geekosystem

While fossil fuels drive the economy, they're not going to last forever, which is why we're looking pretty much everywhere for new sources of energy. Now solar power, wind power, biodiesel fuel, geothermal energy, and many other have been joined by a new source of fuel: Fatbergs, the massive lumps of congealed oil that coagulate and sometimes clog the sewers of London. A British energy company is planning to harvest the bergs and use them to generate electricity. Enough electricity, in fact, to power 39,000 British homes every year.

We said it was coming, and now it's here. BBC 4 Radio has already aired their radio drama of Neil Gaiman's novel Neverwhere. Even better than that, you can listen to the whole thing for free. It's not going to be up forever, though, and I'm sure it'll be for purchase and download at some future date. But you can stream it right now!

While it's a shame it's not higher quality, I'm still amped by this video of 30 lit quadcopter robots forming a Starfleet insignia in the night sky above London, because...well, it's that sentence. Do I really have to explain why I'm totally down with it? Yes, I know it's a shameless publicity stunt. But considering it's a publicity stunt for a thing I'm already totally going to spend my money on (and you know I'm not alone there) and also involves robots, I can get behind it with fairly little trouble.

For reasons we still don't quite understand, Tim Burton decided to have the Penguin cruise around Gotham City in a giant rubber ducky in Batman Returns. That made about as much sense as what happened yesterday. To promote their new "FUNdation," JackPotJoy.com sailed a 50-foot-tall rubber ducky down the Thames in London, England. Is JackPotJoy.com a thing in America? We wouldn't hate seeing a giant rubber ducky cruising down the Hudson when we leave work today.

Cutting energy costs by fiddling with streetlights is something that's seen debate in the United Kingdom. Turning them off entirely isn't exactly a great option, of course, but there's little that can be done with the infrastructure as it currently exists beyond flipping them off and on. Westminster City Council is looking to change all that. Over the next four years, they'll be switching their 14,000 streetlights to smart alternatives capable of being controlled by an iPad, saving the council hundreds of thousands a year.

People can't seem to stop themselves from being horribly rude when viewing a movie at the theater. This behavior ranges from talking on their phone to kicking the seats and is basically just the worst. It's almost as if being inconsiderate was a pastime for these people. The Prince Charles Cinema in London has had enough. They're supposedly employing volunteers dressed in black bodysuits to regulate their audience's behavior.

London Britannia Airport, a floating airport proposed to the British government by global architecture firm Gensler, could be the coolest building ever made... If it ever gets approved. An alternative to the publicly protested plans to expand London's Heathrow Airport, the hypothetical floating airport would be the world's first, breaking ground on an idea that architects and governments have been trying to achieve since the 1940's.

The fine folks at MinutePhysics are taking a break from physics this week, presumably because physics is very hard. Instead, they're exploring an odd tidbit from intercontinental history in which the city of London really did have a bridge it wanted to sell -- the then decrepit London Bridge. As is so often the case, an eccentric gazillionaire with more money than sense got involved, and history was made. Which is why the London Bridge is in Arizona now. That is great, because it reaffirms the fact that we live in a world that is very strange sometimes.

The discovery of a massive east London burial pit at Spitalfields market in the 1990s was originally said to have been caused by the Black Death or Great Famine of 1315-1317. Turns out, those original declarations were wrong by around a century. New evidence, like radiocarbon dating of the bones, instead links the deaths of the 10,500 medieval skeletons to a massive volcanic event that happened thousands of miles away in 1258.

If you have a difficult time doing a handful of pushups, it's time to get yourself in shape, because now even busses can do them. Not even the regular, thin, empirically attractive busses, but the heavy double-decker busses that prowl the English city streets. Don't worry, busses haven't become sentient and worried about their body image just yet, this one is just doing pushups in the name of art.

By this point, you are no doubt aware that the U.K. Ministry of Defence is installing surface-to-air missiles around London as a deterrent against would-be airplane hijackers during the Olympics. As you can imagine, some people are unhappy about the idea of having heavy weapons next door. Popular street artist Banksy doesn't seem too happy about it either.

For some of you (particularly, our U.K. readers) this will probably not come as a surprise, but the "City of London" is not actually "London." In fact, as the great Internet explainer C.G.P. Grey reveals, the City of London is sort of its own thing within what we normally call London today. How this came to pass involves a little explaining about parliamentary democracy, history, and military construction, but it's imparted in just under five minutes.

It's only a matter of weeks until the 2012 Summer Olympics are underway. Last weekend, London hosted a different sort of Olympiad; namely, the 8th Annual Chap Olympiad. Athletes participated in events such as "Gentleman's Club Golf" and "The Umbrella Joust." Please note that the rest of this report should be read in the voice of Robert Morley.

Just to break up the cavalcade of good news and patriotic celebration today, word is that the U.K. Ministry of Defence (or "defense," depending on which side of the Atlantic you hang out on) is going ahead with their plans to install missile launchers at key positions throughout London during the Olympics. Hopefully, the arguments over whether or not their presence is gross intrusion or a security necessity will remain entirely academic.

London is not exactly known to be a bright and happy place, especially not in the dead of winter. To combat this, art collective Greyworld and Tropicana built a massive "artificial sun" in Trafalga Square. Using some 60,000 light bulbs, the faux-sun pumped out an incredible 4 million lumens. For comparison, a 23 watt compact fluorescent bulb puts out about 1500–1600 lumens. In the midst of a dark, dreary winter this art installation gave Londoners an additional 3 hours of sunlight. Careful readers will remember that Tropicana also shed light on the sun-deprived city of Inuvik, Canada. But as impressive as it is, it's even more amazing to watch its construction. See the time lapse video, after the break.