The Pirate Bay Down For Many, Reportedly Under DDoS Attack From Unknown Source
The Pirate Bay has been widely unavailable for many users over the past 24 hours, and reports suggest it may be due to a DDoS attack from an unknown source. Pirate Bay downtime is not unheard of, but the length of this outage has been particularly long and its proximity to the recent blockage of the site in the U.K. and the site's open criticism of an Anonymous attack on Virgin mobile is suspicious, or if nothing else, at least a crazy coincidence. On its Facebook page, Pirate Bay alleges the source of the outage is in fact to due to a DDoS attack and if true, the consequences could be troubling.
Study Suggests Crows Recognize and Remember Human Voices
Crows are already regarded as remarkably intelligent birds, having been the first feathered creatures to independently discover the art of snowboarding. However, a new study from the University of Vienna suggests that crows can tell the difference between humans by their voice alone -- and what's more, they seem to remember us.
Guy Opens Beer Bottle With Chainsaw, Finesse [Video]
If you need a bottle opened, but don't have a bottle opener, Max's belt buckle, or the side of a desk or table that you don't really care about scuffing, but you also happen to have a chainsaw handy -- because why wouldn't you -- you can follow in the footsteps of this master chainsawman and have that bottle opened rather quickly.
MS Paint has been through a roller coaster of insults and praise. It started off as everyone's go-to image editing and drawing program, and then quickly became a joke as more advanced art programs released. Then, because this is what tends to happens to things, as its competition became so much more advanced, people began going back to the old workhorse, championing its simplicity while seeing how far they can push its limited features. In that vein, these MS Paint drawings that redditor TheLittleClayroo found on his computer that were created by his friend seven years ago are something to behold, not only because they were created solely in MS Paint, but because they are absolutely insane.
New T-Ray Wireless is Twenty Times Faster Than Conventional Wi-Fi
Who doesn't want faster Wi-Fi? No one, that's who. Researchers in Japan are working on a new kind of Wi-Fi that might be able to help you out in the speed department. Terahertz range, or "t-ray" wireless transmission has reached speeds up to 20 times faster than conventional radio Wi-Fi. It also lies in a currently unregulated area of the spectrum, meaning it could be fair game for Wi-Fi use someday.
Arduino GRANDE is a Giant, Fully-Functional “Micro”controller
You can use arduinos to do a lot of cool things, a lot of cool things that we like to cover on Geekosystem. But what about using an arduino as a means to its own end? John Edgar Park, writer for MAKE magazine, has an answer for that; you can make a really big arduino, one that's six times the size of traditional microcontrollers. Enter the Arduino GRANDE, a macrocontroller, if you will.
Alan Moore Will Love This Officially Licensed Watchmen Toaster
Warner Brothers has unveiled their latest Watchmen tie-in and it's a toaster. Let me say that again: A toaster. In addition to ripping out Alan Moore's soul and converting regular bread to crispy bread, the officially branded toaster officially brands your toast -- presumably with the logo displayed on the side of the device. This makes Before Watchmen look like an exciting, artistically respectful project.
GM Says Facebook Ads Don’t Work, Won’t Buy More Ads on the Site
Confidence in Facebook's plan to take its company public may have taken a blow today as U.S. automaker General Motors announced that it would no longer be advertising on the social network. The world's largest automaker is reportedly questioning the value of ads on the website but, interestingly, will not be abandoning the site entirely.
Short PBS Documentary on Amazing LEGO Art is Amazing [Video]
In their latest episode the PBS series Off Book turns its eye toward LEGO art -- something near and dear to our hearts. They look at Sean Kenney, Alex Kobbs, and Nathan Sawaya -- readers will note that Kobbs is the artist that re-created the Modern Warfare 3 trailer in stop-motion LEGO. While the bricks are familiar, some of this art is quite remarkable and even challenging. Take a minute to watch, and it will change how you look at the humble plastic toy.
We're moving further away from Uncharted 3 as time moves on, and the franchise has left us needing some sweet, sweet Naughty Dog projects on which to set our sights and hearts. We're pretty excited about Naughty Dog's upcoming original, The Last of Us, ever since we saw it premiere at the VGAs. There's a new trailer to whet your appetites, and it involves a truck barreling through everything it can hit. Check it out.
We knew Ashton Kutcher will be playing Steve Jobs in an indie biopic, and we also knew Sony was planning a rival Steve Jobs movie. It turns out Sony has brought in the big gun to pen their rival flick, as Aaron Sorkin is now set to pen the screenplay. It's obvious we're big fans of Sorkin here at Geekosystem, slipping in mentions of Sports Night, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, and his upcoming HBO show The Newsroom whenever we can (just like that, actually!), so we're thrilled that he'll be handling the movie adaptation of the life of Steve Jobs. After all, he did a pretty solid job handling another famous tech figurehead, Mark Zuckerberg, in his Facebook movie, The Social Network. You may have seen that.
“Inexact” Computer Chip Is 15 Times More Efficient Than Perfect Counterparts
If you've ever done any programming, you know that one of the best things about computers, and also one of the most annoying things about them, is that they don't make mistakes. A computer will always do exactly what you tell it to, and if you don't get the right result, it is 100% your fault. At least, this is usually the case. Researchers at Rice University have made an interesting discovery, however. If you build your computer chips so that they can make mistakes, you can boost your efficiency by crazy amounts, to the point where more accident-prone chips can be 15 times more efficient than their always-perfect counterparts.
Well This Is Horrible: Humane Society Investigation Reveals Horrific Abuse of Tennessee Walking Horses
Yesterday, The Humane Society released undercover footage it took from a stable where Tennessee Walking Horses were horrifically and systematically abused. The trainers -- if the word can be applied to these people -- beat, shocked, and burned their horses with chemicals in order to achieve a high-stepping gait called "the big lick." If you were hoping to have a nice day, I don't recommend reading any further.
The Facebook IPO keeps rumbling toward completion while Facebook scrambles to monetize anything and everything as fast as it can. The announcement of the App Center and the testing of highlighted posts are only the beginning of what we can expect from Facebook as a public company, but what about where it is at right now? Not a bad place. Mark Zuckerberg makes a hefty $66.94 per second and is heading for a valuation larger than Boeing or even Starbucks. Does it deserve that? We'll find out soon. In the meantime, you can study up on all the interesting facts and figures with this infographic from MBA Online and come to your own conclusion. Check it out after the jump.
Game of Thrones Played on Floppy Drives is Not a Sterling Example of the Genre
At Geekosystem, we feel honored to have witnessed the birth of floppy drive music. In the past few months since renditions of popular songs performed on antiquated removable memory became vogue, we've brought you some excellent examples of the newly minted genre. Sadly, this latest one -- featuring the theme song from HBO's Game of Thrones -- leaves a lot to be desired. Unless you desire what sounds like old xerox machines farting uncontrollably.
We knew Verizon was removing unlimited data plans in favor of tiered pricing plans, but as a very cheesy, extremely repeatable line in a certain movie once said, "Not like this." Verizon CFO Fran Shammo has declared that Verizon will be nixing all unlimited data plans that have been grandfathered in. Yikes.
Oldest Known Evidence of Pollinating Insect Found Trapped in Amber
Interesting bugs found trapped in amber aren't solely the realm of Jurassic Park; it happens in real life too. In this case, however, the imprisioned bug doesn't contain dino DNA or anything so crazy but it does contain the oldest evidence of pollination ever found, dating back over a 100 million years.
Two Guys Create Brawndo Drinking Fountain From Idiocracy
In Mike Judge's 2006 secret opus, Idiocracy, everyone in the future has become quite unintelligent. In said future, water has essentially been replaced by a sports drink called Brawndo. It's a thirst mutilator. During the crux of the movie, Luke Wilson's character figures out that the world's crops haven't been growing because people are watering them with Brawndo instead of water. When he teaches some important figureheads about the issue, they're disgusted and wonder why anyone would water anything with "toilet water," which happens to just be regular old clean water. Dave Dalton and Craig Berscheidt of the Hammerspace Workshop have created what our world truly needs, a Brawndo drinking fountain that has a switch that allows drinkers to choose between two liquids labeled as "Brawndo" and "toilet water."
New Prometheus Video is a Voicemail from the Future [Video]
The latest video promoting the forthcoming Ridley Scott directed Alien prequel Prometheus has dropped, this time focusing on Noomi Rapace's character Dr. Elizabeth Shaw. Like the previous video with Michael Fassbender, the video gives us a glimpse of a cold, intrusive future and has an ever-present sense of menace just at the fringes of our perception. It's not quite as successful as some of the other promotional videos, but it does serve to reinforce that this movie looks pretty great.
Unreal Engine 4 Screenshots Promise A Pretty Future
Unreal Engine 3 is getting old. After six years of supporting games like the entire Mass Effect and Gears of War franchises, the engine is beginning to show its age a little bit. Soon, however, we'll have a glorious new Unreal Engine to drool over. Epic's new iteration promises to deliver a definitely next-gen-feeling experience, including features like particle physics that can handle millions of particles on screen at the same time. In short, it's going to be very pretty.
Study: People With A Serious Coffee Habit Cheat Death Longer Than Those Without
If you don't already drink coffee, you might want to start. If you only drink a little, maybe you should kick it up a notch. According to a new study in the New England Journal of Medicine, people who drink a pretty sizable amount of coffee tend to live longer than those who don't. What's sizable? Around four or five cups a day. Get drinkin'.
