The Great Geek Manual

I was actually stupider for watching this, but since the Sci-Fi channel has started running Next Generation episodes in the evenings, I’ve been growing nostalgic.

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Wouldn’t it suck if you got to the future and the reason everything was so super-streamlined was because Apple was in charge? Come to think of it… the Enterprise is very good at generating graphics with its holodecks and receives poor marks for inter-operability with technology outside the Federation.

Are those comm badges chevrons, or a triangle with a bite taken out of them?

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Art

• The Art of Brandon Bird. What can I say? If I were rich, my comic library would be lined with his work. Highlights include: “Bam Thwop,” “Crimefighters (Credits March),” and “Sir Ian.”
• Darth Mojo features a series of high-resolution graphics of the USS Voyager sized for use as desktops.

Comics

• R.I.P. Michael Turner. The artistic genius behind Aspen Studios and Batman/Superman has gone to the big studio in the sky. He died Friday night, at age 37 of bone cancer.
• Will Runaways be made into a movie? Oh hell, no. The Power Pack would be spinning in their graves.

Film

• Movie Moron’s Top 10 Most Shameless Uses Of Product Placement In Film turns out to be almost entirely composed of genre films. How embarrassing for us fans.
• Den of Geek compiles a list of the Top 10 Screen Traitors of Sci-Fi.

Literature

• Free Fiction: PodCastle is offering a podcast of “Spell of the Sparrow” by Jim C. Hines.
• i09’s picks for 10 Books That Were Better Off on Paper are highly debatable. I mean, I love Asimov, but I, Robot was a bit of a snoozer in print.
• Interview: The Dragon Page talks with author Laurell K. Hamilton.

Video Games

• 10 Things That Suck About the Videogame Industry
• 10 Things That Suck About Metal Gear Solid 4

Writing

• Ben Bova’s advice to writers: Write, Every day.

Anime

• Blue Seed, Vol. 3: Complete Collection [4 Discs] (TV14)
• Desert Punk: Box Set [6 Discs] (TVMA)
• Gakuen Heaven Collection (13Up)
• Kanon, Vol. 6
• Lucky Star, Vol. 2 (PG13)
• Naruto, Vol. 25
• Piano: The Melody of a Young Girl’s Heart, Vol. 1: Secret Love (7Up)
• Piano: The Melody of a Young Girl’s Heart, DVD Vol. 2: Confessions (7Up)
• Piano: The Melody of a Young Girl’s Heart, Vol. 3: Heartstrings (7Up)
• Samurai 7: Box Set [7 Discs] Rated: TVPG

Books

• The Dead and the Gone by Susan Beth Pfeffer
  Harcourt. (ISBN: 978-0-15-206311-5) Hardcover. Length: 321pp
  A young adult fantasy novel set in the aftermath of an asteroid collision with the Moon that devastates the Earth.
• Escapement by Jay Lake
  Tor. (ISBN: 978-0-7653-1709-4) Hardcover. Length: 384pp
  The steampunk sequel to Mainspring.

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1879
The first electric company in the US to produce and sell electricity California Electric Light Company is established in San Francisco, California.

1905
Albert Einstein publishes the article “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies“, wherein he introduces the concept of special relativity.

1908
At around 7:15am, northwest of Lake Baikal, Russia, a huge fireball nearly as bright as the Sun is seen crossing the sky. Minutes later, there is a huge flash and a shock wave felt up to 400 miles (650km) away. Over Tunguska, a meteorite traveling at over 60,000mph (25km per second) penetrates Earth’s atmosphere, heats to about 10,000°C, and detonates 3 to 4 miles (6 to 10km) above the ground. The blast releases the energy of 10-50 Megatons of TNT, destroying 830 square miles (2,150 sq km) of forest (approximately 80 million trees) and leaving no trace of life. The Tunguska rock came out of the Taurid Meteor storm that crosses Earth’s orbit twice a year. Read more about The Tunguska Event.
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The computer is only a fast idiot, it has no imagination; it cannot originate action. It is, and will remain, only a tool to man.

- The American Library Association on the Univac exhibited at the 1964 World’s Fair

To understand the place of humans in the universe is to solve a complex problem. Therefore I find it impossible to believe that an understanding based entirely on science or one based entirely on religion can be correct.

- Wilton Robert Abbott, aerospace engineer.
Who’s Who in America, 43rd Edition 1984-85

512
A solar eclipse is recorded by a monastic chronicler in Ireland.

1613
The original Globe Theatre in London, England burns down accidentally when a cannon discharged during a performance of William Shakespeare’s Henry VIII sets fire to the building’s thatched roof.

1888
Edison’s foreign sales agent, Colonel George Gouraud, makes a wax cylinder recording in the Crystal Palace, London of a four thousand person choir performing Handel’s Israel in Egypt at a distance of more than one hundred yards from the phonograph. It is the first known recording of classical music.
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Comics

• 10 Iron Man Armors you won’t see in the movie is an excellent introduction into Tony Stark’s wardrobe for fans who haven’t read the comics.

Film

• A big screen adaptation of Robert Heinlein’s The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress written by Firefly’s Tim Minear has been posted online by the SoCal Browncoats.
• Den of Geek has posted 10 great movie trailers of the last 30 years, many of which are actually more fun to watch than the movies they’re promoting.

Internet

• Geekologie’s “Folder In Residence” is offering up the patter to Create an Origami version of Wall-E.

Literature

• How do you define Science Fiction and should you even bother defining it at all?

Television

• Author John Scalzi poses the question, “What Are the New SciFi Classics?”
• Trying to decide on the Worst Sci-Fi Shows ever can be a tricky proposition, as numerous as the candidates are, but Forever Geek takes a crack at it.
• What the frack is going to happen next on BattleStar Galactica?! Or The True Meaning of Starbuck’s Bonfire.

Video Games

• PC World counts off the 15 Hottest Games of Summer, starting, predictably with Spore.

Einstein argued that there must be simplified explanations of nature, because God is not capricious or arbitrary. No such faith comforts the software engineer.

- Fred Brooks, in the essay “No Silver Bullet,” 1987

• After a bizarre post on Something Awful to a website called Notes to Mary, which featured a series of threatening letters from a high school student named Robert to a girl name Mary. The forum users decide that they were being baited into an ARG. The game spreads to other forums, expands to Flickr and IRC, and the clues started rolling in fast and thick. After days of frantic collaboration, the elaborate puzzle was solved and the the players were rewarded. How? With a Rick Rolling, or course.
• Daily Gyan features The Ultimate Tweaker’s Guide To Firefox3.
• Have you ever met someone who made you completely geek out? If so, How to avoid being “fan boy” or “fan girl” when building relationships with people you admire might be the article for you.
• Nuke the Fridge: You know its an internet phenomena when Newsweek takes notice.
• Play the Star Trek version of twenty questions, 20Q.
• The Website is Down! is a short movie based on real-life tech support horror stories.
• Who Needs a Computer Science Degree When There’s Wikipedia?

Astronomy
• Berkley scientists now believe than It Once Rained on Mars, though, of course, Ray Bradbury has been telling us as much since the fifties.
• Have you ever wondered How long can you survive in the vacuum of space? Predictably, not for long. But did you know the time varies from person to person?

Biology

• Every year, thousands of new species are discovered, but only ten are interesting enough to make the International Institute for Species Exploration’s list of the Top New Species, which spotlights flora and fauna cataloged in the previous year, such as the Pink Dragon Millipede.
• Top 15 Amazing Facts About The Human Body

Physics

• PopSci asks What Can Movies Teach Us About Space Travel?
• Stephen Hawking’s explosive new theory explains why the Big Bang led to the vast cosmos that we can see today.

Technology

• The Discovery Channel highlights The world’s nine largest science projects, which include the Large Hadron collider at CERN.
• The World’s first rotating skyscraper has been unveiled in Dubai. Yes, rotating.