The Great Geek Manual

Art

• Greg Brotherton produces beautiful science fiction-themed metal sculptures of robots.

Comics

• Gee whiz, Girls Read Comics, too?
• The latest news is that Marvel will start selling digital comic books on iTunes.

Film

• The AV Club runs down a list of 15 Great Gearshift Movies, starting with that all-time classic suspense film, Psycho.

Literature

• Free Fiction: Read “The Men Burned All the Boats” by Patricia Russo at Fantasy Magazine.
• Free Fiction: Read “The People of the Black Circle” by Robert E. Howard at Manybooks.
• Christianity Today writes faith and science fiction: “We live in an age in which new myths, born mostly of science-fueled imaginations, are crafted and propagated at an unprecedented rate.”
• Futurismic discusses the optimism of global science fiction: “…the big question here is whether a nation’s artistic output passively reflects its political and economic aspirations, or whether instead it can be used to influence and change those attitudes.”

Television

• For those who find themselves completely LOST, Docarzt offers Time Travel for Dummies.

Video Games

• PC World takes yet another stab at choosing The Ten Greatest PC Games Ever.
• Tumeroks has posted a gallery of 50 Sexy Video Game Babes You Should Drool For, most of which are either ninjas or samurai wearing clothes that involve improbably little (physics-defying) cloth.

From Around the Web

20 Ways To Increase The Life Of Your Laptop’s Battery – Mobile computing has got better with lighter components, better chips and faster processors. But the Achilles heel of a laptop has remained its battery.

50 Skills Every Real Geek Should Have – MaximumPC expands upon the things that every self-respecting, self-proclaimed geek ought to be able to do… though it strikes out on several items such as calculating a pitcher’s earned run average? WTF?

Google Earth 5.0 Beta Released – Google’s 3D mapping application Google Earth has just released version 5.0, adding historical imagery, maps of the ocean’s floor, and even better features for touring the world from your desktop.

Gmail Poised to Surpass Hotmail by End of 2009 – The growth of Google’s Gmail service is accelerating and, if current trends continue, it could surpass Windows Live Hotmail by the end of this year.

Seven Cool Things to Do with Linux – Once you’ve gotten a box set up with Linux, what do you do next? Dave Hayes makes suggestions and points the way to the utilities you’ll need.

The 100 Most Popular Photoshop Tutorials 2008 – The Photoshop Lady serves up the cream de’la cream of the internet’s tutorials

Who’s Messing with Wikipedia? – Tools to expose the interests and biases of the hidden army of Wikipedia article writers and editors.

Windows XP’s Days are Really Numbered Now – Microsoft will shove Windows XP into retirement in the next few months by cutting back technical support.

Tech News

10 Things a Web Designer would Never Tell You

The Complete Guide to Windows 7 Beta

Sales of PCs falling for first time in eight years

UK Teens view 87 Hours of Porn per Year

1840
Queen Victoria marries her cousin Prince Albert of Saxe Coburg-Gotha. Victoria is a known carrier of the hemophilia gene. When she passes the disease to a number of her descendants, the family will become the most famous case study in the genetics field.

1948
Thomas Watson Sr. issues a directive to International Business Machines (IBM) headquarters ordering the planning of “a machine of the same type as the Harvard Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator (ASCC) to meet the requirements of the ordinary businesses we serve.” The Selective Sequence Controlled Calculator (SSEC), which will be completed on January 27, 1948, will be the result of the development. Visit the official IBM website.

1957
Allied Artists releases the sci-fi film Not of This Earth, directed by Roger Corman and starring Paul Birch, Beverly Garland, and Morgan Jones, to US theaters. An alien agent from the planet Davana comes to Earth via a high-tech matter transporter in order to acquire blood for his dying race, the result of a devastating nuclear war. IMDB listing Running Time: 1 hr 7 mins

1961
The Niagara Falls hydroelectric project begins producing power.

1970
The International Business Machines (IBM) Data Processing Division (DPD) introduces the IBM 2880 block multiplexer channel and the IBM 2305 fixed head storage facility for IBM System/360 Models 85 and 195. Visit the official IBM website.
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“Let me tell you the story of the most successful organism of all time: this is the story of the parasite. … Early on, evolution branched into two distinct paths: independent organisms—those that exist on their own in the natural world—and parasites—organisms that live on other organisms. And it was, by far, the parasites that proved the more successful of the two branches. Today, for every independent organism in nature, there exist three parasites. … These two strains of evolution have been locked in a primordial arms race, constantly evolving to best each other for supremacy of this planet. As parasites evolve to perfect their systems against a species of host, the host evolves to evade their attack. Scientists call this theory of an eternal genetic struggle the Red Queen Hypothesis—a name taken from Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass.”

Daemon by Daniel Suarez, 2006.
Chapter 31: Red Queen Hypothesis, Character: Sobol

I just finished this book… AWESOME.

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Alright, this might be a bit cynical, but is that dude just a bit too good looking to be in the WoW top ten? And with that girlfriend? I think I smell exaggeration in the air… or something. Cuz he looks like he should be on his porch playing with a hacky sac to me.

Yeah, I know. Every blog on the net has posted this video because its “Awwww” factor is off the scale. Little asian kids kick even kitten ass in the adorability department. Still.

Awwww.

(How long do you think before some casts this little tyke in some gruesome horror flick as the kid that needs to be rescued?)

Art

• This may be the best Worth 1000 Photo Contest ever. Star Wars Renaissance Part Deux.

Film

• The Blog of Cult Things has posted a great gallery of vintage science fiction posters: [Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4]
• io9 looks back at The 12 Best UFOs That Ever Invaded Movie Screens
• The TimesOnline runs lists 20 film sequels that were better than the original.
• Wired’s Underwire blog contemplates 5 Actresses Who Could Replace Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft. Personally, I don’t see what’s wrong with a model like Alison Carroll. I mean, seriously, why do you even need an actress. Does anyone actually give a shit about the dialog of those films?

Internet

• Check out this Visualization of the edits to the Wikipedia article on Evolution.
• io9 look back at The Greatest Inventions Nikola Tesla Never Created.

Television

• According to the Winter is Coming blog, the actual script for the upcoming Game of Thrones series has been leaked. Download it here.

Video Games

• The Best Games of 2008 PCWorld claims you’ve never played. Thanks PCWorld, but I’ve actually played most of these.
• Kotaku presents: If Video Games were Novels.

Writing

• AlphaDictionary has posted lists of The 100 Funniest Words in English and The 100 Most Beautiful Words in English.
• This directory of the Top 100 Creative Writing Blogs covers everything from news to tutorials.

1497
Nicolaus Copernicus observes the Moon eclipse the star Aldebaran.

1949
The world’s first Department of Space Medicine is established at the United States Air Force School of Aviation Medicine at Randolph Field, Texas, and Dr. Hubertus Strughold becomes the first professor of Space Medicine.

1967
The Star Trek episode “The Return of the Archons” first airs. (No. 21) In it, crew encounters a world with where a dysfunctional society is completely controlled by a mysterious leader named Landru. Memory Alpha entry

1967
The Star Trek episode “Return to Tomorrow” first airs. (No. 49) In it, telepathic aliens take possession of Kirk and Spock’s to build new, mechanical bodies for themselves. Memory Alpha entry
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