A friend of mine who does torrent stuff a lot says that when torrent users do buy something, they act like they’re doing the greatest thing ever. … They’re saying, ‘I bought something today. I paid for it. And I didn’t steal it. I’m the greatest person alive.’

—Louis C.K.’s $5 comedy special, which you may have noticed is something of a hit in certain corners of the internet, is creating some interesting discussion about the entertainment industry and piracy.

Brokeback Perry

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not ‘Eureka’ but ‘That’s funny…’

—Isaac Asimov (via azspot)

doc hub

This started as a CSS-only side project, got some traction on Hacker News and is now one of the finest looking and working pieces of documentation for web development I’ve ever come across.

Excited Mike Krzyzewski: Duke Squad Hasn’t Been This Unlikable In Years

Perfect.

Hero of the day: 8-year-old tells Michele Bachmann that his mom is gay and “doesn’t need fixing”.

On everyone’s desk was an inbox and an outbox, except they were actual boxes (or trays) containing paper equivalents of what you might find in your email box: interoffice mail (in those stringed envelopes), personal or departmentaly memos, maybe a funny cartoon someone photocopied and passed on, perhaps a party invitation.

Then, there would be your outbox, and that would contain the same type of stuff. A few times a day, someone from the mailroom would come by with a cart to deliver and pick up the stuff from your outbox and deliver things to your inbox.

—Interesting thread on what offices were like before email. [via Maciej ]

Gowalla, as a service, will be winding down at the end of January. We plan to provide an easy way to export your Passport data, your Stamp and Pin data (along with your legacy Item data), and your photos as well. Facebook is not acquiring Gowalla’s user data.

—So, at least there’s that.

Like all the cool kids, you’ve downloaded the newer, hipper, 2.0ier Path, right. Of course you have. It’s cool! That doodad circle thing! The annotated clock scrollbar widget! Rock out!

But you’ve probably also said to yourself “Self. This is cool and all but I already Tweetblast and Foursquelch, why do I need Path?” And maybe you, like me, are irked that Path doesn’t blast and squelch on your behalf. Seems obvious enough.

EXCEPT THAT IT DOES. You may have missed it because it’s so clever and so unobtrusive that one might say it “lacks discoverability” if one were the kind of half-clever douche who says such things in polite company.

See it? Down there in the bottom right. Look again. FINE gimme that I’ll just show you.

Nifty, right? So now when you check in to a place on Path, it’ll let Foursquare know for you. And if you haven’t signed in, it’ll ask you to first time and then remember for later. Of course, just because you can do all of this doesn’t mean that you should – as always, use your judgement and let’s not go blasting our every update everywhere just because we can.

I’m still trying to figure out if Path is gonna be all that I want it to be but this one feature made it a whole lot more useful for me. Maybe it will be for you as well. Let’s all hope and pray they don’t just get eaten by the Faceborg.

At this point, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s pattern on privacy is clear. Launch new stuff that pushes the boundaries of what people consider comfortable. Apologize and assure users that they control their information, but rarely pull back entirely, and usually reintroduce similar features at a later date when people seem more ready for it.

—

Liz Gannes on the non-apology apologies of Mark Zuckerberg.

This constant pressure on evaporating user’s privacy, along with a real lack of moral leadership from the very top, is why I’ll never trust Zuckerberg or Facebook.