cyrusfarivar.com

My old friend and traveling buddy from my Senegal days, Al, writes:

Hey Cyrus,

Thanks for the Canada Day shout out. Sounds like things are pretty awesome with you, and that you’re up to the old traveling quite a bit.

I thought I’d ask if you knew any potential candidates for a tech.-and development position I’m trying to fill. I’m spending the summer working for TechnoServe (poverty alleviation in agro-business, mostly) in Tanzania, where I focus on the cotton sector.

One of the things we’ve designed this summer is a fairly sophisticated SMS-based system that helps share information with cotton farmers — giving them access to market price info, trainings, Q&A service, etc. I’m leaving soon, however, and we’re looking for someone to come in and manage the pilot and implementation of this system in Northwestern Tanzania. I’m attaching a rough description of the project below. With your contacts in the area, I’m wondering if you could recommend any people with the relevant experience who are looking for an exciting 4-month project with lots of travel. FYI, we’re doing phone interviews with folks next week.

Thanks, man!

- Al

*Project Description:*

In a nutshell, TNS Tanz. works in a number of agricultural sub-sectors, including cotton, where we are trying to help farmers and ginners (the guys who process the raw cotton) improve their profits. The main way we do this is by moving the industry from an unproductive free-for-all to a “contract farming” model, where local ginners are responsible for supporting farmers throughout the growing season and receive the exclusive right to buy those farmers’ cotton in return. The support includes everything from training to supplying farmers with fertilizer, pesticide, etc. The idea is that this new model will help get farmers the inputs they need to farm properly and
productively.

Here’s where the ICT solution comes in. Because the contract-farming model is new, it has a lot of challenges. We have designed an ICT system this summer that does three main things:

- provide SMS-based services to farmers to help them out (e.g., Q&A service, trainings by phone, market-price informatin)

- allow ginners to keep track of their contracts with farmers and look at simple business analytics

- capture certain information along the way for the government’s agencies to better police the system

Read the rest of this entry »

While at the salsa bar at Cactus with Rebekah today:

C: How do you say ‘Here, take this,’ in Persian?
R: بفرماید (Befarmaeed.) [Go ahead ; By all means ; Be my guest ; Please, have some]
C: Really?
R: Really.
C: Doesn’t that seem overly formal?
R: You’ve been Persian for how long?

I first heard about it from Omid Habibinia.

Confirmed on Balatarian (”Highest”), as shown below. Click image for the Google Translated English version:

Since Iran has been going nuts since the election, I’ve found myself glued to Twitter much more than before. I’ve used it to send out articles that I’ve found interesting, and get a handle on what people are talking about. More recently, I’ve used it to experiment with sending out photos of what I see when I’m out in the world.

I have my Flickr email address and my Twitpic address both in my iPhone, so that with a single email I can send my photo to both sides (and Facebook too, as I’ve integrated Twitter with it, too). Last night, I used it to take this snap of the latest example of hopejacking in my neighborhood here in Oakland.

Earlier this month, Flickr added a way to add photos to Twitter messages through its new Twitpic rival service, aptly name Flic.kr.

However, starting today, there’s a new way to tweet photos in your own Flickr library or other photos on the site. This feature makes sharing photos that much easier, which is pretty sweet. Simply add Flickr2Twitter to your account, authorize it, and off you go.

Now if only Twitter could somehow integrate itself with MMS, then we’d be totally, photographically, set.

Back in 2006, a group of wacky Swedes founded the Piratpartiet, which is exactly what it sounds like, the Pirate Party. The party’s main platform revolves around copyright and other intellectual property reform.

Remember those crazy kids at the Pirate Bay trial in Sweden earlier this year? Right after the trial, membership in the Piratpartiet surged to over 30,000 members. Today, there are nearly 50,000 members.

While this may have been laughable earlier this year, just a few weeks ago during the European Union elections, PP earned a seat in the European Parliament. Further, PP members convinced former Social Democrat Jörg Tauss to leave the the SDP and join the German Pirate Party, or the Piratenpartei Deutschland.

Beyond these successes, the Pirate Party is spreading around Europe and around the globe. In the past few weeks alone, chapters in the United Kingdom, Slovenia, Estonia, and Switzerland have been founded.

This week, the United States Pirate Party is holding its annual elections — maybe they’ll soon be successful in getting someone elected to the state level?

Everyone knows that the media (the Chronicle included) is going through some major changes. We’ve got newspapers folding (and not in the usual way) left and right. We’ve got ads that don’t quite translate into online revenue, and online journalism sites that can’t seem to charge money, or at least seem to largely exist in the non-profit model. NPR’s On The Media has been covering this nonstop. There have even been Congressional hearings about it.

But ok. The media is dying. There’s even a Twitter account with that exact name.

So what’s a newspaper do to? Micropayments? The public radio model? There’s plenty to choose from.

But what about the anti-Google approach: pulling content offline?

That’s exactly what Estonia’s biggest newspaper, Postimees, is doing. This EPIC 2014-esque model is particularly curious given that Estonia is such a wired country. Yes, you might know it better as e-Stonia. (You know, they invented Skype, perfected Internet voting and got cyberattacked back in 2007.)

Starting this Monday, Postimees will stop full publication of its articles online. Its rival, Eesti Päevaleht, is going to follow suit within the next few months.

Then, the plan seemingly is to put those articles behind a paywall.

But here’s where this plan might actually work where other online paywalls have failed: it’s happening simultaneously in a small, semi-exclusive, market. (Heck, if I was Estonian, maybe I might throw down my kroons for some of these articles.)

If something like this happened here, I might not like it, but honestly, if that were the easiest way to get my daily fix of journalism every day I just might do it. I’m a 27-year-old journalist who loves newspapers. Heck, I was a paperboy as a child for (defunct since 1998) The Evening Outlook in Santa Monica for a couple of years.

But the fact of the matter is that I’m going to get my news for free on way or the other, so long as its easier than paying for it. The Wall Street Journal charges for access — I wasn’t reading it anyway. Oh wait, but there’s a free (and legal) workaround. TimesSelect? There was a way around that, too. But iTunes proved that if you can make it easier to buy music than to pirate it, then that’s what people will do.

But ok, what if all my favorite papers like the Chronicle, The New York Times, The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times started, all at once, charging for their content. Maybe then I’d consider forking over some cash.

Now, Estonia is a small country with a small readership. The entire Estonian-speaking population worldwide is roughly one quarter the size of the Bay Area. We’ll find out soon enough if a product with a limited audience can succeed with this strategy.

I had the honor of being interviewed (again!) by Jesse Brown on his TVO show, “Search Engine“, to provide an update on the Iranian post-election situation.

Update: Audio is here.

Friends,

This op-ed (my first!) ran in today’s San Francisco Chronicle. Please disseminate widely!

-C

Silicon Valley should step up, help Iranians
Op-Ed by Cyrus Farivar

Tuesday, June 30, 2009
The San Francisco Chronicle

Until Iran’s election and ensuing political crisis, many Silicon Valley companies had ignored Persian-language services almost entirely. It’s easy to understand why.

First, there’s an American embargo against Iran, which forbids American companies from doing business with that country.

Second, there is a perception that the Iranian community (particularly outside of Los Angeles) is not that large or significant. Third, most Iranians in the United States are well-educated, upper-class people who speak English very well.

So ignoring Iran has been convenient - there has seemingly been no real business motivation for tech companies to make their products useful for Iranians both inside and outside Iran.

This thinking is despite the fact that there are more Persian speakers worldwide than Korean speakers. That’s about 100 million people, including the 75 million Iranians (including the diaspora) plus neighboring Tajikistan and Afghanistan. Sure, Korea is a much more wired society than Iran, but that also means there is that much more opportunity for Iranian online applications and software to take off in the marketplace.

But now that Iran has been experiencing turmoil surrounding its recent election, many Bay Area technology leaders finally realize the importance their technology and services can play in shaping world events. As foreign media have been kicked out of the country, information technology services suddenly have become a crucial tool to get and receive information from Iran.

Read the rest of this entry »

Ok, so I’m a little behind on my Daily Show watching. Hey, it’s been a busy few weeks! Still though, check this:

So while the world was watching Iran’s chaos this weekend, there was a new state in the process of being born: Greenland.

Yes, that massive ice sheet that takes up an unfathomable part of your world map is well on its way to becoming an independent country, shaking off the 300-year-old colonial yoke of Denmark.

On Sunday, Denmark handed over responsibility of the island’s internal affairs including potentially vast oil reserves to Greenland.

In addition, the judicial system will also now be run locally. Further, the official language will switch from Danish and Greenlandinc to solely Greenlandic (a variant of Canadian Inuit). The island has 100 percent literacy.

In an report by Joshua Kucera in the The Washington Times:

Self-government is “a symbol of the dreams of the Greenlandic people,” Mr. Motzfeldt said at the ceremony. “We have achieved the right of control of our subsoil, and we expect in the years to come that this will be a supplement to lay the foundation for an economically independent Greenland.”

Serious oil exploration has only recently begun off Greenland’s coast, aided in part by the melting of the sea ice due to global warming. Oil has not been found, but estimates, including those of the U.S. Geological Survey, suggest that Greenland could have about 50 billion barrels of oil.

Greenland’s population is 56,000, so if the oil estimates prove correct, the island would control nearly 1 million barrels of oil per person. It would be a staggering leap for a people who, until World War II, were subsisting almost entirely as seal hunters and fishermen.

Today, Greenland has limited economic options, and commercial shrimping accounts for the bulk of its exports.

Denmark currently provides a large subsidy to Greenland’s government — about $700 million this year or more than $10,000 for every person in Greenland. The subsidy makes up about 60 percent of the government budget.

But when and if oil revenues start to come in, Denmark will reduce the subsidy accordingly. When the subsidy is fully paid off, Greenland officials say, they will begin to seriously discuss the possibility of becoming an independent country.

Denmark, which had to approve the self-government act and would also have to approve independence for Greenland, has not objected.

“For several hundred years, we’ve had a strong relationship between Greenland and Denmark, and we’re looking forward to continuing that relationship,” said Lars Lokke Rasmussen, Denmark’s prime minister, in a press conference after the ceremony. “The question of independence is not the issue today, but it is totally up to the Greenlandic people.”

Or, as Kucera put it on his blog:

That means each Greenlander will own about 900,000 barrels of oil.

Compare that to some other oil powers. These are the top three countries in terms of oil reserves per capita:

Kuwait: 39,900 barrels per person
UAE: 37,576 barrels per person
Qatar: 18,071 barrels per person

Yes, Greenland could have 50 times more oil per capita than Kuwait.

[via FP Passport]

My former Engadget colleague Randall Bennett interviewed me today on the latest edition of TechVi talking about tech stuff in Iran.

Dear Friends,

I’ve been informed that my radio piece on fake Iranian Twitter messages is airing today.

It will be available on any of these stations (and their Internet streams):

NYC - 3 pm Eastern - WNYC - 820 AM - www.wnyc.org
Washington, DC - 8 pm Eastern - WAMU - 88.5 FM - www.wamu.org
Los Angeles - 12 pm Pacific - KPCC - 89.3 FM - www.kpcc.opg
Boston - 4 pm Eastern - WGBH - 89.7 FM - www.wgbh.org
San Francisco - 2 pm Pacific - KQED - 88.5 FM - www.kqed.org

You can also find it on The World’s site later in the day and on my site if you miss the broadcast.

Also, don’t forget about The World’s Tech Podcast, hosted by my boss, Clark Boyd. It comes out every Friday.

Lemme know if you hear it!

Update: Audio is here!

Dear Friends,

I was recently interviewed in the studios of Eesti Raadio for BBC’s Digital Planet, which airs globally each week on the BBC World Service.

I spoke on what I saw and heard at the recent NATO conference on Cyberwarfare in Tallinn.

Download the MP3 here.

More from BBC here.

The Iranophile blog “Is this Ta’arof?” shows how to use Greasemonkey and the new Google Translate tool to help better understand what’s being said in Persian on Twitter. Of course, Google’s translation ability is still in alpha, and likely isn’t 100 percent accurate, but it’s better than nothing. This should work on Windows, Mac or Linux equally well.

If you’re not techy and don’t understand the difference between a cup of java and JavaScript, fear not! This takes about a minute to set up once you’ve got the pieces in place and is super, super easy. (Seriously.)

I’ve adapted John’s instructions to make them a little more clear and a little easier.

So, here’s what you’ll need to download first:

1) Firefox browser. (If you have this already, then skip this step)

2) Greasemonkey. (This a really sweet Firefox plugin that lets you, as John writes: “allows you to customize web-pages with little bits of Javascript. Or, as Paul Boutin once wrote: “[lets you] modify webpages to suit your tastes.”) Again, if you already have this, you can skip this step.

3) Once you’ve got those squared away, go download my modified Google Translate script for Greasemonkey. This is the little bit of code that will do the translation for you. There probably will be a pop-up window asking if you want to install this script. You do.

In John’s version, he’ll tell you to go download the script from the official userscripts.org site. Then you’ll have to modify one line of code, as the script hasn’t been updated since Google added Persian.

But I’ve already done that for you, so you can download my already-modified version instead.

4) Now we’ve got to make a tiny change to the Google Translate script to make sure that it supports HTTPS. (If that doesn’t mean anything to you, then don’t fret over it.)

You can do this straightaway when the pop-up appears when you install the script. Or, you can go to the Tools menu, select “Greasemonkey” and then select “Manage User Scripts.” Or, you can right-click (that’s Ctrl-click for Mac people like me) the monkey icon in the lower right corner of your browser window and choose “Manage User Scripts.”

No matter how you do it, you should get a screen like this:

Click the “Add…” button and put in this line:

https://twitter.com/*

Do it again for:

https://*.twitter.com/*

Now there should be four lines in the “Included Pages” box as shown above.

5) Restart Firefox.

6) Login to Twitter. (This is important.)

7) Go to a Twitter page with Persian text on it, like:

http://twitter.com/mousavi1388
http://twitter.com/khorshid
http://twitter.com/khamenei_ir

VIII. Move your mouse over the Persian text. On the right side, under the Favorites star and the reply-to folded arrow should be a new, lower-case letter “t.” If you click that then you should get something like this:

NB: You can modify the script to default to a different source language. Also, this script works with any of the Google-supported target languages, which include Arabic, Korean and Estonian.

Any questions? Contact me.

Email is cfarivar [at] cfarivar [dot] org or find me on Twitter: @cfarivar

[via Poynter]

Dear Friends,

I’ve been informed that my radio piece on the new Persian tech tools from Google, Facebook and Apple is airing today.

It will be available on any of these stations (and their Internet streams):

NYC - 3 pm Eastern - WNYC - 820 AM - www.wnyc.org
Washington, DC - 8 pm Eastern - WAMU - 88.5 FM - www.wamu.org
Los Angeles - 12 pm Pacific - KPCC - 89.3 FM - www.kpcc.opg
Boston - 4 pm Eastern - WGBH - 89.7 FM - www.wgbh.org
San Francisco - 2 pm Pacific - KQED - 88.5 FM - www.kqed.org

You can also find it on The World’s site later in the day and on my site if you miss the broadcast.

Also, don’t forget about The World’s Tech Podcast, hosted by my boss, Clark Boyd. It comes out every Friday.

Lemme know if you hear it!

Update: Audio is here.