If you are a gamer, or even just a computer geek, then the next time you are in Berlin I have a must see spot for you to check out.

Opened in the late 1990′s the Video Game Museum of Berlin is a must see destination with exhibits that cover a wide range of video game related topics as well as including the world’s very first home video game console, 50 portable and handheld consoles. It also has exhibits that are devoted to the social aspects of gaming along with its darker sides of violence and addiction.

As you can see from some of the images there is a very retro feel to the museum which definitely adds something to the experience.

Here is a bit of a video tour for you.

via Geekosystem

One of the coolest museums around, well, for gamers and geeks maybe. is a post from: The Inquisitr

H1N1 (Swine Flu), Avian Flu and even standard influenza have emerged as modern specters of epidemic, but if scientists are correct, humanity has one less worry on the infectious disease front.

The spread of the bubonic plague- also known as Black Death- was likely exacerbated by conditions in the 14th century, including famine, war and weather. Between 30% and 60% of Europe’s population at the time is believed to have succumbed to the disease as it made its way across the continent in the mid 1300′s.

In a study termed “elegant” by University of Michigan medical historian Dr. Howard Markel, scientists at McMaster University in Ontario indicate they believe they’ve solved at least one of the mysteries surrounding the causative agent behind the deadly outbreaks. Hendrik Poinar, a biological anthropologist at the university, says that 100 samples from exhumed bodies of plague victims have revealed the pandemic’s culprit- although other strains cannot necessarily be ruled out. Poinar says:

“The Black Death was caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis — the one responsible for current plague outbreaks. This settles the controversy surrounding the causative agent. Although we cannot rule out, at this stage, that there was another co-circulating strain.”

Markel said the study’s results were impressive- but that further work is needed given the scope of the pandemic and the number of outbreaks through history. He indicated more research was needed to augment the findings:

“The follow-up is clearly to get more plague genomes, from other outbreaks, to compare them across both space and time.”

But while the original strain is long dead, researchers like Merkel say that modern equivalents will continue to plague humanity, adding that science will never “really conquer germs, we just wrestle them to a draw at best.”

Black Death Bacteria Likely Extinct, Scientists Find is a post from: The Inquisitr

A previously unknown letter written by Abigail Adams has been discovered in a desk and donated to a Massachusetts historical society.

Adams, wife of founding father John Adams and mother of John Quincy Adams, was the first Second Lady and second First Lady in the United States. She is known to have written more than 2,000 letters during her life, many discussing politics and the American Revolution with her husband. She was known for views that were at the time considered radical, including some on women’s liberation. Nearly a century and a half before the women’s suffrage movement, Adams wrote:

“…remember the ladies, and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the Ladies we are determined to foment a Rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation.”

The letter recently discovered was written in 1788 by Adams just before she left London after her husband’s ambassadorship to return home to Massachusetts, and was found among the papers of a recently deceased lawyer. The letter was sent to her uncle, Dr. Cotton Tufts (historical porn star name FTW), with whom she frequently corresponded.

A gender studies professor commented to the Boston Globe about Adams’ letters in relation to women’s history:

“Any Abigail Adams letter is a treasure,’’ said Edith B. Gelles, a senior scholar at the Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University. She has studied the Adamses for nearly four decades.

Gelles called Abigail Adams’s letters “the best record we have’’ of women’s lives during the Revolutionary War period.

The most recent letter is said to be characteristic of Adams, and include some shrewd political analysis from the former First Lady- as well as a “lament” that European leaders did not take the newly formed America seriously yet.

Boston Globe: New Abigail Adams Letter Found in Desk is a post from: The Inquisitr

Historians are getting history wood in New York with the addition of a massive, previously unknown collection to the New York Historical Society’s stable of photos.

The existence of the cabinets full of very rare images from the 1939-1940 World’s Fair came as a surprise to the museum, and augments their collection significantly- adding ten times the number of photos. The images extensively detail pop culture of the late thirties, including many ideas and practices that have since been long retired. Included among the 1939 World’s Fair Pavilions were:

• Nature’s Mistakes (with an eight-legged horse and two-headed cow)
• Midget Town
• The cigarette pavilion, sponsored by Lucky Strikes
• The parachute jump (which moved to Coney Island)

Marilyn Kushner, of the New York Historical Society, spoke to the NYDN about the new additions to the museum’s collection:

“These photos put a really personal flavor on the World’s Fair,” Kushner said. “It’s a lot of popular culture we’ll be able to glean…”It’s not only what the brochures wanted us to see. It’s a really personalized view of what everybody saw.”

She points out that many of the exhibits wouldn’t be congruent with today’s culture:

A whole pavilion dedicated to cigarettes. Could that ever happen now?” Kushner said.

The Society didn’t say when or where the images would be available for viewing.

1939 World’s Fair Photos Recently Uncovered in Manhattan Apartment is a post from: The Inquisitr

My interest in sports pretty well ended when I stopped working as a events manager for a sports bar and as such I really don’t care that much about events like the Super Bowl but I know that a lot of people do; so this post is for them.

via WindowsObserver and InfographicWorld

Some infographic love for the Super Bowl is a post from: The Inquisitr

I don’t know what possesses people to do thing like what urban explorers Andrew Wonder and Steve Duncan do but we should be in their debt. Willing to risk life, limb and the very real possibility of arrest they show us parts of the greatest city in the world that we would not normally see, and may never see.

The bring us the Undercity, a vanishing part of our world that in its own way is glorious and beautiful. this video is a compilation of a few days spent exploring those parts of New York that are a part of the city’s history that very few people know about.

Enjoy.

UNDERCITY from Andrew Wonder on Vimeo.

via io9

The Underbelly of New York still exists, and it’s pretty cool [Video] is a post from: The Inquisitr

Being a geek is cool now, thanks Chuck, but it wasn’t always that way. In fact in the beginning being called a geek was the same as being called a fool, or possibly a circus performers who had a penchant for biting the heads off of chickens.

See even Alice Cooper didn’t start anything new even though people called him foolish for doing that during some of his stage shows.

Now however thanks to the team at Geeks are Sexy and Flowtown we have the definitive history of geekdom in a handy to read infographic.

Did you know that geeks evolved from someone considered as a fool? is a post from: The Inquisitr

I have been doing this online thing since before the Internet became the hottest thing since the invention of the telephone and can still remember conversations with other bulletin board (BBS) sysops about this new fangled thing that was spreading like a bad weed.

From that point until now a lot of really cool, and incredibly stupid things have happened on the Internet or as a result of it. This interesting infographic by OnlineSchool’s is only the briefest glimpse at the most important of those events but is fun all the same.

via Social Media Graphic

A history lesson about the Internet [Infographic] is a post from: The Inquisitr

That said there is no way with our current technology that you can even come close to suggesting that anything being written today on services like Twitter or Facebook is of any historical significance. Not only that there is absolutely no reason to even think that any of it will be around in a 100 years time – let alone even 10 years.

Ayelet Noff over at The Next Web has for some reason fallen for the idea that the crap that currently flows through Twitter or Facebook is of some sort of historical importance that this generation and future ones will deem it worth of some historian having a wet dream over.

Sorry Ayelet but you along with Ben Parr who you quoted in your post are drinking way too much social media kool-aid and you need a reality intervention.

Both of you go on about how every one of our actions, our feelings, thoughts are being constantly recorded. Well beside the very idea of that happening is exceptionally creepy what makes you think that any of this will even exist beyond a point where it will survive in any usable form and hold any historical value. Seriously.

Over at Mashable Ben gets all effusive over how social media is going to change recorded history. Are you kidding me?

Like, who is really going to give a damn what the hell you or I were doing in the month of November in the year 2009 at some point in the future. That silliness aside there is the whole technological and business angle that you seem to be ignoring.

As it stands right now Twitter only keeps our data for a certain period of time and ask Thomas Hawk about the long time permanence of our online lives. Ask all the users of Sidekick when they potentially lost all their data or how about all those users who have been kicked from Facebook?

This idea that that just because social media is the hot ticket in a very small segment of the online world and that because of it we are creating some sort of new permanent record for future reference is nothing but an illusion. That so-called record exists only as long as companies want, or are able, to keep the data. That isn’t permanence. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

The one point I do agree with with Ben on though is that there will be an ethical war over how that information is used and that sir will be an event for the history books.

Historical permanence of today’s social media? Give me a break. is a post from: The Inquisitr

The ubiquitous internet Smiley has been with us for a very long time but its origins are shrouded in mystery even though many have tried to lay claim to their birth or knowing where they first showed up. Now though documents have been discovered that let us in on the little known world of Smiley creation.

hat tip to Dark Roasted Blend

Smileys: The Big Internet Mystery Solved is a post from: The Inquisitr

From the site Historical Tweets, a glimpse at history as seen through the eyes of Twitter. Another funny one:

Twitter through history: July 4th, 1776 is a post from: The Inquisitr