geekosystem

Ron Paul just can't win when it comes to the Internet, and really, it's his fault in the first place. First he asked the UN, an organization he notoriously does not like, to take the domain RonPaul.com from the huge supporter base that runs it so that he can have it. Now not only has the UN ruled in favor of those supporters, but they've also found Paul guilty of reverse domain name hijacking. Sucks to be you, Ron.

Yesterday the Fedora Project, a community devoted to creating free open-source software, announced the release of a new operating system for the Raspberry Pi called Pidora. This is all well and good, except the word "pidor" is an incredibly offensive word for Russian speakers. Specifically, it's an very insulting slang term for gay people. Whoops.

When you're shopping for a smartphone, "Was it sourced and built using fair, sustainable business practices?" probably isn't question high on your list of priorities. Don't feel bad, though -- even if your are the sort inclined to ask that question, the resounding answer is going to be "Nope." One company, though, is trying to change that. Netherlands-based Fairphone has started production on a phone that they hope will one day provide a model for other companies to build quality products for consumers without ravaging the environment or treating workers like grist for the mill.

Superstar celebrity and awesome-butt-haver Jennifer Lopez is very invested in bettering the lives of her fellows in the  Latino community. To that end, she's announced a partnership with Verizon Mobile to launch a new cell phone company called Viva Movil, which will cater exclusively to Spanish-speaking residents of the U.S. and -- okay, wait, we're sorry. J-Lo is launching a cell phone company? J-Lo. The wedding planner herself. That's kind of ridiculous, right?

Anyone that's at all familiar with the gaming press knows well the infusion of rumor that's fed to the public on an almost daily basis. Sometimes these tidbits pan out, and other times they do not. They range from the incredibly outrageous to the too good to be true. It's...tiring, to be frank, but sometimes it leads to speculation that's quite exciting. It's in this vein that we present Game Rumour Generator: A bit of JavaScript that generates absurd video game rumors.

Arguably the best part of the Xbox One, or Xbone, reveal event was the amount of time spent discussing the addition of a dog to the squad in Call of Duty: Ghosts. The lack of any real gaming-related announcements meant that the hardcore crowd was looking for something -- anything at all -- to sink their teeth into, and they found it with the Call of Duty: Ghosts dog. It's popular enough that Brandon Sheffield of Necrosoft Games even made a Twine game called Call of Doggie: Ghosts.

After the reveal of the Xbox One, there were still a lot of questions floating around about exactly how Microsoft would be handling used games and whether it'd play Xbox 360 titles. Those questions were answered, in conflicting ways, and they're "it's complicated" and "no, no it will not." Bummer.

I have little to no idea what's going on with the Call of Duty: Ghosts reveal trailer. It's part PTSD-fueled drama, part nationalistic jingoism, and all Call of Duty. On the other hand, it doesn't have to be high art to sell a boatload of copies, and I'm pretty sure Activision's well aware of this particular fact. Guess we'll all find out come November 5th.

It's no secret that the menus of the McDonald's fast food chains located outside the U.S. have much better, and more awesome, food than ours do. We might have locked down the Shamrock Shake, sure, but in Israel they have the McShawarma, and in Quebec they've got even poutine. Poutine! Japan, however, claims the role of champion once again, because for a limited time and at select locations in Japan, you can get a container of fries so big that it's officially the most caloric menu item that any McDonald's has ever offered.

It's a fairly common practice for unscrupulous bar owners to fill bottles of expensive, top shelf booze with the cheap stuff to raise their profit margins. As if that practice isn't unpleasant enough, 29 New Jersey bars and restaurants -- almost half of them T.G.I Friday's locations -- just got busted for filling bottles of pricey booze with cheaper alternatives including dirty water and rubbing alcohol.

This morning, I was lucky enough to stumble on the infographic/educational cartoon that is Judith Butler Explained With Cats. Now, a half hour and most of a pot of french press later, I feel reasonably conversant regarding Dr. Butler's work (I'm probably not, though I'll bet I could be mistaken for it). On a related note, I feel like way more things should be explained in the format of "Socratic dialogues with pictures of kittens," because that is a pretty good way to get me to read them. 

While sometimes we long for the days when LEGO sets didn't always tie in to popular franchises and children had to use their imaginations to play with them, we're generally in favor of themed sets -- after all, having LEGO-fied versions of your favorite heroes and villains pretty much rocks. The creators of Brotherhood Workshop must agree, because their YouTube channel is filled with amusing stop motion LEGO videos that feature characters from Lord of the Rings and, most recently, Harry Potter.

Gosh, 2008 was so long ago. How can anyone even remember stuff from back then -- like the plot of the original Iron Man movie? Luckily, popular YouTube channel CineFix has your answer for this very specific problem. Their 8-bit Cinema pilot, which dropped last night, retells Iron Man in the style of the classic video game Mega Man, so now you'll always have a source to reference when you forget what Tony Stark was up to before the Mandarin showed up. (Never mind that Mega Man the game is older than Iron Man the movie. Nostalgia is forever. Just go with it.)

It's almost time. We've all been clamoring for more Arrested Development since its untimely demise in 2006, and after seven years it's finally happening and we are freaking out. Now Netflix has released four tantalizingly short clips of what's to come, and we're just going to have to watch them in a nonstop loop until the episodes drop on Sunday. That's assuming we make it until then. Breathe, everyone. We can do this.

If you're anything like us, your Sunday afternoon is going to be spent marathoning the newest season of Arrested Development. But you can't have a five-plus hour watching together party without snacks, so here's our menu for a successful Arrested Development binge over the long weekend.

I've never been a huge Fast and the Furious fan. So, I didn't see Fast Five, but Screen Junkies has done an excellent job of breaking it down in such a way with their latest Honest Trailer that I'm pretty sure I didn't miss much. A whole lot of shifting gears, but that's to be expected. Also, the Rock covered in baby oil.

You've no doubt seen images of the Ring Nebula before on college textbooks and astronomy websites. After all, it's so pretty looking! Astronomers have long theorized that the gas emitting from this dying star gives it a rounded, hollow shape like a bagel or a ring, but new images captured by the Hubble Telescope reveal that the Ring Nebula is actually denser in the middle than previously thought.

"Merger" is usually such a dull word. Companies merge. Lanes of traffic merge. But it's not all bland and boring, because large galaxies can also merge with one another to form what is scientifically referred to as a "super-giant elliptical galaxy," according to NASA -- and apparently it's happening right now. Or it did 11 billion years ago, at least. Light-years are weird, guys.

Space food is the kind of thing that's fun to eat if you happen to be visiting NASA, but probably not something you want to have every day. For astronauts in space, they don't have much of a choice beyond freeze-dried and shelf-stabilized menu items. While Chris Hadfield was still in space Tested.com enlisted Adam Savage, Jamie Hyneman, and chef Traci Des Jardins to help Hadfield come up with an original space recipe. The result: The Traci Spacey Burrito. Looks tasty.

NASA released this image today. It shows the storm that produced the devastating F4 tornado that hit Oklahoma yesterday minutes before the tornado touched down south of Oklahoma City. The image was taken with NASA's MODIS instrument on one of their Earth Observing System (EOS) satellites. You can donate $10 to the victims of the tornado by texting REDCROSS to 90999.

New species are being discovered every day, all around the world. Some, like the tiny frog above, are hidden among debris on the forest floor, while others are hiding in plain sight on museum shelves, just waiting to be described by researchers. Since there are so many species being discovered, it's only natural that someone try and determine which among them are the best species. It's in that spirit that we bring you the top ten new species discovered in the last year, as appointed by an international group of taxonomists and presented by the International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University.

Holy crap, you guys, nature is amazeballs. If you need a reminder, and we all do sometimes, the above video should do the trick. It's footage of a diving ant, Camponotus schmitzi, hunting a mosquito larva, and it's better than any UFC match you are ever likely to see, not least because the whole thing takes place in the mouth of a carnivorous pitcher plant. To compete, Brock Lesnar and Cain Velasquez would have to hold their next match in the mouth of a shark the size of a small house.

Allosaurus and T-Rex have a lot in common. They're both carnivores, both theropods, and I would not know whether to cheer or weep in terror if I saw either one in the flesh. But researchers at Ohio University's Witmer Lab have discovered one important difference in the way the two creatures fed. While the much larger T-Rex ate like a crocodile -- shaking prey in its massive jaws to rip away chunks of flesh -- the smaller allosaurus likely ate more like a falcon, tearing off smaller strips of flesh from its unlucky victims. It's pretty much as close as you can get to 'dainty' when discussing the eating habits of a 30-foot-long, two-and-a-half ton murder lizard.

One of the great things about setting aside land as a sanctuary for one creature is that it helps to preserve a whole ecosystem full of plants and animals -- some of which we may not even know exist yet. Take for example the two new species of spider -- both among the world's tiniest -- that were just discovered on the grounds of a panda sanctuary in southwest China. One of these little guys averages less than a millimeter across. You could eat, like, 50 of them in your sleep and never even know it!