The Great Geek Manual

Comics

• Topless Robot names 5 Genuinely Worthwhile Female Versions of Male Superheroes.

Film

• Just a heads up. If you’re in a horror movie, expect to have terrible cell phone service. It’s just one of those rules.
• The Los Angeles Times wonders Can Bruce Willis regain star power with ‘Surrogates’? I say the ship sailed on that dream back at Live Free or Die Hard.

Internet

• If the ad is to be believed, you too can Be a Jetpack Test Pilot! Only, you have to pay for the privileged.
• io9 has assembled a gallery of The Best And Worst Of Virtual Music Video Worlds.

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1852
The first airship, a semi-rigid dirigible balloon powered by a steam engine is demonstrated with a seventeen mile flight from Paris to Trappes, France. Henri Giffard built the 147-foot long spindle-shaped coal-gas balloon and fitted it with an engine of his own design. The engine rotates an eleven foot propeller to propel the ship to speeds of up to five miles per hour against the wind. The demonstration is the first powered or controlled flight in history.

1923
The first movie released on celluloid film, Das Leben auf dem Dorfe, premieres.

1947
Majestic 12, a secret committee of scientists, military leaders, and government officials, is allegedly established by a secret executive order issued by President Harry Truman to investigate UFO activity in the aftermath of the Roswell incident.

1948
The Honda Motor Company is founded.

1960
The first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the USS Enterprise (CVAN-65), is launched in Newport, Virginia. It is the longest, tallest, and fastest warship in the world and will remain so for years to come. Powered by eight nuclear reactors, it does not need to carry its own fuel oil and so has more room for aviation fuel and weapons. In 1963, Enterprise and two similarly powered cruisers make a non-stop voyage around the world to demonstrate the viability of nuclear power. It is the eighth US ship to bear the name Enterprise. Visit the vessel’s official website.
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The evolution of asynchronous network time has meant that for the first time since the beginning of the industrial revolution, humans are able to create and experience timescapes that are not synchronized to, or sublimated by, the logic of the clock. This process is set to become yet more profound through developments in advanced computing. Humans, as active agents in an amorphous and emergent network ecology, will potentially be able to create their own timescapes. These will not be based upon or dominated by the abstract logic of the mechanical clock, but will be an asynchronous temporality that is predicated upon the interaction of innate human timescapes coupled (literally, as the active research into Negropontean cyborg theory shows) with molecular level computing.

- “Timescapes of the Network Society” by Robert Hassan at Fast Capitalism, 2005.

Book: The Lost Symbol
ISBN-13: 978-0385504225

Author: Dan Brown
Series: Robert Langdon Series, No. 3
Publisher: Doubleday Books
Genre: Suspense Thriller
Release: September 15, 2009
Length: 528 pages (Hardcover)

Rating: C+ (75 / 100)

Verdict

Hardcore fans of Brown’s previous works, Angels & Demons and The Da Vinci Code, are certain to enjoy The Lost Symbol. It’s choked full of all the qualities that made the first two books international bestsellers, but for many readers, this book is going to be one volume too much for Brown’s formula to bear.

Pros: This book is a fast-paced page-tuner. It features the same type of great info-tainment quality as the previous two books.

Cons: The book’s plot is formulaic, predictable, and ultimately anti-climactic. The “secret” at the center of the book is a severe disappointment, and at the end of the book, Brown launches into a full-on sermon, ruining what very little emotional impact the story held.

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Book Releases

• The Grave Thief (Twilight Reign) by Tom Lloyd
  Pyr. (ISBN-13: 978-1591027805) Paperback. Length: 491pp

• Legacy: The Becoming by Dew Platt
  Gazelle Distribution Trade. (ISBN-13: 978-1600430824) Paperback. Length: 250pp

• Pinocchio: Vampire Slayer by Dustin Higgins
  Slave Labor Graphics. (ISBN-13: 978-1593621766) Paperback. Length: 128pp

• The Quiet War by Paul J. McAuley
  Pyr. (ISBN-13: 978-1591027812) Paperback. Length: 405pp

• The Year of the Flood: A Novel by Margaret Atwood
  Nan A. Talese. (ISBN-13: 978-0385528771) Hardcover. Length: 448pp

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Art

• Amartinsdebarros presents “The Art Scholar,” an oil painting on canvas.
• VolpinProps explains the process behind his creation of a Big Daddy Bioshock costume.

Comics

• The recent Kirby lawsuit raises the question of Who Created Spider-Man.
• The Comics Alliance has compiled a list of The 11 Great Comic Book Robots that doesn’t go how you might guess.

Film

• Interview: Michael Caine On Batman 3: “There Is No Johnny Depp.”
• News: It’s official, Disney has optioned Disney optioned On Stranger Tides for use as the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie.
• Den of Geek picks the Top 10 Movie Re-Edits, including Leon and Daredevil.
• MovieFill presents an infographic Comparing Disney and Marvel.
• The Spill counts down 10 Overwhelmingly Claustrophobic Movies.

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1642
Harvard College in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the oldest college in the United States, holds its first commencement exercises.

1837
Morse enters into an agreement with Alfred Vail, whose father owns Speedwell Iron Works. Morse develops his caveat showing the invention and alphabet code. It is sent to his old classmate and Commissioner of Patents, Henry L. Ellsworth, in Washington.

1846
German astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle verifies the position of the eighth planet, Neptune, as predicted through astronomical calculations made by French astronomer Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier and British astronomer John Couch Adams. Galle discovers Neptune after only an hour of searching, within one degree of the position that had been computed by Le Verrier. Independently of the English astronomer John C. Adams, Le Verrier had calculated the size and position of a previously unknown planet, which he assumed influenced the irregular orbit of Uranus, and he asked Galle to look for it.
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