Cyrus Farivar

Boing Boing posted this list of the World Livestock Auctioneer Championships. This is pretty amazing. I’m thinking that they’d sound good also mixed with an electronic/techno track. I’ll try one later today. When I showed my co-worker, Curt Poff, our resident Midwesterner — he hails from outside St. Joseph, MO — he told me that his father is a professional auctioneer. That’s pretty sweet. This is a part of America that I know nothing about. On the American (Hadsell) side…

In 2006, Paul Boutin and I often lunch together here, in South Park, San Francisco, just across the street from the Macworld offices. In 1906, the same area was used as a refugee camp after it was leveled during the Great Earthquake. [via MeFi.] Whoa.

Everyone, please send good thoughts to my buddy Benjamin Harvey, who is covering the bird flu situation in eastern Turkey. He’s been keeping a blog about his experiences on Washingtonpost.com — two days ago he reported being sick. I hope he’s ok. Keep up the good work, Ben.

Wired News: The U.S. Navy is field-testing a new short-range communications device called LightSpeed that could soon let sailors talk securely up to two miles away — just by looking at each other. The device uses infrared, similar to that of a television remote control, to transmit audio and visual information. To overcome range limits, LightSpeed connects to ordinary binoculars and uses the optical lenses to amplify the signals. Then soldiers on either end can simply plug headphones and a…

So Google Earth for OS X is finally here. I took this screen grab of Memorial Stadium in Berkeley, Calif.

MacUser: Today’s the big day. So what will I be doing? I will be recording the Stevenote and will be scurrying to produce a podcast by midday if at all possible. I will also be recording a live session of the Macworld Podcast on the Expo Show Floor (Macworld’s Booth is #807) today from 1 pm to 1:30 pm. I’ll be interviewing Anthony King, of MacMod and Ben Long, a Macworld freelancer, to talk about Adobe Lightroom. Hungry? Check out…

Macworld Expo Blog: Every January, thousands of folks descend upon San Francisco for Macworld Expo. During the day their appetite for Mac products is satiated, but their bellies often remain unsatisfied. Given that we spend most of our time in this beautiful city by the bay, a few of us Macworld staff have put together the first edition of MacworldEats, a guide to eating near the Moscone Center (with a few suggestions for side trips beyond downtown). Inspired by the…

So I’m minding my own business, reading The Washington Post, when I come across this piece. There, I find probably the second time ever that I’ve agreed with our beloved president. President Bush announced plans yesterday to boost foreign-language study in the United States, casting the initiative as a strategic move to better engage other nations in combating terrorism and promoting freedom and democracy. “This program is a part of a strategic goal, and that is to protect this country,”…

Macworld: by Cyrus Farivar With Macworld Expo less than a week away, whet your technology trade show appetite with talk of January’s other major event, the Consumer Electronics Show. Intrepid editors Jonathan Seff and Christopher Breen are spending this week in the oasis that is Las Vegas, driving Macworld’s coverage of this massive trade show. Jon took a few moments out of pounding the pavement of the Vegas Strip to report on the Mac-compatible products on display at CES. Download…

Wow, my friends are just all over the place lately. Tom Grove just had his first piece published in Wired magazine, in the January issue! It’s about selling satellite dishes in Turkish Kurdistan: Mustafa Özgen’s borrowed Ford Turbo bumps along a Turkish dirt road, 13 miles from the border with Syria. Özgen rumbles past dilapidated houses, abandoned during the country’s prolonged war with Kurdish separatists. In the back of his truck, satellite TV dishes are stacked neatly on their sides…