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Tesla says its all-electric roadsters have countermeasures to prevent its batteries from “bricking.”

Mashable:

A new kind of outdoor advertisement is being tested on Oxford Street in London’s West End. The interactive advertisement uses a high-definition camera to scan pedestrians and identify their gender before showing a specific ad. The built-in system has a 90% accuracy rate in analyzing a person’s facial features and determining if they’re male or female.Males won’t be able to see the full ad and will be directed to Plan UK’s website instead. The purpose of this was to show men “a glimpse of what it’s like to have basic choices taken away.”

This is the tip of the focused advertisement iceberg.

Susan Arendt: While none of us particularly enjoy reading through posts where readers fantasize about caving in our skulls or impaling us because we dared to like a game that they hate (or hate one they love), such posts don’t … Continued

Gizmodo:

What begins as a seemingly cheesy commercial for the Central Institute of Technology in Australia quickly devolves into a morass of extremely dark silliness. But yes, it’s actually a real ad for a real school. Very creative, twisted, and funny.

Utterly demented video.

A man attacked Toys R Us store shoppers with a toy lightsaber and managed to deflect a taser wire before police arrested him. He is a Jedi!

Iceland’s Keflavik International Airport has been voted the best small airport in Europe.

The Wall:

Whether it is uploading photos, that we then allow another entity to have control of, or granting access to our Facebook or Twitter account to a third party – we are, often unknowingly, giving away data, and, in certain instances, giving away certain privacy rights associated with that data.Admit it, when that long, boring box of detailed legal information pops up when you download an app or sign up to a website, you just hit “I Agree” and don’t actually read it, don’t you? Well maybe there are a few things you should be paying attention to.

While some of the information may be location (UK) specific, the article does serve as a reminder that the “social media” space can be scary and have real word consequences. Thanks to Colin Crawford for the heads up.

TIME:

To set the record straight, today isn’t actually Presidents’ Day. It is still known as Washington’s Birthday, according to the federal government and section 6103(a) of title 5 of the U.S. Code.

Serious Eats:

Consumers and even some bartenders have a misconception that single-malt Scotch is not a blended whisky, but this is a myth. Single-malt scotch is a blend, but it’s a very specific type of blend. In fact, nearly all whiskies on the market today are blends—bourbons, ryes, Tennessees, scotches, etc.—although in this article I’ll focus on Scotch.

This article and its follow up, “The Serious Eats Guide to Single Malt Scotch”, are well written and really interesting examinations and explanations of what Scotch is. It’s an acquired taste but once you acquire it, you’ll enjoy it!

Cool Material:

We’ll try any beer we can get our greedy hands on. If a friend says he just picked up a sixer of something crazy, we’d expect some craft brew that’s hopped out of its mind or an imported stout that tastes like biting into chocolate cake, and we’d gladly partake.

We’re all big fans of beer here but most of these brews would make us think twice about reaching for the bottle opener.

BoingBoing:

The Blast Lab at Imperial College, London, is a place where scientists study how explosions affect the human skeleton, and try to find ways to mitigate some of those effects. As you can imagine, this involves blowing stuff up fairly regularly and The Blast Lab is a pretty loud place.But the team of students behind PLoS’ Inside Knowledge blog noticed something cool about that. The sounds in The Blast Lab weren’t just loud noises, they were loud notes. Edit them together, and you could reproduce a whole song, using nothing but sounds recorded in a working scientific laboratory.

PC Mag:

The Department of Transportation has proposed guidelines that would block all in-vehicle communications by a driver, including texting, dialing, Internet browsing, and even entering a GPS address by hand.The regulations, if imposed and enforced, could dramatically alter the future of connected vehicles within the United States, as well as how U.S. drivers use devices like GPS navigation systems and cell phones.

As a motorcyclist, I’m all for anything that forces drivers to focus and pay attention to actually driving and eliminating as many distractions as possible.

Another fun podcast with Myke Hurley and Terry Lucy on The Bro Show.

Cracked:

As e-book sales overtake paper-book sales, it seems like everybody is crying and wringing their hands about what it means — serious, society-changing ramifications like the end of ownership, or ease of piracy, or environmental impact, or whether it makes things easier or harder for publishers or aspiring authors.Like most important issues, those are boring. What are some effects of going to an all e-book world that haven’t been talked to death? I dug around and tried to find some e-book ramifications that would appeal to the type of people who spend more time preparing for a zombie apocalypse than like, unemployment, or retirement, or something. You know, realists.

Sony executives are blaming the Whitney Houston album price hike on iTunes UK on an employee error.

An investment company representing Beastie Boy Mike D has forced AT&T’s hand to let shareholders vote on a Net Neutrality position.

[caption id="attachment_20248" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="42 Lasquite Saint Bernards"][/caption] Lasquite Saint Bernards:

Video of us out for a walk with our 42 Saint Bernards.

That’s a lot of drool…

Bloomberg: As of October, 3 million to 5 million people subscribed to Prime, a program begun in 2005 that provides two-day shipping for $79 a year, said the people, who asked not to be named because the figures are private. … Continued

Michael Geist: Public Safety Minister Vic Toews is expected to introduce lawful access legislation tomorrow in the House of Commons. An Act to enact the Investigating and Preventing Criminal Electronic Communications Act and to amend the Criminal Code and others … Continued

Dan Lyons, on his own blog: Yet now Arrington and Siegler have appointed themselves the watchdogs of tech journalism, eager to point out the irresponsible and inaccurate reporting that they see all around them. This might ring a little less … Continued

[caption id="attachment_20197" align="alignnone" width="240" caption="Jennifer Hudson"][/caption] The Week:

Sunday night’s Grammy Awards was all about two women: Adele and Whitney Houston. The former was the night’s big winner, emerging victorious in all six of the categories she competed in, including the Big Three: Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Album of the Year. And Houston’s death on Saturday permeated the event’s entire proceedings.Here are six of the performances from Grammy night that critics are buzzing about.

I’ve been watching this dog show on TV since I was a kid and it’s great to see a live stream of the event. It gives you a different view and impression of the show. Thanks to @HikerCA for the heads up!

Sony hiked the wholesale price of Whitney Houston’s digital albums after the singer was pronounced dead.

TechCrunch’s MG Siegler weighs in on the need for tech bloggers to constantly churn more page views on their sites.

Many thanks to Strange Flavour for sponsoring this week’s RSS feed with SlotZ Racer, its free iPhone and iPad racing game. Strange Flavour are back with a new spin on their hit slot car racing game SlotZ Racer! SlotZ Racer … Continued

It’s the “story of a man who taught his cat to use instant messaging.” Funniest thing you’ll read today…..Thanks to Sian Meades and Jared Earle for the heads up.

Gothamist:

It’s Shamrock Shake season, and the green stuff is already ready to be slung at your local McDonald’s, and this year all of America will be able to indulge in the seasonal treat. The chain announced today that the shake will go national this year, for the first time in its 42-year-long existence.According to the McDonald’s spokeswoman, Ashlee Yingling, the minty shake “is currently available at every one of McDonald’s 14,000 U.S. restaurants,” and will be available through March 25th.

Anyone else embarrassed to admit how much they look forward to these things each year?

[caption id="attachment_20090" align="alignnone" width="173" caption="100,000 Scovilles Naga Chilli Vodka"][/caption] Master of Malt:

We filled a carboy with vodka, and into it we poured so many Naga Jolokia chillies that there was nothing but darkness in that carboy, nothing but darkness. We left the chillies to infuse and impart their flavour, colour and deathly fire into the vodka, and we’ve bottled the result. We are sorry. We are truly sorry.This stuff smells like pure evil, like the very blood of Satan himself. Such a pungent nose of chilli, it makes your eyes water just sniffing it.

Not a fan of spicy food but if you are, why would you want to ingest something that can cause you this kind of pain?

TIME:

Though Facebook’s SEC filings are dominating headlines, social neophyte Pinterest is gaining traction and plenty of buzz as the newest social media darling.According to comScore, Pinterest was the fastest growing independent site to hit 10 million monthly unique visits in the U.S., while a new report claims it drives more referral traffic to online retailers than Google+, YouTube, Reddit and LinkedIn combined.But is Pinterest just a digital arts and crafts bulletin board piggybacking off of a social phenomenon, or is there value in joining?