The Great Geek Manual

Resources

CodeOrgan – Type in a URL, and this service scans the words, removes all the non-musical letters, and makes “music” out of whatever is left over.

Craiglook.com – Craiglook is a mash-up of Craiglist feeds (read through Yahoo Pipes) and Google Maps. Its location radius-based search is the site’s most useful feature, and its content is always up to date with the main Craigslist directory.

FillAnyPDF – a fairly simple web app which allows you to upload a PDF file, then easily write on it wherever you want. This allows you to easily fill out any form, even if they’re not in an editable PDF form.

Gethuman.com – A directory that tells you—on a company by company basis—exactly what number to call and what buttons to press to get through to a real, human operator. Read the rest of this entry » » »

Art

• Comic Alliance has posted a gallery of The Spectacular Superhero Poster Art of Tom Whalen.
• The Great Remorse of Darth Vader is a great piece by @Joe_Corroney.
• Here’s a great YouTube video of an artist Drawing a Gundam in Microsoft Excel.
• Raoni Nery re-imagines Buzz Lightyear as a real man over at the CG Society.
• ScreenRant has collected a gallery of Cool Retro Movie Posters from Brandon Schaefer.

Comics

• Wired readers name their Must-Read Comics.

Read the rest of this entry » » »

1836
Samuel Colt patents the revolver. In the patent, Colt describes “the many advantages in the use of these guns,” including “the great rapidity in the succession of discharges, which is effected merely by drawing back the hammer and pulling the trigger,” “the facility in loading them,” and “the weight and location of the cylinder, which give steadiness to the hand.” Read more about the history of Colt at the Web Archive.

1837
Thomas Davenport, a Vermont blacksmith, patents the first practical electrical motor as “an application of magnetism and electro-magnetism to propelling machinery.” (US No. 132) The rotating electromagnets have cores of soft iron, wound with copper wire insulated with layers of silk. The wires from the coil run parallel down the shaft to touch copper contacts on the base. These wires make contact with different plates at each half-turn. When the contacts are connected to opposite poles of the battery supplying current, provision is made to reverse the direction of the current in the rotating coils at each half-turn such that magnetic repulsion is maintained between the rotating coil and the pole of the fixed magnet they face at that point in the shaft’s rotation. Read more about the Electric Motor in the Mechanical Engineering article, “The Blacksmith’s Motor. Electricity, magnetism, and motion: A self-taught Vermonter pointed the direction for lighting the world” by Fran Wicks at the Mechanical Engineering archives.

1899
The first car accident fatality involving a vehicle powered by a gasoline-fueled engine occurs in Grove Hill Harrow, England. The accident occurs while the car, a Daimler Wagonette, is being demonstrated for Major James Richer, Department Head of the Army & Navy Stores. Mr. Sewell, the driver, is killed on the spot, but the passenger, Major Richer, won’t die until four days later, without regaining consciousness. Richer will be Britain’s first vehicular passenger fatality. About a year earlier, on February 12, 1898, Henry Lindfield will become the first person to die in a collision.
Read the rest of this entry » » »

Everything is too long a list to work with. No one knows everything about anything. No one knows something about everything. Everyone knows something about something. Anyone could be the world’s foremost expert on something. Anyone who thinks that just because they didn’t already know a thing, it must not be true or important, is an idiot.

- Hidden Empire by Orson Scott Card, 2006.

Art

• Inspire76 has rounded up a gallery of Monster artwork from Deviant Art.
• io9 celebrates The Cartograpic Wonders of Lost Island with maps!
• Maxim rounds up a gallery of 22 Awesome Things That Look Like Yoda.
• Is Vader vs Fett the most epic struggle ever? Quite possibly.

Comics

• Interview: Marvel interviews Marjorie Liu.
• Meet Stan Lee’s newest super-team, the “Super Seven“.

Film

• Interview: Bruce Willis suggests that “Unbreakable 2″ will be the all out good vs. evil beat down that the first film meticulously laid the foundation for.
• News: Could Jim From The Office Be Captain America?
• News: UK’s largest cinema chain refuses to distribute Alice in Wonderland
• It’s official, Christopher Walken is fed up with playing sociopaths.

Read the rest of this entry » » »

Ever noticed that whenever you come across a gallery or video of “Con Highlights,” “highlights” is almost always a euphemism for cleavage?

I saw the latest Old Spice commercial last night, and it was hilarious. After Googling it, I found this interview with the commercial’s creative directors. The punchline is that there wasn’t any CG involved in the making of this commercial.

1871
Charles Darwin publishes Descent of Man in London, England. In it, Darwin wrote, “The sole object of this work is to consider, firstly, whether man, like every other species, is descended from some pre-existing form; secondly, the manner of his development; and thirdly, the value of the differences between the so-called races of man… During many years it has seemed to me highly probable that sexual selection has played an important part in differentiating the races of man; but in my Origin of Species I contented myself by merely alluding to this belief. When I came to apply this view to man, I found it indispensable to treat the whole subject in full detail.” Read the full text of Descent of Man online or listen to the audiobook at Darwin Online.

1896
Henri Becquerel unknowingly discovers radioactivity during an investigation of the phosphorescent rays of some “double sulfate of uranium and potassium” crystals. He will later report to the French Academy of Sciences reports that he placed the crystals on the outside of a photographic plate wrapped in sheets of very thick black paper and exposed the whole to the sun for several hours. When he develops the photographic plate, a black silhouette of the substance appears on the negative. When he places a coin between the uranium crystals and the wrapped plate, its image appears on the negative.

1931
The Fields Medal is established to recognize outstanding contributions in the field of mathematics by John Charles Fields, the chairman of the Committee of the International Mathematical Congress (ICM). The first medals will be awarded in Oslo, Norway in 1936.

1949
The first rocket to reach outer space is launched from the White Sands Proving Grounds in New Mexico. The modified German V-2 ballistic missile reached a record altitude of 244 miles, breaking the Kármán line, which, 62.1 miles above the Earth’s sea level, will later be established by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale as the upper limit of Earth’s atmosphere.
Read the rest of this entry » » »