The Great Geek Manual

All the limitative Theorems of metamathematics and the theory of computation suggest that once the ability to represent your own structure has reached a certain critical point, that is the kiss of death: it guarantees that you can never represent yourself totally. Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem, Church’s Undecidability Theorem, Turing’s Halting Theorem, Tarski’s Truth Theorem — all have the flavour of some ancient fairy tale which warns you that “To seek self-knowledge is to embark on a journey which … will always be incomplete, cannot be charted on any map, will never halt, cannot be described.”

- Douglas R. Hofstadter, 1979

Hardcover Book Releases

Burning Lamp (Arcane Society Series #8)
Penguin Group (ISBN-13: 978-0399156465) Length: 352 pages

The Arcane Society was born in turmoil when the friendship of its two founders evolved into a fierce rivalry. Nicholas Winters’s efforts led to the creation of a device of unknown powers called the Burning Lamp. Each generation of male descendents who inherits it is destined to develop multiple talents-and the curse of madness.

Plagued by hallucinations and nightmares, notorious crime lord Griffin Winters is convinced he has been struck with the Winters Curse. But even has he arranges a meeting with the mysterious woman Adelaide Pyne, he has no idea how closely their fates are bound, for she holds the missing lamp in her possession.

But their dangerous psychic experiment makes them the target of forces both inside and outside of the Arcane Society. And though desire strengthens their power, their different lives will keep them apart-if death doesn’t take them together.
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Art

• The BBC has post a high quality version of the propaganda-style, Daleks’ To Victory! poster, from the latest Doctor Who episode.
• Check out Edmund Liang’s amazing art gallery. It’s worth a bookmark.

Comics

• Manofest’s 20 WTF moments in comic book history.
• ScreenRant has posted a gallery of The 6 Best & Worst Superhero Costumes.

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1913
Bioscope Chronicle (Warwick Trading Co.) first uses an aeroplane for filming a news event. The plane captures footage of George V leaving on the Royal Yacht for a visit to Paris. The film is rushed back to Hendon for processing and is shown at the Coliseum at 5:20pm the same day.

1951
Whirlwind, the first computer to operate in real-time is first activated. Whirlwind was built at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) by a team lead by Jay Forrester for the U.S. Air Defense System. It’s the first computer to allow interactive computing and to feature a keyboard and a cathode-ray tube visual display. The Whirlwind design will later be developed into SAGE, a comprehensive system of real-time computers used to provide early warnings of air attacks.

1954
American psychiatrist Fredric Wertham publishes Seduction of the Innocent, in which he vilifies the influence of comic books on children. The book will become infamous for its wildly over-exaggerate anecdotal evidence of ways in which comics perverted the minds of readers. Seduction of the Innocent, along with Wertham’s testimony at a subsequent Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency will lead to the formation of the Comics Code Authority and decades of censorship within the comic industry.
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It is not so much that digital technology recapitulates the language of classical mythology as the story of a fateful struggle between closed versus open systems — Scylla versus Charybdis — but that contemporary technoculture now approaches its apogee as a universe in drift. We are all now born again as code drifters traveling to a still unknown technological destiny, a destining somewhere beyond the utopian vision of indefinite expansion and the dystopian specter of a violent, apocalyptic contraction.

- “Code Drift: Essays in Critical Digital Studies” by Arthur and Marilouise Kroker

, April 14, 2010.
Originally posted to CTheory.

Art

• The first Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Teaser Poster is out! (This time it’s not just a fan made creation.)
• Maddie Chambers has painstakingly recreated Bag End in minature, and it’s amazing. Cross your fingers for better photos.

Comics

• News: This summer, WildStorm will publish an all-new comic book series combining two of the most popular horror properties of the last two decades: THE X-FILES and 30 DAYS OF NIGHT.
• iFanboy picks The Top 10 Least Fashionable Comic Book Characters.
• Topless Robot lists The 12 Coolest Sandman Characters Who Aren’t Dream.

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Resources

Elastic WordPress theme Editor – Elastic is a real time theme editor that lets non-technical users fluidly design a web design with a simple drag-and-drop interface.

An Introduction to Google’s Go Programming Language – The Bitsource offers this brief demonstration of Go, Google’s new open-source, compiled programming language. This article describes how to install Go, how to compile a program, and some of Go’s unique features.

Image Error Level Analyser – Use this convenient online tool to detect photo manipulation in one easy step.

Not a Flash Game – This Breakout clone is designed to be totally, utterly safe for work. From a distance, the game screen looks like a work-related Word document.

Shakacss – ShakaCSS is a tiny javascript that you place in your bookmarks. When clicked, it displays a guide and draggable Photoshop-style guides on your screen, right on top of whatever website is open in your browser. It’s a great little tool for web designers.
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Audio Fiction and Podcasts

• Listen to “Every Angel Is Terrifying” by John Kessel at Starship Sofa.
• Listen to “The Film-makers of Mars” by Geoff Ryman at Tor.com.
• Listen to “First Flight” by Mary Robinette Kowal at Tor.com.
• Listen to “January” by Becca De La Rosa at Clarkesworld.
• Listen to “Percy Jackson And The Sword Of Hades” by Rick Riordan.

Novels and Preview Chapters

• Read an extract of Celine Kiernan’s The Poison Throne at Orbit.
• Read chapters of Trudi Canavan’s upcoming The Ambassador’s Mission.

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