The Great Geek Manual

Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract out attention from serious things.
They are but improved means to an unimproved end.

- Walden by Henry David Thoreau, 1854.

1633
Galileo Galilei is tried before the Inquisition of the Catholic Church on charges of heresy for teaching his theory that the Earth orbits the Sun.

1891
The first gasoline-powered car debuts in Springfield, Massachusetts, United States.

1938
The Radio Manufacturers Association adopts standards for a US television system and submits proposals to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

1940
Genevieve Grotjan completes the decryption of the Japanese Purple code.

1951
Production of the first receivers for the CBS Broadcasting, Inc. (CBS) sequential color system begins at the Air-King electronics manufacturing subsidiary of Hytron Radio and Electronics Corporation, which is owned by CBS. CBS bought Hytron, according to president Frank Stanton, “to assure at least some source for colour receivers to the public.” The sets go on sale at Gimbels store in New York, priced at US$499.95. Rival manufacturer Allan B DuMont will later claim that only two hundred units were manufactured and that only half of them were sold.
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When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and ou argue about what to do about it only after you have had your technical success. That is the way it was with the atomic bomb.

- J. Robert Oppenheimer in a hearing before the Personnel Security Board investigating allegations of communist associations.

Source: Sideways Pony

The 100 Most Funny and Unusual 404 Error Pages.

eSecurity shares a list of The Top 75 Open Source Security Apps.

Getting work at done? Read How To Make Your Computer Catch People Stealing Your Porn?

HiVision’s Sub-Hundred Dollar Linux Mini Laptop may render the OLPC project obsolete.

How long could you survive chained to a Bunk Bed with a Velociraptor?

The Seventeen Hottest Steampunk Computer Creations for you to gawk at.

This computer mod puts a Computer in Bottle.

Comics

• Chicago Tribune counts down the Top Eight Comic Book Recalls, most of which are surprisingly DC Comics.
• Cracked.com takes a look at the 8 Laws All Comic Book Movies Follow.
• Marvel brings Ender’s Game to comics, and there’s a sneak preview online.

Film

• Are these really the Twenty Best Worst Science Fiction Movies of All Time.
• Free Fiction: Listen to H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Music of Erich Zann” at The Classic Tales Podcast.
• Five Things You Didn’t Know About Escape From New York, in video format.

Internet

• The Eight of the Greatest Geek Anthems of All Time.
• This Flash page is a the best illustration of How an Enigma Machine encrypts messages.
• Who are the Top Ten Sexiest Fictional Geeks?

Literature

• Ten things Mike Brotherton loves about Science Fiction doesn’t include the fact that, pound for pound, sci-fi comes with more explosions than any other genre under the sun, which would be number one on my list.

Television

• io9 takes a look at the Best SNL Scifi Sketches Of All Time, with accompanying video clips.

Video Games

• There were actually a lot of NES games nobody player, but here are the best of them.

Arrrrrrr! September 19th be International Talk Like a Pirate Day, matey!

1848
Hyperion, a moon of Saturn, is discovered by William Cranch Bond, George Phillips Bond, and William Lassell.

1928
The first talking cartoon film, Walt Disney’s Steamboat Willie, premieres at the Colony Theatre in New York, introducing Mickey Mouse.

1957
The United States conducted its first underground nuclear test, in the Nevada desert, at Area 12. The Atomic Energy Commission’s (AEC) first fully contained underground nuclear detonation, known as the Rainier event, detonates in a horizontal tunnel, about 47 meters (1600 feet) into the mesa and 274 meters (900 feet) beneath the surface.

1982
Research Professor Scott E. Fahlman proposes the use of emoticons to express humor for the first time anywhere in a message posted to the Carnegie Mellon University Computer Science department’s general bulletin board. While the use of emoticons will spread like wildfire, the origin of the emoticon will be lost for nearly two decades, until September 10, 2002, when the original post made by Scott Fahlman will be retrieved by Jeff Baird from an October 1982 backup tape of the spice vax (cmu-750x) server. Here is Scott’s original post:
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However far modern science and technics have fallen short of their inherent possibilities, they have taught mankind at least one lesson: Nothing is impossible.

Technics and Civilization by Lewis Mumford, 1934.
Chapter 8, Section 13.