The Great Geek Manual

Go to the edge of the cliff and jump off.
Build your wings on the way down.

- Ray Bradbury, in the Brown Daily Herald, March 24, 1995.

Art

• Something Awful looks at Classic movies recast through the eye of Photoshop.

Comics

• Cracked.com features an article on 6 Supervillains Who Were Actually OK Guys, forgetting Catwoman and a few others.

Film

• Moviehole (and SciFi Wire) are reporting rumors that Warner Brothers was forced to re-shoot the ending of Terminator Salvation because of the plot leaks that have made their way onto the web.

Internet

• SF Signal has posted a list of The 10 Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Author Blogs on Blogs.com.
• The psycho-thriller (read “slasher”) “Blank” has been released for free on Bittorrent by its crew. The idea is that if people like the movie, they can make a donation.

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Here we are living in a world of “identity crises,” and most of us have no idea what an identity is. Half the problem is that an identity is something which must be understood intuitively, rather than in terms of provable fact. An infinite question is often destroyed by finite answers. To define everything is to annihilate much that gives us laughter and joy.

- A Circle of Quiet by Madeleine L’Engle, 1972.

1840
Englishman John William Draper becomes the first person to successfully photograph the Moon. The image is a daguerreotype, the precursor of the photograph.

1903
The Wright Brothers apply for a patent for one of the first successful airplanes. View the original patent application.

1962
The world’s first nuclear-powered cargo-passenger ship, the NS Savannah, is launched as part of the Atoms for Peace initiative of US President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

1965
NASA launches Gemini III, nicknamed the “Molly Brown,” from Cape Canaveral. It is the United State’s first maneuverable two-man mission. The mission is crewed by astronauts Virgil Ivan “Gus” Grissom and John W. Young. The flight is the first for Young, who breaks quarantine regulations by smuggling a sandwich into orbit to share with Grissom. Before the end of the mission, Young will become the first man to eat a corned beef sandwich in space. Read more about the history of Project Gemini.
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I am too much of a skeptic to deny the possibility of anything.

- Thomas Henry Huxley in a letter to Herbert Spencer, March 22, 1886.

1457
The Gutenberg Bible is printed by Johannes Gutenberg. While it isn’t the very first book to be printed using Gutenberg’s movable type system, it will become the first popular work.

1895
The first motion picture shown on a screen is presented by Auguste and Louis Lumière during a private screening for the Société d’Encouragement à l’Industrie Nationale. An invited audience at forty-four spectators at the Rue de Rennes in Paris, France, viewed the film La Sortie des ouvriers de l’usine Lumière, a film they shot specially for the occasion. The film is a recording of workers leaving the Lumières’ own factory in Lyon, which manufactured photographic products. The workers stream out, most on foot, some with their bicycles, followed by those with cars. Several more such screenings will follow before the first public exhibition at the Salon Indien of the Grand Café at 14 Boulevard des Capucines in Paris on December 28. The Lumières will soon after began opening cinemas in Berlin, Brussels, London, and New York.

1935
Television broadcasts begin in Berlin, Germany, with a low definition, 180 line system.

1942
The BBC begins transmitting news bulletins in Morse code for the benefit of resistance fighters in mainland Europe.

1946
The first rocket built in the United States, one of the WAC Corporals, leaves the Earth’s atmosphere, a year after Germany had launched a rocket. The US rocket is launched from White Sands, New Mexico, and attains an altitude of fifty miles.
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Art

• Dvice has posted a Steampunk Cylon Gallery featuring “25 old-tyme robot designs.”

Film

• Daniel Powell explains Why the time is right for a Serenity sequel. I whole-heartedly agree, but, of course, if were up to me, Serenity would still be running on television.
• Geek Tyrant has posted 14 New Terminator Salvation Photos.

Internet

• If you’re struggling in a math class, then MathTV may be your solution. The site and its YouTube Channel feature videos that walk users through common math problems at every educational level up to calculus step-by-step.

Literature

• Free Fiction: Download “Seaborn” by Chris Howard at his personal website.
• Free Fiction: Read “The Broken Hourglass” by Andy Heizler at COSMOS Magazine.
• Free Fiction: Read “The Dry Spell” by James P Blaylock at Subterranean Online.
• Nominations for the 2009 Hugo Awards have been announced. Anathem, The Graveyard Book, Little Brother, Saturn’s Children, and Zoe’s Tale are the finalists in the Best Novel category.

Television

• Of course, all the media blogs are talking about BattleStar Galactica today. There are reviews, reviews, and even more reviews online from all the major newspapers. along with interviews from creator Ron Moore at Seattle Pi and the Star Ledger.

Writing

• Guy Gavriel Kay discusses how “a writer’s engagement with readers via blogs and websites creates a real relationship and unleashes the demands – sometimes angry demands – that go with it” in Release the Fans!