The Great Geek Manual

Art

• The Art Department looks at Tara Rueping’s visions of Lord of the Rings.. See more at TruePaint.
• If you’re a HR Giger fan, you have to take a look at these photos of his Skeleton Bar.
• It’s a Star Trek Menorah!

Film

• News: Natalie Portman will produce and star in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
• Interview: Over at the LA Times, James Cameron biographer says the ‘Avatar’ director is half scientist, half artist.
• Cinematical asks Does Sci-Fi Stand A Chance at the Oscars? I say don’t jinx it!
• The Examiner weighs the merits of the Best and worst horror movies of 2009.
• There are New Clash of the Titans Posters Online, and they kick ass.

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Here, at the inaugural moment of the computer age, the erasure of embodiment is performed so that “intelligence” becomes a property of the formal manipulation of symbols rather than enaction in the human lifeworld.

- How We Became Posthuman by N. Katherine Hayles, February 15, 1999.

1807
A meteorite falls in Weston, Connecticut at 6:30am, making a hole five feet long and 4.5 feet wide. It is the first meteorite to be seen falling in the New World since the arrival of European settlers. Yale Professor Benjamin Silliman will write a description of the event and perform a chemical analysis of recovered meteorite, the first performed in the US. As such, it receives a great deal of press attention.

1900
German physicist Max Planck presents his ideas on quantum physics to a meeting of the German Physics Society. The theoretical derivation of his black-body radiation law will revolutionize scientists’ understanding of physics. His theory demonstrates that, in certain situations, energy exhibits characteristics of physical matter. It predicts the spectral intensity of electromagnetic radiation at all wavelengths from a black body at a given temperature. Part of the theory suggests that energy exists in discrete packets, which he calls “quanta.”

1902
The British cable ship Silvertown begins laying the first transpacific telegraph cable, which will reach from San Francisco to Honolulu. The ship will lay cable across 2,277 nautical miles in two weeks, until it lands near Honolulu on January 1, 1903. The first test message will be sent the same day, and transmission of public messages through the cable will begin on January 5, 1903.
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The question of technology is one of the most important questions in all of philosophy because we, as human beings, live with technology and live on its terms. Something like the Internet is so immediate to us … so intimate in our lives, that we take it for granted and may not realize that it actually plays a role in shaping our thinking.

- Babette Babich, Ph.D in “Philosophy Professor Sees ‘Plato’s Cave’ in Today’s Technologies,” November 30, 2009.

1843
Charles Dickens first publishes “A Christmas Carol.” Six thousand copies of the first edition will be sold.

1913
The horror film The Werewolf, directed by Henry MacRae and starring Clarence Burton, to US theaters. The silent short film is the very first film to feature a werewolf. The film is framed as an old Indian legend. In it, a jilted Navajo woman turned witch raises her daughter to reap a horrible vengeance on all men, in the form of a werewolf. IMDB listing Running Time: 18 mins

In order to settle an antitrust suit filed in Portland, AT&T pledges to dispose of its Western Union telegraph stock, provide long distance connection to independent telephone systems, and not to purchase any more independent telephone companies except as approved by the Interstate Commerce Commission in a letter to the Attorney General of the United States which will later be referred to as the “Kingsbury Commitment.” The letter will historically be considered the mark of the beginning of AT&T’s monopoly, as the settlement establishes AT&T as a government sanctioned monopoly.

1962
Relay I, the first active repeater communications satellite is launched aboard a Thor-Delta rocket from the Atlantic Missile Range from Cape Canaveral. It will transmit its first test patterns on January 3, 1963, once its solar cells are fully charged. Once in service, it will transmit facsimile, telephone, television, and teleprinter signals.
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1893
The first US patent for aerial photography is issued to Cornele B. Adams of Augusta, Georgia. (US No. 510,758) His method of photogrammetry can produce a topographic map by means of photographing the same tract of land from different points from an unmanned stationary balloon on a tether. “The pictures obtained can be converted into topographic maps, to delineate not only the horizontal positions and distances of the objects correctly, but from which the altitude of the objects can be quickly and accurately ascertained, and such results obtained without the aid of other field instruments.”

1896
Guglielmo Marconi gives the first public demonstration of his radio equipment at Toynbee Hall in East London. He is introduced and assisted by William Preece, chief electrician of the British Post Office. The event draws a large audience and considerable attention from the press. While Marconi taps the key on the transmitter, Preece carries the receiver box around the room, demonstrating that there are no wires, as the bell in the receiver rings each time Marconi closes the key.

1901
Guglielmo Marconi successfully transmits a Morse Code letter “S” via radio telegraph 2,137 miles across the Atlantic Ocean, from a 10kW station at Poldhu in Cornwall, England to Percy Wright Page in Signal Hill, St. John’s, Newfoundland at approximately 4:30 UTC. Such a connection won’t be established again for another ten years.

1903
The American Multigraph Sales Company of Cleveland, Ohio begins manufacturing the Multigraph duplicating machine, the first commercially successful device to simplify the printing process. It was patented on March 10, 1903 by inventor, Harry C. Gammeter, a typewriter salesman. Consisting of a metal drum with vertical channels running across it, it allows laymen to arrange moveable type with a retaining foot into the channels to roll out professionally lettered solicitation letters.
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The idea that people could use computers to amplify thought and communication, as tools for intellectual work and social activity, was not an invention of the mainstream computer industry or orthodox computer science, nor even homebrew computerists; their work was rooted in older, equally eccentric, equally visionary, work. You can’t really guess where mind-amplifying technology is going unless you understand where it came from.

- Tools for Thought by Howard Rheingold, 1985.

An organization that treats its programmers as morons will soon have programmers that are willing and able to act like morons only.

- The C++ Programming Language by Bjarne Stroustrup, February 15, 2000.