I cannot live without books: but fewer will suffice where amusement, and not use, is the only future object.

- Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, June 1815.

In a good bookroom you feel in some mysterious way that you are absorbing the wisdom contained in all the books through your skin, without even opening them.

- Mark Twain

1862
A direct telegraphic link between New York and San Francisco is established.

1935
Edwin Armstrong presents his paper “A Method of Reducing Disturbances in Radio Signaling by a System of Frequency Modulation,” in which he first proposes FM radio to the New York chapter of the Institute of Radio Engineers,

1944
The Hanford Atomic Facility first produces plutonium. The facility will eventually produce the plutonium used in construction of Fat Man, the atomic bomb that will be detonated over Nagasaki, Japan on August 9, 1945.

1955
A movie premieres on television in a coast-to-coast broadcast for the first time.

1957
The Hewlett-Packard Company, Inc. (HP) offers public stock for the first time. Visit the company’s official website.

1962
The International Business Machines (IBM) Data Processing Division (DPD) releases the IBM 1230 optical mark scoring reader, capable of reading and scoring 1,200 test answer sheets an hour of unattended operation.

1971
The United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) tests the largest US underground hydrogen bomb, on Amchitka Island, one of the Aleutian Islands. Code-name: Cannikin

1980
International Business Machines (IBM) and Microsoft sign a formal contract under which Microsoft will develop an alternative to Digital Research’s CP/M operating system along with a simple scripting language for IBM’s upcoming PC line of computers. Microsoft will receive US$200,000 to adapt 86-DOS into MS-DOS for the IBM PC and US$500,000 for BASIC and its compiler. Under the terms of the deal, Microsoft will retain control over DOS (Disk Operating System), a stipulation that will eventually make Microsoft the leading software developer in the world. Initial versions of the software will be delivered in mid-January.

1986
Maurice Wilkes writes to Niklaus Wirth proposing that the Modula-2+ language be revised. Wirth will give the project his blessing, and the Modula-3 committee will be established.

1987
The science fiction film Steel Dawn, directed by Lance Hool and starring Patrick Swayze, Lisa Niemi, Anthony Zerbe, and Brion James, to 290 US theaters. In it, a warrior wandering through a a post-apocalyptic world comes upon a group of settlers who are being menaced by a murderous who want the water their control. The film will gross US$311,892 domestically in its opening weekend. IMDB listing (MPAA Rating: R) Running Time: 1 hr 42 mins

1989
The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “The Enemy” first airs. (No. 307) In it, Geordi is trapped on a harsh planet with a hostile Romulan, and the pair are forced to work together to survive. Memory Alpha entry

1993
ViaCrypt publishes ViaCrypt PGP 2.4, a commercial version of the Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) application.

1994
The science fiction television series Earth 2 premieres on the NBC television network with the episode “First Contact, Part 1″. In the episode, a group of humans leave the space stations in Earth orbit to travel to a planet twenty-two light years away named “G889″ in hopes of making a better life for sick children afflicted with an illness known only as “the syndrome.” The series follows an advance team that attempts to prepare a new colony for the remaining families that are scheduled to arrive twenty-six months later after their craft crash-lands. The series will run for one season of twenty-two episodes, until June 4, 1995. TV.com entry

For four minutes, I wanted to shut this video off. I just couldn’t. It was too bad – like a car accident you can’t stop staring at. It’s absolutely mind-blowing how bad this video is.

Enjoy.

• Sci Fi Wire offers a gallery of 10 Great Sci-Fi Obama Poster Mash-Ups, starting with Optimus Prime.

Film

• DailyFill names 10 Unintentionally Creepy Animated Films, starting with Watership Down.
• John Scalzi picks Ten Directors Who Really Need to Make a SciFi Movie.
• Pop Eater looks back at the Best Alien Movie and Television Invasions.
• PopMatters rants that The Fourth Kind is NOT the truth. It is a piece of fiction using other pieces of fiction to verify its already fake plotline. io9 also warns that The Fourth Kind Is A Hoax.
• Sci Fi Wire explains Why the Stargate movie still holds up 15 years later.
• The Terminator franchise is doomed. Den of Geek explains why.

Internet

• CHICK is a new webseries that follows a woman who trains to become a superhero at a Los Angeles academy. When she catches her boyfriend cheating on her, she goes over the edge.
• The Internet continues to buzz about the secretive Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement that would put every ISP on a three-strike system.

Literature

• Interview: SA Current interviews Jeff VanderMeer, author of Finch.
• News: Google Book Settlement Judge Says Photographers Not Authors.
• News: The Online Price War Over Books Has a Fresh Twist (Or Two).
• Angela James looks at the type of books she doesn’t buy in digital format and discusses her fantasy e-reader.
• Ebooks in perspective: the iPod moment can’t happen until the CD is dead.
• Tiny little books! They’re Russian, so I read them, but they’re adorable.
• Watch the book trailer for Imager’s Challenge by L.E. Modesitt, Jr.

Television

• News: ABC’s V premiere scored big ratings.
• According to the Los Angeles Times, TV networks are selling fewer ads, despite industry-wide price reductions, marking the first time in years they have failed to leverage their audiences to boost ad prices.

Video Games

• News: Blizzard launches real money in-game pet store.

Writing

• The Book Marketing Maven explains Why Authors Need an Editor.
• Hey, There’s a Dead Guy in the Living Room offers a tongue-in-cheek explanation of Ten reasons publishers don’t offer feedback on Submissions.

The newest computer can merely compound, at speed, the oldest problem in the relations between human beings, and in the end the communicator will be confronted with the old problem, of what to say and how to say it.

- Edward R. Murrow, upon receiving the “Family of Man” Award, 1964.

1852
The first US national civil engineering society, the American Society of Civil Engineers and Architects, is founded. Twelve engineers attend the event at which the society was founded, though an invitation had been extended to all civil engineers in New York. The purpose of the society is “the advancement of the sciences of engineering and architecture in their several branches, the professional improvement of its members, the encouragement of intercourse between men of practical science, and the establishment of a central point of reference and union for its members.” The organization’s architects will later split off into their own organization, and the organization will be retitled the “American Society of Civil Engineers” (ASCE). Visit the official ASCE website.

1895
George B. Selden of Rochester, New York, receives the first US patent for a gasoline-driven automobile. (US No. 549,160) In the patent, he describes the complete automobile incorporating such a clutch, a compressed air self-starter, and a steering system. As a patent attorney, he knows to delay the contention over the patent by sending amendments and other communications every two years. Meanwhile, others develop the actual working of the automobile, increasing the value of his patents, and making him one of the earliest successful “patent trolls.”

1906
Marie Curie becomes the first females lecturer at the Sorbonne University in Paris, France. In her inaugural lecture, Curie explains her treatise on radioactivity. One hundred twenty students attend the lecture, along with several members of the public and the media.

1922
Archaeologist Howard Carter excavates a further eleven steps and exposes a large portion of the plastered and sealed entrance to Tutankhamun’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings. The first step had been discovered by a laborer the day before. Carter cables his financier, Lord Carnarvon, in England with the following message, “At last have made wonderful discovery in Valley a magnificent tomb with seals intact recovered same for your arrival congratulations.” The tomb entrance is refilled, to be uncovered fully November 23 – 24, 1922, after the arrival of Lord Carnarvon.

1930
A demonstration of the Baird closed circuit television system at the Hairdressing Fair of Fashion, held November 5 – 13, includes the first advertisement, a short promotion of the Eugène Method of permanent hair waving.

1940
American election returns are broadcast on television for the first time.

1943
Universal Pictures releases the horror film Son of Dracula, directed by Robert Siodmak and starring Lon Chaney, Jr., Robert Paige, Louise Allbritton, and Evelyn Ankers to US theaters. It is the third in Universal Studios’ Dracula trilogy, preceded by Dracula and Dracula’s Daughter. IMDB listing

1963
Archaeologists find Viking ruins at L’Anse-aux-Meadows in Newfoundland that predate Columbus‘ landing by five hundred years. The discovery supports the belief of many historians that Leif Ericson, second son of Eric the Red, was the first European to reach the North American mainland, at a place that he called Vinland.

1967
NASA launches the ATS-3 communications satellite. It will remain in service longer than any other satellite in history, remaining active for over twenty-eight years. It will return the first photographs of the the full Earth disk.

1970
The Data Processing Division (DPD) of International Business Machines (IBM) releases three new products: the IBM 303 control unit, the IBM 3420 tape drive, and the IBM 129 card data recorder with monolithic-circuit memory.

1974
Atari releases the duck hunting game Qwak! to arcades. The game is notable for being among the first games to feature a single-player mode with enemies with basic artificial intelligence (AI). The game marks the beginning of the trend of increasingly sophisticated artificial intelligence in video games. Earlier single-player games, such as Gotcha, Pong, and Spacewar! used discrete logic, rather than AI.

Kee Games, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Atari, releases the Tank! arcade game in North America. Tank is the first game to use IC-based ROM to store graphical data. Although Gran Trak 10, released in July of 1974, was the first arcade game to use ROM data, Gran-Trak’s ROM uses an earlier diode-based ROM technology. The game will become so popular that Atari makes its “secret” ownership of Key Games public knowledge, merging the company back into Atari and later releasing Tank under the Atari label as well.

1982
According to Twin Galaxies, Mike Lepkosky scores a record-setting 8,161,270 points playing the Midway arcade game Pac-Man at the Fantasy Freeway arcade in Houston, Texas. Visit the official Twin Galaxies website.

1988
In the US, the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA) is signed into law by US President Ronald Reagan. The law prohibits the “wrongful disclosure of video tape rental or sale records” outside the ordinary course of business. The act was passed after the video rental history of Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork was nationally publicized. Violators of the law may be held liable for up to US$2,500 in actual damages. Read more about the VPPA at Epic.org.

1989
FO-12, the first Japanese amateur satellite developed by the Japan Amateur Radio League and the NEC Corporation is taken out of service due to a battery failure.

1990
PC Week publishes a forceful letter from Brad Silverberg, Vice President of Systems Software at Microsoft and General Manager of its Windows and MS-DOS Business Unit, which denies that Microsoft has ever engaged in fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) tactics or that Microsoft has stolen features from the DR-DOS operating system, claiming that, “The feature enhancements of MS-DOS version 5.0 were decided and development was begun long before we heard about DR DOS 5.0.”

The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Reunion” first airs. (No. 407) In it, Picard is selected to arbitrate the selection of a new Chancellor for the Klingon Empire and, in doing so, find out who dishonorably murdered the old Chancellor. Also involved is Ambassador K’Ehleyr, who has a surprise for Worf, their son. Memory Alpha entry

United States President George H. W. Bush signs the Launch Services Purchase Act into law. The Act, in a reversal of the Space Shuttle monopoly, orders NASA to purchase launch services for its primary payloads from commercial providers whenever such services are required in the course of its activities.

1991
Mayor Tom Bradley of Los Angeles, California and Mayor Xavier Suarez of Miami, Florida officially declare the day “Nintendo Fun Day.”

Version 1.10 of RemoteAccess, an early MS-DOS Bulletin Board System (BBS) program is released. Download the application at PC Micro.

This is easily the best Halloween costumes I’ve seen on the net this year.

Source: Casey Donahue’s Tumblr