Daily Digest
eMusic: UK P2P warning letter pact
”smells very funny to us”
The UK detente between ISPs and the music indus-
try hasn’t attracted the same vociferous criticism that
has followed other recent music industry actions; who
could be opposed to ISPs merely sending out friendly
letters to alleged file-swappers? But indie music store
eMusic has some olfactory concerns about the deal. It
”smells very funny to us,” CEO David Pakman tells
Ars.
eMusic has made a name for itself in the US as one
of the largest music download stores, a hub for inexpen-
sive indie music. The company expanded into Europe
in 2006, and European sales now count for 15 percent
of its total revenues. Pakman sees the UK, in partic-
ular, as one of the largest underserved music markets
outside the US; that’s why he’s concerned about the
new arrangement between ISPs and the British music
business.
The fear is that Britain’s BPI, which represents ma-
jor labels, may have offered a ”quid pro quo” to en-
courage ISP cooperation in its scheme. US ISPs have
been exceptionally reluctant to get involved in fingering
subscribers for the content industries without a court
order, but several major British ISPs have agreed to do
so, and two (Sky and BT) have gone on to announce
licensing agreements with the music business. Those
agreements could give ISPs the right to launch their
own music stores.
And that’s the issue. Should ISPs choose to launch
their own music services, would independent companies
like eMusic still receive a fair shake? It’s not a new
worry, and we’ve seen it in Canada when Bell Canada
started throttling P2P traffic (too much bandwidth!)
and then opened a bandwidth-intensive movie down-
load store of its own. Similar concerns were voiced in
the US when Comcast began interrupting some P2P
uploads even as it had a huge financial interest in hav-
ing people watch video through its cable system, not
an Internet connection.
BPI boss Geoff Taylor made the ISP music strat-
egy explicit in a column for the BBC this summer.
”We believe that ISPs, far from being a simple pipe,
can become significant distributors of digital media,” he
wrote, ”and share in the tremendous value that would
be unleashed if more music were accessed legally on-
line.” He then made a brief reference to ”ISP partner-
ships,” which are the ”next logical step in our maturing
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digital music business.”
Pakman’s concern isn’t so much about crude prac-
tices like throttling traffic to eMuisc or cutting off ac-
cess to the site. That’s not going to happen. But what
worries him is the possibility for other arrangements-an
ISP’s own music offering being exempt from bandwidth
caps, for instance.
While Pakman’s not a fan of bandwidth caps in gen-
eral, it’s the link between caps and music licenses that
makes him uneasy. ISPs suddenly have an ”economic
interest to favor their own services,” a fear that ISPs
will have to address in ever case in which they attempt
to enter a content-delivery market.
Instead of sending letter to file-swappers, which Pak-
man doesn’t think ”is going to do anything,” he wants
to see ”hundreds of legitimate, well-priced alternatives.
Instead, he says, there are two or three, in part be-
cause music labels are stingy in handing out licenses to
startups.
He admits that the concerns about UK ISPs are hy-
pothetical at the moment and that he’s thinking ”three
steps ahead of where we are today.” Still, he’s adamant
that the scenarios he sketches aren’t ”some fairy-tale
situation that could never happen.”
Pakman’s worries, floated in media interviews over
the last few days (see his similar comments to the Fi-
nancial Times), are themselves a form of action, even
though Pakman says that the company has nothing to
announce in the way of legal complaints at the moment.
But even as he rightfully looks ahead to competitive
threats to his business, there’s also the possibility that
this will all work out well for music download services.
Previous UK surveys have shown that sending out sim-
ple ”I see you’ve been file-sharing” notices strip away
the feeling of anonymity that pervades such activity,
and has the potential to lead to significant reductions
in illicit P2P downloading. As that happens, music-
loving consumers may turn increasingly to legitimate
sources, and that’s an opportunity that eMusic and the
six people working out of its London UK headquarters
would do well to capitalize on.
Selfish driving causes everyone to pay
the Price of Anarchy
Traffic jams are something nearly everyone can re-
late to. While driving is ideally a communal activity,
where people pay attention to each other and follow
the rules of the road, most people seem to follow their
whims, only occasionally within the confines of common
sense. This urge to do what is best for the individual
leads to headaches for the group, increasing the total
amount of time everyone has to spend on the road.
In a paper set to be published in an upcoming issue
of Physical Review Letters, physicists Hyejin Youn and
Hawoong Jeong, along with computer scientist Micheal
Gastner, look at the result of self-interested drivers
traveling on both hypothetical and real-world networks.
The abstract describes what happens very clearly:
Uncoordinated individuals in human society pursu-
ing their personally optimal strategies do not always
achieve the social optimum, the most beneficial state
to the society as a whole. Instead, strategies form Nash
equilibria which are often socially suboptimal. Society,
therefore, has to pay a price of anarchy for the lack of
coordination among its members.
To illustrate this principle, the authors discuss a
trivial example: two points A and B are connected by
both a short bridge and a long freeway. Here, the total
number of travelers going from A to B is constant, but
the bridge is narrow and prone to congestion, while the
freeway is wide and is less susceptible to traffic jams.
In this setup, the ideal situation for everyone is for half
the traffic to take each path. Even in this trivial ex-
ample, however, what is best for everyone is not best
to each person. Using their example numbers, a driver
taking the freeway under ideal conditions would reduce
his or her individual delay by 40 percent over taking
the bridge.
But as more and more people move away from the
global optimum and take the bridge, the total time in-
volved in traveling from A to B increases and a Nash
equilibrium is reached. This is the point where ”no sin-
gle user can make any individual gain by changing his
own strategy unilaterally.” In other words, no matter
what route you take, you’re going to be stuck in traffic.
By looking at the ratio of the cost at Nash equilibrium
to the equilibrium representing the global optimum, one
can calculate the price of anarchy (POA)-a measure of
inefficiency caused by the lack of coordination.
Imaginary bridges and freeways can only take us so
far, so the authors decided to apply the analysis to the
real world. They calculated the Price of Anarchy for
three real-world commutes: from Harvard Square to
Boston Common in Boston, from Washington Market
Park to the Queens Midtown Tunnel in New York, and
the trip from Borough underground station to Farring-
don station in London. Using a well-established func-
tion to model traffic delays, they find that at an average
traffic flow of 10,000 vehicles per hour in Boston-a typ-
ical number-the POA peaks at 1.3. This means that
drivers waste 30 percent more time because they are
driving with their own interests in mind rather than
a group concern (not a news flash for anyone who has
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driven in Boston). New York and London had similar
peak POA values of about 1.27 and 1.22, respectively.
To gain a better theoretical understanding of the
nature of POA in networks, the team applied their
methodology to various types of idealized networks.
They came to the conclusion that, to improve the Price
of Anarchy, you must close off various roads-something
known as Braess’s paradox. In the network representing
Boston, the researchers find six possible road closures
that would reduce the delay in the suboptimal Nash
(selfish) equilibrium. A similar analysis of the London
and New York networks found that there were seven
and twelve roads, respectively, that could be closed to
improve the overall travel time.
While still theoretical, the work has the potential to
aid future urban planning. Since the obvious solution
of adding more roads may actually make the problem
worse, an analysis of this sort could prove invaluable in
determining real-world driving conditions.
PAX Technica: Ars goes inside the
gamer’s ”Burning Man”
Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) is one of the biggest
yearly events in gaming, and the draw is easy to explain.
The lineup of developers and publishers who hawk their
games at the show is much larger than even E3’s list this
year, and the games to be seen and played comprise a
list of the biggest-name titles coming out this year and
next. The best in geeky music, including video game
cover-bands like the OneUps, nerdcore rappers like MC
Frontalot, and troubadours like Jonathan Coulton, are
performed during the two nights of concerts. In short,
PAX has become the destination for gamers all around
the world who wish to connect with the community of
games, music, and all other kinds of Internet culture,
and this year was no different. Well, except for one
thing: it was much bigger.
The problem for how people perceive PAX is that
there is no precedent for this sort of thing. While things
like ComicCon may come close, even that wide-open,
varied show doesn’t have the type of intense focus and
community that PAX enjoys. Others argue that PAX
is the new E3, which any game writer will tell you is ab-
surd. While it’s wonderful that the public gets to play
all those great games at the very public PAX, there is
precious little news that comes out of the event. In-
terviews and hands-on posts are great, but many of
the booths are stocked with PR people, not develop-
ers. More than one prominent writer in the press room
complained about not knowing exactly how to cover the
show. Other writers complained that doing any kind of
job at PAX is nearly impossible; the show makes you
want to quit your job and join the mob of gamers as
everyone chases their own idea of what PAX should be.
 Anyone who goes has an easy word for what PAX
is: magic. The best things, the things that people re-
member after they go home, are rarely planned events.
Rather, the impromptu and collaborative nature of the
events, mixed with a community that has a strong sense
of giving and friendliness that extends to every line,
game, and happening, means that the best way to ex-
perience PAX is to fall into it, and to let the event
create itself minute by minute around you.
Not everything is wine and roses, however, as a few
cracks have begun to show at PAX08. Let’s take a look
at the highs, and lows, of the show this year.
As we arrive at the gates in Seattle’s airport, every-
one at SEA-TAC knows something is up, but no one
can quite put their finger on what. The airport is fill-
ing up with a very specific crowd: almost completely
male, almost exclusively white, and mostly unshaven
and looking either malnourished or over-fed. The pre-
ferred uniform for the crowd milling about the termi-
nals is beat up jeans and T-shirts bearing arcane look-
ing symbols and images. For anyone with eyes to see,
the geeks have arrived.
As the hordes of bodies make their way from the air-
port to the convention center, the line begins to form at
the center’s entrance, and no one is surprised or rest-
less. Tens of thousands of Nintendo DS systems, the
preferred way of passing time at the show, come out,
and groups form up around specific games. Those at-
tending dressed up as game or anime characters, espe-
cially the attractive women, are asked for pictures and
are very nearly mobbed.
A few hours later Ken Levine delivers the keynote
for the show, and, remarkably, he doesn’t mention his
signature achievement, Bioshock, once. In fact, Levine’s
story ends with his first job at Looking Glass. Instead
of talking about his latest game, he talks about growing
up young and nerdy, of being ashamed of his enthu-
siasm for comic books and games like Dungeons and
Dragons. He talks about how the issues dealt with in
favorite comics like Spiderman may have made him feel
more grown-up than his peers, while noting that he was
mocked for his choice of reading material.
He describes his first Dungeons and Dragons source
book, read under the sheets in the dead of night, as
if it was pornography that he was afraid to be caught
with. He describes how the gift of an Atari system
one Hanukkah changed his life. ”This was my Nerd
Siberia,” he tells the packed auditorium, as they nod
in understanding. No friends. Picked on at school.
Ashamed of a growing comic book collection.
He shows a picture of Farrah Fawcett. ”Believe
me, this was the shit back in the ’70s,” he says, be-
fore changing the slide to a scantily clad illustration.
”Me? I wanted to fuck the Scarlet Witch.” The room
erupts.
He describes meeting his first friends and joining
an ongoing Dungeons and Dragons campaign, who he
3
refers to as his ”tribe,” and how girls somewhat broke
that group up. He then goes on to speak about his
failed script for a vampire movie, as well as a rejected
script for a romantic comedy. Years of nothing followed,
until he found himself working at Looking Glass, a
place where employees watched Blade Runner on VHS,
played games in between making games, and generally
were at peace with being geeky.
”After many years running from things I love, it’s
amazing to come here and see what Gabe and Tycho
and so many others have built together,” he said. ”We
are united by a common element, but it’s not the color
of our skin or our ideology or politics,” he went on, his
voice rising. ”What brings us together at PAX is that
we are a giant bunch of fucking nerds.” The kids sitting
to the right of me, wearing Magic: The Gathering shirts
and suffering through what looked like hard bouts of
acne, almost bowl me over as they rush to stand up,
applaud, and cheer. I believe one of them is crying.
The part of PAX that most resembles a classical
gaming show, the part that makes people claim PAX is
the new E3, is the show floor itself. Filled with themed
booths, flashing screens, things to buy, and, of course,
long lines, this is the section of the floor where the
hardcore go to find out what they’ll be playing in the
future.
The problem is that the number of people this year
has skyrocketed; it has now been confirmed that over
58,000 people showed up for PAX this year, and while
the Convention Center can easily handle that amount
of people, the individual things people have come to see
can’t. For the entirety of the show, it took most of the
afternoon spent waiting in line to play Fallout 3, and
StarCraft 2 also required dedication if you wanted to
put your hands on a mouse and keyboard. This is a
big show for Bethesda, as the company promised some
new, never-before-seen content for Fallout 3 in the main
theater. Unfortunately, the theater could only handle
around 5,000 people, and masses of gamers were turned
away without being able to see anything. After the
interminable wait for the game, this is more than many
can bear, and it was there that we saw the first signs
of bitterness at the vastness of the show.
”I got in line for the Fallout 3 preview in the main
theater, as it was supposed to start. The main theater
filled up after 20 minutes and the preview began while
there were still hundreds of people waiting in line. Ev-
ery panel seemed to be packed; if you didn’t line up a
half-hour or an hour early, you weren’t getting in,” one
reader angrily commented.
The best lines were the ones that turned into a
party, and of course those lines belonged to Guitar
Hero: World Tour and Rock Band 2. ”It’s pretty mind-
blowing. I was at PAX last year when we were debuting
Rock Band and it was... amazing to see everyone who
couldn’t play drums and no one could sing and they
were performing on stage. This year it’s so surreal to
see players come up, play on expert, and nail everything
on expert,” Dan Teasdale, the Lead Designer on Rock
Band 2, told us. ”It’s very rewarding.” It seems like it.
The Rock Band 2 booth was hopping throughout the
entire show, and the line was even treated to an early
look at Jonathan Coulton’s ”Skullcrusher Mountain,”
which will have been released as downloadable content
by the time you read this.
Teasdale told us he thinks there is room for a wide
variety of music games when I grill him on Guitar Hero:
World Tour, and claims he hasn’t had a chance to play
the new guitar yet. I did brave the line for the new
guitar and drums, and the new features on the World
Tour guitar-including the button for star power located
near the heel of your hand and the touch panel on the
neck-seem to work well, and the drums are solid and
attractive. My main complaints would be how floppy
the cymbals felt; they bend down when you slam them,
in a way that feels less satisfying than either a harder
surface or an actual cymbal. It’s also hard to get over
being used to Rock Band’s four-pad layout.
The people having the most fun on the show floor
seemed to be those happy to just walk around and take
the scene in, playing games as they became available.
It’s an odd mixture of old-school E3 and fan events,
while being somehow better than both. There was even
the odd surprise to be had, such as finding The Conduit
somewhat hidden at Nintendo’s booth, or finding that
many gamers just wanted to sit down and play Castle
Crashers, a game that had been available for a few days
at that point. For many, the lines and the crush of
greasy gamers was more than worth it; I witnessed one
teenager who finally got a chance to play StarCraft 2,
his face breaking into a wide grin, his arms shaking
with anticipation.
”Back then, a year ago, before ’Still Alive’ had come
out, it was a huge bump up in that feeling of being fa-
mous,” Jonathan Coulton told me. We were sitting
in an interview room, and he seemed happy to have
a chance to sit down and relax a few hours before his
show. He contentedly ate candy and answered my ques-
tions.
We discussed his now-legendary show at PAX last
year. ”Everyone was singing along, and cheering, and
the zombie thing... I had done it before, but never
with such a huge crowd... It’s the greatest feeling in
the world.”
”I’ve always felt like I don’t want to be a super-
famous person who gets recognized all the time. That
doesn’t sound so nice to me,” he explained. ”I’m sort
of glad it’s a niche thing. I get to come to a place like
this and be a rock star, and then I go home and the
rest of my life is still normal.”
That night he played to a packed house, and ev-
eryone greets every song like it’s the biggest hit in the
world. As a surprise he brings Felicia Day onstage to
handle vocals on ”Still Alive,” the song that capped
4
off the end of Portal. The crowd here, filled with fans
of The Guild, which Felicia Day writes and stars in,
and of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along blog, Joss Whedon’s
web-series, absolutely adores Day, and the duet brings
cheers.
Felicia Day with The Guild co-star Sandeep Parikh
at PAX08.
The idea of the ”stars” of PAX is an odd one, and we
adored an odd mixture of people at the show. Jonathan
Coulton is something of a rock star here after his show
last year, and of course the success of ”Still Alive.”
Later in the show I saw him being whisked to some se-
cret location, flanked by a PAX enforcer, batting away
adoring geeks.
Felicia Day also had to contend with the same level
of hyper-fame at PAX. ”You know, I don’t really get
creepy fans,” she tells me. ”What I see more often is
people who start to sweat and shake when they meet
me.” She pantomimes a nervous person, her arms out.
”Only people who come back like eight or nine times
a day to take my picture, from like, afar, that gets a
little creepy.”
I interviewed Felicia with Sandeep Parikh, who plays
Zaboo in The Guild and has his own web show in ”The
Legend of Neil.” It’s a surreal experience, even though
the pair are incredibly nice and outgoing. They smiled
and greeted fans warmly during the signings, and a
screening of The Guild and Legend of Neil at PAX
proved to be draws. At other times you could catch
a glimpse of Felicia being whisked somewhere, looking
slightly hunted.
I was also able to greet Wil Wheaton at the start of
the show before the general public is let in, and he re-
mained one of the friendliest folks at the show. At PAX
his book signings draw large lines and his panels draw
standing room-only crowds. People absolutely adore
the once-Star-Trek-actor-now-writer at PAX, and it’s
no wonder: he drops inside jokes, playfully bats at his
own image as a professional geek, and is an honestly
talented public speaker.
These are the people who become pop stars at PAX,
although the ability to create your own fame certainly
exists. Cosplayers were numerous, dressing like as many
characters as you can imagine. Get a good idea, create
a good costume, and you can pose for pictures all week-
end. There was also a group of gentlemen who decided
to try to create a real-life ”rickroll” by dressing as the
bad horse singers, handing people a letter, and then
performing the song when it was opened, an homage to
Dr. Horrible. Felicia Day herself fell into this trap.
PAX can feel almost like its own world, with its own
rules and tropes. Wheaton’s law, which consists solely
of ”Don’t be a dick,” was vigorously enforced. The
great thing about creating a world from scratch is that
you get to choose who to make famous, and luckily, the
crowds got the celebrities they deserved.
Jerry ”Tycho” Holkins often held court at differ-
ent places around the show, swarmed by Penny Arcade
fans. One of them approached Holkins hesitantly. ”Can
I shake your hand?” he asked.
”Sure,” Tycho told him. ”This hand belongs to you
guys this weekend. Do whatever you want with it.”
Luckily for him, the gentleman gave it two brisk pumps,
and simply walked away smiling.
We pass the Serpent Theater, which houses the table-
top role-playing crew. We walk in and take a deep
breath, check out the giant Beholder... this is the very
essence of geek. The tables are filled with games, cards,
and all manners of dice. There is much concentration,
a lot of frowns, and some slammed hands on tables as
games of Magic don’t go as planned. They may look
miserable, but don’t believe the faces. These guys don’t
want to be doing anything else in the world. Here, the
only stops are for water out of the fountain and bath-
room breaks.
Few sights are as sobering as a room full of passion-
ate CCG players.
We pause for a while to watch a Jenga tournament
on the third floor of the Serpent Theater, and it is one of
the most nerve-wracking things we have ever witnessed.
The Omegathon is the on-going tournament of games,
both real and virtual, that runs throughout PAX. The
first prize is a trip to the Tokyo Game Show, 5,000, and
a set of Penny Arcade-themed consoles. Second prize
gets the consoles, and a ”lifetime supply of shame.”
One of the contestants prowls along the table, studying
each piece, looking for his way in. Each successful grab
results in polite applause, as if we’re watching golf. For
a little under an hour, no one breathes. Flash photog-
raphy is forbidden. When the tower of blocks finally
goes down, I imagine the gamers beneath us frowning
at the distraction.
Jenga felt more like a tight-rope walk than a party
game
This mirrors the first round, which was Peggle. ”Peg-
gle is a weird crossover game, it’s from PopCap, but it
has this odd crossover with hardcore gamers. [For the
Omegathon] we want it to be a fun game, but also...
Peggle is great contextualized, if you’re not just play-
ing it by yourself at home in the dark,” Jerry ”Tycho”
Holkins tells me while we watch the game together. ”If
it really matters where that ball goes, and you’re try-
ing to think about and really break down Peggle, my
guess is that it’s completely harrowing.” I agree. If
you’re lining up a shot in Peggle with that trip and
those thousands of dollars at stake, it must turn your
bowels to liquid. The Omegathon is brilliant in that
it adds insane stakes to common games, and reduces
gamers to piles of jelly.
I grab one of the Omeganauts, and ask him how
Peggle was. ”It was fine,” he tells me. Then he breathes
out. ”That’s just about the most scared I’ve ever been.”
After Jenga I try to grab one of the Omeganauts for
an interview, but he’s pacing the floor, wide-eyed, and
5
hyperventilating.
The final event of the Omegathon closes down the
show, and it occurs in the main theater. This, of course,
means another long line, which is something PAX08
gamers are getting used to. Luckily, in true geek style,
everyone finds something to do. Someone passes around
huge handfuls of pipe cleaners, and the geeks get to
work. One woman creates a large weighted companion
cube. Another creates a hand-held bat-signal. We see
logos for PAX, spiderwebs with real spiders; it’s amaz-
ing. And it’s happening up and down the line. We’re
finally let in, and then we begin to wait, thousands of
gamers strong, and then Gabe and Tycho get the bright
idea to pipe in easy listening.
Suddenly, a few rows up, a large group of promo-
tional Pip-Boy puppets from Fallout 3 begin to dance
over the heads of the crowd. They move in unison,
and switch their moves every few minutes, but almost
always perfectly instep. ”That’s a lot of puppets!” Ty-
cho exclaims when he takes the stage. ”Look some-
where else!” he tells them, sounding slightly creeped
out. Dutifully, they turn the other way.
The final game is played, Excitebike VS., a Famicom
disc game that never made it to the US. One Omega-
naut beats the other handily, and then Gabe and Tycho
take their expected turn. Gabe wins in the end, and
the expected thanks are given out to the crowd. It’s
all slightly anticlimactic, and no one seems to have a
graceful way to leave. The cosplayers, the gamers, the
table-top kids, the weekend Rock Band rock stars-no
one wants to go. The city is being broken down, and
the world we have created here is almost over. The Pip-
Boys begin their walk towards the exit, bobbing up and
down in unison, and soon they are lost in the crowd of
people heading into the night.
34.txt
Google Chrome out for one day, already reasons to
avoid
As we reported yesterday, Google has released the
first beta of their new web browser, Google Chrome.
Within a day of its release, there are already a couple
of points that users should be cautioned of before using
this new browser.
The first, is the popular ”carpet bomb” vulnerabil-
ity that still exists within Chrome, as pointed out on
our forums by our member matessim. This vulnera-
bility allows malicious websites to drive by download
and execute programs on your machine. Our visitors
may remember the uproar that this same vulnerabil-
ity caused for Safari users, and that Apple patched the
carpet-bombing issue with Safari v3.1.2. Chrome is vul-
nerable to this exploit because it is based on the same
engine, WebKit 525.13, and Google did not patch or
update the engine before releasing the software.
The other, and less technical, problem with Chrome
exists in its EULA. More specifically, the point that
would seem to give Google rights to anything you post
on the Internet while using their browser, mostly in
conjunction with the promotion of its services.
”By submitting, posting or displaying the content
you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide,
royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt,
modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly
display and distribute any content which you submit,
post or display on or through, the services. This license
is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, dis-
tribute and promote the services and may be revoked
for certain services as defined in the additional terms
of those services.” Not exactly something you’re used
to seeing in a web browser’s license agreement.
There is also the point that Google reserves the right
to automatically update and install Chrome. Interest-
ing, ”the software which you use may automatically
download and install updates from time to time from
Google. These updates are designed to improve, en-
hance and further develop the services and may take
the form of bug fixes, enhanced functions, new soft-
ware modules and completely new versions. You agree
to receive such updates (and permit Google to deliver
these to you) as part of your use of the services.” ... so
says the EULA.
Now we’re all used to seeing automatic update func-
tions built into software. It seems that almost anything
you install these days has one. However, very few de-
mand that I install their updates. What if I don’t want
to because the new version includes a bug or breaks
something else on my computer? Although, one would
hope that they’d use this automatic update feature to
fix the flaw pointed out above.
35.txt
eMusic rattles ISPs over legal downloads
The boss of Apple’s iTunes nearest rival eMusic has
warned that recent deals struck between the music in-
dustry and UK internet providers could threaten the
existence of legal sites. eMusic CEO David Pakman
told the Financial Times that ISPs could lure customers
away from well-known digital music sites by offering
their own legal download services.
”Our concern is that in order to obtain the co-
operation of the ISPs, there seems to be a quid pro
quo,” said Pakman. ”This is qualitatively different
from licensing another half a dozen digital music busi-
nesses.” He claimed that the agreement inked in July
between six UK ISPs, the BPI, and the Motion Pictures
6
Ass. of America, to crack down on illegal downloading
would ”penalise the good guys, not the bad guys”.
36.txt
Mobile users offered first external SSD
Networking company Buffalo Technology has finally
launched its external SSD drives at prices that promise
to steal a share of the portable market from old-world
2.5-inch hard drives. The capacities of the new Micro-
Station drives are modest by the standards of a spin-
ning drive – 32GB, 64GB, and 100GB – but there are
other features to tempt buyers beyond the gigabytes.
The first is perhaps size. Weighing around 60 grams,
the aptly-named drives are not much bigger than a
credit card at 57 x 14 x 89mm, a form factor that looks
tiny next to the supplied wrap-around USB 2.0 connec-
tor and cable used to attach it to a PC.
31.txt
IPhone Users Report Network Outages; Second 3G
Lawsuit Emerges
While Apple’s iPhone sales continue to succeed, things
just aren’t looking any better for ATT’s network woes,
and their dysfunctional relationship has given birth to
a second lawsuit.
Several iPhone users on Wednesday morning reported
a complete outage of ATT’s data service. Reports have
surfaced in Boston, Chicago, Washington DC and St.
Louis; users have claimed in the Apple support forums
that a call to ATT’s support line confirms the outage.
ATT’s Brad Mays confirmed a ”routing issue” in the
Northeast region affecting wireless data and said tech-
nicians restored the service by about noon EDT.
The reports of a network outage work to the ad-
vantage of customer William Gillis, who filed a lawsuit
late last week alleging Apple and ATT are overwhelm-
ing the 3G network with the ”oversold” iPhone 3G. In
his 18-page complaint, Gillis says the popular handset
is requiring ”too much power,” and straining the net-
work.
Gillis’s hypothesis of 3G networks being strained
coincides with observations made in Wired.com’s re-
cent study conducted on iPhone 3G download speeds
around the world, in which we discovered network per-
formance varied greatly based on carriers and coun-
tries. Users reported the fastest 3G download speeds
in Europe, which possesses some of the most mature
3G networks that have been developed since 2001. By
contrast, ATT’s U.S. 3G network is relatively young,
having been introduced in 2004.
 Before today’s reported outage and Gillis’s lawsuit,
femtocell developer Dave Nowicki also theorized that
in the United States, the iPhone 3G is straining ATT’s
young 3G network. He explained that ATT installed
the 3G cells on preexisting EDGE transmission towers
– meaning those towers were spaced based on the re-
quirements of earlier, 2G technology, which has a longer
effective range than 3G.
User complaints about the 3G network have been
passionate and widespread ever since the iPhone 3G’s
July 11 launch. The problems have varied from slower-
than-advertised 3G performance to getting no 3G con-
nection at all.
Alabama resident Jessica Alena Smith was the first
customer angry enough to file a lawsuit, alleging false
advertising on Apple’s part for touting the handset as
”twice as fast for half the price” compared to the orig-
inal iPhone. Smith claims in her complaint that the
handset’s network performance is grindingly slow and
only stays on the 3G network 25 percent of the time.
Apple’s public relations department has said recently
that the latest iPhone software update – 2.0.2 – would
improve 3G performance, but very few user reports
have backed the company’s claims.
Regardless of what’s said about 3G performance,
Apple is continuing to ride the high tide with the iPhone’s
popularity. Insiders have said the corporation plans to
produce 40 to 45 million more iPhone 3Gs by next year.
32.txt
Is Lover Boy a Louse? It May Be Genetic
We have heard about the God gene and the gay gene
– though each has been met with significant skepticism.
Now comes news of a gene that Swedish researchers are
touting as a possible biological basis for why some guys
won’t settle down.
Credit a young researcher at Sweden’s Karolinska
Institute for discovering a link between a variation in
the AVPR1A gene – which has been linked to autism
and how people interact socially – and a propensity for
men to skip out on women, or to have marital problems
if they do tie the knot.
In a photograph on the Karolinska’s website, the
researcher, Hasse Walum, looks a little like rocker Kurt
Cobain.
Walum did not report if he carries the tell-tale gene,
although in a study of 552 sets of twins, all in relation-
ships, Walum found that 40 percent of the men carried
the Ramblin’ Man variation of this gene.
The couples filled out questionnaires that asked ques-
tions such as:
I feel anxious when someone gets too close.
Have you ever regretted getting married/moving in?
7
Do you kiss your partner?
Researchers then ran genetic screens of the subjects,
discovering that a line of code at position 334 in the
gene had a statistical correlation with the less commit-
ted men.
Women married to men who carry one or two copies
of the suspect code were, on average, ”less satisfied with
their relationship” than were women married to men
who didn’t carry this code, Walum said.
This same gene has also been linked in a different
study to dictatorial behavior, and the hormone, called
vasopressin, made by this gene has been found to be
plentiful in voles that mate for life.
But before women rush out to test their men for
this genetic variation – or we run DNA screens of John
McCain and Barrack Obama to see if they have an au-
tocratic bent hidden in their genes – we need to realize
that these tests are very preliminary statistical links.
No one has physiologically linked this genetic variation
to behavior in a relationship, or to Stalinistic behavior.
Walum is well aware of this, and pointed out that
the effect of the genetic variation is ”modest,” and can-
not be used to predict the future behavior of someone
in a relationship.
A caveat that makes one wonder why researchers,
institutes, and the media keep trotting out these pre-
liminary associations between genes and profoundly im-
portant human behaviors like religion and relationship
management in this way.
One reason is that they can be fun, like reading
Tarot cards can be fun. These studies can also point sci-
entists in a possible direction towards where to look for
serious maladies such as autism, which is what Walum’s
work is focusing on.
”There are, of course, many reasons why a per-
son might have relationship problems,” Walum told the
BBC.
Indeed, there are.
33.txt
Should Medicare Pay for Genetic Testing?
This may be your last chance to tell the federal gov-
ernment whether Medicare should pay for a cutting-
edge personalized medicine service.
Last year, the FDA announced that a genetic test
might help doctors avoid a common catastrophe – giv-
ing their patients an excessive dose of warfarin. Half a
million people start taking the anticoagulant drug each
year, and many of them – over 10 percent – wind up
in the hospital with serious internal bleeding because
they’ve overdosed.
By checking two genes, doctors may be able to make
a better decision about how much warfarin is right for
each patient.
 In theory, the genetic test could save healthcare
providers a fortune by cutting down on costly emer-
gency room visits. But many doctors are not convinced
that the tests are necessary; some say that handheld
gadgets like the Roche CoaguChek system, which al-
low them to constantly monitor their patients’ blood,
are more useful.
Of course, in a perfect world, physicians would use
both tools to aid their decisions. The Department of
Health and Human Services wants the public to tell
them whether the genetic test is worthwhile. To get
some feedback, the agency has posted a survey on its
website, and the deadline to respond is tomorrow.
If Medicare starts paying for the procedure, the bur-
geoning field of personalized medicine will turn a ma-
jor corner. Private insurance companies might follow
the government’s lead, and offer reimbursements for
the evaluation. But the biggest benefit of a change to
the healthcare policy will be massive amounts of data.
Once a huge cohort of senior citizens has received some
pharmacogenetic services, there will be a large body of
evidence that individualized treatments are better than
a one-size-fits-all approach to medicine.
If you want to weigh in on this tremendously impor-
tant issue, visit the Health and Human Services website
and post a comment.
28.txt
Why I’m Rooting for Bristol Palin
Linda Hirshman has a thoughtful piece in Slate re-
acting to Bristol Palin’s pregnancy and pointing out
that no, no one wants their 17-year-old daughter to get
pregnant. The odds are stacked against teen mothers,
no doubt. But so many stories I read on this topic
present those scary numbers, add a brief caveat that
”of course there are exceptions, but” and go on to rail
against pro-lifers for wanting to overturn Roe v. Wade.
If you’ll indulge me for a few minutes, I’d like to
hit ”pause” and tell you about one of those exceptions.
My mom got pregnant when she was 16. With me.
Thankfully, it was 1972, before Roe, or we might not be
having this conversation. Well, the rest of you would
be. She and my dad had to get married in the little
side chapel of their church, not at the grander main
altar, because of her ”condition.” Before they even got
that far, a few of my mom’s cousins called a family
meeting and decided my mom had to have an abortion
lest she embarrass the family. I guess you’d call them
pro-choice.
My mom finished high school a year early so she
wouldn’t have to juggle a baby and classes. She and
my dad lived in a tiny apartment, and saved up to buy
a modest house when I was 6 months old. (My first car
cost more than that house.) My dad worked five days
8
a week at one job, and on one of his days off, he’d work
at my grandfather’s clothing store to make the 17 they
needed for the weekly grocery bill.
Eventually, my parents bought their own business,
a mom-and-pop grocery store. It didn’t make them
millionaires, and it required a lot of blood, sweat, and
tears, but they worked side-by-side for more than 20
years. They still found time to haul us to swimming
practice and baseball practice and come to our games
and help us with our homework. And they did well
enough to put two kids through college, set aside a nest
egg for retirement, and start college funds for their ever-
expanding brood of grandchildren. More than 35 years
later, they’re still happily married.
Yes, my parents were an exception, very clearly. But
today is not the 1960s or 1970s, either. Young women
have vastly more opportunities in high school for sports
and other activities that keep them busy and improve
their self-esteem. Birth control is more readily avail-
able. For girls who do get pregnant, schoolsboth high
schools and collegehave more programs to help moms
get their educations and support themselves and their
children. Let’s empower our daughters to make the
right choices for themselves, to either avoid sex when
they’re not ready or use birth control when they do.
And if all else fails, love them and support them and, if
you’re running for vice president and the world is going
to find out, stand up and tell the world you’re proud
of them. Yes, it takes hard work, and it takes sacri-
fice. Are we not raising our kidsdaughters and sonsto
work hard, to put the needs of others ahead of their
own when the situation calls for it?
Whenever we have conversations about Roe v. Wade,
pro-choicers always point to how awful life is for women
who keep their babies, how hard it is. Hirshman de-
cries the Republican position on abortion as ”cruel.”
But can’t we please acknowledge that there are victims,
and that the pro-choice position has its own brutal cru-
elty? Does anyone consider how many worthwhile lives
are sacrificed? Is it worse to grow up poor or not at
all? My own life is pretty damn important to me, and
I’m thankful every day that I’m here.
So, while everyone else is snickering and making
jokes about shotgun weddings, I’d like to wish Bristol
Palin, her boyfriend Levi, and their child the best. It’s
not an easy job you have before you, but the rewards
can be amazing.
29.txt
American Wife
It was striking to see Laura Bush onstage last night
after watching Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama speak
last week. Laura looked stiff and uncomfortable, de-
spite her smiles; she swiveled her head almost roboti-
cally toward and away from the camera, and her eyes
had the tight look of someone disconnected from what
she was saying. A few weeks ago I was at a dinner party
with some people from Texas who used to know Laura
Bush pretty welland who had liked her. They invoked
the usual things people invoke when they talk about
who the private Laura Bush once was: a funny, smart
jazz lover. A sometime smoker who cared a lot about
education. And they said the question all her friends
kept asking was: How can she stand by and watch as
her husband makes so many bad decisions?
Curtis Sittenfeld’s newly released American Wife, a
novel about a woman named Alice Blackwell, aims to
answer that exact question. Alice is based loosely on
Laura Bush. She’s a shy, bookish girl from Wisconsin
who grows up to be the wife of a jokey born-again for-
mer alcoholic who runs for president only to launch a
deeply unpopular war. American Wife didn’t go very
far, in my view, toward dramatizing the inner life of this
woman. But it does make you think quite a lot about
the peculiarity of being a first ladyan inherently passive
role that is both simpler and more complicated than
being Sarah Palin or Hillary Clinton-as-candidate. In
the book, Alice asks herself, ”If I believed I could have
made a difference but instead remained silent, then how
could I bear it?” Choosing silence at a moment when
more and more women are choosing to find their voice
on the political stageand to some degree just succeeding
in finding itmust have a special poignancy. Or maybe
it’s a special kind of complicity. The book did make me
wonder what, in her case, I would do. On the one hand,
I believe a marriage is a private space; on the other, I
wouldn’t be able to swallow my own feelings in order to
”support” my husband without question in the public
eye. I’m curious to know what other XXers thinkare
you sympathetic to Laura or not? Will the role of first
spouse change over time, as more couples with ”new
marriages” take residency in the White House?
30.txt
Polls and Palin
A guest post from Slate’s and The Big Money’s Jim
Ledbetter:
The Sarah Palin narrative is incomplete and will
likely remain so even after her speech tonight. Nonethe-
less, I perceive a nagging gap between the way the me-
dia is so far discussing her candidacy and the way that
polls indicate it is being received. Palin IS interesting
to women and even appealing; as ”XX Factor” noted
yesterday, women are discussing her and her family and
her situation with great vigor and energy. The media
is making legitimate efforts to capture those conversa-
tions, dissect, and analyze them. But there is next to
no evidence that this interest translates into increased
9
female support for the GOP ticket. Quite the opposite,
per Rasmussen Reports:
If McCain’s strategy was to reach out to women vot-
ers, however, thus far it hasn’t been successful. The
night after the announcement, slightly more women
voters viewed Palin as the right choice for McCain’s
running mate, but now 41 say she was not, versus 36
who still believe she was a good choice. Forty-one per-
cent (41) of women say they are less likely now to vote
for McCain because of Palin, as opposed to 31 who say
they are more likely to support him. Women voters
were essentially even on this question in the earlier sur-
vey.
Men still back McCain’s decision. Forty-one per-
cent (41) say she was the right choice, while 37 dis-
agree. Earlier, men favored the decision by a 43 to
31 margin. Forty-three percent (43) of men voters say
they are more likely to vote for McCain because of his
choosing of Palin as a running mate, but 34 say they
are less likely to do so. This is a jump in support from
the earlier survey. But even a plurality of men (47) say
Palin is not ready to be president in the event of the
72-year-old McCain being incapacitated while in the
White House, although 32 believe she is ready. Women
voters by a nearly two-to-one margin believe Palin is
not ready.
Now, ok, a sizable portion of both men and women
are unsure, and all these numbers are subject to change.
Still, I find it staggering that two out of three women
say Palin is unqualified to be president, and that more
women say the choice of Palin makes them LESS likely
to vote for McCain, while more men say it makes them
MORE likely. Three conclusions from this: 1) As Ann
Hulbert and others have argued, the Palin choice may
well have been aimed at conservative men, who find
that she shores up the ticket’s ”values” credential. 2)
There is a big difference between women talking about
Palineven admiring herand women’s desire to vote Re-
publican. 3) The media in general has yet to figure out
how to frame stories involving a nationwide female can-
didate whose chief political appeal seems to be to men.
25.txt
The ultimate underdog: Rays give everyone reason
to hope
The best part of watching a sports miracle, for me
anyway, is that precise moment when everyone real-
izes, ”Hey, this thing really COULD happen.” During
the last Super Bowl, that moment hit America precisely
.03 seconds after Giants quarterback Eli Manning tore
away from the army of the living dead, heaved the foot-
ball downfield and David Tyree somehow clamped it
against his helmet.
 That moment happened when Buster Douglas got
up off the canvas and, even in his momentary fog af-
ter the knockdown, somehow still looked fresher and
angrier and more dangerous than the supposedly in-
vincible Mike Tyson across the ring.
That moment happened when Kirk Gibson connected
with one arm, a tennis backhand really, and the ball
shot to right-field bleachers, and a Dodgers team that
did not have a single guy hit more than 25 homers or
drive in 85 RBIs all year was on its way to the World
Championship.
That moment is happening right now with the Tampa
Bay Rays. They have the best record in the American
League. They have a solid four game lead over the
World Champion Red Sox and a Secretariat-like 11-
length cushion over the spiraling New York Yankees.
CoolStandings – the awesome Web site that simulates
the remainder of the season one million times – now
calculates that the Rays have a 99.3 percent chance to
make the playoffs.
This is the good time, the time when everyone un-
derstands that the worst team last year, the worst team
the year before that, the one team everyone forgets
when trying to remember all 30 Major League baseball
teams, the team that just a few months ago dropped
the word ”Devil” from their name, is going to play ball
in October.*
*I find it impossible to believe, in this era when pun-
ters point to the heavens after dropping one inside the
20 and boxers thank God for giving them the strength
to cave in noses, that people have not made a bigger
deal out of the fact that the Devil Rays only started to
win games AFTER they removed the Prince of Dark-
ness from their jerseys. True, ”Devil Ray” supposedly
refers only to a type of fish, but do we really think it’s a
coincidence that as soon they exorcized the name, bam,
the wins started rolling in?
It’s a funny thing: I’m so rarely right about predic-
tions. But about a month before the baseball season
began, I was sitting in a diner in Surprise, Ariz., looking
over the Rays roster. And, the more I looked, the more
I felt like: ”Man, the Rays are going to be GOOD.”
On paper, it seemed self-evident. Look at the pitching:
The Rays had a potential ace in Scott Kazmir, a po-
tentially fabulous No. 2 in James Shields, a promising
third guy in Matt Garza and the No. 1 pick in the
draft, David Price, on the way. Look at the hitting:
The Rays had masher Carlos Pena, the best hitter in
the minor leagues, Evan Longoria, two-time all-star and
speedster Carl Crawford and the unlimited power and
speed talents of B.J. Upton. That sure looked like a
good team to me.
But what you think over a tuna melt in a retirement
community is not necessarily reality. When I talked to
scouts and baseball analysts, they conceded the indi-
vidual points – yes Kazmir can be great, yes Longoria
should hit, yes Upton has a high ceiling (you know how
10
scouts talk) – but in the larger picture, hey, it was still
Tampa Bay, and that meant losing. Maybe it was a
failure of imagination. Maybe it was just the crushing
force of inevitability – the Rays had been around for
10 years and had lost more than 90 games every year.
Maybe it was the stubborn notion that no team could
ever break the Yankees-Red Sox monopoly.
Probably it was human nature too. In sports – in
life – you just don’t expect things to change much.
Even when the Rays started off hot – when they
moved into first place for the first time on May 13 af-
ter an 11-inning victory over the Yankees – the feeling
seemed to be that it was cute but it was not realis-
tic. They moved back into first on June 29 while win-
ning seven in a row, but again the story seemed fleeting
– Tampa lost seven straight heading into the All-Star
game. Then in August, Longoria got hurt, Crawford
got hurt, closer Troy Percival got hurt, and one more
time everyone said, ”Well, that was nice while it lasted,
but it’s all over now baby blue.”
Only, the story keeps on going. Why? Well, the
magic begins with Tropicana Field, which is ironic be-
cause there are fewer less-magical places than Tropi-
cana Field. When I took my family there earlier this
year, my wife said that Tropicana looks like the sort of
cooking pot they sell on late night television infomer-
cials, the sort that cook using steam or the power of
the sun or the energy of Dick Vitale or whatever.
But the Rays are just about invincible in the Base-
ball Wok. They are now 52-20 at home. They hit better
there, but the big key is pitching. The whole staff has a
3.11 ERA in Tropicana and holds opposing batters to a
.226 batting average. The Trop has long been a pretty
good pitcher’s park, but now it’s like a time machine
transporting hitters back to 1968.
Look at these home pitching numbers:
Scott Kasmir, 6-1, 2.30 ERA.
James Shields, 9-2, 2.34 ERA.
Matt Garza, 7-2, 2.47 ERA.
Dan Wheeler, 3-2, 7 saves, 1.86 ERA.
The other side of the story is that the Rays have
a 32-32 record on the road. It might not seem like
it, but that’s quite good, better than the Red Sox, a
lot better than Chicago or Minnesota in the American
League Central.
The Rays are a very difficult team to play because
they bring something every day. Their lineup is not
overpowering – the Rays are ninth in the league in runs
scored – but they walk a lot (second in the AL), and
they play aggressively (they lead the league in stolen
bases and are third in triples) and they have enough
power to change the dynamics of the game (fifth in
homers – Pena has 27, Longoria 22). They have only
been shut out five times this year.
The Rays also have five young starters – all 26 and
under, all with different styles – and four of them have
sub-4.00 ERAs. The bullpen has been devastating, es-
pecially with the emergence of the unfortunately named
Grant Balfour* (1.44 ERA and 64 strikeouts in 43 2/3
innings) and J.P. Howell (6-0 , 2.66 ERA).
*I’ve long wondered what is the worst name for a
pitcher, and ”Grant Bal(l)lfour” is a candidate – hard
to imagine a much more troubling pitcher name unless
it would be ”Allow Dinger.” Then again, I think Kevin
Slowey is up there. It’s hard to go to the bullpen and
bring in a guy named ”David Riske.” There’s always
Homer Bailey.
There are some other reasons for the Rays success.
They are 26-15 in one-run games, which is the best
in the league and probably involves some luck. They
have obliterated the bottom two teams in each division
– their record against those six teams is 40-16. They
signed Eric Hinske (most thought he was washed up)
to a minor-league deal and he’s been good in part-time
duty. And so on.
In the end, though, it’s not much fun picking apart
a magic trick. The Rays are a fresh story, and they are
for real. I notice that when I go to an NCAA tourna-
ment mismatch game – a three-seed against a 14-seed or
whatever – the fans start out cheering the favorite out
of habit. If the little guy can keep the game close for
a while, the fans will start to get behind them. If they
can keep it close longer, the fans will embrace them.
And if the underdog can keep it close until the end,
they will have the hearts and minds of the masses.
”Why is that?” I asked Homer Drew, who was coach
of Valparaiso, one of the all-time underdogs. ”Because
we have to give them a reason to hope,” he said.
The Rays have given everyone reason to hope. This
is when it gets fun.
26.txt
MMQB Mail: My season predictions, including Su-
per Bowl, MVP picks
I’m boring, I’m bland, I’m predictable.
What, another Warren Sapp rant?
No, my Super Bowl prediction: New England 30,
Dallas 20.
No one cares about the preseason. I base nothing on
it. I haven’t changed my mind about any major thing
this summer, except maybe I’m a little more bullish on
Carolina and Seattle than I was two months ago. I still
think Cleveland will win the AFC North despite looking
like Montana State in August. I still think Miami will
win seven games. I still think Jacksonville will be the
second-best team in the AFC and will finally supplant
Indianapolis atop the AFC South.
What I think I think entering the season:
NFC Championship: ”Keep talking about Dallas,”
Justin Tuck of the Giants told me in camp. ”We love
it.” OK. Dallas has danger signs all over the place, with
11
a rich quarterback and his richer, more famous girl-
friend, and volcanic T.O., and whatever Adam Jones is
now. Could they crash and burn? Of course. Any team
can. But my feeling is they’ll put up enough points to
make up for a just-OK pass rush, and Jones will be
a top five corner by the end of the season. I like the
Vikings a lot, I think, because I view Tarvaris Jack-
son as more of an asset than liability. NFC title game:
Dallas 23, Minnesota 17.
AFC Championship: Tom Brady’s going to be Tom
Brady. Don’t fret. Randy Moss’ numbers won’t be as
good, quite possibly, but he’ll once again be the most
dangerous receiver in football. Brady has to get rid
of the ball half a tick faster this year because defenses
will be throwing the kitchen sink at him the way the
Giants did in the Super Bowl. ”Don’t forget what we
did last year,” Brady told me this summer. ”I sure
haven’t.” Good advice. I pick the Jags to challenge
them most seriously. Quentin Groves and, later in the
year, Derrick Harvey, will give the Jags defensive energy
they lacked last year. AFC title game: New England
30, Jacksonville 27.
MVP: 1. QB Tom Brady, New England. 2. QB
David Garrard, Jacksonville. 3. DE Jared Allen, Min-
nesota. The best quarterback for the best team should
almost invariably win this award.
Offensive Player of the Year: 1. RB Adrian Peter-
son, Minnesota. 2. QB Tom Brady, New England. 3.
QB Matt Hasselbeck, Seattle. I had Garrard higher in
the MVP voting here by virtue of the Jags surpassing
Indianapolis. Hasselbeck will have a 4,300-yard passing
season.
Defensive POY: 1. DE Jared Allen, Minnesota. 2.
DE Mario Williams, Houston. 3. OLB Lamar Woodley,
Pittsburgh. Allen has never had a defensive support
system like the one he inherits in Minnesota. I expect
20 sacks out of him.
Coach of the Year: 1. Jack Del Rio, Jacksonville.
2. John Fox, Carolina. 3. Tony Sparano, Miami.
Offensive Rookie of the Year: 1. RB Chris Johnson,
Tennessee. 2. OT Ryan Clady, Denver. 3. TE John
Carlson, Seattle. But look out for Felix Jones.
Defensive Rookie of the Year: 1. S Kenny Phillips,
New York Giants. 2. Leodis McKelvin, Buffalo. 3. DE
Quentin Groves, Jacksonville.
Comeback Player of the Year: DT Shaun Rogers,
Cleveland. His mind is right. He’s healthy. He could
be this year’s Albert Haynesworth.
Now, onto your mail:
JAY, YOU ARE BRILLIANT. From Jay Demm-
ler, of Pittsburgh: ”An interesting fix to the expensive,
worthless preseason. Why doesn’t the NFL designate
one preseason game per team to a nearby site to give
fans who can’t afford tickets a chance to see a pseudo
NFL game. For example, the Steelers could play a game
at Happy Valley or the Vikings could play at Nebraska.
They could charge, say 10 bucks, and it would be a
great marketing and PR move.”
I have been proposing this for years. I think each
team should play two preseason games and then a cou-
ple of what I would call intrasquad scrimmages, taking
the bottom 40 guys on the roster to a neutral site and
playing another team’s bottom 40. Let’s say the Lions
and the Browns meet at the University of Toledo one
weekend, and then the Lions and Bengals meet at the
University of Dayton the next week.
This is something Steve Mariucci always thought
would work because you’d be seeing your lesser players
in eight quarters of real football, in addition to seeing
them in a few quarters of football against the veteran
players. This would also give owners the chance to get
nine real paydays plus two minimal paydays – plus min-
imizing the anger from your local fans who hate paying
regular-season prices for meaningless scrimmages.
GOOD POINT. From Tom Hirliman, of Chesapeake,
Va.: ”In regards to your Randy Moss statement, what
were the Raiders suppose to do? Moss wasn’t playing
while he was on the field and was a malcontent. This
situation reminds of a similar situation in hockey a few
years ago. Dominik Hasek held a gun to the Sabres
saying either trade me to Detroit or I retire. What is
the team suppose to do?”
I wasn’t saying the Raiders shouldn’t have traded
him. I was simply pointing out they got nothing for
him.
GOOD LOGIC. From Justin Ong, of Austin, Texas:
”Seems a bit hypocritical for you to give passes to the
Red Sox and the Lions for giving up on talented players
who had gone stale in their current locations, and in
the same article take a jab at the Raiders for dumping
Moss.”
See above.
27.txt
Bolt eyes 100m record against fastest field ever in
Brussels
BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) – Three-time Olympic
gold medalist Usain Bolt will run the 100 meters in the
fastest field ever assembled Friday, seeking to break the
world record for the third time this season.
At the Van Damme Memorial, the Olympic cham-
pion will face Asafa Powell, the former record-holder
who matched the second-fastest 100 of all time on Tues-
day, and Tyson Gay, the world champion.
”I’m definitely going out there to compete at my
best,” Bolt said of his last race of the season.
They are the three fastest men all-time, and have
posted the 10 fastest 100 dashes. Meet organizer Wil-
fried Meert said such a select field is unique.
”This has never happened before,” Meert said.
12
Bolt will be the center of attention at the 50,000-
capacity King Baudouin stadium. The Jamaican won
three gold medals and set three world records at the
Beijing Olympics last month.
”Usain Bolt, we all know he is on fire right now,”
said Gay, who failed to make the final in Beijing and is
still slowed by a hamstring injury.
Bolt will be chasing his 100-meter mark of 9.69 sec-
onds, despite a cold and intercontinental travel from
Beijing. Last week, Bolt won the 100 in 9.83 seconds
in the Weltklasse meet in Zurich, his first competition
since the Olympics.
On Tuesday in Lausanne, Switzerland, he eased up
well before the finish in his 200 and still tied the fourth-
best time at 19.63. He set the world record of 19.30 in
Beijing.
Bolt is looking to end the season without injury.
”I already got the biggest thing there is,” said the
Olympic champion. ”But it would be good to go out a
winner.”
Fellow Jamaican Powell ran 9.72 in the 100 in Lau-
sanne, equaling the former world record Bolt set in New
York City last May.
Powell’s time was a personal best, and came after a
fifth-place finish at the Olympics.
”I’m very happy, after all that I’ve been through
this year,” Powell said.
Gay isn’t sure how his leg will hold up because of
the lingering hamstring injury.
”I don’t think I am as sharp right now, considering
my leg, to be very, very, competitive with those guys,”
he said, indicating he could still decide to skip the race.
If no human can defeat him, Bolt’s biggest obstacle
might be the weather. Forecasts call for rain and cool
temperatures.
”It will all depend on the weather, and it doesn’t
look too good,” Meert said. ”It will be very difficult
for the athletes that come out of the heat of Beijing.”
Bolt is concerned the cold could stiffen his muscles
and possibly cause injury.
”I don’t like cold weather. But this is a job,” he
said.