Michael Mulvey writes “My advice to designers in need of portfolio pieces and jobs is to not do three things: Wait, Ask For Permission and Stop.”

As Liz Gannes wrote in AllThingsD, Automattic has acquired Simplenote, the coolest notes service around which you can get on the iTunes app store or for a variety of other platforms, and Simperium, which if you’re a developer you should watch the video on their homepage and see how the technology can make what you’re doing even cooler. You can read our official announcements on the Simperium blog and the Simplenote blog, which also includes some future plans. I’ve been a daily user and fan of the service for a while now, and I’m looking forward to how we can use Simperium across WP.com.

I’m attending the World Economic Forum in Davos for the first time, if you’ll be there I’d love to meet up and of course open to any tips you have about the event, it’s very intimidating to attend a first-timer. Also: Switzerland is beautiful! Also my first time in the country.

“For one experiment in the study, Wilcox and Stephen asked 84 study participants to either browse Facebook or read CNN.com for five minutes. [...] The Facebook group was much more likely to go for the cookie, while the CNN group picked the granola bar.” — Does Facebook Praise Kill Self-Control?.

In addition to having a great new single, Suit & Tie, with Jay-Z, Justin Timberlake has a spiffy new WordPress-powered site.