The Great Geek Manual

1648
Margaret Jones is hanged in Boston for witchcraft in the first such execution for the Massachusetts colony.

1822
Charles Babbage announces his invention of a small mechanical difference engine able to carry out complex operations at a rate of about twelve calculations a minute mechanically in a paper entitled, “Note on the application of machinery to the computation of astronomical and mathematical tables,” which he reads to the Royal Astronomical Society in London, England. In 1823, he will begin constructing an industrial strength calculator, which he will be abandon in 1834 due to a series technical and bureaucratic problems.

1834
The first US patent for a practical underwater diving suit is issued to Leonard Norcross of Dixfield, Maine. Calling it a “Diving Armor,” he designed the airtight leather outfit with a brass helmet connected via a rubber hose to an air bellows pump on a boat. To reduce buoyancy, the feet of the suit are weighted with lead shot. In May 1834, one month earlier, he tested the diving suit in the Webb River. Norcross will later name his son Submarinus in honor of the achievement. The first truly effective diving suit with a pump is attributed to Englishman Augustus Siebe, in 1829.
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1611
Narratio de maculis in sole observatis et apparente earum cum sole conversione (Narration on Spots Observed on the Sun and their Apparent Rotation with the Sun), a publication concerning the newly discovered phenomenon of sunspots is dedicated. This first publication on such observations, is the work of Johannes Fabricius, a Dutch astronomer who was perhaps the first ever to observe sunspots. On March 9, 1611, at dawn, Johannes had used his telescope to view the rising sun and had seen several dark spots on it. He called his father to investigate this new phenomenon with him. The brightness of the Sun’s center was very painful, and the two quickly switched to a projection method of observation, by means of a camera obscura.

1925
Charles Francis Jenkins gives the first public demonstration of the first mechanical television system that transmits “readily recognizable moving objects” from the Naval radio station NOF at Anacostia to his laboratory, both in Washington D.C. He calls his system “visions by radio.” It transmits images at a resolution of forty-eight scanning lines to depict a model of a Dutch windmill with turning blades.

1944
Marvin Camras is granted several patents for the wire recorder, an early precursor of the later magnetic tape recorder. (US No. 2,351,004; -11)

1983
The NASA space probe Pioneer 10 crosses the orbit of Neptune, becoming the first man-made object to leave the Solar System. It was launched on March 2, 1972 in a straight line away from the Sun at a constant velocity of about 12 km/sec toward the red star Aldebaran, which forms the eye of the constellation Taurus (The Bull).
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Technology inspires art, and art challenges technology.

- John Lasseter

ZERG CAKE!

Comics

• Eco-comics very elaborately pokes holes in Jeph Loeb’s take on Batman’s rogue gallery. It made for a good read, but I couldn’t help but chuckle over how much the argument sounds like dialog written to sound like a geek argument. Try imagining it as a conversation between the characters on Big Bang Theory.

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1897
The Swiss Army Knife is patented by Carl Elsener. Beginning in 1891, regular Swiss army soldiers will receive a version of the knife containing a thick knife blade, two screwdrivers, a can opener, and an awl, otherwise known as a punch. Officers will receive swiss army knives also containing a corkscrew.

1906
The concept of sound movies is patented by John Ballance. (US No. 823,022)

1913
Pathé Frères studios releases the first animated cartoon made in the US with modern techniques, Dachshund (also known as The Artist’s Dream). John Randolph Bray invented and patented the process while producing the film. In it, a dog eats sausages until it explodes. Bray began his career as an artist for a newspaper. He patented many of his improvements on the animation process, realizing early on the business potential of these developments. One of these innovations was the use of translucent paper to make it easier to position objects in successive drawings.

1928
The first outdoor television transmission is made by John Logie Baird from the roof of his house at 133 Long Acre, London. The broadcast features actor Jack Buchanan.
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The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.

- The Road Ahead by Bill Gates, 1995.

1889
Thomas Edison is issued a patent for an “Electrical Distribution System.” (U.S. No. 404,902)

1892
Limelight Department, one of the first film studios, is established in Melbourne, Australia.

1895
The first US patent for a gasoline-driven automobile by a US inventor is issued to Charles E. Duryea. (US No. 540,648)

1901
Thomas Edison is granted a patent for a “Phonographic Recording Apparatus.” (US No. 676,225)

1928
A rocket is attached to an aircraft for the first time. The aircraft is a glider, and the experiment is directed by German aircraft designer Alexander Lippisch. The glider launches under the power of one rocket and an elastic launching rope that acts as a slingshot. Once it is in flight a second rocket is fired. The glider manages to fly a mile before falling apart in the air and crashing. Although the pilot survives, the experiment marks an inauspicious start to the era of rocket-powered flight.
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On all levels primary, and secondary and undergraduate – mathematics is taught as an isolated subject with few, if any, ties to the real world. To students, mathematics appears to deal almost entirely with things whlch are of no concern at all to man. …mathematics is expected either to be immediately attractive to students on its own merits or to be accepted by students solely on the basis of the teacher’s assurance that it will be helpful in later life. [And yet,] mathematlcs is the key to understanding and mastering our physical, social and biological worlds.

- Translated from an editorial written by Morris Kline for his June 11, 1992 obituary in the New York Times.