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Interesting stuff from Jason Kottke.

Animal:

The Department of Homeland Security monitors updates on social networks, including Facebook and Twitter, to uncover “Items Of Interest” (IOI), according to an internal DHS document released by the EPIC. That document happens to include a list of the baseline terms for which the DHS–or more specifically, a DHS subcontractor hired to monitor social networks–use to generate real-time IOI reports.

So – don’t use those words.

Buzzfeed:

It’s 2012. And it seems like something much, much worse than what the Mayans predicted is coming—and much sooner than you’d think. These are the twenty places you definitely want to see before it’s all over on March 6, 2012.

I’ve been to three of these and would like to get to at least three more. Won’t make it before March 6th though.

Wired Science:

The moon, Venus, and Jupiter — the three brightest objects in the night sky — will be putting on a dazzling celestial show shortly after sunset both Feb. 25 and 26, coming together in a tight triangle. With any luck, you might also spot tiny Mercury down near the horizon just as the sun goes down.People all over the world can check out the performance just by stepping outside and looking westward. If snowstorms or general chilliness drive you inside, you can always watch the spectacular event live on the Slooh Space Camera feed, starting both nights at 6:30 p.m. PST.

ESPN:

As the No. 10 Chevrolet rolled to a stop Thursday, the front end destroyed after a horrific impact with the inside retaining wall, Danica Patrick let her crew know she was all right.She did it with three simple words, two of which would make many blush.

The Daytona 500 is this weekend and this video reminds you of not only how dangerous the race is but also, paradoxically, how safe it is.

Michael Hiltzik for the LA Times:

Technology news bloggers’ curious habit of accepting investments from the very people they’re presumed to be covering objectively blew up last week over what might be termed the Path Affair.

EFF:

If you want to keep Google from combining your Web History with the data they have gathered about you in their other products, such as YouTube or Google Plus, you may want to remove all items from your Web History and stop your Web History from being recorded in the future.Note that disabling Web History in your Google account will not prevent Google from gathering and storing this information and using it for internal purposes. It also does not change the fact that any information gathered and stored by Google could be sought by law enforcement.

Hat tip to Daring Fireball.

Dell says it has nothing to do with the “fartographer” video, but it’s being a good sport about it.

Gizmodo:

Jeb Corliss hit the side of Table Mountain while attempting a wingsuit jump. Now, the footage from the cameras mounted to his helmet is available—and it looks terrifying.

I love these wingsuit videos but this guy was asking for trouble “flying” so low, trying to grab the balloons!

Dell is taking “Think Different” to a whole new level.

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.