Cyrus Farivar

After reading the accounts of sleeping in Schoenefeld airport in Berlin, I thought I might take it up. However, given that I would be in this fair city for a good 16 hours — after having spent the better part of the day on a train (that’s seven hours, 440 miles, or 710 kilometers, depending on how you feel like counting it) — I decided to shack up one night at the Heart of Gold hostel — where I get…

I made it to Breda without any problems. Giselle and I are going to spend the afternoon across the border in Antwerp, Belgium — our plans are to drink beer and eat loads of Belgian fries! Yay!

So my flight to Amsterdam got delayed. While I was waiting for them to put up the flight status on the monitors, I went to grab a sandwich at Upper Crust. Seeing as I’m spending as little time in the UK as possible, I don’t have any British pounds on me — just dollars and euros. My first instinct was to whip out my credit card, but the clerk informed me that they only accepted pounds, euros, or dollars. No…

Mohammed Mossadeq was overthrown in Operation Ajax on August 19, 1953. The New York Times Editorial, August 15, 1953. The world has so many trouble spots these days that one is apt to pass over the odd one here and there to preserve a little peace of mind. It would be well, however, to keep an eye, on Iran, where matters are going from bad to worse, thanks to the machinations of Premier Mossadegh. Some of us used to ascribe…

Enjoying a quesadilla con pollo and a pretty serious strawberry margarita at the Blue Mesa Grill. Michael Jackson’s Thriller is on the stereo. Seems like a good way to kill an hour, hrm?

I’m en route to Breda, The Netherlands to visit Giselle de Grandis this weekend. Then I’ll take the train to Berlin on Monday, and catch an EasyJet flight to Tallinn on Tuesday night. I’ll spend two weeks there doing research, and then will swing back via Berlin and one night in the new Yotel at Gatwick airport in London. I’m back in Oakland on July 28.

Me and seven of my most intrepid friends went camping this weekend at Big Trees. Our stuff got tossed around by a bear cub that we dubbed Floyd — he put minor slashes in my tent and broke one of the poles while we were away hiking around Lake Alpine on Saturday. An inconvenience to be sure, but everything turned out ok. In other news, here’s what I’m reading these days: Taco truck sales divide Salinas Latinos (SJ Merc, June…

Me and some friends are headed to the Sierras to go camping this weekend. Then I’m back working in Oakland early this next week, then I’m off to Europe (mostly Estonia) July 5-31.

Wired News: by Cyrus Farivar June 26, 2007 There’s an old saying: “Everything’s bigger in Texas.” That now applies to supercomputers as well. Sun Microsystems announced today that its hardware will power the largest supercomputer ever built, weighing in with 62,976 CPU cores, 125 terabytes of memory, 1.7 petabytes of disk space, and 504 teraflops of performance. The computer, which has been dubbed “Ranger,” will be hosted at the Texas Advanced Computing Center at the University of Texas, Austin. It…

Today: Teotihuacan. No rain. Pyramids are huge and literally awesome. Walked around Zona Rosa and Insurgentes. Had some cafe con leche at a place called Gabi’s on the corner of Napoles and Liverpool and played cards. Tomorrow: Museums and then a lucha libre match downtown. (Yes!) Wednesday: Markets, drinks with Franc, and dinner with Ruben et al. Thursday: More museums, walking around, last minute shopping and a baseball game. Friday: I’m home.