs: human feces in pill form.”

Off Topic

A fan-made, shot-for-shot remake of “The Empire Strikes Back.”

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