The Great Geek Manual

399 BCE
The philosopher Socrates, who will widely be credited with the laying the foundations of Western philosophy, is sentenced to death.

1897
Ferdinand Braun publishes a paper in the journal Annalen der Physik und Chemie describing his “Braun tube”, which is the first cathode-ray oscilloscope. He developed the oscilloscope as a method to record and study the time dependence of alternating currents. Cathode-ray tubes had previously been characterized by uncontrolled rays. Braun produced a narrow stream of electrons, guided by means of alternating voltage, that could be traced on a fluorescent screen. A coil wrapped around the Braun tube produces a vertical deflection of the electron beam. Horizontal deflection of the image to create a “time” axis is achieved by a small rapidly rotating mirror placed in front of the CRT. The development of this first CRT is the culmination of many centuries of research and many integral discoveries, including: the first manmade phosphor (1603), the first gas discharge tube (1751), the first production of light by exciting a phosphor with an electrical discharge (1768), and the first magnetic (1859) and electrostatic (1876) deflection of cathode-rays. Along the way, discoveries by such famous names as Bernoulli, Faraday and Hertz contributed to the sum of knowledge which allowed Karl Ferdinand Braun to combine them in what became known as the Braun tube (1897).

1903
The first teddy bear is introduced in America. It is made by two Russian immigrants, Morris and Rose Michtom, who own a toy and novelty store in Brooklyn, New York. In the US, it is widely believed that they derived the name “teddy bear” from President Theodore Roosevelt’s nickname, “Teddy.” While bear hunting in Mississippi in 1902, Roosevelt decided to spare the life of a bear cub which had been orphaned during the hunt. The event was the subject of a cartoon in the Washington Post seen by the Michtoms. Inspired by the cartoon, Mrs. Michtom made a toy bear which became enormously popular with the public.
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Over at the What to Fix blog, Daniel compares the increasingly-pervasive technology of today to the use of Heroin in early North America in this thought-provoking essay.

In 1850 people didn’t know how their favorite symphony sounded. Back then, it was common for musicians to work hectic schedules and perform multiple shows in a row. Instruments were frequently out of tune and good, consistent timing was fairly new. In addition, going to the symphony was a big deal: you dressed up, you hitched up the horses, you went into town.

You might only hear your favorite symphony 5 or 6 times in your life. Each time it was probably slightly in a different key, with a slightly different tempo, played with slightly different instruments, and each time you actively strained to hear and remember how it all sounded.

You would sit very attentively, absorbing each and every note and drumbeat of the symphony. It was a play, a painting, an imaginary world come to life, and you were living in it. It was magic.

Source: What to Fix

Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.

- Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein, 1961.

278 AD
Saint Valentine is beheaded and buried at the Via Flaminia north of Rome. Learn more about the history of Valentine’s Day.

498 AD
This date is sometimes cited as the first observance of St. Valentine’s Day by the declaration of Pope Gelasius. Read more about the history of Valentine’s Day.

1876
Alexander Graham Bell applies for a patent on his telephone apparatus, the “speaking telegraph,” less than three hours before Elisha Gray files a caveat at the Patent Office for a similar device. The patent will be granted three weeks later, on March 3rd. After a long legal battle, the United States Supreme Court will eventually uphold Bell’s patent, leaving him the official inventor of the telephone.

1888
Thomas Alva Edison is issued a patent for a “Telephone-Transmitter.” (US No. 278,044)
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From Around the Web

100 Powerful Web Tools to Organize Your Thoughts and Ideas – This list encompasses everything you’d need to do some really first rate library research.

Backing up your Delicious bookmarks – Given that some people are getting concerned over their content with the bookmarking site Magnolia down, the ability to export Delicious bookmarks may be useful.

Build the Perfect PC – Maximum PC offers up an illustrated step-by-step how-to guide that anyone can follow.

Earth Cam – Each month, this site selects the most intriguing webcam feeds available from around the web and across the world.

Escape from City 17 – Here’s episode 1 of “Escape from City 17″, a live action film series set in the Half Life MMORPG universe.

Simulating Multiple Gmail Inboxes – A demonstration of GMail’s multiple-pane capabilities that comes in handy if you’re a heavy user of Gmail.

Ten Gmail Labs Features You Should Enable – Really, there’s no keeping track of all the gizmos Google comes up with, but here are a few it’s useful to keep ready and on hand.

Top Ten Geek Haircuts – A photo gallery for your gawking pleasure.

Tech News

Apple Says Jailbreaking iPhones Is Illegal, Dammit
If Pirate Bay is Shut Down, It Could Take All of BitTorrent With It
Canadian judge finds “no reasonable expectation of privacy” for ISP subscriber data
Plastic film could make house lights obsolete
Samsung Touchscreen Demo at CES
Top 10 Reflections From a First Time TEDster

OMG. I laughed until my ribs hurt.

“I got a girlfriend.”
“Like, on Second Life or something?”

Source: Barely Digital

Film

• The List Universe’s choice not to include Kubrick’s The Shining in its Top 15 Movies Based on Stephen King Stories urks me to no end. True, it didn’t follow the novel to the letter, but it’s one of the classics that every film student watches for good reason.

Internet

• The International Society of Supervillains calls out 10 Supervillains Who Need New Catchphrases.

Literature

• Interview: Art & Literature interviews Lewis Shiner, author of “Black & White”.
• Author John Scalzi has launched a new site, BigIdeaAuthors.com. The site is designed to inform readers about new books, entertain them through author essays, appearances and interviews, and motivate them to discuss books them with others.
• I didn’t need any convincing, but it’s always nice to have your own opinion validated: Why Fantasy Is Still Awesome.
• The Magic District is the newest fantasy group blog. It’s authors include Tim Pratt and Greg van Eekhout and strikes me as interesting reading.
• Neil Gaiman explains his take on the issue of whether or not the Amazon Kindle’s text-to-speech function infringes on copyright.
• The Shirley Jackson Awards is holding a lottery to raise funds for the award… though I’m not certain anyone who has ever read Jackson’s works would actually enter.

Television

• io9 previews the first three episodes of Dollhouse, the new Joss Whedon and Eliza Dushku scifi spy series.
• The eleventh Doctor, Matthew Smith, has been signed for a three year stint on Doctor Who.

Writing

• The Paperback Writer explains the The 22 Immutable Laws of Publishing.

Writing

• IGN lampoons 10 First-Person Shooter Cliches.
• Unreality has posted videos of The Top 15 Funniest Halo Deaths.

1588
Tycho Brahe first outlines his “Tychonic system” idea of the structure of the solar system. The Tychonic system is a hybrid, sharing both the basic idea of the geocentric system of Ptolemy, and the heliocentric idea of Nicholas Copernicus. In his De mundi aethorei recentioribus phaenomenis, Brahe’s proposal, retaining Aristotelian physics, kept the the Sun and Moon revolving about Earth in the center of the universe and, at a great distance, the shell of the fixed stars was centered on the Earth. But like Copernicus, he agreed that Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn revolved about the Sun. Thus he could explain the motions of the heavens without “crystal spheres” carrying the planets through complex Ptolemaic epicycles.

1633
Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei arrives in Rome for his trial before the Inquisition, during which he will be charged with professing the belief that the Earth revolves around the Sun. Enemies of Galileo had convinced Pope Urban VIII that the character Simplicio in the Dialogue ineptly defending the Ptolemaic system, was a thinly veiled caricature of himself. A document would be produced alleging that Bellarmine forbade Galileo from discussing Copernican ideas in any way. (Modern scholars determined this document to be a forgery). Galileo faces two charges: disobeying Bellarmine’s order and misleading censors who had published his book. Humiliated and threatened with torture, Galileo will have no choice but to admit guilt, and “abjure, curse and detest the aforesaid errors and heresies…”
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