The Great Geek Manual

1857
The first major chess tournament, the First American Chess Congress, is held in New York. The event was organized by the American Chess Association and won by Paul Morphy.

1876
A group of public and university librarians establish the American Library Association to promote the enjoyment of reading. Visit the organization’s official website.

1889
William Kennedy Laurie Dickson, the inventor of the motion picture camera and an employee of Thomas Edison, makes the first motion picture, in which he films himself saying “Good morning, Mr Edison. How do you like this?” The motion picture is the first “sound film.” The image of the film is only about one inch wide and three-quarters of an inch high.

1908
The Ohio Art company, later manufacturer of the Etch-A-Sketch, is founded by Henry Simon Winzeler. Visit the game’s official website.

1914
Edwin H. Armstrong is granted a patent for a “Wireless Receiving System,” in which he describes his regenerative circuit, otherwise known as a feed-back circuit. (US No. 1,113,149)
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…mathematics is order and beauty at its purest,
order that transcends the physical worlds.

- The Man Who Loves Only Numbers by Paul Hauffman, 1987.
Originally published in The Atlantic Magazine, Vol. 260, No. 5.

1923
Edwin Hubble identified the first Cepheid variable star.

1934
The premiere of Hollywood Hotel on CBS becomes the first US radio network program to originate from Hollywood.

1936
The first intercity telecast in the US using coaxial cable is transmitted between New York City and Philadelphia over an AT&T coaxial cable landline.

1962
United Artists releases the first installment in the James Bond film franchise, the spy film Dr. No, directed by Terence Young and starring Sean Connery, Joseph Wiseman, Ursula Andress, Jack Lord, and John Kitzmiller to UK theaters. In it, an agent of the British Secret Service, James Bond (007), is sent out to the West Indies in order to find out why another of his number was killed. His arrival is not welcomed by everyone, but it is not long before he is on the trail of the killer. The trail leads to a secretive scientist, Dr. No, but the discovery has wider implications… Produced on a budget of US$1 million, the film will gross US$109.6 million worldwide. IMDB listing MPAA Rating: PG Running Time: 1 hr 50 mins
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That Mathematics could be a jewel may come as a surprise to those of us who struggled with multiplication tables as kids and now need help completing W-4 forms.

- The Man Who Loves Only Numbers by Paul Hauffman, 1987.
Originally published in The Atlantic Magazine, Vol. 260, No. 5.

1535
The first complete English edition of the Bible, printed in Antwerp as translated by Miles Coverdale, is first published.

1675
Dutch astronomer Christian Huygens patents a pocket watch.

1830
The first power printing press capable of detailed book work is patented by Isaac Adams of Boston, Massachusetts.

1931
The Dick Tracy comic strip, created by cartoonist Chester Gould, debuts in The Detroit Mirror. The next week, The New York Daily News and hundreds of others newspapers will pick up the syndicated series.

1934
Enrico Fermi measures the speed of a neutron.
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I know the year is dying,
Soon the summer will be dead.
I can trace it in the flying
Of the black crows overhead;
I can hear it in the rustle
Of the dead leaves as I pass,
And the south wind’s plaintive sighing
Through the dry and withered grass.

Ah, ’tis then I love to wander,
Wander idly and alone,
Listening to the solemn music
Of sweet nature’s undertone;
Wrapt in thoughts I cannot utter,
Dreams my tongue cannot express,
Dreams that match the autumn’s sadness
In their longing tenderness.

- Autumn Dreams by Mortimer Crane Brown

A macabre but beautiful scene for your desktop: autumn in a graveyard.

A new study reports that Video Gamers are more fit than the average America. LOL

Check out these x-rays of a boy who survived being stabbed in the skull.

Five Great Science Books to Expand Your Mind, all of which are going on my reading list.

Fold up your own origami StormTrooper helmet.

If you’re spending a fortune on gadgets, take the time to protect your gadgets from theft.

Hack-A-Day has an amazing tutorial on how to build a business card-sized web server.

Lifehacker points users to The 20 Best iPod Utilities to improve your control over your tunes.

PC World takes a look at the 10 Most Mysterious Cyber Crimes in history.

Straw Hat Samurai is a flash game that sends you slicing your way through ranks of enemies.

You have to check Wikipedia to even understand the world’s 23 toughest math questions.

Mathematics may be the queen of the sciences and therefore entitled to royal perogatives, but the queen who loses touch with her subjects may loose support and even be deprived of her realm. Mathematicians may like to rise into the clouds of abstract thought, but they should and indeed they must, return to earth for nourishing food or else die of mental starvation. They are on safer and saner ground when they stay close to nature. As Wordsworth put it, “Wisdom oft is nearer when we stoop than when we soar.”

- Mathematics and the Physical World by Morris Kline, 1981.

Art

• What I want to know is, if this is a “Steampunk Tree House“, where are the cannons?

Comics

• Build your own Iron man reactor for Halloween.

Film

• The next Transformers, Revenge of the Fallen will be be shot in IMAX format.

Internet

• Print out your own Zombie in my Pocket solitaire card game at BoardGame Geek.
• Would you pay a hundred dollars for a Storm Trooper hoodie? Yeah, me too. That’s why I’m going to be living with my parents until I’m forty.

Literature

• 5 Great Science Books to Expand Your Mind.
• Author Kim Stanley Robinson has been named a Hero of the Environment 2008… and if that leaves you confused, remember: they didn’t specify which planet’s environment.
• Free Fiction: Listen to “Crystal Nights” by Greg Egan at Transmissions From Beyond.
• Free Fiction: Read “Catch ‘Em in the Act” By Terry Bisson at Tor.
• Free Fiction: Read the vintage story “Children of Tomorrow” by Arthur Leo Zagat at Manybooks.
• I personally think that the Dune series should have been included in i09’s list of The Longest Science Fiction Books of All Time, because while the story may technically be series, you have to admit they all tend to run together into one blur.

Television

• The Aquaman pilot was a flop, but someone thinks Robin should get his own series? Pppppppppppp!

Video Games

• Den of Geek runs down a list of the 13 PC games they can’t wait to play in the next 12 months. Personally, a sequel to StarCraft could fill out all thirteen slots of my own list.

1847
Maria Mitchell becomes the first female astronomer in the United States to discover a comet. From her homemade observatory in Nantucket, Massachusetts, she discovered a star five degrees above the North Star where one hadn’t been previously located. After several nights of observation, she realized that the light was moving, and theorized that it must be a comet. For her discovery, she will be awarded a gold medal by the king of Denmark. She will also become the first woman elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

1878
Emma M. Nutt begins work Telephone Dispatch Company in Boston, Massachusetts, becoming the nation’s first female telephone operator. Nutt, who would remain an operate for thirty-three year, was hired in the hope of addressing customer complaints that many of the male operators were rude and surly.

1880
In Menlo Park, New Jersey, Edison Lamp Works, the first electric lamp factory, produces its first commercial electric light bulbs. Opened by Thomas Edison, more than 130,000 bulbs will be manufactured by the time the plant is relocated to Harrison, New Jersey on April 1, 1882.

1891
In California, Stanford University opens.

1908
The Ford Motor Company introduces the Model T, better known as the “tin Lizzy,” in America. The Ford Model T is the first car to be made on an assembly line, an it will become an instant sensation. It will initially be sold for US$850, but as production volumes rise, the price of the vehicles will decline. By 1925, a Coupe will sell for US$525 new, while a two-door Runabout went for only US$260.
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Listen! the wind is rising,
and the air is wild with leaves,
We have had our summer evenings,
now for October eves!

- Humbert Wolfe

A photo gallery of Snicker-Worthy Divorce Cakes.

Before Max Brooks wrote The Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z, he was giving lectures on how to survive Zombies uprisings.

Eight things you didn’t know you could do with FireFox 3.

FYI: Refrain from hugging your friendly neighborhood police officers.

io0 has drawn up a chart of just who has slept with who on BattleStar Galactica.

Is it just me, or would this bank make a great set for a sci-fi film?

Learn What this Financial Crisis is all about, once and for all.

Richard Stallman prepares for world’s biggest I-Told-You-So, warns of Cloud computing dangers.

Try guessing The 25 Most Influential People on the Web before reading the article.

What would Geeks do with $700 Billion dollars of bailout money?

Art

• Got a thousand dollars lying about? Why not buy your very own Cylon Raider Artisan Replica?
• These amazing works of art are all made entirely out of paper, but they aren’t origami.

Comics

• Spider-Man and Stephen Colbert will team up in Amazing Spider-Man 573. The end of comics as we known them?

Film

• The Green Lantern movie is back on Minus Jack Black! Woohoo! The early concept art looks promising.

Internet

• io9 counts down the Twelve Coolest Deaths in Science Fiction History, quite decently not spoiling Anathem for those of us who haven’t read it yet.
• Tor premiered its new webcomic this weekend, Better Zombies through Physics.
• Yeah, you’ve seen it, but it’s always worth another gawk: A Map of The Simpsons Springfield.

Literature

• Free Fiction: Download “The Vampire” by Jan Neruda now at Feedbooks.
• Free Fiction: Listen to “How The World Became Quiet: A Post-Human Creation Myth” by Rachel Swirsky at Escape Pod.
• Free Fiction: Listen to “The Fable of the Ostrich” by Peter S. Beagle at PodCastle.
• Philip Pullman speaks out on censorship and religion.

Television

• Is it just me, or should the first episode have been included in this list of The Top 20 Simpsons episodes?
• GameTrailer has posted a video looking at the Top 10 Games for Adult Eyes Only.