geekosystem

The next time you see someone crowing about their fancy restored classic vehicle, just remember that they are riding around in a death trap. This video celebrates the advancements made in car safety technology by crashing a classic and contemporary car together. The contenders in this death match is an extremely boring and pedestrian looking 2009 Chevy Malibu and a rather gorgeous 1959 Bel Air. The results are dramatic. Despite the size and weight difference, the BelAir is completely, and dramatically destroyed. The classic lines of the Bel Air melt like butter against the small, fuel efficient Malibu. The hypothetical injuries sustained by the drivers is, perhaps, less surprising as the BelAir lacks airbags or even seat belts. Though I am happy to see the how well new cars fair compared to an older vehicle, I have to admit that the sight of a classic car being so utterly destroyed was both mesmerizing and hard to watch. Maybe it's because I grew up near Detroit, I don't know. (via Reddit)

Hollywood may play hardball when Netflix tries to get new movies to its customers for cheap, but never fear. Next month, major studios including Warner Bros., Sony, Universal, and 20th Century Fox will team up with DirecTV to launch something called Home Premiere, which will allow consumers to view films on-demand that had stopped playing in theaters just two months beforehand. For the privilege of seeing such films as Unknown and Just Go With It from the comfort of their own homes, viewers will be charged a mere $30 for a two- to three-day rental. This scheme may sound insanely greedy, but Hollywood thinks it could make sense to "audiences who aren't making the trip to the megaplex because of the size of their families or the expense to hire babysitters or pay for food and other concessions." Hopefully, this will all prove to be a step towards a future with shorter windows between theatrical and video-on-demand release and much lower rental fees, but then, Hollywood seems to relish taking very, very small steps towards any such new ventures. (Variety via All Things D)

GoDaddy CEO Bob Parsons recently returned from safari in Africa, and uploaded a video of his adventures to the web. This may seem innocuous enough, but the video was about Parsons' elephant hunt, where he hunts and kills "problem" elephants. The video shows the elephants being shot at, Parsons posing with the killed bull, and a group of locals in GoDaddy hats butchering the animal for its meat. Parsons says that his hunt was beneficial for the locals, whose crops are sometimes destroyed by raiding elephants. But his explanation has failed to quell critics. PETA, (whose site happens to be hosted by GoDaddy), has dubbed him "the scummiest CEO of the year" and announced its intention to switch hosts. A rival company, NameCheap, has offered a special deal to new customers who transfer from GoDaddy where 20% of their fees will go towards elephant conservation. Others are simply criticizing Parsons for spending what is a no-doubt substantial sum of money to kill elephants, instead of providing non-lethal ways to locals for defending their crops. Though Parsons' critics have been vocal, their criticisms are unlikely to lead to many direct repercussions for the elephant-killing CEO. GoDaddy is a privately held company, and Parsons does not answer to a board of directors, nor does the popular reaction for or against him have any impact on the company's stock. As it appears that Parsons was engaged in a legal elephant hunt it is almost certain that charges will not be brought against him. But whether Parsons' elephant shoot was smart PR is an entirely different matter. The video is embedded below. Be warned, it is graphic.

Sorry, Instagram, Hipstamatic, Color, et al., but there's a new whimsical iPhone photo app in town, and it's likely to resonate with the 8-bit generation. Taking its cue from the pixellated l'il greyscale photos taken by the original Game Boy Camera, a 99-cent app called 8-Bit Pocket Camera allows users to memorialize their most cherished moments as 200x200 pixel TIFFs.

The app faithfully re-creates the options you might have found in the original Nintendo device and adds more. You can flick through various styles, create multi-panel images, and distort your view for fun. Once the images have been taken, you can edit the border and paper color, before exporting to the Camera Roll or emailing to friends.

That shuffling noise you just heard was the sound of a thousand Twitter and Tumblr avatars trendily switching. (via Cult of Mac | 8-Bit Pocket Camera)

Have you tried removing a vowel? (pivotrly) Vi Hart: Scrap high school calculus, teach recreational math (NewScientist) The history of "+1" (Laughing Meme) Why I won't be Charlie Sheen's intern (Myles Tanzer) How to use multiple computers for increased productivity (Lifehacker) Reality: A social network based in real life (Laughing Squid) 60 completely unusable stock photos (BuzzFeed) (title pic via pleated-jeans; more there.)

Meet the Heliotrygon gomesi, a newly discovered species of Amazonian stingray. Beautiful x-ray photo taken by UTSC's Ken Jones. (Our Amazing Planet via Boing Boing.)

Following one year of gravitational data collection, the European Space Agency's GOCE satellite has produced what the ESA says is the most accurate model of the Earth's geoid ever produced. A geoid is, essentially, a surface that describes the way the Earth's oceans would shake out if there were no tides or currents and if the oceans could travel over continents: If gravity was all that mattered. (Wikipedia has a more rigorous definition.) As you can see in the animation above (h/t Bad Astronomy), it is quite a lumpy fellow. ESA:

[The geoid] is a crucial reference for measuring ocean circulation, sea-level change and ice dynamics – all affected by climate change. ... A precise model of Earth's geoid is crucial for deriving accurate measurements of ocean circulation, sea-level change and terrestrial ice dynamics. The geoid is also used as a reference surface from which to map the topographical features on the planet. In addition, a better understanding of variations in the gravity field will lead to a deeper understanding of Earth's interior, such as the physics and dynamics associated with volcanic activity and earthquakes.

(ESA, Bad Astronomy via Cindy Au)

Should we be thanking Jack Dorsey? Just days after the Twitter creator's return to the company, Twitter has announced that the infamous, ad- and trend-laden floaty bar atop the official Twitter iPhone app -- the QuickBar to Twitter, the "Dickbar" to its enemies -- has been killed off in the latest Twitter for iPhone update, rolled out for download today. The disdain for the Dickbar (named for relatively new Twitter CEO Dick Costolo -- what were you thinking?) was severe among techies. Marco Arment now-famously wrote that "It’s offensive because it’s deeply bad, showing complete disregard for quality, product design, and user respect, and we’ve come to expect a lot more from Twitter." Though Twitter's removal of the bar implicitly acknowledges the scorn ("After testing a feature and evaluating its merits, if we learn it doesn’t improve the user experience or serve our mission, we’ll remove that feature"), Twitter's blog post announcing the change defended its efficacy:

Rather than continue to make changes to the QuickBar as it exists, we removed the bar from the update appearing in the App Store today. We believe there are still significant benefits to increasing awareness of what’s happening outside the home timeline. Evidence of the incredibly high usage metrics for the QuickBar support this. For now, we’re going back to the drawing board to explore the best possible experience for in-app notification and discovery.

So: Score a victory for the vocal mobile Twitter users, at least for now. If the bar does make a comeback post-drawing board session, hopefully it will serve up relevant ads and trends rather than dumping the same ill-fitting stuff on every user. (via Twitter Blog. title pic via BlackWeb)

The creator of Minecraft Markus Persson, A.K.A. Notch, has just announced that version Beta 1.4 is live for download. Though not nearly as world-changing as 1.3, it adds some new features and one new mob. According to the Minecraft site this update will include:

* Added tameable wolves * Added cookies * Sleeping in a bed now resets your spawn position * New Minecraft logo * Holding shift while climbing will hang on to the ladder * Spiders will no longer trample crops * Lots and lots of infrastructure for Statistics lists and Achievements

Users on the Minecraft forums have also confirmed the addition of cocoa beans, and brown sheep. There are also scattered reports of a special in-game April Fool's Day joke. Check back for more on these new features as we find them!

The German government is currently debating an issue not many in the U.S. may have thought of: how long cellphone providers should retain your personal information. After all, cellphones histories are a veritable treasure trove of information on our movements and habits, not to mention a meticulous log of whom we contacted. In order to demonstrate how much just six months worth of cellphone data reveals, German politician Malte Spitz released six months of his own cell phone data. With this information publicly available, The Zeit online took the massive Excel spreadsheet and created an amazing visualization of Spitz's movements from August 2009 to February 2010. The data was augmented with Spitz's tweets and blog entries. While numbers just look like numbers, watching the little dot zip around Germany is very unsettling. During those six months, Spitz was trackable 78% of the time. You can even see how he liked to spend Christmas.

J&D's Foods, the amazing folks that brought you the much-lauded Baconsalt, have unleashed their latest bacon creation: BaconAir. According to their site, BaconAir came about after discussing the next logical step for bacon after Baconsalt. After all day brainstorming, the team hit on a key question:

What if bacon was lighter than air? It was that last question that got the dialogue really going and led to another seemingly ridiculous question – what if bacon was air? After all, oxygen is the most important nutrient to the cells in your body, and plays an integral role in almost every bodily function. And bacon is the most delicious of meats.

One thing lead to another, and BaconAir was born. The concoction is a "refreshing burst of bacon-flavored pure oxygen," and uses the extra-healthy 95% pure Himalayan oxygen. It is also fat and calorie free and, Kosher, and available now for pre-order. Surely, this will be imitated at shifty oxygen bars across America, but accept nothing but the original BaconAir. Now, there may those among you that do not share my passion for this delicious, aerosol product. Let me tell you a story:

Android may be free, wondrous, radical in its business model, and more open than Apple's iOS, but it's still something that Google owns, doggone it, and if reports are to be believed, Google has recently initiated a crackdown on the very real problem of Android fragmentation. According to BusinessWeek, this has prompted Google to contact "about a dozen executives working at key companies in the Android ecosystem ... includ[ing] LG, Toshiba, Samsung, and even Facebook, which has been trying to develop an Android device." Google's message: Whereas it was more willing to be experimental and let its partners tinker in Android's early days, now that Android is a more mature platform -- it currently leads the smartphone operating system market with a 31 percent market share -- Google wants to more strictly implement quality control. But of course, "quality control" and "non-fragmentation" are subjective, and opponents of the new regime say Google is interpreting these terms to its own benefit.

The fact that libraries across America are facing real challenges to their very existence is nothing new. In this hard economies, many communities are asking if a place to rent books is really a worthwhile investment and are, sadly, shutting libraries down. But rather than loose a resource, Newport Beach, California is considering a radical option that would keep the library space but eliminate books from the building. The plan is being spearheaded by City Manager Dave Kiff, who sees it as a modern re-imagining of a library. Instead of having books in the labyrinthine stacks we are all so used to seeing, the town's central library would have an electronic system to loan out physical books. A patron would request a book at an electronic kiosk, and then pick up the book from specific lockers. The rest of the space would be turned over to a 2,200 square-foot reading area with a central fireplace. The decision is unusual since it acknowledges the community's commitment not only to having books available, but to ensuring that some of these books be physical in nature. Other libraries have sought to modernize by providing eBook loan programs, despite the difficulties involved. But after a careful survey of Newport's four library branches, the city determined that few people were browsing or checking out books. Most, came in to use computers or work on laptops. The new space would preserve the library's collection, while creating space for how most patrons use the library.

Here's a delightful morning snack: When Pakistan experienced severe flooding last year, it had the unexpected and rather creepy-crawly side effect of driving millions upon millions of spiders to the trees, where they could escape the floodwater. Since the flooding lasted for such a long time, many trees became blanketed in thick layers of web.

But according to the UK government, which assisted in the flood release effort this may have actually had a positive health effect: On-the-ground reports suggest that there are fewer mosquitos than would have been expected after the influx of so much stagnant water. This, in turn, may have reduced the very real risk of malaria to local populations afflicted with flooding. The web-coated trees, however, remain scary-looking.

More photos of creepy, antimalarial trees below:

Here's a new holiday we can get behind: As a protective measure against April Fools' Day pranks gone awry and as a matter of generally good computer hygiene, March 31st has been decreed World Backup Day by Redditors and the women, men, and narwhals that love them. Regularly backing up data may be common practice for some tech-minded individuals, but for many laptop-toting civilians, it isn't -- and the results can be disastrous. At some point, you or someone you know has probably experienced the pain of a term paper gobbled up by corrupted data, and it's alarmingly common for an entire hard drive to fail. As World Backup Day's organizers point out, the hard drive is the component of the computer most likely to break unexpectedly: Brand new hard drives fail at a rate of three percent per year, and it only gets worse as time goes on. And this is to say nothing of users' potential to accidentally inflict harm on their own data with viruses and malware. What to do? External drives, USB sticks, DVDs, and Blu-ray discs offer relatively painless IRL data backup, and online backup on the cloud may be even cheaper and more secure. More info about the pros and cons of each method on the World Backup Day website. (World Backup Day website | Thanks, pinwale.)