Hot Stove Truth &amp; Rumors: Dec. 24, 2004
105901
When talks between the Diamondbacks and Yankees resume Monday, Arizona is expected to turn up the heat by asking for the entire $19.5 million difference between Javier Vazquez&#39;s contract ($35.5 million) and Randy Johnson&#39;s 2005 salary ($16 million).
123383
Search headlines from around the web, December 28, 2004.
651495
A planned 2002 US tour by Jay-Z and R Kelly  is to be revived. Plus news in brief on Phil Spector and Rodney Dangerfield.
263158
It seems even a crusty old newshound like me can get burned. My item last week about a couple naming their baby âYahooâ turns out to be a hoax cooked up by a (now-unemployed) Romanian tabloid reporter. Reporters making things up just for a laugh? I am shocked, simply shocked.Â
468825
In March 2002, I made a bet with Martin Nisenholtz about the relative importance of weblogs and the New York Times. I was and am a blogger, and Martin worked then, as he does now, for the Times. For the actual terms of the bet, read the piece on the LongNow site, and a story I wrote to announce the bet. A few comments.  1. It seems now is the time to decide who won the bet, if either of us did. 2. The world that I hoped would come about did not. While blogs have broken many stories, they have not, in general, turned into the authoritative sources I hoped they would in 2002. When the blogosphere resembles journalism it's often the tabloid kind.  3. I wouldn't mind losing the bet. That is, I wouldn't mind if the Times fully embraced the web, and I suspect Martin wouldn't mind if blogs rose to the quality of the Times. 4. If the bet had been held a year later, it seems there would be a pretty good chance that Martin would have won the bet because they recently took down the firewall at the Times, allowing search engines to index the full content. In the past, articles would remain visible for a couple of weeks then you'd have to pay money to access them. I believe they have a special deal with Google and other crawlers that allow them to get past the membership wall. For most of 2007 the Times articles were behind the firewall, and were less likely to be pointed to (which is how they rise in rank at Google). 5. It certainly is fun to speculate, but the decision about who won belongs exclusively to the Long Now Foundation. They have to decide who determines what the top stories of 2007 are, and imho they should consult with search experts to determine how to do the queries. Apparently it makes a difference how you do it.  But ultimately it's their decision. 6. Whether Wikipedia has more or less results seems to be a sidebar to the bet, which only talks about blogs and the Times. 7. Another interesting sidebar is rich media. In 2002, before podcasting had taken hold, before YouTube existed, it would have been hard to forsee the story of the South Carolina beauty queen, or the Don't Tase Me Bro guy. Questions about the future are always framed in the context of the past. Did the question Martin and I asked have any value in 2007, or did it just say something about the world of 2002?   Update: Paul Boutin who arranged the bet, apparently in conjunction with Google (I didn't know this) in 2002, weighs in.
148635
Jim Posner sent me a link yesterday to an MP3 of a conference call between the press and two members of the Clinton campaign. It's really illuminating.  There are controversies the press isn't reporting, esp betw the Clinton campaign and NBC. Will there be a debate on Feb 26 and will CNN host it or MSNBC? There's some doubt, but you can't see it when you watch the broadcasts.  I'd love to subscribe to a feed of these conference calls, but we only happened to stumble upon this one. This morning on MSNBC they were talking about a conference call with Hillary Clinton, they said she sounded tired. I'd like to hear that for myself.  There's a difference in 2008, the campaign is not just being covered by the professional media, the people are doing it too. Even if we don't have our people on the calls, I'd still like to hear them.  So, if you have an idea how we could catch a stream of these, please post a comment. Thanks. PS: I archived the MP3 in case the link above goes bad.
44270
Tycho: The recently conducted Xfire chat has now been collated into this easy to digest transcript. In case you wanted to digest it. In addition, the latest page of our insane Prey project has now gone online. Just click the link on the left, for "We Have Visitors."  Also! Your mom is trying to get a hold of you. You should give her a call.(CW)TB
449607
roundup Plus: More colleges get cheap online music...Glitches hit some EarthLink-hosted sites...More money for fuel cells...Linux release features Windows support.
515617
The alternative search engine buys Bloglines in a move to compete with the likes of Google and Yahoo. Also: Mitsubishi feels the financial pain of repeated scandals.... EarthLink earnings are up and looking good... and more.
72022
Also: Microsoft plans new BizTalk release for this year. [News.com Extra]
110995
By Frank Michael Russell, San Jose Mercury News, Calif.  Feb. 4--Here are some quickly warmed-up news leftovers from last week, culled from reports by our staff and wire services.
416654
Your (semi-) daily defense-industry news roundup.
616449
Tycho:  I purchased twenty fluid ounces of Halo 3 "Limited Edition Mountain Dew Game Fuel" in the hopes that it would taste so horrible that we'd get a strip out of it. Â Before I read the ingredients in preparation for this post, I often found myself desirous of this strange liquid - a liquid the precise color of tubercular sputum.  I would trip over to Seven Eleven to obtain it, tipping a small portion onto the concrete for the Spartans we lost at Reach.  Once I discovered that the soda contained a compound called "Brominated Vegetable Oil," my ardor was diminished for some reason.  The flavor of the beverage is not unpleasant, especially if you like bromide.  The almost oppressive campaign that surrounds the product is, perhaps, more bitter.   It's one slice (or, perhaps, sip) of a ten hojillion dollar marketing campaign designed to project one of gaming's biggest brands to people who already know about it.  There is no way to escape the Goddamn thing.  Over ninety percent of the surveyed crustaceans were "aware of the launch" and held a "strong desire to purchase," even though their massive claws and aquatic habitat make using the product impossible.  Lemurs are less bullish, but then lemurs are a notoriously tough demo.    It took a third night of playing the Call of Duty 4 Beta for everything to sink in, but it's pretty much official: they know what the fuck they're doing.  A shooter can't merely be great to come out this holiday, and even amazing might be insufficient.  To go against the previously described fucking unstoppable media phalanx - to say nothing of Halo 3 itself, whose multiplayer offering is so broad on every axis that it must be called round - you need to drop something that be off the cheazy.       There are shooters that play with progression to varying degrees.  Battlefield 2142 does, but the infantry experience is one part of a whole.  Rainbow Six: Vegas does, but its reward scheme is largely cosmetic in nature, and takes place outside of the game proper - between rounds, in austere menus.  CoD4's leveling has the sharp inhalation of a WoW ding.  It takes place right there at the moment you earn the XP from a kill, with an onscreen celebration of the fact.  The reward structure earns you new playmodes, new weapons,  new slottable abilities, the right to build custom classes, the right to wear a clan tag.  You don't need to wait long to earn them, the schedule is not cruel, but you need to put in your dues.  It's not an onerous process:  in order to level up, you must simply play Call of Duty 4.  Trust me when I say this is something you will want to do.    I feel as though my knowledge of the game should be richer, so let me crack a few more levels and get back to you.  Hopefully a beta code will have dripped out to you by then, and you will know what I mean with visceral certainty.    Oh, and also: Â if you want to tumble down some fissure in the earth and wake up in the Japanese Madness Caverns, take a look at this video for Puzzle de Harvest Moon.  I watched it hours ago, and I am still haunted.
148740
Ford will return hundreds of electric cars to Norway after protests about its plans to scrap them. Also: IBM and SCO Group tussle over Unix lawsuit & hellip;. Former Enterasys Networks CEO pleads guilty to fraud conspiracy charge & hellip;. and more.
603620
Let&#39;s go straight to the latest hot stove news. The Daily Blog&#39;s reviews of Allure&#39;s new Chapter III album and Christmas with the Kranks will have to wait until next week.
537489
Logitech International unveils the world's first computer mouse to use a sensor based on a laser. Also: Nintendo slashes some prices & hellip;. Sales of Boston Scientific's new heart stent dip & hellip;. and more.
356905
Also: Digital cameras are the hottest gift for 2004. [News.com Extra]