2013: The New Year

Taken from a 1922 Elgin Watch ad. That is all.

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1922: A Girl’s Will Force

From a 1922 issue of The American Magazine:

A Girl’s Will Force

Years ago in the South I met Sue. She was twelve, and loved books with all the strength of her young heart. Her father railed against her studious habits.

“You’re spoilin’ the girl,” he would say to his wife. “The younger ‘uns take to workin’ about the house, an’ she—”

But always his wife replied: “Sue’s different from us, Dan. God’s making her what we might have been.”

Thus for twelve years Sue lived in a world apart with her books.

Some Of 2012 In Review

These are not all the posts from the past year. Nor are they even the most interesting. It’s a potpourri of stuff, some of what I think you might have missed or have forgotten.

Best Inspiration of the Year:
#OccupySandy

We Need This:
I Want To See Jubilee Fines Imposed From Now On

I Was So Very Very Very Wrong:
The Future Is Filled With Bullshit Panic Based On Software
Sandy At Zone A This Morning
Now ALL Software Models AGREE!
Superstorm Sandy Interruption
Superstorm Sandy: Before And After
Index Of Superstorm Sandy Photo Posts
And Now It’s Snow

Microsoft No Reed Gud

It’s Official – Microsoft Doesn’t Understand Visual Novels

I give up. I see nothing to indicate that MS is serious about addressing the issue of giving developers a way to communicate directly with the folks doing the testing. I doubt that submitting it another twenty times with more and more instructions is going to solve this, and I doubt anyone is going to put that kind of time in just to be in their App Store. If you can have a $2.99 program in the Windows Store that is nothing but a wrapper for Picasa, but I can’t get my game in, then I think you know what you can expect to find (and not find) there going forward.

Ah, but the Microsofties smile a lot.

But then morons usually do.

R.I.P. Scientist Rita Levi-Montalcini

Jewish-Italian Nobel scientist Levi-Montalcini dies, aged 103

During her research at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, she discovered nerve growth factor, or NGF, the first substance known to regulate the growth of cells. She showed that when tumors from mice were transplanted to chicken embryos they induced rapid growth of the embryonic nervous system. She concluded that the tumor released a nerve growth-promoting factor that affected certain types of cells.

The research increased the understanding of many conditions, including tumors, developmental malformations, and senile dementia. It also led to the discovery by Stanley Cohen of another substance, epidermal growth factor, which stimulates the proliferation of epithelial cells.

Additional:

Wikipedia: Rita Levi-Montalcini

Amazon Calls In James Bond To Kill Other eBookstores

Today’s Kindle Daily Deal has a slew of Ian Fleming James Bond novels for just US$1.99 each (this is likely USA-only too).

Having licensed the novels for a decade, Bezos is now using Bond to wipe out Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and the Reader Store — which don’t offer them.

1922: How Big Men Hit The Nail On The Head

From a 1922 issue of The American Magazine:

How Big Men Hit the Nail on the Head

They see the main issues of life and concentrate on them; by never “scattering their fire” they achieve remarkable results

by Isaac F. Marcosson

In my work as a journalist, I have met dozens of famous men. And here is one interesting fact I have got out of that experience: Almost invariably in the course of conversation, these men would say something, so sharp and to the point, that it was like throwing the spotlight on a certain idea.

These “spotlight ideas” proved to have a definite connection with the men’s careers. They were maxims which these men had “doped out” of their experience. Always, these apparently chance remarks would hit some nail squarely on the head and drive it home.

There Is Just One Market, Apple Owns It — And Must Be Stopped

As Doctor Smith would say on Lost in Space, “Oh, the pain. The pain.”

Targets missed, Nook sells stake to Pearson to secure book distribution

For every 100 web pageviews on an iPad, a Kindle gets 5, a Galaxy gets 3, and a Surface gets 0.22

1) Pearson wants a lifeboat as its business begins to take on water like the Titanic did. Nook Media is not that lifeboat — but at least it gets them closer to Microsoft, who, paradoxically, can be.

1922: NYC Sightseeing Bus

From a 1922 issue of The American Magazine:

Click = big

That bus is just marvelous. I’d love to take a ride in that!

Nell Cutter’s White Elephants, A Story By Bess Streeter Aldrich

Note: I usually skip the fiction in The American Magazine. But I read the first paragraph of this and was sucked right in. It’s a delightful story with a wonderful economy of words. It’s also available as an ePub eBook at Google Docs — with original page images intact — for those who want to read it offline.

From a 1922 issue of The American Magazine:

Nell Cutter’s White Elephants

A story by Bess Streeter Aldrich

Mrs. Archibald Ramsey was a reformer — a reformer being a person who tries to get people out of their old grooves, no matter how comfortable those grooves may be. Mrs. Ramsey firmly believed that she was the lever that could, should, and would pry the Meadows inhabitants out of their old tracks.