Cyrus Farivar

LA Times: We are not talking about the paintings on the wall at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, which Sadeghi directs. Those are, at the moment, a stylish if bland collection of Iranian textile and costume design for the fashion-conscious and appropriately modest Iranian woman. No, we’re talking about the outlaw paintings in the basement, locked in the museum’s vault. Not just the Picassos — the Kandinskys, the Miros, the Warhols. The Monet, the Pissarro, the Toulouse-Lautrec, the Van…

AFP: Before the voyage, Malaysia’s Department of Islamic Development issued a 20-page book of guidelines on observing Ramadan in space. Otherwise, because the space station circles the Earth 16 times a day, a Muslim would theoretically have to pray 80 times a day. The guidelines stipulate that the astronaut need only pray five times a day, just as on Earth, and that the times should follow the location from which the spacecraft blasted off — in this case, the Baikonur…

Masood Farivar, a current Dow Jones reporter and former Harvard student and mujahedeen has a book deal about his Afghanistan days: “Confessions of a Mullah Warrior.” He’s the only person I’ve ever met online or in person that has the same family name as me, but who isn’t directly related to me. Congratulations, Masood!

There’s a new documentary out called “The Singing Revolution” by a pair of American filmmakers, one of whom is of Estonian descent. You can watch the awe-inspiring trailer here.

Slate: by Cyrus Farivar It’s been nearly two years since MIT’s Nicholas Negroponte revealed his ambitious plan to provide kids in developing countries with $100 laptops. Today, the One Laptop per Child foundation has announced that its cheapo device (now officially dubbed the “XO laptop”) will be made available to the American and Canadian consumer market for a two-week period in November. For $400, you can participate in the “Give One, Get One” program—your purchase gets you one laptop for…

The powers that be have told me that my piece on the One Laptop Per Child (aka “$100 Laptop”) will air today on The World (and of course on the Internet on any of these stations’ streams.) I’ll also have a related piece on Slate later today as well. New York – 3 pm Eastern – WNYC – 820 AM – www.wnyc.org Washington, DC – 3 pm Eastern – WAMU – 88.5 FM – www.wamu.org Los Angeles – 12 pm…

My cousin Nena is visiting California for about 10 days and took this photo of me at my desk a couple days ago. The Flickr version has notes, detailing what’s on my desk right now. That is all. Carry on.

Baltic Times: [Estonian President Toomas Hendrik] Ilves also talked up Estonia’s reputation as a centre of hi-tech excellence, saying: “Estonia has some positive experiences, like digitalised public services, that deserve to be explored by the others. We have gone far in reducing paper bureaucracy – it makes my life much easier to work with the computer. Our approach to facilitating computer use deserves to be examined by others.” “In Estonia you can use your computer anywhere and you have free…

Wired News: by Cyrus Farivar It’s a crisp, fall day and you’re strolling down the sidewalk, enjoying the fresh air and the turning leaves, when — squip — you realize you’ve just stepped on a big wad of freshly discarded chewing gum. Bummer. But at least you didn’t brush your knee against a gumwad stuck to the underside of a café table. Those unpleasantly sticky experiences may soon be a thing of the past, if a new British startup has…

Since I unlocked my iPhone last week, various friends have asked me if it is, indeed, legal. My impression was always that it technically wasn’t under the DMCA, but I was heartened when I found this exemption ruling from late last year: The Librarian of Congress, on the recommendation of the Register of Copyrights, has announced the classes of works subject to the exemption from the prohibition against circumvention of technological measures that control access to copyrighted works. Persons making…