The Great Geek Manual

1616
The first free public school in Europe to allow non-aristocrats to attend opens in Frascati, Italy.

1835
Charles Darwin reaches the Galápagos Islands aboard the HMS Beagle.

1910
Cosmic radiation is first suggested as the subject of a paper published in Physikalische Zeitchrift by amateur physicist Theodor Wulf. He reports the results of four days of observations he made the previous Spring from the top of the Eiffel Tower. He suggests that the Earth is under constant bombardment from radiation from outer space, from sources other than the Sun.

1916
The first tanks, the British D1 tanks, are used for the first time in history at the Battle of the Somme, during World War I.

1928
A.H. Renfell and Captain Rickards demonstrate the first robot manufactured in Britain at the Model Engineering Exhibition in London, England.
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Audio Fiction and Podcasts

• Listen to the horror story “Reservation Monsters” by Jim Bihyeh at Pseudopod.
• Listen to “Mr. Penumbra’s Twenty-Four-Hour Book Store” by Robin Sloan at Escape Pod.
• Listen to “The Olverung” by Stephen Woodworth at PodCastle.
• Listen to “Restoration Blues” by Stewart S. Smith at Dunesteef.
• Listen to “Shipwreck in the Sky” by Eando Binder at Maria Lectrix.
• Listen to “Spirit Dump” by Lawrence Watt Evans at StarShipSofa.

Comics and Graphic Novels

• Download the first issue of 20 AD Origins for free at ClickWheel.

More Links

• The Free Speculative Fiction Online page has been updated with new fiction.

Poetry

• Read The Multiple Universe Poems by Brenda Cooper at Strange Horizons.

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Art

• Check out the papercraft version of Howl’s Moving Castle by Ben Millett.
• Unreality has posted a gallery of Adorable Gallery of Cosplaying Kids that’ll have you running for the insulin!

Comics

• Topless Robot counts down The Joker’s 10 Craziest Kills.

Film

• News: It’s official! Disney no long knows when to stop, and the title of the next “Pirates” entry will be Pirates of the Caribbean On Stranger Tides.

Internet

• Listverse takes a crack at Star Wars Trivia, but of course, I’d heard it all before. So had the 164 hilariously critical Star Wars fans who commented on the list. People! Don’t ever claim to know something about Star Wars other fans don’t. The internets will eat you alive.

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1886
The first US patent for a typewriter ribbon is issued to George Kerr Anderson of Memphis, Tennessee. (US No. 349,026) The ribbons each contain a portion near the end of the ribbon that is colored differently from the rest to notify the operator that the direction of the ribbon feed needs to be reversed. Although the innovation results in type of a different color, it’s text isn’t lost. Previous uniformly colored ribbons would result in rapidly fading type as a consequence of the ribbon coming to the end of its reel and being left in its place.

1920
Paul Specht & His Orchestra become the first dance band to be broadcast live over the radio in the US, on station WWJ in Detroit, Michigan.

1927
Gene Austin records My Blue Heaven for Victor Records. It will be the first “modern song” to become a major hit, selling an estimated five million copies.

1939
The Vought-Sikorsky VS-300 becomes the first practical helicopter to ever successfully lift off. Designer Igor Sikorsky piloted the vehicle as it lifted off the ground to an altitude of roughly three feet for a duration of about ten seconds.
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People often think that a fiction is something untrue, but this is wrong. The word derives from the Latin fingere, to make. As something made, fiction is different from something discovered, as in physics, or from something that happened, as in the news. But this does not mean it is false. Fiction is about possible selves in possible worlds.

- “Changing our Minds” by Keith Oatley in Greater Good Magazine, September 2, 2009.

Read the full article at Changing our Minds magazine.

Book: The Winds of Dune
ISBN-10: 978-0765322722

Author: Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson
Series: Heroes of Dune interquel tetralogy
Publisher: Tor Books
Genre: Science Fiction/ Space Opera
Release: August 4, 2009
Length: 448 pages (Hardcover)

Rating: B (85 / 100)

Verdict

It’s astonishing how seamlessly Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson have matched the tone and technique of Frank Herbert. Both the best and worst that can be said of The Winds of Dune is that is that it fits seamlessly into the original Dune series, flawlessly mimicking its style. Which is to say that Dune fans are going to rave about it, while casual readers are likely to shelf it for future use as a sleeping aide.

That’s always been true of the Dune series, though. Dune has been the series that separates out the hardcore science fiction aficionados from the tourists since it first became a series with the release of Dune Messiah. However, even those who have had difficulty reading beyond Children of the Dune (which is were most casual readers stop reading the series), are going to want to pick up this volume. It isn’t as difficult a read as most of the books of the original series, and it features blessedly few character rants. Plus, it goes a long way towards reconciling Dune’s single most glaring fault – the disconnect between the honorable character of Paul Atreides and the brutality of the Jihad he launches.

If you finished and enjoyed the first three books of Herbert’s original series, you owe it to yourself to pick this one up to complete the picture. The four books form quite a tidy story line all on their own, without the rapidly expanding labyrinth of other books being released into the series.

Pros: Puts some nice finishing touches on the Paul’s role in the Dune series.

Cons: No matter how they advertise it, the Dune series is never going to be about excitement, at best, it’s sci-fi’s answer to a political thriller.

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1898
Reverend Hannibal Williston Goodwin receives a patent for his celluloid photographic film, which he describes as “nitro cellulose transparent flexible photographic film pellicles.” (US No. 610,861)

1899
The first American automobile fatality occurs when Henry H. Bliss is run over as he exits a streetcar at the intersection of Central Park West and 74th Street in New York City. He steps into the path of an approaching horseless carriage driven by Arthur Smith. Bliss, age 68, is taken to a hospital, where he will die of his injuries. The driver is arrested and held on US$1,000 bail.

1922
The world’s highest shade temperature is recorded at the African village of Al Aziziyah, about twenty-five miles (40km) south of Tripoli, the capital of Libya. Temperatures reach upwards of 136.4ºF (58ºC). The village is a major trade center of the Jifarah plain, just a few miles south of the Mediterranean Sea.

1956
International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) introduces the first commercial computer to feature a magnetic disk storage system (hard drive), the IBM 305 RAMAC. The drive itself, which was introduced on September 4, features fifty double-sided twenty-four inch diameter disks or “platters,” each of which is operated by an arm and one read/write head. Each disk has a capacity of about 5MB each, with a transfer rate is 8800 characters per second. RAMAC is an acronym for “Random Access Method of Accounting and Control.” It marks a revolution in computing as it the first business computer designed to provide businesses with real time accounting. In 1957, the first RAMAC will be installed at Chrysler’s MOPAR Division.
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…we must become judicious controllers of our own contexts, making careful and self-reflective choices about what we read, watch, consume.

- “Nanostories are killing us” in And Then There’s This: How Stories Live and Die in Viral Culture by Bill Wasik, June 11, 2009.