geekosystem

Not that we needed reminding, but Woot's response to their recently-announced acquisition by Amazon for a reported $110 million has reminded us why we love them so. While nine-figure sums and corporate megaparents might otherwise be enough to give Woot's fiercely loyal, fiercely geeky clientele the jitters, Woot has responded in a fiercely geeky way of its own. In addition to reassuring customers that Woot will remain "an independently operated company full of horrible, useless products and an untalented jerkface writing staff, same as it ever was," they've promptly released an old-skool hip-hop track, performed by a plush monkey named MC Mortimer.

Do we have said Woot rap below? It's funny you should ask:

It looks like Rosa didn't inspire too many people to find out who their "FRIENDS", friends, and 'fRiEnDs' are, or whatever the hell the distinction was between them. The supposed ultimate social networking phone from Microsoft, the Kin, has been discontinued. The phone will not be produced any more, and everyone on the Kin team will be relocated to the Windows Phone 7 team. The move to cut off the Kin isn't too surprising amid rumors that only 500 of them were ever sold. But the phone did have some promising features, especially its interaction with the Kin studio, which streamlined mobile social networking, making it easy to tell everyone at home what you did while you were out. But even after the price cuts, it looks like sales didn't pick up. Maybe that's because they made you buy into this none-too-cheap Verizon Data Plan:

In the never-gonna-end battle against internet piracy, the government has just taken down nine domains, all of which were found to be streaming full-length rips of movies still in their first run in theaters. The claim against the domains is theft of intellectual property. The seizure of the nine sites was part of a new mission called "Operation in Our Sites." The announcement that the sites were taken down was made in a press conference to highlight the creation of the new Operation (don't touch the sites!). Even though the announcement was made by the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency in L.A., seven of the sites were New York-based.

Woot acquired by Amazon (TechCrunch)

Grandfather performs Lady Gaga, hilarity ensues (Urlesque)

Craigslist "For Sale" ad hall of fame (Nerve)

Brace yourself: Mark Millar's working on an Old Man Logan sequel (Robot6)

Jason Robert Brown wins the hearts and minds of copyright fraudsters (Jason Robert Brown)

Will Verizon's 4G network be better than Sprint's? (DVICE)

"People are playing Farmville because people are playing Farmville." (A. J. Patrick Liszkiewicz)

(title image via ComicsAlliance)

In spite of our unease about some of its casting decisions, we've had high hopes for The Last Airbender, the M. Night Shyamalan-directed adaptation of the excellent cartoon series, which hits theaters on July 1st. But man ... it's been getting Jonah Hex-like abysmal reviews. It currently has a 00% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and Roger Ebert just dropped a review that gives The Last Airbender a half a star out of four and proceeds to tear the movie to shreds.

They say to never bring a knife to a gun fight. Well, Brian Barrett learned that you should also never bring blunt arrows, chainmail, plastic clubs, and foam shields anywhere near the G20 summit when protests are going on.

The Toronto Police Department is putting on a display showing the weapons seized in the arrests surrounding the G20 protests. Among these weapons are the above list of items that Barrett was carrying on his way to a live-action role-playing event. Police took the items, saying it was just a matter of him being in the wrong place at the wrong time. But that hardly makes them relevant to the display. Also shown were a chainsaw and crossbow taken on Friday in completely unrelated incidents that weren't even near the summit.

Three days into Elena Kagan's confirmation hearings, Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar decided to enter into uncharted territory: Twilight. Is nothing sacred? Klobuchar: "I keep wanting to ask you about the famous case of Edward vs. Jacob or the vampire vs. the werewolf." Kagan: "I wish you wouldn't."

Rejoice, people who enjoy the best television program ever made about the awkward and glorious high school experience! And also the college sequel they made which was pretty good too. That's right: Judd Apatow's Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared are both coming to IFC.

And Freaks and Geeks is coming soon, really soon: You'll be able to watch it beginning this Friday at 11pm EDT/PDT. You'll have to wait until the fall for Undeclared, though.

It's a shame it's taken this long:

The Latino Review is reporting with some degree of firmness that Josh Hutcherson has been chosen to play Spider-Man in the 2012 franchise reboot. Earlier, a blog called Blue Sky Disney reported that "After several extensive test shoots were performed, Marc Webb and the top Sony $uits decided that Hutcherson was the right fit for the role and an offer was made and has been accepted."

This in turn prompted a bigger fish, The Latino Review's George Roush, to write that he had known that the 18-year-old Hutcherson would be the next Spider-Man for "some time now."

The bee population in many areas of the world has been in a steep decline over the last four years, and until quite recently, scientists had no idea why. Were this decline to continue uninterrupted, it could spell the end for some fruits and vegetables altogether as far as farming is concerned, and would generally be devastating for produce growers. The decline has been named Colony Collapse Disorder, and parasites and climate change were once thought mostly to blame. The effect that bees have on crop growth is amazing, and their loss would be incredibly costly to the economy. The total value of produce pollinated by bees in the United States alone is estimated at around $12 billion. But CNN reported a study today that could reveal the reason behind the decline, though it's doubtful whether there's anything people would actually be willing to do in order to stop it.

It was revealed yesterday in the New York Times, and now we've gotten the official word from The Source: Wonder Woman #600 releases today, with a new costume and a new backstory. Well, it's a new backstory in the same sense that Star Trek was a restart.  Literally.

In January of 2009, David DeVore's father, also named David, uploaded a video of his then-7-year-old son to YouTube, delirious from dental surgery. Since then, the video has been viewed more than 60 million times. It's also netted the family more than $150,000 from YouTube fees and merchandise, and allowed David Sr. to quit his job.

We recently wrote about a certain piece of hilarious cinema that explored how brainwashed many Apple fans are about the brand power and awesomeness of the iPhone product line. In that article, we also wrote about how several Apple fans were none too happy about it and were keen to point out all the technological inconsistencies. Well, it looks like one of those angry Apple defenders went on over to xtranormal.com and made a bona fide rebuttal video. It's not quite as absurd as the original, as there are no transformations into jet airplanes or money-printing machines. Instead, it tries to drive home the technological argument. More reliable in terms of information? Probably. Funnier? You can decide.

Mere days after a helpful man in inexplicable clown makeup taught us all how to make ice cream sandwiches on a stick, the popsiclization of our nation's foodstock continues: This time, in the form of this wafflesicle maker (official name: "Lolly") from Triangular Concept.

Just put some batter and a few wooden sticks in this Christmas Tree-shaped griddle, and -- Voilà! -- waffly popsicles will be yours for the having. Wafflesicles come at a steep price though -- more than 700 Euros, or ~850 dollars US.

(Triangular Concept via TDW via Gizmodo)

A picture that the Gemini Observatory took in 2008 has just been officially confirmed as the first direct photograph of a planet outside our solar system. While we have images of other alien planets -- a.k.a. "exoplanets" -- such images have been composed via indirect means of observation, such as gravitational fluctuations, rather than as true photographs. This particular planet is about eight times the mass of Jupiter, and orbits the star 1RSX J160929.1-210524, which is located about 500 light-years away. The unnamed planet is the little orange dot in the upper-left-hand quadrant of the photograph above.