The Great Geek Manual

Resources

3outube – Maybe the easiest way yet to save YouTube videos to your computer.

10 scripts to create your own Linux distribution – TechRadar takes a look at some scripts that’ll help you customize different distros.

Dynamic Systems – This little gem is among the most addictive physics flash games on the net. Seriously, if you click the link, you can kiss your day goodbye.

The Exhaustive Guide to Apple Tablet Rumors – Gizmodo provides a comprehensive chronology to the emerging rumors surrounding Apple’s purportedly upcoming tablet device.

Panopticlick – The Electronic Frontier Foundation has released this tool to analyze the information your browser shares, revealing how personally identifiable your browser’s footprint is.

Track Page Changes Using Google Reader – You can now track changes in websites through Google Reader! Great for monitoring your favorite, infrequently updated blogs.

Volunteer Your Computer for Global Privacy – Wild Bee has a nice, brief introduction of using Tor. Mind you, it takes a LOT of balls to operate a Tor exit node these days.
Read the rest of this entry » » »

Following Apple’s release of its new iPad, Google engineers were quick to respond this morning with their own tablet.

Art

• adopt-a-bot sculpts robots out of old parts and sells them on Etsy.
• Plush Conan O’Brien was created by Laura Granlund, who sells plush toys on Etsy.

Film

• Interview: Incredible Hulk director Louis Leterrier explains what it would take for Edward Norton to return as Bruce Banner.
• Interview: ReelLoop interviews Bing Bailey, director of Portrait of a Zombie.
• News: Has Avatar 2 Already Started Early Pre-Production?
• Cosmic BookNews reports on the upcoming Green Lantern Movie.
• For reference, BoxOffice Mojo charts out Domestic Grosses Adjusted for Ticket Price Inflation and Avatar is actually the 26th biggest movie.
• Tor.com runs down a list of Christian Horror Classics, beginning with Legion.

Read the rest of this entry » » »

So, last Friday was Conan O’Brien’s last show. It was absolutely fantastic. I had thought it would be completely madcap, but it turned out to be rather subdued and a bit sentimental instead. Before the end of the show, he offered a few parting words about how lucky he’s been over the course of his career and urged his fans not to be cynical about the fate of the Tonight Show. Before that, though, he and Tom Hanks offered this chestnut.

If you didn’t catch the show, it’s still up on Hulu, and judging by the seeder count, it’ll be available through Pirate Bay for some time to come.
Read the rest of this entry » » »

Audio Fiction and Podcasts

• Listen to “Another End of the Empire” by Tim Pratt at PodCastle.

More Links

• The highlight of the week is Crossed Genres Post a Story for Haiti feature. Authors are posting short stories over at their website. If you enjoy the stories, you’re invited to donate to a charity involved in Haiti relief.

Novels and Preview Chapters

• Bram Stoker award-winning author Jonathan Maberry has posted free PDF download of a prequel to his novel Patient Zero available.
• Read an excerpt of Prince of Storms by Kay Kenyon.
• Read excerpts from Secrets of the Sands by Leona Wisoker at Grasping for the Wind: Part One, Part Two, Part 3, Part Four, and Part Five.

Read the rest of this entry » » »

1807
Pall Mall in London becomes the first street in the world to be lit by gaslight.

1878
The first commercial telephone exchange in the world is installed in New Haven, Connecticut to serve twenty-one subscribers connected by a single strand of iron wire. For the first six weeks, the exchange won’t be operated at night. The first experimental message sent over the system is “Ahoy, ahoy.” The first operator is George W. Coy. A Bell franchise had been awarded for New Haven and Middlesex Counties to Coy on November 3, 1877, paid for by incorporating the system into a company with two financial partners. Coy improvised the first crude switchboard, building it from carriage bolts, handles from teapot lids and bustle wire. The concept of interconnecting phone wires had been tried before by three other men, but none of them had operated commercially. Click here to view the original patent application for the telephone exchange.

1930
Austrian-Hungarian physicist Dr. Julius Edgar Lilienfeld is issued a patent in Canada for the first solid-state amplifying transistor.

1952
The Bank of America and SRI sign a contract for the development, construction, and testing of a pilot model Electronic Recording Machine – Accounting (ERMA) to provide service to the bank’s twelve branches at a cost of US$850,000 over four years, with an additional US$25,000 for subcontracts. However, engineers will later estimate that the final total of the project was closer to US$10 million.

The EDVAC, one of the earliest electronic computers, runs its first production program.
Read the rest of this entry » » »

Google Wave was built to show younger people how older people feel when they try to use the internet.

- Posted to QDB.us, accredited to “@mikesch”

Hardcover Book Releases

The Book of Dreams by Nick Gevers and J.K. Potter
The Great Bazaar and Other Stories by Peter V. Brett
Prince of Storms by Kay Kenyon

Paperback Book Releases

Arch Wizard (Falconfar) by Ed Greenwood
Black Tide (Blood Angels) by James Swallow
Blood in the Water (Chronicles of the Lescari Revolution) by Juliet E. McKenna
Bone Crossed (Mercy Thompson) by Patricia Briggs
Break of Dawn: Vampire Babylon, Book Three by Chris Marie Green
Doomwyte (Redwall) by Brian Jacques
The Red Wolf Conspiracy by Robert V.S. Redick
Shadow Blade by Seressia Glass
Read the rest of this entry » » »