geekosystem

It looks like if Canada has just decided if they have anything interesting to announce, they're just going to let Chris Hadfield do it from space. I'm prepared to say this is the right call, because let's face it -- dude kills. Case in point: Yesterday saw Hadfield introduce the world to the new Canadian five dollar bill, a piece of currency notable for featuring the first ever image of a space robot to grace cold hard cash.

Look, we've all padded an expense account or two at some point in our lives. There's no shame in it, and frankly, anyone who denies doing it here and there comes off as a litte Ned Flanders-style creepy. There's such a thing as taking it too far, though, and Hans Peter Martin, an Austrian member of the European Parliament, may have taken the cake, including one particularly eye-catching item on a recent bill he expensed to that august body -- a 2,200 euro charge labelled "elephant."

It's never been easy to make one's living as an artist, but these days it seems like getting your signal through all of the background noise can be even more difficult. British artist Tomas Georgeson has come up with an intriguing way of promoting his latest gallery show, reasoning that if you can't get people excited to come to your show, maybe you can just bribe them instead. To that end, Georgeson has hidden a check for the sum total of his life savings somewhere in the gallery and declared that the person who finds it gets to keep it.

Canada recently revamped its $20 bill, resulting in an uproar from Canadian botanists upset that the bills seem to have whiffed on a pretty big point -- Canada's iconic symbol, the maple leaf. While a maple leaf did make it onto the bill, tree and plant aficionados from across the country have noted with some dismay that it doesn't appear to be a leaf from the sugar maple that it represented on Canada's flags and hockey jerseys, but one from the Norway maple, a species that, as its name suggests, isn't even native to Canada.

You most likely remember your parents repeating the phrase over and over in the hopes that it would eventually embed itself in your adolescent minds: "Don't talk to strangers." Years later, it turns out their advice was taken to heart since Facebook is currently testing an initiative to charge users to message complete strangers outside their network -- though why'd you even want to do so prior to this change is beyond us -- that will set them back $100. The social media juggernaut is still deliberating over the exact price point, but regardless, contacting some random unknown who will most likely ignore your message seems like a quick way to throw money down the drain no matter the finalized cost.

Online shopping -- among other things too numerous to mention -- is perhaps one of the greatest gifts the internet has bestowed upon mankind, allowing us to indulge in the long-held fantasy of shopping without having to get dressed. Still, there's always been an unspoken tradeoff for being able to browse the virtual aisles in nothing but our tighty whiteys, because at this point it's hard to believe such convenience would be free. Online retailers have always been collecting our personal information for their own dubious ends since they hit the interwebs, but a recent investigation by The Wall Street Journal reveals that businesses such as Staples are using this data to tailor prices based on customer location, income, and other factors. It turns out that not all sales are created equal.

Can money buy happiness? Well, having enough money to keep yourself out of poverty can certainly prevent rampant unhappiness, but a number of studies suggest that, as noted by philosopher-king Biggie Smalls, mo' money can often equate to mo' problems. The fine fellows of AsapSCIENCE are back with another video, this time explaining how money can bring you happiness -- if you spend it the right way. The right way, of course, is on others making others happy by giving to charity or just buying a round for your friends. It's a convenient reminder for annual gift-giving season if we've ever heard one.

Well, folks, it looks like Bitcoin is truly here to stay as the alternative currency of choice. In fact, its "alternative" status might even soon come into question. Bitcoin isn't regulated by any government, or central authority, and therefore the general public has been reluctant to trust in the otherwise intriguing currency. That just might change now that Bitcoin-Central, a known exchange, will essentially be allowed to operate as a bank under French law.

If you, by some infinitesimal chance, happen to be one of the two winners of yesterday's $587.5M Powerball jackpot, then have we got something you'll most certainly want to spend your abounding disposable income on: This solid gold LEGO brick being sold at the paltry sum of $15,000. Rest assured, this isn't some grandiose knockoff, this is a 100% official building piece straight from LEGO itself.

Bitcoin has had its ups and downs. The entirely digital currency has seen high-profile thefts, potential debit cards, and even botnets. Even so, the legitimacy of Bitcoin is often questioned, and its detractors often compare it Monopoly money: Valuable within the game, but worthless otherwise. Looks like the naysayers might have been wrong. WordPress has begun accepting Bitcoins, and Monopoly money is still only Monopoly money.

How the mighty have fallen. Credit rating agency Moody's has dropped their rating on long-term bonds issued by Sony to it's lowest investment grade, marking them just one notch above junk bonds. For the couple of you that might not be investment bankers out there, this means that the agency believes there is a very, very good chance that the Japanese tech giant is in real trouble and may not be able to pay off its long-term debt.

Cloud-based video game streaming company OnLive has had a rough year. The company underwent an insolvency process in August, laying off all their staff, only to come back with the same name under new leadership. This maneuver left OnLive's creditors in a pickle. Some of the bigger lenders are certainly going to get their due, but the smaller folks might not ever see that money. For example, the $2,000 the company owed to Prolific Oven Bakery may never be paid in full. The Credit For Cupcakes initiative apparently didn't turn out so well.

Zynga isn't doing so well these days. Their quarterly performance has been abysmal of late, and they've just announced that they'll be writing off between $85 and $95 million in association with the acquisition of OMGPOP. Considering that Zynga shelled out between $180 and $210 million for the company, that's a rather massive nosedive. What goes up must come down, after all, and Draw Something didn't have much of a revenue model. Looks like the Zynga is finding that out the hard way.

An honest-to-goodness piece of the real life Moon hits the auction block at Heritage Auctions this week, and it's one of the first in some time to be opened to a private auction. Bidding on the moon meteorite, Dar Al Gani 1058, which fell to Earth and was discovered in Libya, starts at $170,000, but the final price is expected to be as high as $380,000. The rock, a nearly four pound chunk of breccia from the far side of the moon split in two pieces, would make a great addition to any number of natural history museums across the planet, where it would find a home on display for people to come and marvel at it everyday, perhaps never knowing when or if they would ever see a thing like it again. Or, somebody with too much money on their hands and a dearth of class and decency could buy it and put it in mothballs.

Kickstarter loves games. Specifically, the company loves their Games category. As of August 31st, the Games section of Kickstarter has seen $50,330,275 pledged so far this year to the various goods and services it represents. Considering that the amount pledged for 2011 came to a grand total of $3,615,841, it's a staggering increase. As much as Kickstarter loves games, it looks like games just might love Kickstarter too.