Electronic aids, particularly domestic computers, will help the inner migration, the opting out of reality. Reality is no longer going to be the stuff out there, but the stuff inside your head. It’s going ot be commercial and nasty at the same time.
Caine Black Knife by Matthew Stover
Del Rey. (ISBN: 978-0-345-45587-1) Length: 343pp
The third book in a fantasy series that follows a warrior in a far-future reality show. In this book Caine returns, after 30 years, to the site of his victory over the Black Knives tribe. Publishers Weekly review concludes that “Stover has a gift for brutal, detailed action sequences, and Caine is at his most enthralling when he’s fighting or discussing tactics, but the high levels of (occasionally creative) profanity and the cliffhanger ending may put off some readers.”
City of Jade by Dennis L. McKiernan
Roc. (ISBN: 978-0-451-46231-2) Hardcover. Length: 353pp
A fantasy novel in the Mithgar series, in which Aravan, captain of the Elven ship Eroean, embarks on an expedition to find the mythical lost city of jade.
Fast Forward 2 by Lou Anders
Pyr. (ISBN: 978-1-59102-692-1) Trade paperback. Length: 360pp
An anthology of fourteen stories, from authors including Paul Cornell, Kay Kenyon, Nancy Kress, Benjamin Rosenbaum, Cory Doctorow, Paul McAuley, Ian McDonald, and Paolo Bacigalupi.
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1906
Dr. Lee DeForest, one of the “fathers of radio,” announces his three-element electrical vacuum tube, later known as a triode, to a meeting of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE). He had discovered that when a mesh of wire is placed between the filament and collector “plate” in a diode tube, a large voltage-amplifying effect could be produced. The ability of the tube to amplify weak signals makes long-distance communication possible for the first time.
1955
The Return of the King by J. R. R. Tolkien is published. It’s the third and final book in the The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
1960
The length of the meter is redefined by the international body Conférence Générale des Poids et Mesures (General Conference on Weights and Measures) to make the measure more accurate. Originally, the measure was one ten-millionth of the distance from the North Pole to the equator. Following the conference, the meter is re-defined as 1,650,763.73 wavelengths in a vacuum of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the 2p10 and 5d5 quantum levels of the krypton-86 atom.
1981
Atari is granted a patent for the 400/800 computer system. (US No. 4,296,476)
1984
The Monterey Bay Aquarium, the largest artificial environment for marine life, opens on Cannery Row on the site of the old Hovden sardine cannery, with a US$40 million grant from David Packard of Hewlett Packard to house 6,500 marine animals of at least 525 species. The idea for an aquarium devoted to showcasing Monterey Bay habitats came in 1977 from a group of four marine biologists at Stanford’s Hopkins Marine Station. Currently, the aquarium has an active research program, with groups working on Sea Otter conservation and Tuna conservation biology and a sister institution, the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, which conducts deep-sea research in the vast Monterey submarine canyon. Visit the organization’s official website.
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Man is still the most extraordinary computer of all.
1832
Samuel Morse will later cite this date as the day he first conceived on the electric telegraph system.
1860
The first company to manufacture internal combustion engines is founded.
1948
The United States National Bureau of Standards authorizes the construction of the Standards Western Automatic Computer (SWAC) by the Institute for Numerical Analysis in Los Angeles, California. It will be one of the first electronic digital computers.
1951
All US color television receiver production is halted and banned for the duration of the Korean War.
The CBS television network stops broadcasting color television programs, which it had only begun June 25, due to the halt in color receiver production brought on by the Korean War.
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Will machines destroy emotions,
or will emotions destroy machines?
1842
In New York Harbor, inventor Samuel Morse lays the world’s first telegraph cable, across the length of a mile between the Battery and Governor’s Island. Unfortunately, before his system could be fully demonstrated, a passing ship pulls up the cable.
1871
English engineer and mathematician Charles Babbage, inventor of the Difference Engine in 1822, passes away in poverty having funded his own projects after the government ceases funding them.
1878
Thomas Alva Edison makes electricity available for household usage for the first time.
1879
Thomas Alva Edison manufactures the first incandescent light bulb.
1892
The first long-distance telephone line is established between the offices of the mayor of Chicago and the mayor of New York City.
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Machines are worshipped because they are beautiful, and valued because they confer power; they are hated because they are hideous, and loathed because they impose slavery. Do no let us suppose that one of these attitudes is ‘right’ and the other ‘wrong’…
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