geekosystem

Yesterday, we brought you the wonderful, uplifting story of a man dressed as Batman who dropped off a suspected criminal at a police station in Bradford, England. Now that all the facts are in, we can look at things in the cold light of day and tell you the dream-shattering truth -- the Bradford Batman wasn't a masked avenger on the side of justice, after all. Instead, he was just a truck driver who happened to be wearing a Batman costume when he gave a friend a ride to the police station to turn himself in. Which is really closer to an accomplice than it is to a vigilante, when you think about it.

Police officers in Bradford, England last week got a gift that will be familiar to comic book readers everywhere when a ne'er-do-well was dropped off to be booked at the police station by none other than Batman himself. Early on the morning of February 25, the Caped Crusader -- who looks to have let himself go a little bit of late -- escorted a 27-year-old man into the Bradford police station. The 27-year-old was arrested on charges of fraud and handling stolen goods. Batman, as is his wont, disappeared into the night.

The long-lost body of one of England's most famously reviled royals has been discovered in a rather ignominious final resting place. Researchers from the University of Leicester are reporting today the DNA evidence has confirmed that a body found beneath a parking lot late last year is indeed that of Richard III. Some historians are hoping the find will provide a chance for people to look at the 15th-century monarch in a new light, independent of the 'hunchback made of pure evil' characterization popularized by Shakespeare's well known play.

Let's face it folks: the way the world is going these days, it seems like we're only ever a couple of days away from descending into a frenzy of pillaging, class warfare and the sort of poor manners that generally result in flipped over cars. We hope so, at least -- otherwise all this canned food we've been stockpiling is just going to mean us subsisting on a diet of off-brand pork and beans for longer than we care to think about. For those of you who just can't wait to be at the heart of an angry mob, though, there is hope. For just over $125, you can be part of a workshop in England that will teach you the finer points of being a top-notch rioter -- as well as help you know your enemy by playing the part of a riot cop.

It turns out that, just like human teenagers, young birds can also get tipsy off of alcohol, make some poor decisions, and end up clumsy, stumbling wrecks. That's the finding of a study of young blackbirds who got tanked off of fermented rowan berries near a primary school in England last year.

For those British folks that routinely get annoyed when choosing a language in anything from operating systems to video games, Microsoft hears your charmingly accented pleas, and is finally including an English language option in Windows 8. Your kind of English. English English.

Steve Hornsby lives in Bournemouth, England, and as a former aircraft engineer he's probably not the type to get swept up in weirdo speculation. Which is good, because after a freak hailstorm he discovered a bunch of blue, gelatinous spheres in his yard. The balls, which were little more than an inch wide, have no smell, do not dissolve in water, and aren't particularly sticky. The one thing people don't seem to know about them is what exactly they are, or how they got in Hornsby's yard.

A report released by Cuadrilla Resources confirms that hydraulic fracturing, called "fracking," triggered a series of minor earthquakes in northwest England. The report found that the earthquakes set off by the fracking, which is used to extract natural gas from shale, were between 1.5 and 2.3 on the Richter scale. This would place the seismic events in the category where they would be large enough to be recorded, but unlikely to be felt.

Like something out the evil lair of a steampunk Bond villain, this amazing glass and iron dome has been quietly sitting underneath a lake in Surrey, England for nearly 100 years. The stuff of urban legends, the massive dome was intended as a billiard room, though it has come to be known as "the ballroom under the lake." The dome was part of a sprawling 9,000 acre palatial estate at Witley Park built by the immensely rich J. Whitaker Wright, whose downfall was almost as spectacular as his mansion. And while impressive, the dome is just part of a larger underground complex that snakes around the lakes of Witley Park. Other notable sites include a boathouse, marble walled pools, serpentine hallways, several ornate entrances, and innumerable haunting skylights. The dome itself is topped with a statue, enigmatically placed in the middle of the lake. Be sure to take a look at the Flickr streams of intrepid urban explorers LargePig, paolo999, and cybergibbons. A few more choice pictures follow below.

Contested ref calls are a part of the game, but this past Sunday, soccer fans watching the World Cup were treated to two major displays of referees' incompetence: First, when England played Germany, England was down 2-1 when they got the ball into the goal, as seen in the above picture -- but because the ball bounced out before the referee 'saw' it, they didn't get the goal. Arguably, had they finished the first half tied 2-2, they might have played the second half differently and not lost 1-4. That afternoon, when Argentina played Mexico, Carlos Tevez scored Argentina's first goal when he was wildly offsides (see below), but the ref didn't overturn it. Argentina went on to win 3-1.

Now, FIFA president and arch-traditionalist Sepp Blatter has announced his plans to reconsider the tech solution that had long been out of the question for him: Video replays.

Yes, we know Hoover wasn't British.

On Monday, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown will announce a four year initiative to go paperless. That is, to make every possible interaction between British citizens and their government into something you can do online.

From the Times:

The aim is that within a year, everybody in the country should have a personalised website through which they would be able to find out about local services and do business with the Government. A unique identifier will allow citizens to apply for a place for their child at school, book a doctor’s appointment, claim benefits, get a new passport, pay council tax or register a car from their computer at home.

The savings on paper, postage, and physical government offices are expected to be in the billions.

Add another item to the list of why England is cool.  On Saturday, at precisely 12:59 Greenwich Mean Time, more than one hundred people took the central court of Cabot Circus in Bristol by shiny, buzzing, laser storm.  The mob was organized by Tom Merchant-Locke, Daniel Morgan Jones and Liam Penn, using Facebook.  The clock ticked over, a whistle was blown, and the mayhem began. /Film has no less than four videos of the event, but our favorite is below.  Is it because of the music?  Yes.  Yes it is.