In the news

Source with thanks to Satori. ...

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TwitchFilm's Todd Brown reported Saturday morning that Harrison Ford has entered into early talks to join the new 'Blade Runner.'

I don't know about you. But I peed a little at the mere chance that this will happen. I pray to the geek god it does.

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Earlier work is in the read more.

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The graffiti artist who took Facebook stock instead of cash for painting the walls of the social network’s first headquarters made a smart bet. The shares owned by the artist, David Choe, are expected to be worth upward of $200 million when Facebook stock trades publicly later this year.

The social network company announced its $5 billion public offering Wednesday afternoon, which is expected to value the whole company at $75 billion to $100 billion. Ultimately, that offering will mint a lot of billionaires and millionaires.

Wow. Just wow.

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A start-up Australian gridiron league featuring teams of women in skimpy outfits has been deemed too outrageous even for the Gold Coast glitter strip.

Mayor Ron Clarke said he would not welcome the Ladies Football League to the home of the gold bikini-clad meter maids, saying sport and sex don't mix.

The league, which will see girls in croptops and hot pants fighting it out on the football field, is in the planning phase and founder Tautala Fa'anana-Schultz said it had already attracted major TV and sponsor interest.

Four teams from NSW and Queensland are ready, with plans under way for Victorian sides.

Girls train at two Gold Coast locations but Clarke is not a fan.

"If you want to play sport, I welcome it. But play sport, don't try and be show ponies,'' he said.

Pirate adds: Dear Mayor Ron Clarke. Fuck off. Yours sincerely, everyone here at ZGeek.

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I cannot sufficiently explain it.. you must watch it



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Mini has taken a step too far in its attempt to be cool. It sponsored a storm cell in Germany that ended up killing more than 70 people and sent more than 500 to hospital.

The Independent newspaper in the UK reports that Mini paid just €299 (about $AUD368) to sponsor the weather system, a practice that is allowed only in Germany and the USA.

It named the cold front "Cooper" to promote its Mini before tragedy struck.

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It has all the things i want to furnish my house and life with. like Ninja Star Coat Hangers. Fun for the whole family!

ThisIsWhyImBroke is a free online magazine/blog run by a few geeky ladies and gentlemen who partake in way too much internet shopping. As such, our staff has a wide array of cool, fun, useful, and unique products that we showcase on our website for your consideration.

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Members of the Polish parliament donned Guy Fawkes masks V for Vendetta style in a show of solidarity in protest against the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement on 26 January 2012. The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is considered to be potentially more insidious than the proposed and now defunct Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) which had been the subject of worldwide protest when it was presented before the US Congress.

As an European Union member state Poland is a signatory to ACTA which is not a law yet in that country but a treaty which has caused a great deal of controversy in EU member states and protests throughout Europe most notably in Poland.

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Hi all,

It is well documented that ZGeek has been harassed with legal action since 2010. Unfortunately, we are once again being sued. This time around; ZGeek is named in a defamation suit along with the co-defendant, Google. We are being sued for user comments on the site and Google is being sued for listing these in their search results.

Our message is, we are seeking any NSW based lawyer who can help us to fight these erroneous claims. The person suing us seems keen to go ahead, they have even planned to move interstate to sue me (now that's commitment!).

This case is very important; if we are found liable, all webmasters in Australia will be liable for their user comments. Basically this is Australia's version of SOPA. If they win, no webmaster is going to allow free comments on Australian based sites as they could be sued.

So it's important for us to find a lawyer ASAP. Or the only person going to be defending your freedom of speech online is me. I'm a person that is excellent at technology and computers, but my law skills are a little lacking.

If you or anyone knows a lawyer around Sydney who is willing to take on the case, please contact them on behalf of ZGeek. Ask the prospective lawyer to contact me via this address - legal@zgeek.com.

Further more, donations can once again be made to the ZGeek paypal account or by direct transfer. In addition to donations, you can simply purchase a subscription. All money goes to the legal fund and any left over money is funnelled back into the running costs of the site. I want to make this perfectly clear - I am not profiting from this in any way. ZGeek is a non-profit organisation set up for its members. ...

SYDNEY: We should introduce elephants and other large mammals to Australia to ease the impact of bushfires and feral animals on the environment, an Australian scientist has suggested.

With the three-year anniversary of 'Black Saturday', the day when almost 200 people died in a massive firestorm in southern Australia, coming up on February 7, we are reminded of the devastation that bushfires can cause. A professor of environmental change biology in Tasmania has published a comment in Nature today suggesting that we should introduce large mammals such as elephants, rhinoceros and even Komodo dragons to help consume Australia's vast amount of flammable grasses, whilst increasing hunting pressure to lesson the impact of feral animals on the ecosystem.

"I tried to be intentionally controversial and provocative by saying we have to consider new approaches to our land management in Australia. If we are going to turn the system around we've got to actually think outside of our current paradigm," said author of the comment piece David Bowman from the University of Tasmania in Hobart.

Hey at least they'll be easier to spot than cane toads...

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Well I hope we are fixed. Sorry about the outage this morning. We think we've got it this time and as you can see the site is back to normal loading times.

So send in your stuff! (links or news) I'm home bored today so share your interesting stuff.

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Police have raided the Sydney arm of an alleged global piracy outfit which they say was selling unlicensed pay TV subscription packages offering over 1000 channels for $50 a month.

Police allege an Ashfield shop in Sydney's west, trading as QMC Mart, is part of a global piracy operation which private investigators say is worth $70 million a year with 150,000 customers.

The raid, conducted shortly after midday yesterday, was sparked by TVB Group, a Chinese language content giant that hired a private investigation firm to dig up dirt on the alleged piracy operation.

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A Dutch team created a piece of "bulletproof" skin from special, U.S.-made spider silk and human skin cells and found that it indeed can repel bullets ̶ as long as they're not traveling too fast.

The bulletproof skin showed its superiority over normal human skin by stopping a bullet fired at a reduced speed. But it fell short of surviving a shot at normal speed from a .22 caliber rifle, the benchmark for protection for a Type 1 bulletproof vest.

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For the first time, a NASA spacecraft has directly observed "alien" particles that came from beyond our solar system, astronomers announced today.

The discovery not only gives us a glimpse of what exists in the so-called interstellar medium—the matter between stars—but also offers clues to the anatomy of our local galactic neighborhood.

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