The Great Geek Manual

1940
Radio Corporation of America (RCA) demonstrates its electronic color television system to the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC), but the technology is unimpressive and the company cancels its plans for a public demonstration. Visit the official FCC website.

1948
The first radio-controlled airplane is first flown.

1957
The cryotron superconductive computer switch is introduced. Developed by Dudley Allen Buck at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the cryotron is the first practical use of superconductivity, the ability of some metals to conduct current with no resistance at temperatures below -420 degrees Fahrenheit. It will be hailed as a revolutionary step in miniaturizing room-sized computers.

1967
The International Business Machines (IBM) Data Processing Division (DPD) announces an advanced communications technique that could double the speed at which IBM machines are able to communication with each other over phone lines called “Binary Synchronous Communications.” Visit the official IBM website.

1971
Apollo 14 astronaut Alan Shepard becomes the first person to hit a golf ball on the Moon. Near the end of the second moonwalk and just before entering the lunar module for the last time, Shepard attached a six-iron to the end of a sample collecting tool. Despite thick gloves and a stiff suit that forced him to swing the club with one hand only, he hit two golf balls. The first landed in a nearby crater. He hit the second one squarely and, in the one-sixth gravity of the Moon, Shepard said it traveled “miles and miles and miles.” The astronauts stayed on the surface for a total of thirty-three hours in total. Watch a video of the golf shot or read a transcript of the Apollo 14 crew’s second day of extra-vehicular activity at the NASA website.
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Science is the meeting place of two kinds of poetry: the poetry of thought and the poetry of action.

- George Agostinho da Silva in An Imagined World by June Goodfield, 1981.

1850
The first US patent for a push-key operated adding machine is issued to Dubois D. Parmelee of New Paltz, New York. (US No. 7,074) His “Calculating Machine” diagram shows nine keys. Each key causes a ratchet to raise a graduated indicator rod at the rear of the device by a corresponding number of notches. The calculator will ultimately be unsuccessful. The first successful calculator will be invented forty years later by William Burroughs.

1861
A patent is issued to Coleman Sellers of Philadelphia for the Kinematoscope, which he describes as an “improvement in exhibiting stereoscopic pictures of moving objects.” (US No. 31,357) The Kinematoscope projects a series of still pictures with successive stages of action mounted on paddle blades through slits passed under the lens of a stereoscope.

1870
The first motion picture is presented to a theater audience by Henry R. Heyl using a Phasmatrope. A Phasmatrope is a converted projecting lantern with a rotating disc mounted to its front and sixteen openings near the edge, each of which carries a photographic plate. The plates hold a series of animation cells depicting dancers, who appear to move as the rotating disc spins. The demonstration marks the Ninth Annual Entertainment of the Young Men’s Society of St. Mark’s Evangelical Lutheran Church of Philadelphia, an event held at the Academy of Music, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

1897
The Indiana State House legislature passes Bill Number 246 which, in effect, assigns Pi the value of exactly 3.2. The bill states, in part, that “the ratio of the diameter and circumference [pi] is as five-fourths to four.” The bill was introduced by Representative Taylor I. Record, a farmer and lumber merchant, on behalf of a mathematical hobbyist, Dr. Edwin J. Goodwin, M.D. The politicians don’t understand that the bill is mathematically incorrect. Clarence A. Waldo, a mathematics professor at Purdue University, will eventually realize the error and notify the Indiana Senators. The bill will be indefinitely postponed on February 12, 1897.

1899
Thomas Alva Edison is issued a patent for a “Phonograph Recorder and Reproducer”.
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There are two motives for reading a book:
one, that you enjoy it, the other that you can boast about it.

- The Conquest of Happiness by Bertrand Russell, 1930.

Seriously.
Don’t trust anyone you meet online.

Source: RainCoaster

Last Week’s Best-Selling Genre Books

1. New Moon by Stephenie Meyer
2. Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer
3. Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
4. Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer
5. The Host by Stephenie Meyer
6. The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling
7. Inkheart by Cornelia Funke
8. Kiss of a Demon King by Kresley Cole
9. Watchmen by Alan Moore
10. Twilight: The Complete Illustrated Movie Companion by Mark Cotta Vaz

New Releases

The following books will be released this week:

Bone Crossed by Patricia Briggs
Ace Hardcover. (ISBN: 978-0441016761) Hardcover. Length: 309pp
The fourth book in the truly excellent Mercy Thompson urban fantasy series. In a world where “witches, vampires, werewolves, and shape-shifters live beside ordinary people,” it takes a very unusual woman to call it home. By day, Mercy Thompson is a car mechanic in Eastern Washington. By night, she explores her preternatural side. As a shape-shifter with some unusual talents, Mercy’s found herself maintaining a tenuous harmony between the human and the not-so- human on more than one occasion. This time she may get more than she bargained for. February 3

Crime Spells by Martin H. Greenberg
DAW. (ISBN: 978-0756405380) Paperback. Length: 320pp
When magic is used for criminal purposes, all sorts of ethical and logistical questions arise beyond the realm of everyday law and order. Now, sixteen top tale-tellers offer fascinating new stories of those who commit magic crimes, those who investigate them, and those who prosecute them. From a young woman who uses out-of-body excursions to research paranormal crimes to a bookie who’s been paying for hex protection against magical interference to an artist who does divination through his sketched visions which may lead to a murderer’s undoing, here are powerful tales of magical crimes and punishments. February 3

Dogs and Goddesses by Jennifer Crusie, Anne Stuart, Lani Diane Rich
St. Martin’s Paperbacks. (ISBN: 978-0312944377) Paperbacks. Length: 400pp
Abby has just arrived in Summerville, Ohio, with her placid Newfoundland, Bowser. She’s reluctantly inherited her grandmother’s coffee shop, but it’s not long before she’s brewing up trouble in the form of magical baked goods and steaming up her life with an exasperating college professor. And then there’s Daisy, a web code writer, and her hyperactive Jack Russell, Bailey. Her tightly-wound world spins out of control when she discovers the chaos within and meets a mysterious dog trainer whose teaching style is definitely hands-on. Finally there’s Shar, professor of ancient history at Summerville College, who wakes up one morning to find her neurotic dachshund, Wolfie, snarling at an implacable god sitting at her kitchen table, the first thing in her life she hasn’t been able to footnote. What on earth is going on in this unearthly little town? It’s up to Abby, Daisy, and Shar to find out before an ancient goddess takes over Southern Ohio, and they all end up in the apocalyptic doghouse… February 3
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This is entirely awesome, but if I had this etched on my laptop, I think that I’d have an anxiety attack trying to keep it from getting scuffed up.

Source: Revolvingdork’s Flickr Photostream

Books are for people who wish they were somewhere else.

- Mark Twain