geekosystem

In what seems like something straight out of an updated version of 1984, the Direction Centrale du Renseignement Intérieur, or DCRI, a French intelligence agency, apparently recently summoned and subsequently forced a Wikipedia volunteer to delete an article on the online encyclopedia. This came after the agency first attempted to get Wikimedia France to remove what it considered classified information from an article about a French military compound in March. They declined to remove the offending bits, so DCRI took more drastic measures.

As if replacing the word "hashtag" with their own French word "mot-dièse" wasn't enough, France could soon begin charging Twitter fines of $1,300 per day if they don't comply with a new court ruling. The ruling by a civil court in Paris says that Twitter must release the names of users who tweeted anti-Semitic remarks and images using the hashtag mot-dièse #UnBonJuif. That translates to "a good Jew," and the Union of French Jewish Students wants to prosecute, but Twitter refuses to turn over the names.

I took four years of French in high school, but barely squeaked by with a D average. I remember maybe twenty words in French, but now -- thanks to the French government -- I know one more: mot-dièse. It's the newest word in the French language, and it was created to replace the common Twitter term "hashtag." Sadly, like almost every other word in the French language, I'm just going to forget it after the test.

It's not unusual to hear people claim they'll leave the country if a candidate they don't like gets elected, or a policy they disagree with gets passed. Usually that's just talk though, but when Gérard Depardieu said he would leave France because he thought he was being taxed too highly, he meant it. He fled to Belgium last month, and has today been granted Russian citizenship. I wonder if this will affect the chances of a sequel to 1994's My Father the Hero.

As in turns out, gourds are apparently a great place to keep the blood of a deceased monarch. At least, that's what seems to be the case as a team of scientists have said that they believe blood from an old gourd is actually that of Louis XVI, the French king that was beheaded by revolutionaries on January 21st, 1793. How the gourd managed to get Louis XVI's blood in it is a long story, but it seems to pan out.

No need to bring in the FBI or Mel Gibson, because these intricate, crop circle-like patterns in the snow weren't left behind by aliens with a knack for artistic design. British artist and competitive orienteer Simon Beck has been making these trampled snow art pieces since 2004 at the Les Arcs ski resort in France. Relying on computer mapping and the years of orienteering skills under his belt, Beck is able to create precise geometric patterns in the snow based on his projections and local landmarks in the area. And the only tools that Beck uses when out in the field is the pair of snowshoes on his own two feet. Too bad the only thing we do with snow is throw rock salt on it which, last time we checked, is an unappreciated art form.

This morning in Things That Will Certainly Haunt Your Dreams, here are some catfish in France that have learned to hunt pigeons. The fish, which are not native to the River Tarn where they now dwell, were introduced about three decades ago, and in the ensuing time, have apparently developed a hunting technique never before seen in the animals -- the fish loiter in shallow water near sandbars populated by pigeons and, when a wayward bird steps close enough, the catfish lunge at it, dragging their feathered prey back into the water with them. You can check out the behavior in the video below, or you can just look directly at my worst nightmares if that is easier. Which I hope it's not.

We here at Geekosystem are fascinated with avalanches -- not exactly the destruction and chaos they bring; we're nice people (really) -- but the way they mesmerizingly engulf everything in their path, whether it be more snow, trees, or this active ski lift over in France. People were on the ski lift as the snow brought it down to the ground, but they fortunately made it off alright.

Using a series of projectors and the beautiful exterior of the Théâtre des Célestins in Lyon, France, CT Light Concept transformed the theater into an enormous pinball table. The video shows three attempts at the game, some more successful than others. Also, is it just me or do those sound effects seem eerily familiar? 

So, you are bored at work. What is there to do? Well, you could decorate the glass walls of your office building with Post-it pictures of your favorite animated characters. This is exactly what employees at Ubisoft Montreuil in France did. But, their neighbors across the street at BNP bank took their Post-it artwork as a bit of a challenge, and started firing back with some window images of their own. Thus, the Great French Post-it War of 2011 was born. Clearly, it spawned an epic rivalry worthy of the likes of Mario and Bowser. See more pictures of the two companies' Post-it characters after the jump.

Marketing by social media just got a little bit harder in France. While the Oxford Dictionaries Online is actively expanding into social networking, going so far as to add "twittersphere" and "unfollow" last week, France appears to be moving in the opposite direction. The French government has banned the words "Facebook" and "Twitter" from being spoken on the radio or television. In a move based on legislation from 1992 that decrees mentioning services by name is a form of advertising, use of the words "Facebook" and "Twitter" will not be allowed on French radio or television, unless part of a news story. France's Conseil Superieur de l'Audiovisuel (CSA) says the reason for the ban is to avoid giving the American social networking giants an edge over smaller sites.

Yesterday, you would have just seen how old people settle their differences in rural France. But today you can see how old French Jedis settle their differences. My favorite part? The surprise second act when the old man makes a feigned retreat to his tractor, only to return to the fray. (via The High Definite)

One of the oldest underground cities in the world, the archaeological evidence shows that French town of Village troglodytique de Barry, or The Barry Troglodyte Village, was continuously inhabited for 1,500 years beginning in 500 C.E.. Built on to, and inside, a cliff face in southern France, the Troglodyte village grew and twisted over itself as generations of inhabitants lived in the community. But by the 19th century, he Troglodyte's denizens dwindled below 50. Perhaps it was the upkeep of an underground city that eventually became too much, as some of the last city dwellers were killed when their stone homes collapsed. The last residents, a widow and her servant, were convinced to leave at the start of the 20th century. Evidence of the city's antiquity seems to draw primarily from the neolithic tools found there. Though it certainly has nothing on Damascus (9000 B.C.),  the Barry Troglodyte city is quite beautiful, though sadly empty. It's quite humbling to see a place that harbored humans for so long be abandoned. (Atlas Obscura via io9, image via paul_appleyard)

When Pennsylvania introduced by-the-bottle wine vending machines, it caused quite a stir in the States, but as ever in matters oenological, France is far ahead of us: Some French supermarkets have gas station-like wine pumps. You bring a jug, water bottle, or what have you to the store and fill it up with red, white, or rosé, print out a receipt, and then pay prices as low as $2 a liter, or roughly $8 a gallon, for your bounty. Considering that the standard wine bottle holds 750 milliliters (for the metric illiterate, that's three-quarters of a liter), you get a lot of bang for your Euro. And did we mention it's environmentally friendly?

In the face of dwindling numbers of French priests and an international child abuse scandal that many feel has not been addressed strongly enough by the Vatican, the Catholic Church in France has created a Facebook page as a part of a two-week marketing campaign to "to attract young people to the priesthood." Maybe they should also spend some time preventing the opposite! Hey-oo - Er, sorry. We'll try to keep those sorts of things to a minimum.