The Great Geek Manual

Jean-Paul Sartre declared that the ultimate and final freedom that cannot be taken from a person is the ability to say “no.” To keep silent even in the face of torture or death is humanity’s most powerful, final act of will. What if that ability were to be lost? What if that final freedom is taken away and information can be taken from a person despite their act of resistance? Something precious will have been lost to the human condition because our inner lives will no longer be ours alone.

- “Is My Mind Mine? How neuroimaging will affect personal freedom.” by Paul Root Wolpe, October 9, 2009.

No serious, why would you go in there? That there is the wrong effening bookstore no matter what you’re looking for.

Art

• 130 Halloween Pumpkin Carvings for Your Inspiration.
• Adam Crowe has posted an amazing infographic of NASA’s 50 Years of Space Exploration.
• Alastair Levy is photographer whose subject matter consists of everyday objects, each with its own little twist.

Comics

• Create Your Own Marvel Comic Book, no experience necessary.

Film

• Interview: The New Yorker profiles director James Cameron.
• SciFi Wire looks back at the 10 most nightmarish movie prom nights.

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1879
Thomas Edison perfects the first commercially practical incandescent light bulb using a filament of carbonized cotton sewing thread at his laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey. His first new bulb lasts approximately 13½ hours before burning out, but in subsequent tests, the life of the bulb will be increased to forty hours. The idea of electric lighting isn’t new, several people had worked on and even developed forms of electric lighting, such the arc lamp. However, no current light method is practical for residential use. Edison set out to design a lamp with soft light that was lightweight and economical as simple to operate as gas lamps but without the foul smell. The discovery comes after Edison tested over six thousand vegetable fibers, including bamboo, baywood, boxwood, hickory, cedar, and flax, for suitability. It required eighteen months of work, US$40,000, and 1,200 experiments.

1915
American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) and Western Electric Company (WE) transmit the first transatlantic message over radio telephone. The call is placed by B. Webb of AT&T from Arlington, Virginia, to the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France through relay points in Canada. The test of radiotelephony represents a significant advance in technology brought about by the development of vacuum-tube transmitters and receivers, which had previously been limited to a range of roughly ten miles. In addition to conversation, the capabilities of the connection are also demonstrated with music.

1918
Margaret Owen of New York City sets a world typing record of 170 words per minute on a manual typewriter.

1925
The Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company publicly demonstrates the first photoelectric cell at the Electrical Show at Grand Central Palace in New York. The sensitivity of the photocell to light is used to count objects as they interrupt a beam of light. The device is also used to open doors as a person or car approaches in a more practical demonstration.
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We were put here as witnesses to the miracle of life. We see the stars, and we want them. We are beholden to give back to the universe…. If we make landfall on another star system, we become immortal.

- Ray Bradbury, in a speech to the National School Board Association, 1995.

Art

• Check out the promo poster for The Simpsons Treehouse of Terror.
• The Chicago Tribune shares a gallery of 25 inspirational pumpkin carvings (most of which you’ve probably seen before.)
• RX Fresh has a gallery of Superheros photoshoped into historical war photos.
• Screen Junkies envisions 8 R-Rated Movies as Kids Books.

Film

• Not everyone is loving Where the Wild Things Are. Evidently Parents are bored and kids depressed by the flick, which targets an older audience than the book.
• Turns out, Science Fiction is choked full of Lurid, Bizarre Dream Sequences.

Internet

• Mozealous explains How Twitter Can Save Your Life in a Zombie Apocalypse.
• Topless Robot counts down The 10 Hottest Ladies of Dungeons & Dragons.

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To discover great hacks, we must always be searching for the true nature of our reality, while acknowledging that we do not currently possess the truth, and never will.

- Paul Buchheit

1906
Dr. Lee DeForest, one of the “fathers of radio,” announces his three-element electrical vacuum tube, later known as a triode, to a meeting of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE). He had discovered that when a mesh of wire is placed between the filament and collector “plate” in a diode tube, a large voltage-amplifying effect was produced. This ability to amplify weak signals will make long-distance communication possible for the first time.

1955
George Allen & Unwin, Ltd. publishes the fantasy novel The Return of the King by J. R. R. Tolkien. It’s the third and final book in the The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

1960
The length of the meter is redefined by the international body Conférence Générale des Poids et Mesures (General Conference on Weights and Measures) to make the measure more accurate. Originally, the measure was one ten-millionth of the distance from the North Pole to the equator. Following the conference, the meter is re-defined as 1,650,763.73 wavelengths in a vacuum of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the 2p¹⁰ and 5d⁵ quantum levels of the krypton-86 atom.
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