Cyrus Farivar

Well, my cousin, Martin is off to Thailand. Now he should be somewhere over the Pacific, en route to Singapore, his first stop. We wish him well. From today’s NYT: Steve Jobs wants to tear down a huge house that he owns in Woodside, CA (west of Palo Alto/Menlo Park)? It’s a gorgeous house. This is the one time where I’ve seen Steve make a design error. Juneau, AK doesn’t have a road? And now they want one? The Palestinians…

Anyone interested?

$300 buys me a round-trip plane ticket across the country. It would also buy me an upgrade to my laptop (assuming I can sell what I have for ~$1000). I’d get something along the lines of a 14″ iBook with a slightly better processor — but twice the battery life (~ 6 hrs, instead of < 3 hrs). Hmmm...now there's a rebate from Amazon.com for $150 off. That makes it a bit more interesting. Very interesting. Update: Ok, so I’d…

Apparently the conservatives among us are getting into the food business. First it was Star-Spangled Ice Cream designed to compete with liberal Ben & Jerry’s, boasting flavors like: “Nutty Environmentalist,” “Donald Rum Raisin,” “Choc & Awe,” and my personal favorite “I Hate the French Vanilla.” Now we’re onto: W Ketchup (The “W” stands for Washington — yeah, right.) From their site: The leading competitor not only has 57 varieties, but has 57 foreign factories as well. W Ketchup comes in…

Offline and Still in Touch With Away Messaging (Washington Post, July 9 2004) Why wouldn’t he leave an away message? That’s how everyone they know communicates these days. Away messaging, a function of instant messaging, is this generation’s automatic way of telling online buddies, when the sender’s not online, where he or she is, or is not, 24-7. It’s no more remarkable to a 20-year-old than the telephone answering machine is to parents. If you can’t imagine letting your 150…

The correction that I asked for appears! An article in Science Times on Tuesday about a project at the University of Southern California that uses artificial intelligence to help soldiers learn Arabic gave an incorrect literary example. Omar Khayyam’s poetry is in Persian, not Arabic. Because of an editing error, the article also misstated the location of Fort Bragg, where Special Forces soldiers are to test a video game this month as part of the project. It is in North…

Ed: The problem is, neither of these decisions are going to really make any difference one bit. NYT, July 9 2004: Report Says Key Assertions Leading to War Were Wrong WASHINGTON, July 9 Ñ The Central Intelligence Agency greatly overestimated the danger presented by deadly unconventional weapons in Iraq because of runaway assumptions that were never sufficiently challenged, the Senate Intelligence Committee said today. In a long-awaited report that goes to the heart of President Bush’s rationale for going to…

Word to the wise: If you’re flying over DC, make sure your transponder is working. The top general at the North American Aerospace Defense Command was on the telephone and prepared to order an F-16 fighter to shoot down an unidentified plane that turned out to be carrying the governor of Kentucky to former president Ronald Reagan’s funeral last month, according to two federal security officials briefed separately about the incident. The tense incident June 9 ended after the twin-engine…

Good news: I got approval to write another food piece for Oakland City magazine! Woo-hoo! Weird news: While researching a story for B2, I came across Adopt-A-Sniper. Kinda like Adopt-A-Child around the Holidays, but slightly different.

From “David Corcoran” Subject Re: Fwd: Persians are not Arabs – need correction Date Wed, July 7, 2004 1:27 pm To “Cyrus J. Farivar” Persian it is. The correction will say his POETRY is in Persian, leaving the other works aside. Thanks again for your help and good humor. David >Heh. You’re opening a can of worms with that. If you ask me, I’d say >either one is fine — but probably Persian is the safest. > >You might want…