This week, on Episode 226 of The Drill Down podcast, Devindra, Dwayne, and Andy talk about a controversial new lawsuit that pits Yahoo! against Facebook and a new suggested code for sharing content on the Internet.

But first, the headlines…iPad preorders are through the roof, Instagram teases an Android app, Gowalla shuts down, Microsoft tests a super-fast touchscreen, former Facebook director becomes Reddit CEO, CNN to purchase Mashable, Twitter buys Posterous, and the Encyclopedia Britannica stops publishing.

This week, TDD regulars Andrew Sorcini, Dwayne DeFreitas, and Lidija Davis join Venturebeat‘s Sean Ludwig as we talk to top contributors to Social news site Reddit.com as we find out what makes them do what they do to make Reddit so popular.

But first, the week’s top tech news…President Obama proposes a Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights, Apple acquires Chomp, iPhone user wins $850 in throttling case against AT&T, Apple announces iPad 3 event, Yahoo seeks to force Facebook into licensing patents, Google+ suffers low turnout, Reddit crafts an Internet privacy law.

Jeff Matsuda, the Emmy Award-winning creative director for The Batman animated television series, took to Reddit on Wednesday to promote his new mobile game Age of Monsters – Rock Paper Scissors by offering to draw any and all requests.

Reddit users took this advantage to have fun with Matsuda by asking for humorous Batman-related sketches such as Batman and Alfred playing frisbee (seen above), a Breaking Bad inspired image featuring characters from the hit show dressed as Batman and Robin, as well as Batman and Spock high fiving (my personal fave).

In a world permeated by social media and mobile communication, it seems impossible to ignore the persistent thoughts inside your own head long enough to really focus on a concept like gift giving — a single act of generosity tailored to a specific person for the sole purpose of making them ridiculously, tear-inducingly happy.

I’d like to believe most people would enjoy being able to come up with a gift of that caliber on an annual basis for every single person in their lives. Realistically, only those closest to you will be afforded thoughtful presents while the bulk of others will get something for the sake of giving them something. Giving a thoughtful gift to someone you don’t know very well can prove to be a difficult task.

That is, unless you are one of the more than 17,000 Reddit users in 90 different countries who participated in the site’s second Secret Santa gift exchange, which generated over $600,000 (and counting) in purchases and set a new world record, according to a post by Hueypriest on the Reddit blog.

A Reddit user by the name lolbacon has created a classic 3×3 character alignment chart for Battlestar Galactica that is pretty dead on. For instance, Kara “Starbuck” Thrice represents “chaotic good” while the Adamas represent the rest of the good spectrum. Also, Baltar is “True Neutral,” which is an interesting choice.

While some of the comments from the submission criticized breaking down the rich and vibrant BSG personalities into overly simplistic categories of good, neutral and evil, lolbacon said he sympathized and agreed that the characters are so often varying shades of grey.

Check out the image here at right (click for large view).