geekosystem

If the best way to someone's heart is through their stomach, then why bother spending bundles of cash on gifts and flowers when you could just make your special someone a dish sure to impress? When it comes to Valentine's Day treats though, remember that presentation is just as important as flavor. Fortunately, we've got you covered there, as these tasty snacks and sweets can make you look like a serious Casanova regardless of your culinary skills. Even if your idea of a great home-cooked meal is Chef Boyardee, you're certain to find something you can master here. Chef don’t judge, and neither will we.

Speaking from a purely hard science point of view, we don't get what makes that special someone so special... but we're getting closer to understanding it. AsapSCIENCE is back with its latest installment just in time for Valentine's Day, and they're taking a look at the science behind that crazy little thing called love. Sit back and enjoy it by yourself or with that special someone -- you might even learn a thing or two.

Sure, you can go the traditional hearts and flowers route on Valentine's Day, but if you read this site we're willing to bet your interests lie elsewhere. Is there a cute girl in your particle physics lab, or perhaps a handsome Dungeon Master in your life? Maybe you just want to tell your mom how special she is. Regardless, here are some geeky valentines to tell someone you love them, and if you're lucky they'll say, "I know," then get frozen in carbonite and taken away by Boba Fett.

A wise man once said that love knows no bounds, but that declaration was obviously made at a time prior to the advent of email. Melanie Anderson and Eric Knisz, an engaged couple working for the Scottish oil company Integrated Subsea Services, learned in the worst way imaginable what happens when one is a bit too quick sending out messages. The two had spent the afternoon exchanging steamy emails back and forth when Anderson wanted to notify her fellow coworkers that the sandwich truck had arrived outside the premises. She accidentally included the emails in her forward, so the entire office learned that lunch was right outside the door and the humiliated couple's bedroom adventure the previous night was pretty "ace."

If you spend eight years working undercover in order to infiltrate an environmental movement, things are bound to get hairy. It's a complicated process to live a lie, and returning to the real world after everything's said and done is even more difficult. Mark Kennedy, known during his undercover operation as Mark Stone, found this out for himself at the beginning of last year. Now the disgraced former police officer is taking things a step further. He's suing the Metropolitan Police for damages between £50,000 and £100,000 -- or $80,070 and $160,140 -- for failing to prevent him from falling in love. Seriously.

Women who have settled down with a long-term partner who is stable, dependable, and less than entirely sexy are legion, a fact for which less than entirely sexy men are thankful every day. Trust us, we know. New research from a team at UCLA shows that the operative word in that sentence might be "settled," suggesting that women still hold their partner's lack of a full head of hair and a six pack -- PBR doesn't count, dudes -- against them. When they're at their most fertile, women in relationships with average looking fellas demonstrated signs of being less happy with their partners, and more prone to find faults or criticize them, than women whose partners have it going on in the looks department.

Contrary to how celebrity gossip and popular television period pieces tell us humans react, a new study has found that living near a city in an urban area is actually beneficial for the coyote. Instead of having an affair in a swanky ad office with a coworker who is also having an affair, coyotes that live in an urban area end up being monogamous, sticking with the same mate -- without straying -- for as long as the study examined them.

Because nothing says "love" better than curling naked in your lover's arms in a little plastic bag as an old vacuum cleaner sucks the air from around you, the plastic closing in on you, compressing the life (and love, don't forget love) out of the body that used to be you. If you come out alive, you get to see photos. Photos of your love at its very height. Right before you were going to die.

We know how much you love Diablo III, or really any game from which you can't pry yourself away. We also know how fond you are of your significant other, and how difficult choosing between your beloved game and beloved significant other can be. Luckily for all of us, a solution has been discovered, and now we no longer have to choose between leveling up and cuddle time.

All you omniglots out there might not have any trouble in telling anyone, anywhere, that you love them in any language. The rest of us might have a little trouble. For all you cross-language lovers out there -- or aspiring cross-language lovers -- here's a crash course in "I love you" from Memrise. They've even got you covered in the unlikely case that the apple of your eye speaks pig-latin, and the unlikely case that you don't already know how to speak it. Check out a full I-Love-You below.

There's a lot of charm in today's animated Google Doodle for Valentine's Day. First and foremost it looks great, but there's some more subtle things to like about it. For one thing, it's the first time I've seen Google suggest that there are things you can't do with Google -- search as he might, the protagonist of the video cannot find the gift to win the heart of his lady love. Secondly, the whole thrust of the video is that there is no way to "win" someone's heart at all, and that the best connections are made when people act like themselves and share interests. Lastly, the ending montage of happy couples has a gay wedding. Way to go, Google; you really made me feel the love.

Have you ever been sitting there at othe card table set up in Bernie's basement, looking at that special someone over a pile of GameFuel cans? The way he or she holds those 20-sided dice, and how she or he always remembers your stats so you don't have to look them up. When he or she looked you in the eye, you knew this person had just rolled a natural 20 -- straight to your heart. (via Topless Robot)

You're sitting at home, alone, looking at the Facebook profile of the person that you've loved from afar for so long. He or she is the apple of your eye; those legs and/or mustache, that hair and/or biceps. But wait, what's this? He or she has changed his or her status to single! Oh, rapture! Oh, bliss! You quickly dash off a Facebook message, confessing your undying adoration but too late! His or her status has changed back to "in a relationship!" If only you'd had more time! Well, now with Breakup Notifier, you can! Simply login with your Facebook info, pick a Facebook crush, and Breakup Notifier will send you an email when the object of your affection changes his or her relationship status. Huzzah! Your internet love life will never be the same!

Are you lonely? Looking for a special someone? Are you also ok with tights-wearing crime fighters or amoral megalomaniacs bent on world domination and/or life of crime? Friends, SuperHarmony is the site for you. And let's face it, it's been a long time coming. Some of these guys and gals have been doing the whole lone-wolf thing since the '40s. After sixty years of the isolation that comes with responsibility, or a life of meaningless sex that only serves to inflate your established sense of power and superiority over other humans, these folks deserve some down time. Time to "chillax." It's great to see tools like this finally emerging in the information age, bringing real happiness to some really super people. And superheroes and villains aren't the only ignored demographic finally finding love, as SeaCaptainDate plows the uncharted waters of the final dating frontier.

Zynga can't be 100% evil, judging by this video game created by one of their employees, Anders Howard, to propose to his girlfriend. Yes, that's it, right there. Dinner Love and the Quest for Soup. You can play it. It's cute, and short. And then you can watch the video of his proposal. Yes. It's after the jump. What? No! This is just my allergies. And the onion I am cutting. And it's raining. Very locally. On my face.