The Great Geek Manual

Audio Fiction and Podcasts

• Listen to “The Bee Charmer of Beckett Falls” by Patty Templeton at Pseudopod.
• Listen to “Clay” by James Joyce at Miette’s Bedtime Story Podcast.
• Listen to “The Day I Didn’t Meet Christopher Walken” by Martin Mundt.
• Listen to “The Man Who Forgot Ray Bradbury” by Neil Gaiman at SoundCloud.
• Listen to “A Nice Jewish Golem” by Ao-Hui Lin at Drabblecast.
• Listen to “One Ear Back” by Tina Connolly at Beneath Ceaseless Skies.
• Listen to “Origin” by Ari Goelman at Escapepod.
• Listen to “Renfrew’s Course” by John Langan at Lightspeed Magazine.
• Listen to “Squonk and the Lake Monster” by P.M. Butler at PodCastle.
• Listen to “Where Late The Sweet Bird’s Sang” by Kate Wilhelm at StarShipSofa.

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1881
Sir William Huggins makes the first photographic spectrum of a comet (1881 III) and discovers Cyanogen (CN) emission at violet wavelengths.

1930
The first radar detection of an aircraft takes place in Anacostia, DC.

1938
Scores of eyewitnesses observe the explosive roar of a huge fireball streaking over Butler County, Pennsylvania. A cow is struck and injured by a falling stone, which turns out to be an olivine-hypersthene chondrite (amphoterite). Two pieces of the stone meteorite, named the Chicora for the region in which it fell, are found. The two halves have masses of 242g and 61g and are discovered several miles short of the calculated point of impact of the main mass, which isn’t found. The original total mass is an estimated 519 tons before it explodes about twelve miles up.
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Art

• 12 Fan Made ‘Prometheus’ Posters
• 88:88 is a creepy, super low budget film.
• 100 Movie Characters Drawn on MS Paint
• An amazingly authentic Major Motoko Kusanagi (from Ghost in the Shell) cosplay
• Giant LEGO Men Dissected

Comics

• News: A New DC Comics Nielsen Survey gauges response to the New 52
• The 10 Best Superhero Origin Stories Ever
• 10 Great LGBT Superheroes (And Superhero Couples)
• Should You Steal Comics?

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1775
The first American-made book, entitled Impenetrable Secret, is advertised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The book is printed and sold by Story and Humphreys. Their advertisement in the Pennsylvania Mercury announces that the book is “printed with types, paper and ink manufactured in this Province.”

1868
Christopher Latham Sholes, Carlos Glidden, and Samuel W. Soule of Milwaukee, Wisconsin are granted a patent entitled “Improvement in Type-writing Machines.” (US No. 79,265) The “Sholes and Glidden type-writer” is only equipped with capital letters and typists can’t tell if they’re making errors because the paper can’t be seen as it is being typed upon. However, this is the first practical device of its kind, and it will go on to become the first commercially successful typewriter. The patent covers several new innovations, including “a better way of working the type-bars, of holding paper on the carriage, of holding, applying, and moving the inking-ribbon, a self-adjusting platen, and a rest or cushion for the type-bars to follow.” The device also features the QWERTY keyboard which will be used for typing for decades to follow. This patent will be credited with launching the typewriter industry.
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1633
Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei, age 70, is forced by the Inquisition to “abjure, curse, and detest” his heliocentric theories that the Sun rather than the Earth is the center of the Universe. He is also condemned to “formal prison of the Holy Office” for an indeterminate period served at the pleasure of the Inquisition’s judges and ordered to recite the seven penitential psalms once a week, every week for three years. However the Pope will moderate the sentence by specifying that it will be served under house arrest. On Oct 31, 1992, Pope John Paul II will admit regret over the handling of the matter and issue a declaration acknowledge errors committed by the tribunal that judged Galileo.

1675
The Royal Greenwich Observatory is created by Royal Warrant in England by Charles II. Construction will begin on August 10, 1675 and finish the following year. The observatory’s primary uses will be practical astronomy: navigation, timekeeping, and mapping the star. Visit the official Greenwich Observatory website.
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1768
The first commencement of a U.S. medical college is held at the College of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania. Its Department of Medicine was established in 1765 and was the first medical school in the United States.

1808
French chemist Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac announces the isolation of the element Boron, nine days ahead of Englishman Humphry Davy, who independently separated boron and made his own announcement on June 30, 1808.

1851
Adolf Anderssen and Lionel Kieseritzk play a recreational game of chess, which, by virtue of a series of bold sacrifices, goes down in history as the immortal game, one of the greatest games in chess literature. In the course of the game, Anderssen sacrifices both of his rooks as well as his queen before finally checkmating his opponent with his three remaining minor pieces.
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This is a short documentary about the LEGO Turing Machine built by Jeroen van den Bos and Davy Landman at Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI), Amsterdam (Netherlands). They built it for CWI’s exposition “Turings Erfenis” in honor of the centenary of Alan Turing’s birth on 23 June 1912.

Alan Turing was a brilliant mathematician who helped define the theoretical model of the computer as we know it today. He was a visionary, one of the few people of his time who recognized the role the computer would play for humanity.