The Great Geek Manual

Book: Waking the Witch
ISBN-13: 978-0525951780

Author: Kelley Armstrong
Series: Women of the Otherworld Series, Book 11
Publisher: Dutton Adult
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Release: July 27, 2010
Length: 320 pages (Hardcover)

Rating: C- (65 / 100)

Verdict

It may be the eleventh book in the Women of the Otherworld series, but Waking The Witch is satisying read that stands well on its own. Kelley Armstrong has broken the urban fantasy mold with a novel that features both an intelligent mystery and a kick-ass female protagonist who doesn’t constantly find herself embroiled in situations beyond her control, doesn’t need rescuing, and (most refreshing) doesn’t obsess over men. Free of both negative female stereotypes and gushing romances, Waking The Witch is a solid blend of fantasy and detective novel that both male and female readers will enjoy.

Pros: Excellent characters. Very solid mystery. Refreshingly little romance.

Cons: Unsatisfying magical showdown. Villainous plan turns out to be uber-weak. Bad cliffhanger.

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1790
The very first United States patent is granted to Samuel Hopkins of Vermont for a process for making potash and pearl ashes for use in in soap and fertilizer. (US No. 1) The patent is granted for a term of fourteen years and signed by President George Washington, who signed the first U.S. patent statute into law on April 10, 1790.

1930
The radio program The Shadow airs for the first time on the Mutual Broadcasting System. Listen to original episodes of The Shadow at the Internet Archive.

1964
The American space probe Ranger 7 transmits the first photo moon’s surface ever taken by a U.S. spacecraft, mapping the surface for a future lunar landing. Ranger 7 carries six slow-scan vidicon TV cameras capable of transmitting high-resolution television pictures of the lunar surface. A total of 4,308 photographs before Ranger 7 crashed in Mare Cognitum (Sea of Clouds).
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Art

• News: Sci-fi author puts artwork on show
• Daft Punk’s Tron Legacy Score Leaked Online Youtube user alexdaft26 has uploaded the entire soundtrack in nine films on Youtube. Get it while you can.
• Here is a collection of wonderfully weird illustrations by Gōjin Ishihara, whose work graced the pages of numerous kids’ books in the 1970s. The images first appeared in the “Illustrated Book of Japanese Monsters,” which profiles creatures out of Japanese legends. (Some ewww factor here.)
• If you’re fishing for nerds, this is one surefire method of catching them.
• Shoes with QWERTY Soles may be the next big geek trend.
• Without any apparent reason, a design collective in Croatia have built an enormous packing tape spider web. One of these would look great in my apartment.

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I know I should be over this by now, buuut… no. The very end of this one cracks me up. Would it kill Lucas to offer an apology just once.

Utilities

• Roomle – this online tool allows users to draw up floor plans in order to plan how to lay out a room prior to moving in to a new apartment.
• PilotHandwriting – this site allows you to turn your handwriting into a font using your computer’s webcam. Download the letter template from the web site. Fill it in. Hold the template up in front of your webcam. Watch a demo.
• Yet Another YouTube Script – unlike nearly every other predecessing YouTube userscripts that erratically worked or broke with site revisions, this userscript interfaces with the YouTube Player API to globally control autoplay and playback quality to stop the repeated web annoyance of YouTube autoplay. (It also lets you pick a lower or higher quality video as your default.)

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1898
Scientific American runs the first magazine advertisement for an automobile, placed by the world’s largest automobile factor The Winton Motor Car Company of Cleveland, Ohio. The ad invites readers to “dispense with a horse.”

1928
George Eastman shows the first color motion pictures in the U.S.

1930
Radio Corporation of America (RCA) installs a large-screen television system at an RKO cinema in Schenectady, NY. The screen is five feet high.
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No prophecy is necessary to recognize that the sciences now establishing themselves will soon be determined and regulated by the new fundamental science that is called cybernetics. This science corresponds to the determination of man as an acting social being. For it is the theory of the regulation of the possible planning and arrangement of human labor. Cybernetics transforms language into an exchange of news. The arts become regulated-regulating instruments of information. The development of philosophy into independent sciences that, however, interdependently communicate among themselves ever more markedly, is the legitimate completion of philosophy. Philosophy is ending in the present age. It has found its place in the scientific attitude of socially active humanity. But the fundamental characteristic of this scientific attitude is its cybernetic, that is, technological character.

- “The End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking” by Martin Heidegger.

Art

• 24 awesome Star Wars cupcakes
• Andy Schulman “makes treasures out of trash.” Specifically, he creates illuminated sculptures from “found art.”
• Calvin and Hobbes: Inception.
• Carl Vader And The Up Death Star.
• Walyou has an excellent gallery of 19 Artistic Steampunk Masks and Helmets and another gallery of 16 Epic Lego Weapons.

Comics

• Is Batman the least plausible comic book hero?
• UGO picks 40 Comics That Should Be TV Shows But Aren’t…Yet.

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