The Great Geek Manual

To predict the behavior of ordinary people in advance, you only have to assume that they will always try to escape a disagreeable situation with the smallest possible expenditure of intelligence.

- Friedrich Nietzsche

Art

• After the official posters for the upcoming Star Trek film proved a disappointment, DeviantArt user Tanman1 turned out this amazing poster.
• My Little Pony decked out like Dr. Horrible and Captain Hammer.
• The Star Wars website has posted a half-assed tutorial on How to draw Battle Droids.

Comics

• Mental Floss mocks 7 Comic Book Superpowers the World Can Do Without.

Film

• Rope of Silicon runs down the Top Ten Movie Sequels.
• Topless Robot runs down the 5 Avengers Who Need to Assemble in the Movie (and 5 Who Shouldn’t Bother).

Literature

• Business Week thinks that publishes ought to take a page from Digg’s book.
• Free Reading: “Goblin Hunter” by Jim C. Hines is available at ClonePod.
• Free Reading: “How to Talk to Girls at Parties” by Neil Gaiman is now online at ClonePod.
• Free Reading: “What Dragons Prefer” by Dayle A. Dermatis has been posted at PodCastle.
• Neal Stephenson reads from his upcoming book, “Anathem,” which is sure to be the next Geek classic.

Television

• The SF Gospel runs down The 10 Best (and 5 Worst) Science Fiction Themes from television.

Video Games

It’s a good week in gaming! We’ve got a wide variety of games coming out, and while there isn’t any one that stands out as a must-have, just about every genre under the sun is represented: action, puzzle, racing, shooters, and vampire hunting. Plus, the newest PlayStation 3 80GB system ($399) is available.

Monday, August 25th

MLB Power Pros 2008 (DS)
Mario Super Sluggers (Wii)

Tuesday, August 26th

Digimon World Championship (DS)
Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice (PS3)
DT Racer Refueled (PS2)
Falling Stars (PS2)
Ferrari Challenge Trofeo Pirelli (DS, PS2, PS3, Wii)
From The Abyss (DS)
GTR Evolution (PC)
Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness (DS)
Kidz Sports: Crazy Golf (Wii)
N+ (DS, PSP)
Pajama Sam in Don’t Fear the Dark (Wii)
PictoImage (DS)
Rebel Raiders: Operation Nighthawk (Wii)
The Sims 2 Apartment Life (PC)
The Sims 2 Apartment Pets (DS)
Spy Fox in Dry Cereal (Wii)
Tales of Vesperia (X360)
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 (PS2, PS3, PSP, Wii, X360)
Vampire Rain: Altered Species (PS3)

Wednesday, August 27th

Castle Crashers (XBLA)

Friday, August 29th

Garfield’s Fun Fest (DS)
Infinite Undiscovery (X360)
Prison Tycoon 4: SuperMax (PC)
Sid Meier’s Pirates! (Mac)
The Sims 2 Apartment Life (PC)

Saturday (Aug. 30)

FlatOut: Ultimate Carnage (PC)
Ford Racing: Off Road (Wii)
James Pond – Codename Robocod (DS)
MindHabits (Mac)
OPERATION Mania (PC)

If you know of any major releases that I missed, mention it below.

Creativity represents a miraculous coming together of the uninhibited energy of the child with its apparent opposite and enemy, the sense of order imposed on the disciplined adult intelligence.

- Norman Podhoretz, American author.

1346
A cannon is first used during a battle in France, using a round ball carved from rock. Edward III of England reportedly uses twenty-two cannons during to defeat of Philip VI of France at Crécy. These cannons, with no more power than a trebuchet, were incapable of bring down the walls by themselves. Their primary purpose is psychological. The flash and noise of them make it impossible for the French to forget that their lives are in danger. Their effect will be recorded in a well known manuscript, Froissart’s Chroniques of the battle of Crécy. “The English fired of some cannons which they had brought to the battle to frighten the Genoese.” However, despite the extensive use of cannons, the battle’s victory will be attributed to the longbowmen.

1843
The first US typewriter design is patented by Charles Thurber of Norwich, Connecticut. (US No. 3,228) The patent is described as a “machine for printing by hand by pressing upon keys which contain the type, called ‘Thurber’s Patent Printer.’” Thurber is the first to design a mechanism which places the paper on a roller and move it longitudinally with accurate letter and word spacing.

1858
News is dispatched by telegraph for the first time. The news is a story concerns China agreeing to the peace demands of Europe, and it is sent to The New York Sun, which will print the story the next day.

1884
The first US patent for the Linotype typesetting machine is issued to Ottmar Mergenthaler of Baltimore, Maryland. (US No. 304,272) The patent is for a “matrix making machine.” It will first be used commercially on July 3, 1886.
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Each of us assumes everyone else knows what HE is doing. They all assume we know what WE are doing. We don’t…Nothing is going on and nobody knows what it is. Nobody is concealing anything except the fact that he does not understand anything anymore and wishes he could go home.

- “In Pursuit of Valis: Selections from the Exegesis” by Philip K. Dick, 1991.

1609
Galileo Galilei first demonstrates his telescope to government officials of Venice.

1835
Richard Adams Locke blurs the line between science and science fiction when he publishes his week-long serial “Moon Hoax: Great Astronomical Discoveries Lately Made” in the New York Sun newspaper under in the name of Sir John Herschel, the real-life astronomer who discovered of Uranus.

1900
Constantin Perskyi presents a paper at the first International Electricity Congress in Paris, France in which he describes an device he refers to as a “television” which makes use of the specific magnetic properties of Selenium. It is the first recorded use of the term “television” in history.

1960
The opening ceremony of the seventeenth Olympic Games in Rome is transmitted live via the Eurovision link. CBS shows video recordings that have been flown to the US, at a cost of US$700,000 for the US television rights. This is the first time that the Olympic Games have been shown so extensively in the US, thanks to the advent of the videotape since the previous Olympics.

1973
The first Computer Assisted Tomography (CAT) scan is made.
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Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it,
doesn’t go away.

- Philip K. Dick in a speech entitled
“How To Build A Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days Later,” 1978.
Republished in the essay collection “I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon,” 1986.

Read the speech in its entirety online.