The expectations for a storage service are entirely different from those for a social network. Customers rightly “freak out,” as [Dalton] Caldwell [a founder of App.net] says, if an ISP tries to privilege certain kinds of data or if a storage service like Dropbox changes the privacy or licensing provisions in its terms of service. When Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram try to exert similar kinds of control, customers who do freak out are routinely told that they’re being irrational or that they had no right to expect any other kind of treatment from a free service that needs to be supported.

This may be odd, but it’s a combination of whether we see data as abstract or concrete, and the different ways we understand paid and free systems. Nobody’s evil, and nobody’s stupid, says Caldwell. (Well, maybe the anti-net-neutrality guys might be — ed.) It’s all just a natural consequence of companies’ business models and our evolving expectations toward payment and privacy on the web.

—Tim Carmody’s post on what app.net is becoming is really smart, even if you don’t care about app.net or what it’s becoming.

If she was indeed lip-syncing at the inauguration, give her the Nobel Prize in mime.

—Mike Doughty (yeah, that Mike Doughty) says Beyonce was singing live.

How much difference really is there between McDonald’s super-processed food and molecular gastronomy? I used to know this guy who was a great chef, like his restaurant was in the Relais & Châteaux association and everything, and he’d always talk about how there were intense flavors in McDonald’s food that he didn’t know how to make. I’ve often thought that a lot of what makes crazy restaurant food taste crazy is the solemn appreciation you lend to it. If you put a Cheeto on a big white plate in a formal restaurant and serve it with chopsticks and say something like “It is a cornmeal quenelle, extruded at a high speed, and so the extrusion heats the cornmeal ‘polenta’ and flash-cooks it, trapping air and giving it a crispy texture with a striking lightness. It is then dusted with an ‘umami powder’ glutamate and evaporated-dairy-solids blend.” People would go just nuts for that. I mean even a Coca-Cola is a pretty crazy taste.

—Jeb Boniakowski on why Times Square needs a McWorld.

“Islamic men who are interested in men who live in Tehran, Iran”

BONUS: Extend this search to places where they’ve worked.

Just think, the world’s repressive governments want to block this.

More open and connected, indeed.

Facebook never wanted Likes to be objective indicators of real affection, or even a vague feeling of fondness. The Like button was designed as a marketing tool … It might seem kind of strange for a company to build a search engine — a pretty costly undertaking — using criteria that it knows to be debased, to be anything but objective. But to Facebook, it’s business-as-usual. Here’s the difference between Google and Facebook: Larry Page recognized that commercial corruption was a threat to his ideal. For Mark Zuckerberg, commercial corruption is the ideal.

—Nicholas Carr on Facebook’s polluted graph.

Padma wants the chefs to take a trip down memory lane. For the Elimination Challenge, each chef will cook a dish related to a “memorable moment” in Top Chef’s history. The winning dish will, in turn, inspire a new Healthy Choice “Café Steamer,” which sounds like a sex act from a French frat house.

—I just found out that David “Get Your War On” Rees is writing Top Chef recaps for Grub Street and they are fantastic (though, mostly if you hate shows like Top Chef, I suspect).

Robert Bork, who died Wednesday, was an unrepentant reactionary who was on the wrong side of every major legal controversy of the twentieth century. The fifty-eight senators who voted against Bork for confirmation to the Supreme Court in 1987 honored themselves, and the Constitution. In the subsequent quarter-century, Bork devoted himself to proving that his critics were right about him all along.

—Jeffrey Toobin, writing in the The New Yorker, neither mincing words nor feeling any particular need to sugar coat an obituary.

“All These Ridiculous Old Rules”

Dave Brubeck refused to sub in white musicians for black ones when he toured. That’s nothing less than heroic.

You can’t hold it against a person that they’re involved in a profession that’s been in existence since before Jesus walked around in his sandals. This state was formed from gambling, drinking and brothels and there’s no shame in that.

—Corrie Northan, a bartender at the Bucket of Blood Saloon in Virginia City, Nevada on the election of Lance Gilman, owner of the Mustang ranch, to county commissioner. America, man.

I know people like to blame the industry for taking advantage of the incentives, but you go back to what your fiduciary responsibility is to the stockholders. As long as you’ve got people that are willing to better the deals, the management owes it to their stockholders to try to get the best economic deal that they can.

—

This is quite possibly the best, most succinct, summation of what is wrong with the balance of power today. It comes from a retired real estate executive at G.M. but really it’s a summary of the corporate ethos. “Fiduciary responsibility” and “maximizing shareholder value” are two of the more awful, pernicious justifications for corporate malevolence and yet they’re basically taken as givens.

I’m going to say that the story this quote came from (about the real price of corporate tax breaks to local governments) is the most important political story you’ll read this year – yes, this, an election year full of all kinds of nonsense, promises, and pronouncements, this story about local governments, tax breaks, outsourcing, and state budgets is at the heart of so many of the big problems we’re dealing with. Read it (and spend some time with the accompanying interactive co-produced by our own Tiff Fehr) and try not to be outraged by the giveaways to already wealthy corporations. Try not to seethe with rage at the billions of dollars going towards “maximizing shareholder value” instead of fire departments, schools, roads, or public transportation.

While I’m typically a rather proud, unapologetic partisan, this should be a non-partisan issue. This should be the kind of thing a functioning democratic government is meant to protect us from, not be complicit in. And while it’s infuriating to watch this happen, I want to believe that this is the kind of thing we can help fix. So far, my thoughts are around public accountability and using data to help local governments stand up to well funded multi-national corporations. What are your ideas?