The Great Geek Manual

The evolution of asynchronous network time has meant that for the first time since the beginning of the industrial revolution, humans are able to create and experience timescapes that are not synchronized to, or sublimated by, the logic of the clock. This process is set to become yet more profound through developments in advanced computing. Humans, as active agents in an amorphous and emergent network ecology, will potentially be able to create their own timescapes. These will not be based upon or dominated by the abstract logic of the mechanical clock, but will be an asynchronous temporality that is predicated upon the interaction of innate human timescapes coupled (literally, as the active research into Negropontean cyborg theory shows) with molecular level computing.

- “Timescapes of the Network Society” by Robert Hassan at Fast Capitalism, 2005.

Book: The Lost Symbol
ISBN-13: 978-0385504225

Author: Dan Brown
Series: Robert Langdon Series
Publisher: Doubleday Books
Genre: Suspense Thriller
Release: September 15, 2009
Length: 528 pages (Hardcover)

Rating: C+

Verdict

Hardcore fans of Brown’s previous works, Angels & Demons and The Da Vinci Code, are certain to enjoy The Lost Symbol. It’s choked full of all the qualities that made the first two books international bestsellers, but for many readers, this book is going to be one volume too much for Brown’s formula to bear.

Pros: This book is a fast-paced page-tuner. It features the same type of great info-tainment quality as the previous two books.

Cons: The book’s plot is formulaic, predictable, and ultimately anti-climactic. The “secret” at the center of the book is a severe disappointment, and at the end of the book, Brown launches into a full-on sermon, ruining what very little emotional impact the story held.

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Book Releases

• The Grave Thief (Twilight Reign) by Tom Lloyd
  Pyr. (ISBN-13: 978-1591027805) Paperback. Length: 491pp

• Legacy: The Becoming by Dew Platt
  Gazelle Distribution Trade. (ISBN-13: 978-1600430824) Paperback. Length: 250pp

• Pinocchio: Vampire Slayer by Dustin Higgins
  Slave Labor Graphics. (ISBN-13: 978-1593621766) Paperback. Length: 128pp

• The Quiet War by Paul J. McAuley
  Pyr. (ISBN-13: 978-1591027812) Paperback. Length: 405pp

• The Year of the Flood: A Novel by Margaret Atwood
  Nan A. Talese. (ISBN-13: 978-0385528771) Hardcover. Length: 448pp

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Art

• Amartinsdebarros presents “The Art Scholar,” an oil painting on canvas.
• VolpinProps explains the process behind his creation of a Big Daddy Bioshock costume.

Comics

• The recent Kirby lawsuit raises the question of Who Created Spider-Man.
• The Comics Alliance has compiled a list of The 11 Great Comic Book Robots that doesn’t go how you might guess.

Film

• Interview: Michael Caine On Batman 3: “There Is No Johnny Depp.”
• News: It’s official, Disney has optioned Disney optioned On Stranger Tides for use as the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie.
• Den of Geek picks the Top 10 Movie Re-Edits, including Leon and Daredevil.
• MovieFill presents an infographic Comparing Disney and Marvel.
• The Spill counts down 10 Overwhelmingly Claustrophobic Movies.

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1642
Harvard College in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the oldest college in the United States, holds its first commencement exercises.

1837
Morse enters into an agreement with Alfred Vail, whose father owns Speedwell Iron Works. Morse develops his caveat showing the invention and alphabet code. It is sent to his old classmate and Commissioner of Patents, Henry L. Ellsworth, in Washington.

1846
German astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle verifies the position of the eighth planet, Neptune, as predicted through astronomical calculations made by French astronomer Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier and British astronomer John Couch Adams. Galle discovers Neptune after only an hour of searching, within one degree of the position that had been computed by Le Verrier. Independently of the English astronomer John C. Adams, Le Verrier had calculated the size and position of a previously unknown planet, which he assumed influenced the irregular orbit of Uranus, and he asked Galle to look for it.
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Through ubiquitous computing and ever more dense levels of interconnectivity, the network society has evolved. This is both extraordinary and unprecedented, as it constitutes the creation (at least in potential) of a network environment; a network ecology that contains its own digitally created spaces and times.

- “Timescapes of the Network Society” by Robert Hassan at Fast Capitalism, 2005.

Resources

6 Facebook Hack Codes And Tips To Show Off Your Geeky Skills – The top 6 of my favorite Facebook “hack” codes and tips to other Facebook enthusiasts out there.

10 Revealing Infographics about the Web – Six Revisions offers up a variety of infographics and visualizations associated with the internet. You might just learn a thing or two about the web by looking at these awesome artworks!

Amazon SimpleDB – Last week, Amazon Web Services unveiled another service in its portfolio of simple web-driven services. The Simple Database Service. A counterpart to Amazon S3, SimpleDB allows developers to create and search large databases, but there are a few wrinkles that set it apart from the standard relational database model.

Most common passwords – If you see a password you use on this list, change it. Though, honestly, who still uses “password” as a password. That’s so 1995.

WhiteSmoke – This much-vaunted editing software claims to be as good an English professor when it comes to finding and pointing out the flaws in your writing, and it’s available for free! Is this the end of run-on sentences here at The Great Geek Manual? Tune in next week to find out.
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