Archive for January, 2009

BART to get WiFi!

Hot damn! I reported on WiFi Rail back in July 2008 for NPR. Well done!

From WiFi Rail‘s press release:

Service on BART is scheduled to begin on selected segments during 2009. Four downtown San Francisco stations and some segments of the tunnels are already fully functional, and have been providing premium service free to subscribers for the past year.

“We are thrilled to showcase our technology in the network designed for the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit system, it is a great partnership,” said Cooper Lee, CEO and inventor of the patent pending technology. “This is a unique opportunity to demonstrate what high-speed WiFi access, interconnected by a huge fiber-optic backbone, can mean to a transit system and its passengers.”

The WiFi Rail deployment in the BART system will become the largest high bandwidth mobile Internet LAN in the United States. Completion of network construction is planned for the end of 2010.

[via Dave Winer and Wi-Fi Net News]

Rick Steves Goes to Iran

My cousin Amir, who I visited while on my Iran (I still need to upload the rest of the photos!) trip in March 2008, just sent me a link to Rick Steves’ hour-long documentary on Iran, which just aired on PBS stations around the country this week. (You can watch it on Google Video here.)

Steves and his film crew visited in May 2008 (just two months after I was there), and they hit Tehran, Isfahan and Shiraz — taking me back to some of my favorite moments on the trip and also introducing me to places that I didn’t have the chance to go to.

Above all, the message that he stressed (which matched my experience too) is that Iranians are pleasantly surprised to meet Americans in Iran and welcome them with generosity and friendliness.

Man, I can’t wait to go back!

You can also hear Rick Steves talking about his trip on PRI’s The World and NPR’s Talk of the Nation in shows recorded this past July.

Kyrgyzstan under cyberattack

First Estonia. Then Georgia. Now Kyrgyzstan.

Computerworld:

A Russian “cybermilitia” has knocked the central Asian country of Kyrgyzstan off the Internet, a security researcher said today, demonstrating that the hackers are able to respond even faster than last year, when they waged a digital war against another former Soviet republic, Georgia.

Since Jan. 18, the two biggest Internet service providers in Kyrgyzstan have been under a “massive, sustained distributed denial-of-service attack,” said Don Jackson, the director of threat intelligence at SecureWorks Inc.

The attacks, which are ongoing, have knocked most of the country offline and disrupted e-mail to and from a U.S. air base there, Jackson said. The public affairs officer at Manas Air Base in Kyrgyzstan was not immediately available to answer questions about whether the attacks have disrupted operations or other activities.

According to Jackson, the distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks — essentially a flood of requests that overwhelm servers and effectively knock them off the Internet — can be traced to the same groups of Russian and ethnic Russian hackers who assembled in militia-like fashion last August to launch similar attacks against Georgia.

In a related matter, check Lauri Almann‘s (permanent undersecretary of defense for the Republic of Estonia from 2004 to 2008) new piece in Stanford’s Policy Review:

The main ddos attack lasted ten days, from May 8 to May 18. During the period between May 10 and May 15, Estonia’s banks came under fire from the cyber warriors; two major banks had to stop their online services. Ninety-four percent of banking transactions in Estonia are conducted online, and so the attacks had a crippling effect on financial dealings in the country. Most Estonians do not have checkbooks. When the banking system was set up after the nation regained independence in 1991, the decision was made to skip the issuance of checkbooks in favor of direct, online banking. This, of course, made Estonia even more vulnerable to damage from attacks.

Of course, a ddos attack against online banking lasting several days is enough time to do a great deal of damage to an economy. The attack was not continuous, but came in waves, suggesting that it was not a riot of hackers, but a well coordinated attack. It appears from the pattern of attack that one bot herder was controlling the intensity of the attacks. This demonstrates clearly that there was a single point of control. It is important to note that when the attack began, Estonia had no way of knowing how long the attack would last or whether it would be ongoing.

“Echolocation” and “Cold”

Rebecca’s back (again!), with yet another potent pairing of poems, this time in Octopus.

I will say that I’m a big fan of “Cold,” as it mentions one of my favorite countries, Estonia!

ECHOLOCATION

Most days I wear
the hunched run

of an animal, darting
until caught

in net or claw—
and that’s fine.

Trapped, I noise
and flap, send you

pressed air,
let you forge

toward me.
Let you touch me.

Let you cut
through net and claw.

COLD

I like my shadow when I’m in this coat.

I look like a Russian soldier or I’m wearing a dress.

I need to be more friendly. I need to treat Estonians better.

January 26: Cyrus on CBC’s Search Engine

I had the honor of being interviewed (again!) by Jesse Brown on his CBC show, “Search Engine“, to talk about Iranian blogging and to provide an update on the Hossein Derakhshan situation.

You can download the podcast, once Toronto wakes up, here.

Update (6:34 am Pacific): Here’s the permalink. I had no idea I was Search Engine’s Senior Unpaid Iranian Affairs Correspondent. Sweet!

“Cull Canyon” and “The Humanification of Things”

My bodaciously brilliant fiancée, Rebecca Guyon, is back with two newly-published poems in Strange Machine, an online poetry journal:

Cull Canyon

A girl drowned here one summer,
and another the summer after that.

This never stopped anyone from jumping
in the water, murky as it was, murky,

like most made things. We liked to think
the bodies were never found, that if we touched

the bottom we ran the risk of brushing
their saturated skin. Once, instead of swimming,

we ventured to the fishing hole, hiking
to the other side through a creek, the wild,

even as we heard trucks dumping fish in the water.
The dead ones floated to the top, made shapes

in their synchronized swim, a kaleidoscope of flesh.
We skimmed them off the surface. We called this fishing.

The Humanification of Things

I.

I didn’t know books had bones, the girl says after learning about spines, and recalls all the backs she broke. What else has a body like mine? When she gets home from school she runs to her closet. The stuffed bears are obviously dead. The coins, rolled and divided in a box, make pleas. She pushes them under the bears. My dresses! Each one stays quiet, hanging, waiting. She taunts the blue corduroy jumper; dances with the pink princess dress from Halloween. They don’t have bodies; they have lives. The books resting on her bedside table catch her eye. She picks up Goodnight Moon. Hello moon! she says as she flays it open, pinning it face down.

II.

They tricked me into liking angles, the woman thinks as she moves the couch 75 degrees in relation to the wall. The room now moves like a trapezoid. Rearranging furniture is applied geometry, she tells the coffee table, explaining why it must move from center to line. What’s wrong with the couch? She inspects the striped-blue fabric. It’s covered in onionskin and my skin and mud from my pants. She pulls off the cover to wash. Hand wash in mild soap. I can live with dirty.

III.

You need to toughen up, she says to the toaster. I’m going to make you a man. She holds it out the window, dangling it by its cord before letting go. The metal casing spits in two, spilling springs and wires along the sidewalk. When her mom gets home she says it was suicide. I tried to talk it down, but it said it just couldn’t spend another day filled with bread. Only the blender knows the truth, and everyone knows blenders are cowards.

IV.

This room is cluttered or empty. She rolls the couch to the kitchen and pulls pillows from the attic. Turning the coffee table on its side, she pushes it vertically against the wall and remembers what it’s like to be against a wall. She breaks off its legs. Don’t scream. The couch is helpless. You must go, she says to the loveseat that’s been quiet all this time, dragging it by the arm and tossing it outside, into the garden. This room is like my garden, she laughs, knowing that’s the most obvious thing to say.

Obama + Roquefort = Crazy Ridiculous (and Delicious)

With Obama in the White House, France is hoping to have a much better relationship — at least culturally and culinarily — with the US.

However, shortly before leaving office, the Bush Administration approved a 100 percent import duty on a bunch of EU items. France is upset because one of its main cheeses, roquefort, is being hit with a 300 percent tariff. Many read this as one of the Bush Administration’s flipping the bird against France, who still have a US beef ban, and of course, antagonized the administration in early 2003. (Freedom fries, anyone?)

The US currently imports about two percent of the annual production of roquefort, but with the new tariff, it may make the cheese a luxury product. The tariff is due to take effect on March 23.

Philippe Folliot, a French MP who represents the region where roquefort is produced, has gone so far as to call for a “symbol against symbol” retaliation by imposing a tariff on Coca-Cola. (Um, huh?)

As a goodwill gesture, Martin Malvy, the the president of the Midi-Pyrenees sent the White House a box of roquefort. (Awesome!)

Better yet, this week, French anti-globalization protestor Jose Bové (yes, that Jose Bové) led a delegation to deliver seven kilos of roquefort to the US Embassy in Paris.

Man, I could really go for some moules roquefort right about now.

[via FP Passport | Photo: AFP]

LA Times: Tax hike would put Chuck over its famed Two Bucks

Los Angeles Times, January 21 2009:

Is this the end of Two Buck Chuck?

A proposal to raise the state tax on wine to a level more than six times higher to help close California’s giant budget deficit would kill the $1.99 price for Charles Shaw wine, said Fred Franzia, who created the famous label sold by the Trader Joe’s grocery chain.

Charles Shaw, of course, is the formal name for the California wines sold since 2002 that are now widely known by their nickname Two Buck Chuck.

The proposal by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger would raise the tax on wine to 29.6 cents for a 750-milliliter bottle from 4 cents.

“It’s like shooting Charles Shaw in the eye,” said Franzia, chief executive of Bronco Wine Co., which owns the brand. The profit margin is already so low we will have to raise the price.”

. . .

Franzia said he wasn’t sure what the new price would be — it would have to be worked out with retail partner Trader Joe’s — but $2.29 or $2.49 Chuck would not be a surprise, according to industry analysts.

Trader Joe’s, which introduced the wine seven years ago and has never raised the price, declined to say whether it had a stand on the proposed tax and would not talk about its plans for the wine.

Charles Shaw fans are divided on whether the tax is a good idea.

“Two Buck Chuck is a nice wine, and the price is wonderful. You can drink it or use for cooking, and it’s not very expensive,” Jim Elsten of Long Beach said while shopping at a Trader Joe’s in Long Beach last week. “I think it would still be a good deal at $2.29 or $2.49. Wine is a luxury, and I don’t see an extra tax as a problem.”

NY Times: In First Family, a Nation’s Many Faces

The New York Times, January 21 2009:

For well over two centuries, the United States has been vastly more diverse than its ruling families. Now the Obama family has flipped that around, with a Technicolor cast that looks almost nothing like their overwhelmingly white, overwhelmingly Protestant predecessors in the role. The family that produced Barack and Michelle Obama is black and white and Asian, Christian, Muslim and Jewish. They speak English; Indonesian; French; Cantonese; German; Hebrew; African languages including Swahili, Luo and Igbo; and even a few phrases of Gullah, the Creole dialect of the South Carolina Lowcountry. Very few are wealthy, and some — like Sarah Obama, the stepgrandmother who only recently got electricity and running water in her metal-roofed shack — are quite poor.

“Our family is new in terms of the White House, but I don’t think it’s new in terms of the country,” Maya Soetoro-Ng, the president’s younger half-sister, said last week. “I don’t think the White House has always reflected the textures and flavors of this country.”

Happy Obama Day!

Obama’s People (New York Times Magazine)

The New York Times Magazine has a great online feature called Obama’s People, showing pictures of some of the members of the new administration and his allies in Congress. There’s a slideshow and some narration by Narav Kander (photographer), and Kathy Ryan, the Times Magazine’s director of photography.

Basically, the idea was to get them photographed in a small, confined space and to let their gestures to the talking. Also, they asked each person to bring (if they wanted?) a personal item.

Eugene Kang, a 24-year-old Obama political advisor, (who I’d never heard of until I saw this photo), brought a little notebook with him.

According to Asian Americans for Obama:

pay special attention to the book that Eugene Kang is holding – that’s the book that contains the numbers of all of the people that Obama called throughout the campaign, written in Eugene’s own hand! There’s also a great anecdote about David Axelrod wanting to pose with a cookie in his hand, but the picture that made it into the gallery was a non-cookie one because the cookies didn’t look real enough.

January 14: Cyrus on PRI’s The World

Dear Friends,

I’ve been informed that my radio piece on the launch of the new BBC Persian television service is airing today.

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

New York – 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.

Big ups to The Bex!

My brilliant and beautiful fiancée, Rebecca Guyon, has just been published (twice!) in the latest issue of Press 1, an online poetry journal.

Here’s my favorite of these two:

Brocaded

Your bready eyes would float
if I threw you in this pond.

The koi circling, sucking you in
with tunnel mouths.

Who will touch me then?

The garden heaves us onto a screen –

remember that little Japanese painting?

The clawing wave, the mountain
under grip

men rowing and sliding
unaware of being carved.

WashPost: “Detainee Tortured, Says U.S. Official”

The Washington Post, January 14 2009, by Bob Woodward:

The top Bush administration official in charge of deciding whether to bring Guantanamo Bay detainees to trial has concluded that the U.S. military tortured a Saudi national who allegedly planned to participate in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, interrogating him with techniques that included sustained isolation, sleep deprivation, nudity and prolonged exposure to cold, leaving him in a “life-threatening condition.”

“We tortured [Mohammed al-]Qahtani,” said Susan J. Crawford, in her first interview since being named convening authority of military commissions by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates in February 2007. “His treatment met the legal definition of torture. And that’s why I did not refer the case” for prosecution.

And also in today’s Post:

A former military prosecutor said in a declaration filed in federal court yesterday that the system of handling evidence against detainees at Guantanamo Bay is so chaotic that it is impossible to prepare a fair and successful prosecution.

Darrel Vandeveld, a former lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve, filed the declaration in support of a petition seeking the release of Mohammed Jawad, an Afghan who has been held at the military prison in Cuba for six years. Jawad was a juvenile when he was detained in Kabul in 2002 after a grenade attack that severely wounded two U.S. Special Forces soldiers and their interpreter.

Vandeveld, who has served in Iraq and Afghanistan, was the lead prosecutor against Jawad until he asked to be relieved of his duties last year, citing a crisis of conscience. He said the case has been riddled with problems, including alleged physical and psychological abuse of Jawad by Afghan police and the U.S. military, as well as reliance on evidence that was later found to be missing, false or unreliable.

Vandeveld said in a phone interview that the “complete lack of organization” has affected nearly all cases at Guantanamo Bay. The evidence is often so disorganized, he said, “it was like a stash of documents found in a village in a raid and just put on a plane to the U.S. Not even rudimentary organization by date or name.”

January 13: Cyrus on PRI’s The World

Dear Friends,

I’ve been informed that my radio piece on the “refocusing” of the One Laptop Per Child project is airing today.

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

New York – 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.



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