The Great Geek Manual

1449
The first English patent is granted to John of Utynam for the production of colored glass. King Henry VI grants the exclusive privilege for a period of twenty years, during which no English subjects imitate the manufacturing process with John of Utynam’s consent.

1776
Harvard College conferred the first honorary Doctor of Laws degree to George Washington.

1829
James Carrington of Wallingford, Connecticut, patents the coffee mill.

1860
The Pony Express begins mail service between Saint Joseph, Missouri, and Sacramento, California, with a pledge to “deliver the goods in ten days or less” at a price of US$5 an ounce per package. Averaging a speed of 12mph over stretches approximately 75-100 miles in length between 153 stations, the Pony Express is the United States’ first high speed message system, but it will be put out of business just two years later by the proliferation of the telegraph.
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But knowledge is not a result merely of filtering or algorithms. It results from a far more complex process that is social, goal-driven, contextual, and culturally-bound. We get to knowledge — especially “actionable” knowledge — by having desires and curiosity, through plotting and play, by being wrong more often than right, by talking with others and forming social bonds, by applying methods and then backing away from them, by calculation and serendipity, by rationality and intuition, by institutional processes and social roles. Most important in this regard, where the decisions are tough and knowledge is hard to come by, knowledge is not determined by information, for it is the knowing process that first decides which information is relevant, and how it is to be used.

- “The Problem with the Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom Hierarchy” by David Weinberger, February 2, 2010.

Art

• Fandomania has rounded up a gallery of Clash of the Titans fan art.
• These fan made Star Wars Pin-Up Posters Demand You Join the Evil Empire.
• Visit The Geek Art Gallery for more eye candy collected daily from around the web!
• What if the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen had been formed in 1988?

Film

• Asylum remembers 6 Stop-Motion Classics That Need to Be Remade.
• Esquire asks Are You Ready for 3-D Everything?
• Geek orgasm of the day: There’s already a Star Trek theme available for the iPad.

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1827
The first lead pencils are manufactured by Joseph Dixon, at his factory in Salem, Massachusetts. Dixon will be largely responsible for the development of the graphite industry in the U.S.

1845
The first surviving daguerrotype photograph showing details of the sun are taken by French physicists Armand Fizeau and Léon Foucault. The five inch (12cm) image has an exposure of one sixtieth of a second, and shows the umbra/penumbra structure of several sunspots, as well as limb darkening. The photographic process is new; Daguerre had only just perfected the daguerrotype process in 1838.
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What we imagine is order is merely the prevailing form of chaos.

- Introduction to the Principia Discordia, 5th edition by Kerry Thornley, 1979.

Art

• As if the stupidity weren’t bad enough contained by the internet, there are now LOLcats trading cards.
• Neatorama has posted a gallery of Stephen King Posters Re-Envisioned.
• The TrustoCorp Flickr pool Flickr pool is packed with fun street signs.

Film

• Cinematical wonders Can the Magic of Puppets Persist in a Virtual World??
• John Scalzi asks Is Fake 3D the Cheap Colorization of the 21st Century?

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1826
Samuel Morey patents the internal combustion engine, which he describes as a “Gas Or Vapor Engine.”

1889
The first dishwashing machines go on sale in Chicago.

1894
The Edison Company launches a new division, the Kinetograph Department, transferring the manufacture and sale of Kinetoscopes and films to the Edison Manufacturing Company, out of the Edison Company’s laboratories.

1927
The first automatic record changer is introduced by His Master’s Voice.
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I have great faith in fools — self-confidence my friends will call it.

- “Marginalia” by Edgar Allen Poe, November 1844.