50 out of 1788.. how about you against the world?

50 out of 1788.. how about you against the world?

Google Android Developer Challenge attracted 1788 entries and soon probably on May 5, 50 winners are to be announced. There's a lot of speculation, desperation and frustration doing the rounds in the android developer forums. A few developers are worried that their applications got only 1 or 2 hits. A few more are worried that their applications were not tested right. A few of them are worried that their applications have not been started yet, since there's no trace of the server being hit until now.

Come May 5 this much is certain:

There'll be 1738 souls that would be shattered. There'll be 1738 dreams that would be broken. There'll be 1738 tears. And to those 1738 fellow android developers, here comes 5 little stories.

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1. At Moon Lake Lodge, one dinner guest found chef Crum's French fries too thick for his liking and rejected the order. Crum cut and fried a thinner batch, but these, too, met with disapproval. Exasperated, Crum decided to rile the guest by producing French fries too thin and crisp to skewer with a fork. The plan backfired.

2. Even as a small boy, James was fond of tinkering with things. This fondness was not always appreciated, as is shown by a remark of an aunt: "James Watt, I never saw such an idle boy; take a book or employ yourself usefully; for the last hour you have not spoken a word, but taken off the lid of that kettle and put it on again, holding now a cup and now a silver spoon over the steam, watching how it rises from the spout, and catching the drops of water it turns into. Are you not ashamed to spend your time in this way?"

3. Many a morning when he rose, he scarcely knew where the food for the day was to come from.

Once, when a pupil was late in paying for his lessons, he nearly starved.

"Well, my boy," asked Morse, "how are we off for money?"

"Why, professor," replied the student, "I am very sorry to say I have been disappointed; but I expect money next week."

"Next week, I shall be dead by that time."

"Dead, sir?"

"Yes, dead of starvation."

"Would ten dollars be of any service?"

"Ten dollars would save my life; that is all it would do."

The student paid the money, and the two dined together. After the meal was over Morse said, "This is my first meal for twenty-four hours."

4. One day in the year 1839, a man came to the shop who was working to perfect a knitting machine. He was at his wit's ends, and brought the model to Davis to see if he could help him.

Davis in his extravagant way said, "What are you bothering yourself with a knitting machine for? Why don't you make a sewing machine?"

"I wish I could," replied the caller, "but it can't be done."

"Oh, yes, it can," said Davis. "I can make a sewing machine myself."

"Well," said the other, "you do it, and you will have a fortune."

These remarks were taken by most of the workmen as idle boasts. Not so with Howe. He kept brooding over the idea of "inventing a sewing machine and making a fortune."

As the boy brooded, this resolution slowly took form in his mind: "I will invent that sewing machine and win that fortune."

5. "I went to a distinguished aurist of Boston, and told him I wanted to make a phonautograph, modeling it after the ear. He replied, 'Why don't you use a human ear itself, taken from a dead man, as a phonautograph?' That was quite a new idea, and I said, 'I shall be very glad to do that, but where can I get a dead man's ear?' 'Oh,' he said, 'I will get it for you,' and he did. This was in 1874.

"Often in the middle of the night Bell would wake me up," said Thomas Sanders, the father of George. "His black eyes would be blazing with excitement. Leaving me to go up to the attic, he would rush wildly to the barn and begin to send me signals along his experimental line. If I noticed any improvement in his machine, he would be delighted. He would leap and whirl around in [238] one of his 'war dances,' and then go contentedly to bed. But if the experiment was a failure, he would go back to his bench and try some different plan."

"I went to bed the night before," said Bell, "an unknown man, and awoke to find myself famous. I owe it to Sir William Thompson, back of him to Dom Pedro, and back of him to the deaf-mutes of Boston."

5.ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL AND THE INVENTION OF THE TELEPHONE
http://www.mainlesson.com/display.php?author=bachman&book=inventors&stor...

4.ELIAS HOWE AND THE INVENTION OF THE SEWING MACHINE
http://www.mainlesson.com/display.php?author=bachman&book=inventors&stor...

3.SAMUEL F. B. MORSE AND THE INVENTION OF THE TELEGRAPH
http://www.mainlesson.com/display.php?author=bachman&book=inventors&stor...

2.JAMES WATT AND THE INVENTION OF THE STEAM ENGINE
http://www.mainlesson.com/display.php?author=bachman&book=inventors&stor...

1.Inventor Potato Chips: George Crum (a.k.a. George Speck*)
http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/potatochips.htm