The Great Geek Manual

A part of my occupation, and by no means the least pleasing, is the direction of the studies of such young men as ask it. They place themselves in the neighboring village, and have the use of my library and counsel, and make a part of my society. In advising the course of their reading, I endeavor to keep their attention fixed on the main objects of all science, the freedom and happiness of man. So that coming to bear a share in the councils and government of their country, they will keep ever in view the sole objects of all legitimate government.

- Thomas Jefferson in a letter to General Thaddeus Kosciusko, February 26, 1810.

Note: This passage is very often quoted in the abbreviated form, “The main objects of all science, the freedom and happiness of man… [are] the sole objects of all legitimate government.” An even further abbreviated form, which omits the first phrase, appears on a plaque on the stairway of the Statue of Liberty. I don’t know why people bother, though. The complete passage is much more intriguing. A bit of a reading recommendation from one of our founding fathers.

1909
Kinemacolor films are shown to a paying audience for the first time at the Palace Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue in London, England. The show features twenty-one short films altogether.

1935
Scottish physicist Robert Watson-Watt demonstrates the feasibility of radar (RAdio Detection And Ranging) to Air Ministry officials in Daventry, England. Watson-Watt had discovered the possibility of using radio waves to detect aircraft while experimenting with methods of using radio waves to locate thunderstorms. During the demonstration, a bomber flying through the main beam of a BBC short-wave radio transmitter reflects signals to the ground as it passes overhead. Read more about the early history of radar.

1966
The first Saturn 1B rocket is launched from Cape Canaveral,on an unmanned suborbital test flight, as part of the Apollo program. The AS-201 mission demonstrates the structural integrity of the Saturn 1B rocket, which combines five F-1 rocket engines, and its ability as a launch vehicle to carry future Apollo loads with its 7.5 million pounds of thrust. Despite several malfunctions, the rocket flies for thirty-seven minutes over 5,264 miles (8472 km), reaching a peak altitude of 303 miles (488 km).

1970
National Public Radio (NPR) is incorporated as a non-profit corporation. Visit the official NPR website.

1986
Warrants are issued for the arrest of seven local users of the The Phoenix Fortress BBS in Fremont, California. The Sysop turns out to be a local law enforcement agent and the board turns out to be a sting operation created to catch hackers and pirates. Three of the arrested users are fifteen years old, two are sixteen, one is seventeen, and one is nineteen. Their computers and some additional equipment is confiscated.
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Source: Unique Daily

Film

• The full Transformers 2 trailer has been leaked online.
• Top Ten Signs Your Film Is Not Going To Win An Academy Award.
• Welt Online names the Hottest Under-25s of film.

Internet

• AOL’s Money & Finance blog runs down the list of The Twenty Five Most Valuable Blogs.
• The Chicago Tribune asks, Can we build Iron Man’s suit… and “Why isn’t anyone buying our paper anymore?
• The Physics of the Death Star raises the question of how powerful the Force really is.

Literature

• Free Fiction: Don’t forget! Each Tuesday, Jim Butcher is posting a preview chapter of his upcoming book Turn Coat on his website.
• Free Fiction: Read “A Four-Sided Triangle: A Lucifer Jones story” by Mike Resnick at Subterranean.
• Ever wonder how much the Most Expensive Books Ever Sold cost? Short answer: More than you’ve got.
• George R. R. Martin bids a fond “Fuck off” to fans who feel it necessary to voice their irritation over the delay of his next book, “Dances with Dragons.” Charles Stross backs him 100%
• Locus Magazine has posted an index of Science Fiction Literary Awards.
• The New York Times’ David Pogue likes the Kindle 2’s redesign.

Television

• The Claremont Institute asks Is There Intelligent Life on Television?
• Eliza Dushku swears Dollhouse will be in full swing by episode six …so… I’m guessing Fox will cancel it about episode twelve.

Video Games

• Cracked looks at 10 Video Games That Should Be Considered Modern Art.

New Releases

The following books will be released this week:

The Better to Hold You by Alisa Sheckley
Del Rey. (ISBN: 978-0345505873) Paperback. Length: 336pp
Manhattan veterinarian Abra Barrow has more sense about animals than she has about men. So when her adored journalist husband returns from a research trip to Romania and starts pacing their apartment like a caged wolf, Abra agrees to move with him to a rural mansion upstate in order to save her marriage. But Abra soon discovers that nothing in the bucolic town of Northside is what it seems. The local tavern serves a dangerous, predatory underworld. As the moon waxes full, Abra must choose between trusting the man she married, taking a chance on a seductive stranger, or following her own animal instincts. February 24

City without End by Kay Kenyon
Pyr. (ISBN: 978-1591026983) Hardcover. Length: 433pp
Book 3 of the Entire and the Rose. On this stage unfolds a mighty struggle for dominance between two universes. Titus Quinn has forged an unstable peace with the Tarig lords. The ruinous capability of the nanotech surge weapon he possesses ensures d‚tente. But it is a sham. In what the godwoman Zhiya calls “a fit of moral goodness,” he’s thrown the weapon into the space-folding waters of the Nigh. This clears the way for an enemy he could have never foreseen: the people of the Rose. A small cadre led by Helice Maki is determined to take the Entire for itself and leave the earth in ruins. The transform of earth will begin deep in a western desert and will sweep over the lives of ordinary people, entangling Quinn’s sister-in-law Caitlin in a deepening and ultimate conspiracy. February 24
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There’s nothing more dangerous than a resourceful idiot.

Building a Better Life by Stealing Office Supplies: Dogbert’s Big Book of Business by Scott Adams, 1991.
Character: Dogbert

1616
After asserting that the Earth moves around the Sun, Galileo Galilei is told by Cardinal Bellarmine “to give up altogether the false doctrine… and if you should refuse.. you should be imprisoned.”

1836
Samuel Colt patents the revolver. In the patent, Colt describes “the many advantages in the use of these guns,” including “the great rapidity in the succession of discharges, which is effected merely by drawing back the hammer and pulling the trigger,” “the facility in loading them,” and “the weight and location of the cylinder, which give steadiness to the hand.” Read more about the history of Colt at the Web Archive.

1837
Thomas Davenport, a Vermont blacksmith, patents the first practical electrical motor as “an application of magnetism and electro-magnetism to propelling machinery.” (US No. 132) The rotating electromagnets have cores of soft iron, wound with copper wire insulated with layers of silk. The wires from the coil run parallel down the shaft to touch copper contacts on the base. These wires make contact with different plates at each half-turn. When the contacts are connected to opposite poles of the battery supplying current, provision is made to reverse the direction of the current in the rotating coils at each half-turn such that magnetic repulsion is maintained between the rotating coil and the pole of the fixed magnet they face at that point in the shaft’s rotation. Read more about the Electric Motor in the Mechanical Engineering article, “The Blacksmith’s Motor. Electricity, magnetism, and motion: A self-taught Vermonter pointed the direction for lighting the world” by Fran Wicks at the Mechanical Engineering archives.

1899
The first car accident fatality involving a vehicle powered by a gasoline-fueled engine occurs in Grove Hill Harrow, England. The accident occurs while the car, a Daimler Wagonette, is being demonstrated to Major James Richer, Department Head of the Army & Navy Stores. Mr. Sewell, the driver, is killed on the spot, but the passenger, Major Richer, dies four days later, never having regained consciousness. Richer will be Britain’s first vehicular passenger fatality. About a year earlier, on February 12, 1898, Henry Lindfield will become the first person to die in a collision.
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From Around the Web

11 Free And Useful Open-Source Alternatives For Designers – Set of helpful open-source alternatives for designers that will save their time and increase their efficiency and productivity.

Apple Mafia: How Apple’s Culture Infected Silicon Valley – “If the technology industry has a soul, Apple’s employees are its keepers. And more than a few companies have tried to replicate a little of the Cupertino, Calif.-based company’s success by hiring Apple employees. The result: Former Apple employees have taken the lead in efforts to take far-out new technologies to mass audiences.”

AVAILABLE ONLINE FOR FREE – You know you think it every time you walk into a video store. Why the hell are people still paying twenty bucks a pop for movies they could get for free. Express your disdain with these cheeky stickers.

Bot-Mediated Reality – Over at FORA.tv, Daniel Suarez, the author of “Daemon,” discusses the all pervasive presence of automated bots in our daily lives. It not only makes his book more plausible, but it’s also a bit like a geek campfire story.

Raven – Aviary has just released Raven, the first full-featured online vector editor, complete with a range of features that rival commercial suites.

The Ultimate Guide To Watching TV Online – Tech Crunch shares a directory of the most popular video services on the web for those with high-speed connections who don’t feel like springing for Teevo.
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