The Truth About Cars:

That first weekend, Irv rolled 1,500 miles, returning to the dealership on Monday for his car’s first checkup. He hadn’t planned to drive through the weekend, but he says he was having too much fun to stop—up to Boston, down to Philly, and all over in between before returning to his home on Long Island. He’s been driving the P1800 enthusiastically ever since. On September 24th of last year, he hit 3 million miles.

I don’t think I’ve travelled three million miles in my lifetime, let alone in one car.

Co.Exist:

Radar trains local journalists in regions where Western reporters don’t go unless there’s a disaster, and has them file stories via text, with the hopes that the news might get some stories–and perspective–it usually ignores.

There are all kinds of stories to be told. Radar sounds like a way for (trained) citizen journalists to help get those stories told.

io9:

The 2014 Campbellian Anthology – a DRM-free ebook featuring the work of over 100 authors eligible for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in science fiction and fantasy – is currently available for download. 860,000 words of fiction. For free (for now). Go grab it.

Available as a Mobi file for Amazon Kindle and Kindle Readers apps and as an Epub file for iPad, Nook, Kobo, Sony Reader, and most other e-reader devices and apps.

BuzzFeed:

I have no idea how I exist as an adult human who consumes food and didn’t know most of these, and yet here I am. No shame about not knowing these.

As a city kid, I’ve rarely seen fruits and vegetables in their natural state. Some of these are really fascinating. Bored Panda has a bunch more.

Boing Boing:

Long have I heard tell of the Cockney Rhyming Slang ATM of Hackney Road, but na’er had I chanced upon it…until today! As soon as I stuck my debit card in the machine in front of the Co-Op Grocers in Hackney Road and was asked to make a language-selection between “English” and “Cockney,” I knew I’d found it at last.

We have Chinese language ATM’s here in Vancouver but this is so much cooler.

Slate:

This Sunday, the eyes of millions of Americans will turn to a fetid marsh in the industrial hinterlands of New York City for the country’s most important sporting event—and some would say the key to understanding its proud but violent culture.

Slate has been running this series for a while and it’s funny to read how American events might be reported through the eyes of others.

Wall Street Journal:

“The Lego Movie” gathers characters who don’t normally hang around together, coming from separately owned franchises and studios. These include Warner movie characters like Batman, Superman, Gandalf, Dumbledore and a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle; but also Han Solo, Shaquille O’Neal, and Milhouse from “The Simpsons”.

I’m going to borrow a nine year old and go see this movie.

Co.Create:

New York-based artist Jon Burgerman has responded to both the violent ads in subway movie posters and the rising scores of public shootings by playing the victim.

In a new series of interventions, called “Headshots,” Burgerman documents himself donning fake blood and other props to portray the potential target of whoever in the poster is pointing a gun (or bow and arrow.)

Hilariously subversive.

Fast Company:

The era of the pre-game Super Bowl strategy kicked off in earnest in 2011, when Volkswagen pre-released its excellent spot “The Force” before Super Sunday. The monster success of that spot spurred others to follow suit and this year the trend continued unabated, with teasers and entire bespoke ads created to stoke buzz before game day.

Here, all the spots (and accompanying content) released so far.

Some fun ads here but I gotta say, the Lawrence Fishburne ad for Kia was the most disappointing, the “Doberhuahua” the funniest and the Newcastle “The Teaser For The Trailer For Newcastle’s Mega Huge Football Game Ad” the most clever. Thanks to reader David Mark for the link.

I hate the beer but I love some of the ads.

Medium:

I had a rare Twitter username, @N. Yep, just one letter. I’ve been offered as much as $50,000 for it. People have tried to steal it. Password reset instructions are a regular sight in my email inbox. As of today, I no longer control @N. I was extorted into giving it up.

The article includes several good suggestions on how to protect yourself online. But the biggest thing that needs to happen is companyies who need our sensitive information need to be more vigilant about keeping that information safe.

ESPN:

If our children or our children’s children ever dig up a time capsule from the beginning of the new millennium, they will find that in February 2004, America collectively lost its damn mind.

For better or worse, America can be a remarkably puritanical society.

USA Today:

Johansson is the face of SodaStream’s newest commercial, which the company’s CEO says is too risqué for Fox. The television network isn’t banning the commercial because of any sexual innuendo or objectionable content. Rather, because of a parting shot to Coke and Pepsi.

Lame. Not the controversy. The commercial itself.

Huffington Post:

It’s not easy coming back home to America when your name is Ahmed.

I want to look forward to returning home from a trip abroad, but thanks to my name or as the TSA officer put it — my “profile” — I’ve come to dread it.

“Security Theater” at its finest.

I call bull. That’s a 35 year old midget in a diaper.

Scouting NY:

On March 29, 1971, The Godfather, considered by many to be one of the greatest films ever made, began principal photography in New York City.

Because the film is a period piece, The Godfather actually presents a fascinating record of what 1940s-era New York City locations still existed in the early-1970s. Sadly, many of them are now gone. What still remains? Let’s take a closer look.

I’m a complete junkie for these kinds of “before and after” stories. I use to date a woman from Greenwich Village and whenever we’d watch TV shows set in New York, I was constantly stopping the show to ask her, “Is that real? Do you know where that location is? Have you been there?” Drove her nuts.

Wall Street Journal:

All you need to know about multibillionaire Carl Icahn is how he describes himself on his Twitter page: “Some people get rich studying artificial intelligence. Me, I make my money studying natural stupidity.”

He has purchased billions worth of Apple and eBay stock. But he’s not making a bet on these companies; he’s making a bet he can get these companies to do what he says.

He is smarter than the people who run them, you see, even though he has never produced much more than harassment and misery for most of his life.

Icahn’s moves are very obvious and easy to predict and understand.

Bloomberg:

MillerCoors…(will)…unveil the beer, Miller Fortune, over the next two months. The brew, with a more malty, complex flavor hinting at bourbon.

Developed with guys aged 21 to 27 in mind, the flavor is moderately bitter with hints of sweetness.

Just like guys that age.

Here’s an idea, MillerCoors. Instead of asking, “How would Jack Daniels or Maker’s Mark do a beer?”, why not make the beer you already make simply taste better?

Wynken de Worde:

For months now I’ve been stewing about how much I hate @HistoryInPics and their ilk (@HistoryInPix, @HistoricalPics, @History_Pics, etc.) – twitter streams that do nothing more than post “old” pictures and little tidbits of captions for them. And when I say “nothing more” that’s precisely what I mean. What they don’t post includes attribution to the photographer or to the institution hosting the digital image. There’s no way to easily learn more about the image (you can, of course, do an image search through TinEye or Google Image Search and try to track it down that way).

Alexis Madrigal recently wrote a piece for The Atlantic revealing that @HistoryInPics is run by a couple of teenagers who are savvy at generating viral social media accounts to bring in money.

In the pas few months, dozens of these Twitter accounts have popped up, all RT’ing each other for money.

The Slingshot Channel:

Slingshots have been the signatory weapons of naughty boys for a very long time.

In this video, you’ll see a larger German man having more fun than you can imagine with a slingshot and snowballs. Canadians could learn a thing or two from this guy.

iFixit:

Join us as we live the time-traveler’s dream—the deep, lucid, Orwellian vision of hope, fear, and nostalgia that is 1984. Just in time for its 30th anniversary, we laid hands on an ’84 original: the Macintosh 128K. And, you guessed it—we’re tearing it down like it’s the Berlin Wall.

I guarantee iFixit will bitch about the fact it’s not upgradeable.

Wired:

It takes a special kind of magic to make an electric one-wheeled motorcycle not terrifying to ride, and Ryno Motors has pulled it off. The microcycle, which has a single 25-inch motorcycle tire and reaches speeds up to 10 mph, uses a combination of gyroscope sensors and accelerometers to balance itself.

I saw this when I lived in Portland OR and it looked very interesting – if just as dorky as a Segway. If they were legal in your town, would you buy one?

Ars Technica:

To get “online” was to sit down at your computer, open up an application called a “terminal program” (or just “term program” for short), pull up your carefully hoarded list of BBS phone numbers, and start dialing. Inevitably, most would be busy and you’d have to wait, but eventually you’d be treated to the sweet sound of ringing through your modem’s speaker, followed by the electronic beeping and scratching of a modem handshake.

I remember all of this. In related news, I’m old.

Test Your Vocabulary:

English has the most words of any language on Earth.

TestYourVocab.com is part of an independent American-Brazilian research project to measure vocabulary sizes according to age and education, and particularly to compare native learning rates with foreign language classroom learning rates.

According to the test, I know over 36,000 words. I bet a lot of them are just different words for beer.

CNET:

If you’ve ever wanted to take a spin around the “Top Gear” test track in the UK, but don’t qualify as a Star in a Reasonably Priced Car, now’s your chance.

As a fan of the UK TV show Top Gear, I really enjoyed “chasing” The Stig around their track.

Gizmodo:

Can you spot the fakes? Hundreds of amazing images wash over our greedy eyeballs each and every day, clogging our Twitter timelines and Facebook feeds. Many of them are fakes, lies, or both. Like these!

I’m seeing more and more of these being passed around Twitter. Even worse, being passed around by people who should know better.

CNET News:

If you’re one of the people more interested in watching Super Bowl commercials than watching the actual game, you’re in luck. YouTube has offered early access to Super Bowl commercials for those who just can’t wait.

The Google-owned company on Thursday announced the Ad Blitz channel on YouTube.

Or, if you are unlucky enough to live in a place like Canada where the Super Bowl ads are replaced by local market ads for mufflers and mattress superstores, this channel lets you see what all the buzz is about.

Goalies are known as “The drummers of hockey” so 14 minutes of insanity from netminders is pure gold.

Modern Farmer:

About 80% of the world’s maple syrup comes from Canada and 90% of that comes from Quebec which produced 96.1 million lbs of syrup valued at $270 million in 2012.

We wrote about this when it first came to light in 2012 but this “illustrated update” is interesting too. The idea of a “International Strategic Reserve” of maple syrup still cracks me up.

The Dissolve:

In January 1994, a group of filmmakers from Chicago went to the Sundance Film Festival to accomplish the impossible, by selling a three-hour documentary about two inner-city teens hoping to get to the NBA. By the time they left, their lives had changed, and so had the way non-fiction filmmaking is perceived.

The movie still holds up as a powerful commentary on sports and the role it plays in the lives of too many “disadvantaged youths”.

But it’s also a wonderful film in and of itself. Even if you’re not a fan of documentaries, I’d encourage you to watch it.