geekosystem

The weekend is just around the corner, and to make matters better, you are not this swordfish, which is having pretty much the worst day ever, caught between a rock and a hard place. Or the fish equivalent of that, anyway, which I guess is "a fishing boat and a sharky place."

The spade-toothed beaked whale is one of the ocean's most mysterious creatures. Known to science only because of a few skulls that have washed up on beaches in Chile and New Zealand, the creature is largely a mystery. Thanks to DNA testing, though, researchers know one more thing about the whales today: there are two fewer than there used to be after a mother and her calf washed ashore dead in New Zealand in 2010, marking the first time anyone had actually seen an intact specimen of the rare species.

Here's a question: How do you avoid being extradited to the United States by another government? There's no surefire method of avoiding extradition, but Kim Dotcom might have just scored some brownie points with the New Zealand government. That's assuming they believe his claims, of course. The MegaUpload founder's now proposed reviving the previously shuttered Pacific Fibre cable to connect New Zealand to the United States. You know, if he's not in jail.

The MegaUpload case continues to seem more like a farce the longer it goes on. Kim Dotcom is now claiming that the New Zealand government was spying on him earlier than they've previously admitted. His evidence? There was a suspicious spike in lag in October -- two months before the Government Communications Security Bureau claims they started spying on him. He's come to the conclusion that this increase was due to the fact that his connection was being rerouted by the government.

Red Nose Day: Comedy for Cure Kids, held just this past Friday, August 24th, was meant to be all about raising money for research into battling life-threatening illnesses in kids in New Zealand. The whole goal of Cure Kids, in fact, is exceptionally worthwhile. Who could turn down helping out kids like this, when asked? It should come as no surprise then that Flight of the Conchords, New Zealand's fourth most popular guitar-based folk-parody duo, was involved. They even wrote a new song, with some help, and it's exactly what you'd expect.

In what is increasingly becoming a farce, a New Zealand judge has upheld a ruling that Kim Dotcom, Bram van der Kolk, Mathias Ortmann, and Finn Batato, must be allowed to see the evidence compiled against them in order to properly defend themselves. Essentially, the United States was arguing against letting Dotcom build a compelling defense. Without access to that information, it's hard to say exactly how the extradition hearing would go down. Not well for Dotcom, most likely.

Dr. Dan Ksepka from North Carolina State University is fascinated by penguins, but has taken a particular shine to the ancient Kairuku penguin. Originally discovered in 1977 by Dr. Ewan Fordyce, the fossilized remains of Kairuku hinted at an aquatic bird of enormous stature. Now, decades after its discovery, Ksepka and his colleuges have completed a Kairuku skeleton and figure that the bird stood at an impressive at four-foot two-inches.

Pictured above is a giant weta. Actually, it's a giant giant weta. You see, giant wetas are, as a species, larger than any other species of insect currently in existence. The one above is the largest particular giant weta, a goliath of goliaths. The specimen was found by former park ranger Mark Moffett on Little Barrier Island in New Zealand, the only place giant wetas are known to currently live. Surprisingly enough, Moffett was actually looking for the bugs, so the discovery was something to be celebrated, not something to be feared and haunted by, as I initially assumed upon seeing the picture.

A few months ago, the Emperor Penguin that would come to be known as "Happy Feet" came ashore in New Zealand. After it was clear that the penguin was not faring well on his own, rescue workers nursed him back to health and released him with the hope that he would find his way back to Antarctica. Now, the whole world can follow this plucky bird's progress from the comfort of their own homes through Google Maps. The whole scheme works thanks to a small GPS tracking device attached to the penguin. Sirtrack, the device's maker, is keen to point out that it has been specially designed not to impede the penguin's swimming ability and weighs less than 1% of the bird's weight. Twice a day, the device activates and broadcasts location data for three hours at a time, presumably to increase the onboard battery life. So far, Happy Feet seems to be doing quite well on his southward journey, but we can only hope that he doesn't get thrown off course again.

Readers unfamiliar with the traditional dances of Pacific Islanders may be confused by what's going on here but, according Wikipedia, the dance being performed by this New Zealand flashmob is a "Haka." Apparently one variety of the Haka dance has been co-opted by local sports teams, which may be partly responsible for this recent display. Regardless of the motivation behind the dance, the subtlety with which it grows to an incredible size is amazing. Watch, enjoy, maybe get a little scared. (via Reddit)

Far from the mundane garden snails that we here in the US are familiar with, New Zealand snails are large, stealthy predators. Watch in horror as the Amber Snail silently stalks its squishy prey: The earthworm. Recoil in fear, as the snail deploys its terrifying mouth parts and attacks the worm with split-second speed. Shudder as it sucks down its meal like squirming spaghetti. You'll never look at garden snails the same way ever again. (via BuzzFeed, Science News Blog)

New Zealand government is moving to rush through a controversial new "three strikes" anti-piracy law that will target users who share copyrighted material without permission of the rights holder, which essentially means anyone who pirates software.

The Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill (which unanimously passed its first Parliament reading in April of last year), will put the aforementioned "three strikes" system into place, where Internet service providers will be required to send warning letters to pirates the first couple of times they are caught pirating, and if they're caught offending again, New Zealand's Copyright Tribunal will be given the power to rule on cases of alleged repeat offenders and fine said offenders up to $15,000.

The real kicker, though, is that if offenders continue to pirate after the warnings and fines, the Bill will allow a six month period of Internet disconnection to be applied to said offenders--boiling down to software pirates being legally forced off the Internet by the government. Remind anyone of one Zero Cool? Certain government officials are opposed to the inclusion of the mandatory disconnect and want to amend the Bill later on to remove said area, but Commerce Minister Simon Power said the request to amend the Bill to remove the mandatory disconnect would be opposed. The Bill is expected to pass sometime today, and as TorrentFreak points out, is causing protests on Twitter.

(via TorrentFreak)

In 2005, a 51-year-old airline pilot named Jeremy Burfoot circumnavigated New Zealand on a jet-ski. Now, he's attempting a much more ambitious feat involving New Zealand and jet-skis: Traveling on one from London to New Zealand. Estimated distance: 32,000 kilometers, or roughly 20,000 miles.

The voyage, which Burfoot is undertaking to raise cancer awareness, is expected to take up the next four months:

The past few months have been a rocky time for patent law in New Zealand. Its millions of citizens and many more millions of sheep have been on the edges of their seats and pastures waiting to see what the NZ government ultimately decides regarding whether software can be patented. Well, the decision has just come in: Software is unpatentable. At least for now.

Some background on why we can't be sure this won't change many more times: Back in March, there was an official announcement made by the NZ government that they felt software was outside the boundaries of patent law. And software programmers rejoiced in their abundance of wool products. But then, in June, it appeared that they had changed their minds after the work of some powerful pro-patent lobbyists. And with all the headlines that came out then compared to the ones coming out now, it makes you wonder how many times the phrase "after all" can apply to a single issue.

LactoPharma, a New Zealand-based pharmaceutical company, devotes its research to finding medically valuable biologically active compounds in milk. In itself, that'd be a cool enough line of research, but they've outdone themselves with their latest, experimental delivery system: putting biomedicine in ice cream.