Cyrus Farivar

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Green Collar Crime How I stopped an Internet sex hoax. By Cyrus Farivar Posted Monday, Aug. 1, 2005, at 9:31 AM PT A tip for all of you aspiring investigative reporters: When you expose an Internet sex hoax, there are going to be consequences. Take it from me. My sleuthing got me an unplanned role in a piece of erotic fiction that starred Chewbacca as a Wookiee Casanova. It all started on the weekend of July 4, when I spotted…

Ed: Will someone please explain to me why free trade is good in North (NAFTA) and Central America (CAFTA) , but not to, say, China? Protectionist policies are so 19th century. C’mon guys, get with it. NYT: WASHINGTON, July 28 – It was just before midnight on Wednesday when Representative Robin Hayes capitulated. Mr. Hayes, a Republican whose district in North Carolina has lost thousands of textile jobs in the last four years, had defied President Bush and House Republican…

WashPost: An organization of top American Muslim religious scholars plans to issue a formal ruling today condemning terrorism and forbidding Muslims to cooperate with anyone involved in a terrorist act, according to officials of two leading Islamic organizations. The one-page ruling, or fatwa, will be issued by the Fiqh Council of North America, an association of Islamic legal scholars that interprets Islamic law for the Muslim community. Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, an advocacy group, said…

BBC: Japanese scientists have unveiled the most human-looking robot yet devised – a “female” android called Repliee Q1. She has flexible silicone for skin rather than hard plastic, and a number of sensors and motors to allow her to turn and react in a human-like manner. She can flutter her eyelids and move her hands like a human. She even appears to breathe. Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro of Osaka University says one day robots could fool us into believing they are…

Ed: So after not having much luck with pitching my thesis as a freelance piece, I’m making my Master’s thesis on the Chinatown bus scene in New York publicly available. If any magazine/newspaper editor reads this and wants to publish it, talk to me. Until then, enjoy. Ho, 28, runs his single van and three buses on the weekend along his New York – Boston route. Boston Deluxe is the upstart on this route. His two competitors are much larger…

Engadget: Gotta love how TechWeb can publish two stories about the Tablet PC with completely conflicting headlines within hours of each other. Better still, both have the same source, namely a research firm called In-Stat. One article focused on In-StatÕs recent report about the state of the Tablet PC (which talked about how after three years of mixed success Tablet PC sales were about to start growing), while the other was based on a chat with an In-Stat analyst about…

For those of you wanting to make a statement about exerting your constitutional rights over unwarranted search and seizure (ie, if you’re riding the NY subway these days), you can sport these cool-looking shoulder bags that have the Fourth Amendment printed right on the side. And for those of you who do consent to another type of more pleasureable “search and seizure”, you may want to invest in a pair of these (for women) or these (for men). via Boing…

So I was wrong for the remark about it being bad form to layoff people on a Monday. Writes Paul Boutin: Mondays are actually the recommended best time for layoffs, because it gives people the maximum amount of consecutive weekdays to get moving on finding new work and for remaining coworkers to spend time working together, rather than sending them home for a weekend to sulk/drink/ shoot themselves. Look it up or better yet call some sources if you don’t…

Apple unveiled a update to its Mac mini Tuesday that doubled the installed memory of the slim desktop and introduced AirPort Extreme and Bluetooth as built-in features on some models. But if you think thatÕs all there is to the mini, you need to take a closer look. ThatÕs what we do in the latest installment of the Geek Factor Podcast, as Macworld Editorial Director Jason Snell and I crack open a Mac mini and take you on a tour…