%20%20--%3E%0A%3Csvg%20version%3D%221.1%22%20id%3D%22Layer_1%22%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2000%2Fsvg%22%20xmlns%3Axlink%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F1999%2Fxlink%22%20x%3D%220px%22%20y%3D%220px%22%0A%09%20viewBox%3D%220%200%20684.6%2068.1%22%20style%3D%22enable-background%3Anew%200%200%20684.6%2068.1%3B%22%20xml%3Aspace%3D%22preserve%22%3E%0A%3Cg%3E%0A%09%3Cpath%20d%3D%22M444.1%2C29.3h-17.4v14.5h17.4V29.3z%20M36.4%2C68.1l29.3-50.8V0H50.4L32.9%2C36.8L15.5%2C0H0v68.1h16.7V45.8l12.4%2C22.3H36.4z%0A%09%09%20M49.1%2C68.1h16.6V23.4L49.1%2C52.1V68.1z%20M76.6%2C68.1h45V53.8H93.3V41.6h21V27.1h-21V14.8h28.3V0.1h-45V68.1z%20M175.6%2C68.1h17.3v-68%0A%09%09h-16.5v40.3L150%2C0.1h-17.6v68h16.7V27.7L175.6%2C68.1z%20M235.8%2C14.8h15.4V0.1h-47.4v14.7H219v53.2h16.8V14.8z%20M290.3%2C45.9h-17.1%0A%09%09l7.5-15.6h2L290.3%2C45.9z%20M298.7%2C68.1h18l-32.2-68h-5.7l-32%2C68h18l3.3-7.1h27.1L298.7%2C68.1z%20M325.2%2C68.1h46.2V53.8h-29.6V0.1h-16.7%0A%09%09V68.1z%20M423.7%2C14.8h27.2V0.1H407v68h16.7V14.8z%20M462%2C68.1h46.2V53.8h-29.6V0.1H462V68.1z%20M564.8%2C34.1c0%2C10.7-7.2%2C19.2-18.5%2C19.2%0A%09%09c-11.4%2C0-18.5-8.5-18.5-19.2s7.1-19.2%2C18.5-19.2C557.6%2C14.9%2C564.8%2C23.4%2C564.8%2C34.1%20M580.6%2C34.1c0-19-14.2-34-34.3-34%0A%09%09c-20.2%2C0-34.3%2C15-34.3%2C34c0%2C19%2C14.1%2C34%2C34.3%2C34C566.4%2C68.1%2C580.6%2C53.1%2C580.6%2C34.1%20M604.8%2C20.5c0-4.1%2C3.3-6.2%2C6.7-6.2%0A%09%09c4.4%2C0%2C6.6%2C3%2C6.6%2C6.6h14.7C631.8%2C9.1%2C625.1%2C0.1%2C611%2C0.1c-12%2C0-21.7%2C9.3-21.7%2C20.6c0%2C10.9%2C5.9%2C15.9%2C16.7%2C19.8%0A%09%09c5.2%2C1.8%2C11.5%2C3.2%2C11.5%2C8c0%2C3.3-2.4%2C5.5-6.4%2C5.5c-3.6%2C0-6.6-3-6.6-6.7h-15.2c0%2C11.5%2C7.9%2C20.8%2C21.8%2C20.8c12%2C0%2C21.6-9.3%2C21.6-20.6%0A%09%09c0-10-5.3-16.4-16.7-19.8C610.6%2C26.1%2C604.8%2C25.3%2C604.8%2C20.5%20M670%2C20.9h14.7C683.8%2C9.1%2C677.1%2C0.1%2C663%2C0.1c-12%2C0-21.7%2C9.3-21.7%2C20.6%0A%09%09c0%2C10.9%2C5.9%2C15.9%2C16.7%2C19.8c5.2%2C1.8%2C11.5%2C3.2%2C11.5%2C8c0%2C3.3-2.4%2C5.5-6.4%2C5.5c-3.6%2C0-6.6-3-6.6-6.7h-15.2c0%2C11.5%2C7.9%2C20.8%2C21.8%2C20.8%0A%09%09c12%2C0%2C21.6-9.3%2C21.6-20.6c0-10-5.3-16.4-16.7-19.8c-5.4-1.6-11.3-2.4-11.3-7.2c0-4.1%2C3.3-6.2%2C6.7-6.2C667.7%2C14.4%2C670%2C17.3%2C670%2C20.9%0A%09%09%22%2F%3E%0A%3C%2Fg%3E%0A%3C%2Fsvg%3E%0A)
The First Time News Was Fit To Print
It's time for another edition of The First Time News Was Fit To Print, the semi-regular feature where we travel into the archives of The New York Times and find the first time the paper covered various subjects. If you have a suggestion for a future installment, leave a comment.
Chat Rooms
Tomorrow's TV: Will They Sit By The Set, Or Ride A Data Highway? "It surprised us," said Stephen M. Case, the company's president, "to discover that our subscribers don't look to America Online primarily as a source of information. They see it more as a chance to communicate with other subscribers." Subscribers can talk directly to one another in "chat rooms" -- subnetworks in which up to two-dozen people can type comments to one another. One recent evening, for instance, a chat-room visitor could watch scrolling down the screen a conversation comparing the weather in Florida and Mississippi, which seemed an opportune time to break in and ask the people in the room why they subscribed to America Online. Answers immediately appeared. "AOL manages to take a depersonalizing technology and make it personal via chat rooms like this," replied someone going by the screen name of BRUX. "It's user friendly," FIRECRKR typed. "Any idiot can use AOL, even this one! You don't even have to know how to spll."
Matt Lauer
The Anchor As Sex Symbol NBC News seems to be producing a string of on-air heartthrobs. First, there was Arthur Kent. Then Stone Phillips. Now there's Matt Lauer. Mr. Lauer, the co-host, with Jane Hanson, of WNBC's 6 A.M. newscast, Today in New York, recently substituted for Bryant Gumbel on the Today show for three days. Does NBC have big plans for him? "I don't think I would call it a tryout," said the anchor, 35, who was born in Manhattan and grew up in Westchester County. "I would call it a great opportunity that was handed to me with no strings attached."
Keep reading for the first mentions of peanut butter, garage door openers, Twitter, Bob Dylan and more.
From Many Tweets, One Loud Voice On The InternetTwitter, which was created by a 10-person start-up in San Francisco called Obvious, is a heady mixture of messaging; social networking of the sort associated with Web sites like MySpace; the terse, jittery personal revelations of "microblogging" found on services like Jaiku; and something called "presence," shorthand for the idea that people should enjoy an "always on" virtual omnipresence. It's easy to satirize Twitter's trendiness, and cranky critics have mocked the banality of most tweets and questioned whether we really need such an assault upon our powers of concentration. But right now, it's one of the fastest-growing phenomena on the Internet. In March, when Twitter was voted "best of the Web" at South by Southwest, the annual multimedia and music festival in Austin, the service had 100,000 members, according to Biz Stone, an engineer at Obvious. The festival prize prompted, or coincided with, a remarkably rapid adoption of Twitter by the international digerati. Although Obvious has become secretive about how many people use Twitter, Evan Williams, the founder of Obvious, told me that there were three and a half times more tweets in the second week of April than there were before South by Southwest. [Follow mental_floss on Twitter.]
Garage Door Opener
Electric Wiring: Adequate System Needed For Safety And Comfort An item that is growing in popularity with suburbanites is the automatic garage door opener. Available in several variations, this device makes it possible to open or close the garage door without getting out of the car. In one type a flat plate locked in the driveway contains a treadle switch which raises an overhead garage door when the car wheel passes over the plate. An electric-eye witch operates another type of door opener.
Peanut Butter
In The Shops Apple butter has a rival. It is date butter and it is said to be excellent. Peanut butter is well known now, and nut butter, when the nut is not specified, is made of pecan nuts. * * * Shelled nuts of all kinds can be found now and at reasonable prices, 40 cents a pound for most of them. Walnuts, pecans, filberts, Brazil nuts, hickory, black walnuts, pistachios, and pignolias can be bought shelled. * * * It is an old story that shelled almonds are to be found, and these come salted also. Salted pecans are liked fully as well by some people.
SkyMall
United Adds Shopping Service On Most Domestic Flights United Airlines has added a new feature to its domestic fleet: allowing passengers to order products from 13 companies by telephone. Some items can be delivered as soon as an aircraft lands. The service, called High Street Emporium, could double orders to Phoenix-based Skymall Inc., which supplies the catalogue, within several months, said Jan Redding, marketing director for the privately held company.
Alex Trebek
Shop-At-Home Program Fails To Show And Tell It seemed an irresistible idea: a television show combining the fevered allure of the home-shopping craze with the proven appeal of the traditional talk-show format. If it caught on, the thinking went, it could be the most profitable use of the public airwaves ever contrived. That was what Lorimar-Telepictures, the giant independent television studio that produces Dallas, Max Headroom and a half-dozen other network shows, had in mind in January when it began ValueTelevision. The one-hour syndicated program, starring Alex Trebek and Meredith MacRae, was sold to 72 stations across the country. Apparently, shopping is not a spectator sport. ValueTelevision has been a ratings disaster, prompting a drastic format overhaul and a change in hosts and producer.
Huffington Post
A Boldface Name Invites Others To Blog With HerGet ready for the next level in the blogosphere. Arianna Huffington, the columnist and onetime candidate for governor of California, is about to move blogging from the realm of the anonymous individual to the realm of the celebrity collective. She has lined up more than 250 of what she calls "the most creative minds" in the country to write a group blog that will range over topics from politics and entertainment to sports and religion. * * * While many of the bloggers are on the left of the political spectrum, some conservatives have also signed on, among them Tony Blankley, editorial page editor of The Washington Times, and David Frum, the writer who coined the phrase "axis of evil" when he was a speechwriter for President Bush. In a solicitation letter to hundreds of people in her eclectic Rolodex, Ms. Huffington said the site "won't be left wing or right wing; indeed, it will punch holes in that very stale way of looking at the world."
From Previous Installments...
Bob Dylan
20-Year-Old Singer Is Bright New Face At Gerde's Club Resembling a cross between a choir boy and a beatnik, Mr. Dylan has a cherubic look and a mop of tousled hair he partly covers with a Huck Finn black corduroy cap. His clothes may need a bit of tailoring, but when he works his guitar, harmonica or piano and composes new songs faster than he can remember them, there is no doubt that he is bursting at the seams with talent. * * * But if not for every taste, his music-making has the mark of originality and inspiration, all the more noteworthy for his youth. Mr. Dylan is vague about his antecedents and birthplace, but it matters less where he has been than where he is going, and that would seem to be straight up.
iPhone
Cyberspace Cutting Edge Seems Pretty DullIt sure was big, whatever it was. More than 65,000 people last week jammed into the Javits Center to attend Internet World, which has become one of the nation's largest trade shows. But unlike other huge industry events, most notably Comdex, there was less sense that any particular development was revolutionary than that it was time to pay attention to make the reality of switches and networks live up to the dreamy prognostications of techno-utopians. * * * * * Many of the 600 exhibitors focused on hardware, software and services of use to those putting together Web sites. Hot categories included programs to serve as hosts for catalogs and take payments for goods and services on line. Several specialized hardware devices were introduced. For example, Cidco, a telephone accessory maker introduced the iPhone, a $500 telephone with a black-and-white screen that can be used for surfing the World Wide Web. And Encanto began selling a $1,000 all-inclusive device that small business can use to be host of their own Web sites.
Digital Watch
A Watch That Takes the Hard Time Out of Telling Time Now there's a new toy for the man with a collection of watches. The digital watch, which is operated by a sort of tiny computer, takes all the guess work out of time reading by flashing the hours and minutes in numerals on its face. * * * * * Sales are brisk although the Pulsar is not a thing of beauty compared to many good watches. The watch itself is thick, to accommodate its computer and battery, and weighs about four ounces with its metal strap. Until its "command" button is pressed, it shows nothing but a blank, dark-red face and looks like a dead television screen. But that, presumably, is the fun of owning one. Ask the Pulsar wearer what time it is, and without saying a word, he presses the button and you know it's 9:42.
Drudge Report
Take away corporate influence on the Web and what do you have? Original fun. Corporate sites are usually the polar opposite of the homegrown, wildly original sites that drove the Web's early popularity. In the spirit of remembering whence we came, what follows is a list of decidedly uncorporate Web sites, compiled for your enjoyment andpossibly, inspiration. The Drudge Report (http://www.lainet.com/drudge/) A remarkable site that links to virtually every magazine, newspaper or news service on the Web and includes Drudge's own commentary. For its sheer utility, just moved to the top of my bookmark list. These quirky sites are a minuscule sample of the diversity on the Web today. Turning the Internet into a mass medium is fine, but it is far more thrilling to contemplate what might happen in a world where more people have the means to express their creativity to each other -- without the censors, filters and gatekeepers that the mass media employ. The Drudge Report (http://www.lainet.com/drudge/) A remarkable site that links to virtually every magazine, newspaper or news service on the Web and includes Drudge's own commentary. For its sheer utility, just moved to the top of my bookmark list.
Yankee Stadium
Yankee Stadium to Seat 80,000 FansThe structure will represent the most recent "“ in fact, the up-to-the-minute "“ discoveries and developments in stadium construction, with drawbacks noted in other stadia eliminated. Particular attention will be given to looking after the convenience of women patrons and making them as comfortable as possible. The tribe of female fans is expected to increase speedily as soon as the new park is thrown open. * * * * * All around the outside of "Yankee Stadium," which is to be the official name of the place, an areaway seven feet in width will be left in order to provide for future development of stores and storage places. This is a novel feature in such plants.
Mel Kiper, Jr.
The Draftnik Papers What do you do if you are an 18-year-old junior college student with little interest in school but a lot in sports? Mel Kiper Jr. of Baltimore solved that problem by dropping out of college and going into the sports business. He began operating a service to provide inside information on college and pro football teams to bettors or anyone who wants to use it. Kiper extracted information from any source he could find, such as newspapers, games on television and contacts around the country. He began getting people to make videotape recordings from television of games in their areas. He then analyzed the games. * * * * * Last month he brought out a 96-page magazine-like publication on the draft that reads like a report a pro team might compile. The 1981 Draft Report, for a price of $20, is so detailed that it not only gives names, weights, heights and speeds of the best prospects for the National Football League draft later this month, but also analyzes the needs of each team, projects next year's top prospects and even discusses the attitude problems of some of this season's top prospects. Of Leonard Mitchell, a 270-pound University of Houston tackle, Kiper brashly writes: "Will need to show more dedication and prove that he wants to excel."
Labrador Retriever
Dog As Caddy: Scarcity Of Boys Causes Innovation On English Golf Links An innovation has lately been made by a player on the Tyneside golf course at Rytown, which is likely to be adopted on other courses, particularly where engaged couples like to indulge in the game without human observers. At Rytown, in order to overcome difficulties created by a scarcity of caddies, the player in question trained his dog, a Labrador retriever, to carry his clubs and hunt for lost balls. * * * * * "From every point of view the dog is so much the superior of the boy as a caddy that I expect to see dogs used universally in the future. With a dog as your caddy there is no one to hear you swear and no one to make fun of your play." [Note: The phrase "Labrador Retrievers" (plural) was used once before, in March of 1914. This was funnier.]
See Also... "¢ Greatest Hits of 2007 (Walkman, Email, Jerry Seinfeld and more) "¢ Greatest Hits of 2008 (Princess Diana, Personal Computer, John McCain and more) "¢ See all the previous installments of The First Time News Was Fit To Print "¢ November 3, 2007: Appearance on NPR Weekend Edition Saturday
Want to play along at home? Get complete access to the New York Times archives by becoming an NYT subscriber.