The Great Geek Manual

Human life is basically a comedy. Even its tragedies often seem comic to the spectator, and not infrequently they actually have comic touches to the victim. Happiness probably consists largely in the capacity to detect and relish them. A man who can laugh, if only at himself, is never really miserable.

H. L. Mencken in Minority Report : H.L. Mencken’s Notebooks, 1956.

1672
Isaac Newton presents his first paper on the science of optics to the Royal Society in London, England. He was elected a member only the previous month, in recognition of his original design for the first reflecting telescope. The paper is a report regarding his study of the colors produced by prisms entitled “New Theory about Light and Colors.”

1692
A doctor in Salem Village, Massachusetts Bay Colony declares that three teenage girls are under domination of Satan. The declaration will precipitate the Salem witch trials.

1924
First coast-to-coast radio broadcast in the United States is made from Chicago by General John Joseph Carthy of Bell Telephone to an audience of fifty million listeners.

1928
The first transatlantic television image is received in Hartsdale, New York. The image, which shows the face of Mrs. Mia Howe, is transmitted by John Logie Baird from station 2KZ in Purley, England over short wave radio. The picture is crudely formed from a scan of thirty lines and transmitted at twelve frames per second. The signal’s successful reception caused a sensation on both sides of the Atlantic, receiving a great deal of media attention.
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Technical skill is mastery of complexity while creativity is mastery of simplicity.

- Catastrophe Theory by E. Christopher Zeeman, 1977.

From Around the Net

Four Sites You Should Visit on Your PSP – Sites that every gamer with a PSP and wireless connection should visit at least once.

Homo Evolutis – Juan Enriquez talks about the new human species emerging before our eyes. Thanks to an array of biological advances and our growing aptitude in robotics, we now find ourselves in the early days of the deliberate creation of what he called a new species.

Top 10 Most Amazing Streets In The World – Cool list of weird streets.

Tech News

1.5 million books in your pocket – Google puts classic, public-domain books online in iPhone-friendly format.

Android: One Multitasking Operating System – Look for Google’s Android to start showing up on devices other than phones.

Apple Store Bans Facebook For Life – People were hogging display Macs to check their Facebook accounts. MySpace was banned in 2007.

Data breach incidents are increasing, study shows

Digital Pirates Winning Battle With Studios – Hollywood is finally having its “Napster moment”.

Geek tech: Why your pop-up blocker doesn’t work as well as it used to

1915
The first wireless message sent from a moving train to a station is transmitted, marking the beginning of mobile communications.

1932
The Neutron subatomic particle is first described in an article in the journal Nature by James Chadwick, who coined the name after he discovered it by bombarding Beryllium with alpha particles. In 1935, Chadwick will receive the Nobel Prize for Physics for the discovery.

1956
Doug Ross of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) presents a paper on gestalt programming at the Western Joint Computer Conference in Los Angeles, California. Ross had experimented with gestalt programming while working for the US Air Force and Emerson Electric Company. Read more about Doug Ross at Boston.com.

1958
In response to the launch of Sputnik, the United States Department of Defense issues directive 5105.15 establishing the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). The directive charges the agency with the “direction or performance of such advanced projects in the field of research and development…” Among ARPA’s highest priorities is the development of computer technology. Visit the official DARPA website.
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Whoever wins to a great scientific truth will find a poet before him in the quest.

- Frederic Wood-Jones in the Medical Journal of Australia, August 29, 1931.

Comics

• IGN has an interview with Michael Green, who co-wrote the Green Lantern film script.

Film

• John Christopher’s The Tripods Trilogy is being adapted for a film production, but for my money, the BBC got it right with their uncompleted miniseries.
• New images from Terminator Salvation have been released.
• Nick Nadel reflects that Heath Ledger Owes His Oscar Nomination to Superman.
• SCI FI Wire has post a photo of the new T-600 from Terminator: Salvation.
• Time Magazine profiles the upcoming stop-motion film Coraline.

Internet

• Slashfilm looks at the SkyWalker Ranch.
• Topless Robot makes 10 Helpful Suggestions for Killing John Connor.

Literature

• Free Fiction: Read “A Plague From the Mud” by Alan Polson, “Dark Planet” by Lavie Tidhar, and “Tearing Down Tuesday” by Stephen Francis Murphy at Apex Online.
• Free Fiction: Read “The Second Gift Given” by Ken Scholes at Clarkesworld Magazine.
• Interview: SCI FI Wire interviews Richard K. Morgan, author of The Steel Remains.
• Just when you thought the attention spans of Americans couldn’t get any shorter, now, for those of you incapable of sitting through an audiobook, HarperCollins introduces Video Books.
• The Guardian reflects on The Next Generation of Sci-fi Writers.

Television

• Check out a preview of the remake of The Prisoner, starring Jim Caviezel and Ian McKellen.
• I object to anything from the CW being included in any list, but apart from a Smallville includion, Film.com gets it right with their list of the Best Sci-Fi Shows for Non-Science Fiction Fans.

Theater

• Manhattan Theatre Source is staging a play based on Karel Capek’s classic 1921 play R.U.R., in which the work robot was originally coined, Universal Robots.

It looks as if ABC is launching a series that’s going to be a cross between SciFi’s Eureka and NBC’s The Office. The first episode looks like it’ll be a hoot, but the networks are infamously bad at maintaining consistent quality in the off-the-wall comedy genre.

On the other hand, while the show is likely going to disappoint audiences eventually, it’s exciting to see that the networks are continuing their trend of geeky programming. It’s just going to break my heart when the next generation fills out the 18 – 26 age bracket and the cycle of geek programming fades away (probably in favor of some stupid hipster/emo cycle).

Source: YouTube