The Great Geek Manual

The performance cut of Kirby Krackle’s new video for their latest single “I Wanna Live In A World Full Of Heroes” is now live.

1876
Alexander Graham Bell, age 29, receives a patent for an “Improvement in Telegraphy,” which will later come to be known as the variable resistance telephone. (US No. 174,465) It will go on to become one of the single most hotly-contested patent in history. The patent application was submitted on February 14th, allegedly just two hours ahead of Elisha Gray. This first telephone has only one transducer for both listening and speaking. Originally envisioned as a way to transmit music to homes from a central location, the phone will soon gain popularity as a means of communication, becoming indispensable and highly lucrative. On March 10th, Bell will speak the famous words “Mr. Watson, come here, I want you” through a phone to his assistant after spilling some acid in their workshop. The message will be the first transmitted over a telephone. At the time of his patent is granted, Bell’s device had never yet worked. Due to suspicious circumstances surrounding this critical patent, many historians will later credit Gray and not Bell with the invention.
Read the rest of this entry » » »

Amidst the attention given to the sciences as how they can lead to the cure of all diseases and daily problems of mankind, I believe that the biggest breakthrough will be the realization that the arts, which are conventionally considered ‘useless,’ will be recognized as the whole reason why we ever try to live longer or live more prosperously.

- John Maeda, as quoted in “The universe will fly like a bird“

Why do we explore? Simply put, it is part of who we are, and it is something we have done throughout our history. In NASA’s new video, “We Are the Explorers,” we take a look at that tradition of reaching for things just beyond our grasp and how it is helping us lay the foundation for our greatest journeys ahead.

1646
The very first patent in the the New World (America) is issued by the General Court of Massachusetts to Joseph Jenkes, to protect his scythe mill engine from competition for fourteen years. The patent comes four years before the first U.S. corporate charter, which will also be issued by the Great and General Court of Massachusetts. The patent reads, in part, “The Cort considringe ye necessity of raising such manifactures of engins of mils to go by water for speedy dispatch of much worke wth few hands, F.r being sufficiently informed of ye ability of ye petitionr to pforme such workes grant his petition (yt no othr pson shall set up, or use any such new invention, or trade for fourteen yeares w’hout ye licence of him ye said Joseph Jenkes) so farr as concernes any such new invention, & so as it shalbe alwayes in ye powr of this Corte to restrain ye exportation of such manifactures, & ye prizes of them to moderation if occasion so require.”
Read the rest of this entry » » »

Industrial man—a sentient reciprocating engine having a fluctuating output, coupled to an iron wheel revolving with uniform velocity. And then we wonder why this should be the golden age of revolution and mental derangement.

- Time Must Have a Stop by Aldous Huxley, 1944.

Art

• Art-O-Meter judges art so you don’t have to.
• Astronaut builds LEGO space station on real ISS… Inception ensues.
• Benedict Cumberbatch as Spike Spiegel (from Cowboy Bebop) I’d watch that remake.
• Hunger Game cookies
• I’ll say this for them: the Japanese love their giant robots!
• Star Wars Cake Pops
• Thor cosplay good enough for the movies.

Read the rest of this entry » » »

1590
Tycho Brahe discovers a comet in the constellation Pisces.

1616
Copernican theory is declared “false and erroneous” in a decree written by Cardinal Robert Bellarmine and issued by the Catholic Church. Further, no person is to be permitted to hold or teach the theory that the Earth revolves around the Sun. When Galileo later violates the decree, he will be put on trial and held under house arrest for the final eight years of his life.

1868
C.H. Gould of Birmingham, England, receives a patent for the first stapling device.
Read the rest of this entry » » »