The Great Geek Manual

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The trouble-makers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status-quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify, or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They invent. They imagine. They heal. They explore. They create. They inspire. They push the human race forward.

- Apple’s “Think Different” television advertising campaign, 1997.

1888
William Seward Burroughs of St. Louis, Missouri receives four patents for the first successful “Calculating-Machine” (US No. 388,116-388,119) One year after making his first patent application on January 10, 1885, he incorporated his business as the American Arithmometer Corporation of St. Louis, with an authorized capitalization of US$100,000. Within a year, he will produce fifty machines. The machines will ultimately prove difficult to use but Burroughs will continue to improve on them and go on to become a pioneer of the calculator industry.

1903
A twelve horsepower single-cylinder Model F Packard driven by “Tommy” Fetch from the Packard Motor Car works automobile arrives in New York City, completing a cross-country trip from San Francisco, California. Fetch, along with journalist Marius Krarup left San Fransisco on June 21, after dipping the car’s rear wheels in the Pacific Ocean. The pair traveled for fifty-one days at an average of almost eighty miles a day. They crossed the Utah desert and the Colorado mountains, and, according to the New York Times, replaced only three tires and a broken front spring during the course of the journey. Vermont doctor Horatio Nelson and mechanic Crocker Sewell had completed a similar but longer trip in a Winton car in July.

1911
Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa is stolen from the Louvre museum in Paris, France by a Louvre employee. It will finally be recovered in 1913.

1969
Ralph Baer files a patents for creating a “Television Gaming Apparatus and Method.” This is just one of many pieces that will later become a component of the Magnavox Odyssey.
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Mmmmmm… CosGirls.
A second flavor after the cut.
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I think that this picture is of a Chaos Space Marine from the tabletop game “Warhammer 40,000,” though the source didn’t label it.

It’s pretty awesome, but is it real? I don’t think it could be, its too three-dimensional, and I don’t think that anyone in their right mind would consent to having something this intricate tattooed on their body, knowing that, in ten years, it would be nothing but a big black blur.

Is it Photoshop’d? Is it some sort of appliqué or airbrushing?

Source: The Daily Weird

Death Race hit the big screens Friday August 22nd, but I’m still not certain whether or not I’ll go see it. Jason Statham flicks can either go the way of the Transporter (good) or the way of Crank (wtf!), and even though all his stuff is jam-packed with explosions and fight sequences, its hard to tell whether or not shelling out theater prices is going to be worth it from promos.

In any case, with Babylon A.D. coming out next week (August 29), Death Race doesn’t have long to make its impression.

Video Releases

• Prom Night (NR/13)
• Scorpion King 2: Rise of a Warrior (PG13)
• Street Kings (R)

Television

• Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles Complete First Season [Blu-Ray] (NR)

Re-Releases & New Formats

• The Secret [Blu-ray] (R)

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Comics

• Cracked.com takes a look at The 7 Crappiest “Super Heroes” in Comic Book History, not counting the Flash, who regularly gets his ass handed to him by a guerrilla.

Film

• Voltron may be Rebooted the way Transformers was. Let us pray that Megan Fox is tapped for Princess Allura.

Internet

• Automopedia shares 15 Classic Science Fiction Cars.

Literature

• Charles Stross speculates on Why UK Scifi Is More Hopeful Than US Scifi.
• Interview: The Daily Cross Hatch features a fun interview with Cory Doctorow.
• Rachel Rosen is a song about Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.
• Zen Habits has an intriguing list of 50 Amazing and Essential Novels to Enrich Your Library.

Television

• Interview: The Secrets of Journeyman revealed by series creator Kevin Falls.
• Someone finally explains to us Why Dollhouse’s Original Pilot Will Make A Better Second Episode.

Writing

• 10 Ways to Become a Better Writer.
• Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules for Writing have been publish, but you can still find them online.

Eleven Video Sharing Websites that aren’t YouTube for your enjoyment.

Eweek lists The 10 Most Innovative Web Search Engines that will give you a fresh take on the web.

Google wants to help you Make your 404 Pages more Useful.

It’s time for college students to go off to college again, and that means a new Beloit College MindSet List.

Miss Geeky claims to have found the Cutest Animal Ever. I, of course, cast my vote for the Ewok.

PC Magazine shares the Top 100 Undiscovered Websites and then some… many of which aren’t so undiscovered.

Seven principals of Clean and Optimized CSS code for webmasters.

Thirty-seven Reasons Micheal Phelps is Better than Chuck Norris leaves no doubt that who would win in a fight.

These Twenty Japanese Ice Cream Flavors, which include Charcoal and Garlic, will give make you grateful for Ben and Jerry’s all over again.

Why you should Turn Gmail’s SSL Feature On right now.

Nobody realizes that some people
expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.

- “The Myth of Sisyphus” by Albert Camus, 1942
Chapter One, “An Absurd Reasoning”