The Great Geek Manual

P2P nets kick all kinds of ass. Most of the books, music and movies ever released are not available for sale, anywhere in the world. In the brief time that P2P nets have flourished, the ad-hoc masses of the Internet have managed to put just about everything online. What’s more, they’ve done it far cheaper than any other archiving/revival effort ever.

Yeah, there are legal problems. Yeah, it’s hard to figure out how people are gonna make money doing it. Yeah, there is a lot of social upheaval and a serious threat to innovation, freedom, business, and whatnot. It’s your basic end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it scenario, and as a science fiction writer, end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it scenaria are my stock-in-trade.

- Cory Doctorow in a January 9, 2003 interview on his upcoming book, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom

Comics

• InfoAddict has compiled a list of the Top 25 Batman Stories of All Time. I don’t necessarily agree with the order they’re presented, but they’re certainly the right ones.

Film

• Cinematical takes a looks at the most famous sci-fi locations in the real world.
• The documentary Monster Camp follows the sub-culture of real life roleplayers. You can watch a trailer and read more online.
• OMG Horror lines up The 35 Grossest Horror Movie Moments Ever! Warning: Not for the easily nauseated.
• Read the Book! Entertainment Weekly lists 23 Disappointing Movie Adaptations.
• Shiznit presents The 50 Funniest Movie Scenes Ever, complete with video clips.

Internet

• Cracked presents The 9 Most Obnoxious Memes to Ever Escape the Web. Warning: This site may cause extreme irritation.

Literature

• According to Publisher’s Weekly, Bookstore sales rose 1.3% in March.
• In August, sci-fi great Arthur C. Clarke’s novel The Last Theorem will be hitting the shelves. According to Clarke, it may well be his last novel. You can pre-order it now.

Television

• A trailer for Joss Whedon’s soon-to-canceled television series Dollhouse has hit the net and been overwhelmed in the same day.

Video Games

• BoingBoing takes a look at From Atari Joyboard to Wii Fit: 25 years of “exergaming”.
• YouTube presents The Evolution of Computer & Video Games.

• An article on Sex and Sexuality in science fiction from Wikipedia.
• AnimeAmy has been posting custom My Little Ponies, the best of which is Master Chief Pony.
• Camera Porn has compiled an excellent list of 60 Photography Links You Can’t Live Without.
• Dribbleglass has a collection of Handy (hillarious) Latin Phrases.
• Everything 2 presents The Anime Laws of Physics.
• For you physics geeks out there, Neatorama presents 5 Scientific Laws and the Scientists Behind Them.
• Oddee has posted a gallery of the 15 Amazing Paper Sculptures.
• Pingdom knows Nine Things You Didn’t Know About Search Engines.
• Sergei Frolov has a fantastic collection of over 150 Soviet-made calculators
• Smashing Magazine has yet another excellent collection of Really Stunning Desktop Wallpapers.
• Want to see something really creepy? Check out these Man Babies, Photoshop’d pics of men and kids with their heads transposed.

Internet

• BeliefNet presents a list of the 10 Greatest Spiritual Characters in Science Fiction. It’s an interesting round-up, but it seems like it could have included more book characters.
• The Onion has posted a great video featuring the story “Historic ‘Blockbuster’ Store Offers Glimpse Of How Movies Were Rented In The Past.”
• Pulitzer Prize winning critic Roger Ebert speculates on the Sun-Times website that modern blogs may be the descendants of early fanzines.

Literature

• Free Fiction: The Nostalgia League has posted a great old-time sci-fi pulp story entitled “The Man Who Evolved“.
• Just has to Sound Plausible has a list of a few Overlooked Classics of the science fiction genre that you may want to check out.
• Neal Stephenson recently spoke at a a symposium on Science Fiction as a Literary Genre at Gresham College.
• Roger Zelazny is publishing one more, posthumously. It’s a noir novel that been “lost” for thirty years entitled “Hard Case Crime“.

Television

• Interview: Producer Ron Moore discusses the religious themes of Battlestar Galactica on BeliefNet.
• Network World takes a look at science fiction’s goofiest gadgets and technology.
• Popular Mechanics has published an article Debunking Lost’s Science. However, the day after the article was written, the author was mysteriously mauled by a Polar Bear.

What’s really eerie is how little our behavior has changed, even though email has been around for years. We still seem stuck in the same cycle of naivete and seduction, willing ourselves to believe that because email is electronic it is also somehow impermanent, equivalent to the temporary vibrations of air molecules when we speak.

- David Bennahum, Wired magazine, May 1999

1836
Edgar Allan Poe marries his 13-year-old cousin Virginia.

1866
Charles Elmer Hires of the USA invents root beer.

1888
The flat gramophone disc and its reproduction is demonstrated by Emile Berliner to members of the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. His technique involves coating a zinc disc with a wax resist into which the stylus cuts the recording. The disc is then etched in acid to cut the recording into the zinc. Berliner intends to use the electrotyping process to make copies of the zinc master disc and demonstrates a copper duplicate.

1925
Commentary on the Kentucky Derby horse race is broadcast for the first time by radio station WHAS.
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1718
The “Defence” rapid-fire gun, world’s first machine gun, is patented by a London lawyer, James Puckle. (British Patent No. 418) It is, in effect, a flintlock revolver with a barrel 3 feet long and a bore of 1.25 inches. A pre-loaded “cylinder” held eleven charges and could fire sixty-three shots in seven minutes. This rate of nine shots per minute is three times faster than the fastest infantryman. The patent describes it as “A portable gun or machine called a Defence, that discharges so often and so many bullets, and can be so quickly loaded as renders it next to impossible to carry any ship by boarding,” which indicates shipboard use was intended. He will begin to manufacture the guns at the White Cross Alley factory in 1721.

1928
The animated short “Plane Crazy“, featuring the first appearance of Mickey and Minnie Mouse, is released. The cartoon was co-directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. Iwerks is also the main animator for this short, and reportedly spent six weeks working on it.

1935
At the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, Albert Einstein is awarded the Benjamin Franklin Medal for his outstanding fundamental contributions to theoretical physics, especially his relativity theory. According to Time magazine, “A throng of scientists and dignitaries was assembled to hear what the medalist had to say. Einstein genially informed the chairman that he had nothing to say, that inspiration which he had awaited until the last moment had failed him. The chairman, much more embarrassed than the medalist, conveyed this information to the audience.” In atonement, Einstein wrote a 44-page essay entitled “Physics and Reality,” published in the March 1936 issue of the Journal of the Franklin Institute.
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A visit to cyberspace is like a visit to the collective consciousness of the world. Alice’s journey seems tame by comparison. Our hopes, our dreams, our monumental accomplishments, our frailties, and the everyday business of life is all there to be shared.

- Vinton Cerf

With an ever-increasing awareness of environmental conservation, Virginia explores the possibilities of fully utilizing the ultimate renewable resource, our children. They are, after all, our future.

Source: PhotoBasement

Yes, I finally broke down and created a Lolz Cat over at I Can Has a Ceezburger. I know. They’re not funny anymore. I’ve never made one, though, and I was beginning to think I was missing out. I hang my virtual head in shame under your unvoiced scorn.

Photo Source: Photo Basement

1856
Charles Darwin begins writing the book The Origin of Species at his home in Down, England.

1921
The silent film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, directed by Robert Wiene, is released to Japanese theaters. The film will strongly influence many future directors.

1932
The first electrical timing device is tested at a track meet for three events between Columbia University and Syracuse University at Columbia’s Baker Field in New York City.

1935
The Griffith Planetarium opens in Los Angeles, California. It is only the third planetarium in the US.
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The Internet is so big, so powerful and pointless that for some people it is a complete substitute for life.

- Andrew Brown, in an article in the UK newspapers, The Independent

But if much of the Internet was built around wires and code, an equal amount was built around pomposity and bullshit. The wired world has produced lavalike torrents of manifestos promising utopias, an end to poverty and ignorance, the collapse of government and media, a new kind of economy, and all sorts of memes and constructs.

- Jon Katz, Wired Magazine

1637
The table knife is invented by Cardinal Richelieu in France. Previously, daggers were used to cut meat at a meal and to pick one’s teeth. Richelieu becomes the first person of note to provide his dinner guests with knives so that there would be no need for them to bring their own along and to further round the points off all of his knives to remove their usefulness as personal weapons.

1821
Samuel Rust of New York City patents the Washington press, the first practical and successful printing press to be built in America. George E Clymer’s Columbian Press was the first press to be built in America, however, it was never widely adopted.

1880
Thomas Edison performs the first test of his electric railway in Menlo Park, New Jersey.

1884
The American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE), the predecessor of the later Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE), is formed.
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