She's laughing at you, fandom. LAUGHING AT YOU.

"The inevitable next step is for Kim Kardashian to sit on the board of a tech start-up, host a global-poverty-awareness event and write a book on behavioral neuroscience." [New York Times]

The tax man's hanging round Apple's door, and now Tim Cook is due to appear before Congress on the matter. [Telegraph]

For her science fair project, this teenaged girl invented a supercapacitor that could maybe, with further development, charge your electronics lightening fast. Everyone's now feeling pretty bad about their baking soda volcano, huh? [Jezebel]

Matt Mullenweg says that talk of Yahoo buying Tumblr sent Wordpress imports from Tumblr skyrocketing, from 400-600 posts per hour to 72,000 on Sunday. Of course, that could've just been one really dedicated porn reblogger. [AllThingsD]

Tumblr users are having a collective meltdown to rival The China Syndrome (only onetime Yahoo users are old enough to get that joke). [Buzzfeed]

Mr. Cook (Photo: News.au)

Apple CEO Tim Cook is preparing for his upcoming Congress appearance about corporate tax code by promising a “dramatic simplification” of the ancient laws. [Washington Post]

It’s been a year since Facebook's IPO. So let's celebrate it with a ~one year later~ reflection piece. [WSJ]

Remember when you’re complaining about your long work week, it’s way worse for Foxconn employees. [NYT]

It sounds like the Facebook designers behind News Feed's redesign were having the chillest of times on the project. They brought in lamps to create a "nice living room" and stared at posters on the wall to keep them motivated. [Taxi]

Ugh, we have some disturbing news: A website that bills itself as “Kickstarter for gigs” has launched in London. [BBC]

What learning looks like. (Photo: Flickr)

In the olden days, you went to school simply because you had to. Apparently fear of truancy isn't enough of a motivator to get kids these days to show up, so one school district in New Jersey had to resort to a different tactic: offering students prizes, like iPads, just to convince them to go to school. Officials in Middle Township launched the incentive program last month after the state cut $1.3 million in funding due to high absenteeism rates.

Toni Johnson, a vice principal for a middle school in the Southern New Jersey district, said she researched the Internet to see what other schools were doing to reverse declining attendance rates, and found that expensive prizes work. Could kids these days be anymore terrible and materialistic?

“Who doesn’t like that carrot hung over them knowing there’s a reward for a job well done? Of course, the idea is to make it more intrinsic long-term. But, so far, it seems to have students rallying with one another in terms of getting them to come,” she told radio station New Jersey 101.5.

To be eligible for the prizes, kids who go to school have their name entered into a raffle which is drawn on Fridays. Other prizes include gift cards to stores on the boardwalk, cookie trays, penny boards, or an iPad. Because winning a cookie tray and a $400 Apple device is the same thing.

Regardless, the scheme is working as absentee numbers are on the decline. Think we could convince the Betabeat bosses to give us iPads just for showing up?

(Photo: Let's Unlock iPhone)

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is worried about our state's significant uptick in phone thefts, but that's really more Tim Cook's problem. Bloomberg reports that Mr. Schneiderman has penned a letter to tech giants like Google and Apple asking them why, if you guys are capable of making face computers and cars that drive themselves, can't you make phones unstealable?

“I seek to understand why companies that can develop sophisticated handheld electronics, such as the products manufactured by Apple, cannot also create technology to render stolen devices inoperable and thereby eliminate the expanding black market on which they are sold,” Mr. Schneiderman wrote in an open letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook. In other words: we can put a man on the moon and I still have to deal with this shit?

Mr. Schneiderman also emphasized that it would be a shame if companies like Apple were profiting off of selling replacement devices when they could easily take steps to minimize phone theft.

Mr. Cook reportedly responded by shoving his hands into his pockets and innocently whistling while drifting away.

Special Instagram-edition. (Photo: flickr.com/diegorusso

Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer earned $68.6 million last year. Think about that while you're scraping together change to refill your metrocard. :( [Bloomberg]

Rumor has it that Facebook is looking into buying mobile map app Waze for up to $1B. Waze really gets around--last we heard it was dating Apple. [TechCrunch]

Microsoft might be mulling a $1 billion purchase of Nook Media LLC, its joint venture with Barnes and Noble. Ask not for whom the bell tolls, guys. [TechCrunch]

Time and Google have teamed up to produce Timelapse, a new package that shows how the Earth's surface has changed over the last thirty years. (Spoiler: Not for the better, if you like nature.)  [Time]

Can't patent software in New Zealand any more, sorry. [Forbes]

Fancy a swim? (Photo: Andrew Crump, Flickr)

Did you get one of those flash-flood warnings on your smartphone this morning, only to look out and see puddles, but nothing too major? Well, the New York Post found the flood, and it was inside the Fifth Avenue Apple Store.

An eyewitness reports: 

"I was down there at 5:45am because I had trouble backing up my computer and everyone started yelling," customer Errol Rappaport, 68, told The Post. "There was a leak then--boom--the whole thing opened up out of the ceiling. Then everyone started scrambling, moving tables...It didn't look like there were any electrical issues otherwise they would have evacuated the store."

By 10 a.m. most of the mess was gone, and the store stayed open in the meantime. An unnamed employee blamed shoddy construction last year: "They didn't do it right. There are large flat stones up there [that you walk across as you go into the store]. And with the heavy rain this morning, [the water] came through."

You know, fans of Falling Water might call that a feature, not a bug.

[h/t Gothamist]

This all could be yours?

Did you wake up today thinking that winning a $10,000 iTunes gift card could help your crappy life? You're in luck! Apple is giving away that awesome prize to whoever downloads the 50th billion app at its store, which is expected to happen sometime later today. Just like your third-grade softball league, Apple is also giving away a $500 gift card to those who come in second through 50th place after it reaches its goal.

Apple has played this trickery in the past, too. When the App Store logged its 10th and 25th billion download, winners received a $10,000 gift card (big whoop). Geek.com notes that the App Store's downloads is still growing despite competition from other outlets, like Google Play. In January 2011, the store hit 10 billion downloads; and a mere 14 months later, the 25th billion app was downloaded.

So, have fun buying all those apps you don't need today for a gift you'll never finish. There's so many seasons of the Real Housewives (like the crappy D.C. season) waiting for you in the iTunes store if you're successful.

Ditching the suit for a swimsuit. (Photo: Flickr.com/gpaumier)

Hawaii Zuck-O Look who ditched the hoodie (but kept the Adidas sandals). Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was recently spotted indulging in a little Hawaiin R&R with wifey Priscilla Chan. US Weekly reports the pair “looked excited to be spending quality time together,” which makes sense since it's pretty easy to be happy when you’ve escaped the maw of Silicon Valley. The Zucks also “chowed down” on something called “beachside burgers” at a “picnic table.” Stars: they're just like us (but rich).

Instaparty Former Tumblr engineer and prolific blogginghead Marco Arment officially sold his company, read-it-later app Instapaper, to NYC-based Betaworks yesterday. Though he will stay on indefinitely as an advisor, Mr. Arment appeared to be celebrating the occasion by tweeting uncharacteristically adorable things about his followers:

https://twitter.com/marcoarment/status/327636666787454976

Of course, this aroused the wry suspicion of Mr. Arment's followers:

https://twitter.com/meaghano/status/327637122309828608

Mr. Arment, as it turns out, appeared to be rightfully celebrating his Betaworks deal with a delicious cold beverage. "I can’t feel my face much anymore," he admitted. "I’ve had one beer. Granted, it’s about 20% ABV. It’s a hell of a beer." Lightweight!

So maj It's become somewhat of a celebrity rite of passage to participate in the ever-meta act of snapping a photo of yourself with Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom, then plastering it onto--that's right--your Instagram profile. Stylist, fashion designer and Bravolebrity Rachel Zoe is the latest victim of this trend, snapping the below photo of her and Mr. Systrom. Sorry, Rach, but Kev is much better at smizing.

(Photo: Instagram)

Cult of Steve Erin Caton, a former project manager at Apple, took to Medium today to lament the growing number of douchey startup CEOs, who--in their attempt to emulate Steve Jobs--end up growing ever-douchier and unwilling to listen to peer feedback. To illustrate her story, she shares two anecdotes of her experience with Mr. Jobs: one, in which he cut in front of her in line at the Apple cafeteria (rude!), and another in which he blamed the Mobile Me team for a shoddy launch.

She writes:

Once it was up, we (at least a hundred of us) got called into a meeting with Steve Jobs. We all walked over to the building like we were headed to the guillotine. He stood in front of us and yelled at us, told us that we should be mad at each other, said we could have done a staggered launch and complained that we didn’t even try to do all the things that we (those on the ground floor of production that actuallymake the fucking products of the world) had been begging to do. It was the world’s best de-motivational speech.

We look forward to Ashton Kutcher's dramatic reading of this Medium post.

Must love Martha Poor Martha Stewart. You could give her a bag of cotton balls, used gum and a Razr phone and she’d craft the most beautiful centerpiece perfect for any Bat Mitzvah. But the one thing she can’t master is the art of filling out her Match.com profile, because it’s too damn hard. “It was, like, impossible,” the 71-year-old told Today bully Matt Lauer. You don’t have to use your words on Tinder, Martha.

https://twitter.com/todayshow/status/327751873564114944

Wows all the way down Storied VC Marc Andreessen took a break from annotating hip hop lyrics this week to gush about the potential transformative nature of Google Glass at the she++ Conference, when he jokingly claimed to already be beta testing Google Contact Lenses. Mr. Andreessen also took time to preach on the life-changing wonders of Google Glass, with a twinge of Valley girl thrown in. “You put it on and you’re like ‘Oh my God, I have the entire internet in my vision. Where have you been all my life?’” Andreessen said.

Andreessen and his firm are known for showing Glass some lovin', having already invested heavily in startups focused on building apps for Google Glass. But Mr. Andreessen is probably so gung-ho about Glass because he's hoping they'll help him finally solve the mystery of Silicon Valley Cougar Night at the Rosewood Hotel.

Get Dorsey Man of few emotions Jack Dorsey showed a flicker of excitement this week. No, he didn’t discover a new train yard to stare at--rather, he’s mildly excited about the new Daft Punk album. He attached a picture of the Get Lucky song art to prove to us that he knows how to take a screenshot or something. Maybe this was all ploy to subtweet us for not giving a shit about Twitter #Music.

https://twitter.com/jack/status/327796327931076609

(Photo: CharityBuzz)

Look, Apple CEO Tim Cook is a busy guy. He does lots of important stuff, like announcing that there will be announcements in the future. His time is worth a lot. So CharityBuzz, an online charity auction, is hosting a very generous offer from Mr. Cook: people--rich people, specifically--can bid to have coffee with him at Apple headquarters. The "estimated value" of this presumably hour-long (tops!) outing? $50,000, which is just $2,762 dollars shy of the U.S.'s median household income.

So: pay for a year of your kid's college tuition, or grab a cup of joe with a guy who will pointedly ask you, "So, am I doing as well as Steve? You can be honest."

To be fair, it is for charity. So if you can afford it, pony up! There are already 30 bids, the most recent one topping out at $62,777.

WhatsApp phone. (Photo: Nokia/BBC)

Twitter is reportedly working two-step authentication. Hopefully that means we don't have to write "Look who got hacked!" stories anymore. [Wired]

Apple's profits dipped 18 percent but were buoyed by the strong sales of iPads and iPhones. The company said its next big announcement will come sometime this fall. [CNet]

Move over Facebook Home, there's a WhatsApp phone...sort of. Nokia implemented a "hard button" on its new phone for direct access to the app of the moment. [TechCrunch]

Reddit screwed up last week as it conducted a witch hunt to search for the suspected Boston bombers. However, there is a proper way to crowd-source a manhunt if Reddit looks at a 2000 NASA experiment called Clickworkers. [New Yorker]

The writers of Mad Men are pitching a show about the early days of the U.S. space program as seen through the eyes of journalists. Don Draper would even look hot in an astronaut suit, so we're on board. [Wired]

Shapeways, a 3D printing marketplace, received a $30M investment from Andreessen Horowitz and Chris Dixon. [Launch.co]