The Great Geek Manual

1862
Telescope maker Alvin Clark discovers the dwarf star which is the companion of Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky.

1893
Thomas Edison is issued two patents. (US No. 490,953 -4) The first patent is described as the “Art of Generating Electricity” for a cell made with positive and negative electrodes in a heated chamber containing dry chemicals which are sufficiently exhausted for the gases generated to become good electrical conductors. The second patent is described as the “Manufacture of Carbon Filaments for Electric Lamps.” In it, Edison describes the process of heating vegetable fibers, such as bamboo, in a furnace until the fibers are carbonized, before soaking them in a sugar syrup to fill the material’s pores before reheating them until they are wholly carbonized. This process is fundamental to the creation of incandescent bulbs.

1930
The 3M Company first begins to market Scotch Tape. Visit the official 3M website.

1936
The Green Hornet premieres on radio station WXYZ in Detroit, Michigan, the same station that produces The Lone Ranger. The radio program will later spawn a television and comics series. Visit the official website of The Green Hornet franchise.
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If written language is merely a technology for transferring information, then it can and should be replaced by a newer technology that performs the same function more fully and effectively. But it’s up to us, as the consumers and producers of technology, to insist that the would-be replacement demonstrate authentic superiority. It’s not enough for new devices, systems, and gizmos to simply be more expedient than what they are replacing—as the Gatling gun was over the rifle—or more marketable—as unfiltered cigarettes were over pipe tobacco. We owe it to posterity to demand proof that people’s communications will be more intelligent, persuasive, and constructive when they occur over digital media, and proof that digital media, and proof that illiteracy, even in an age of great technological capability, will improve people’s lives.

“Could Written Language Be Rendered Obsolete, and What Should We Demand In Return?” by Patrick Tucker, January 29th, 2010.

In the coming decades, lovers of the written word may find themselves ill-equipped to defend the seemingly self-evident merits of text to a technology-oriented generation who prefer instantaneous data to hard-won knowledge. Arguing the artistic merits of Jamesian prose to a generation who, in coming years, will rely on conversational search to find answers to any question will likely prove a frustrating, possibly humiliating endeavor.

“Could Written Language Be Rendered Obsolete, and What Should We Demand In Return?” by Patrick Tucker, January 29, 2010.

1873
Pierre-Jules Hetzel publishes Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne in French. Download it at Project Gutenberg.

1910
Georges Rignoux of La Rochelle, France describes a primitive “television” system using a matrix of sixty-four photocells to producing a limited grey scale picture. Rignoux had developed the system over the course of several months, with several successful practical experiments, including the first demonstration of the instantaneous transmission of black and white still images in 1909.

1933
The Lone Ranger premieres on the radio WXYZ in Detroit, Michigan. The radio serial will run for thirteen consecutive years with a total of 2,956 episodes. The western adventures of the masked Texas Ranger will inspire the creation of a bevy of future super heroes, and the show’s success will pave the way for their popularization in mainstream media.

1947
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules that granting CBS approval for their new color television system would be premature and that the system requires further testing.
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Art

• Check out this Monstrous Mickey Mouse drawn by Manuhell.
• Hey Oscar Wilde It’s Cloberin’ Time is a blog of literature-inspired artwork.
• Inspire 76 has rounded up a gallery of Monsters from across Deviant Art.
• Visualizing Whale Songs: Mark Fischer, an expert in marine acoustics, has come up with another way to illustrate whale song.
• SF Signal points the way to the website of Serbian Artist Ivica Stevanovic.

Comics

• Check out the First Trailer For Comic Book Adaptation The Losers.

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Video, Photos & Specs

• The Apple iPad — What You Need to Know
• iLounge: First Looks: Apple iPad Case
• JoyStiq: Hands-on: Apple iPad
• Mashable: iPad: A Comprehensive Guide
• Mashable: Official Apple iPad Demo
• UnCrate: Apple iPad
• Wired: Hands-On With the Apple iPad

Tech News

• Boy Genius: Apple iPad recap
• CNet: Apple’s iPad Ambitions
• CSMonitor: On eve of Apple iPad launch, AT&T pledges to improve network
• Inhabitat: IS IT GREEN?: The Apple iPad
• PC World: Apple’s iPad and the Flash Clash
• Yahoo! News: Nintendo chief unimpressed with Apple’s iPad

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1595
Many historians believe that this is the date on which the William Shakespeare play Romeo and Juliet is first performed.

1802
John J. Beckley became the first Librarian of the U.S. Congress. Visit the official website of the Library of Congress.

1845
The Edgar Allen Poe poem The Raven is published in the New York Evening Mirror for the first time anywhere.

1957
General Electric (GE) and the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) meet to select a format for ERMA Magnetic Ink Character Recognition (MICR) encoding on checks. The ERMA or Electronic Recording Machine – Accounting, is a system commissioned by the Bank of America, to move towards automating check handling. International Business Machines (IBM) makes a strong case for placing the encoding along the top of a checks, but GE and SRI had conducted a series of tests that demonstrated the advantage of placing the encoding along the bottom of checks.
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We have linked our destinies, not only among ourselves across the globe, but with our technology. If the theme of the Enlightenment was independence, our own theme is interdependence. We are now all connected, humans and machines. Welcome to the dawn of the Entanglement.

- “The Dawn of the Entanglement” by W. Daniel Hillis
in Edge.org, January 2010.