Cyrus Farivar

Wired News: By Cyrus Farivar March 20, 2007 How do you get 120 terabytes of data — the equivalent of 123,000 iPod shuffles (roughly 30 million songs) — from A to B? For the most part, the old-fashioned way: via a sneakernet. It’s not glamorous, but Google engineers hope to at least end the arduous process of transferring massive quantities of data — which can literally take weeks to upload onto the internet — with something affectionately called “FedExNet” by…

My MacBook is for sale. Lemme know if you’re interested.

So after trying Monica’s favorite burrito place in the East Bay, Chavez Market in Hayward this weekend, I still haven’t found any burrito superior to the ones from El Ojo de Agua in Fruitvale. I just found a January 2006 piece from the Chronicle talking about how awesome the taco truck and blue-collar Mexican food scene is on International Blvd. “Ojo de Agua (on Fruitvale Avenue at E. 12th Street). Legendary for its al pastor tacos, but they can be…

It was so crowded, I didn’t actually get to see him until after the speech. But it was a good speech nonetheless.

Two Years Before the Mast, 1869: Late in the afternoon, as there were vespers at the Roman Catholic churches, I went to that of Notre Dame des Victoires. The congregation was French, and a sermon in French was preached by an Abbé; the music was excellent, all things airy and tasteful, and making one feel as if in one of the chapels in Paris. The Cathedral of St. Mary, which I afterwards visited, where the Irish attend, was a contrast…

March 17, Frank Ogawa Plaza, Oakland Doors open at 3 pm. Register here for free tickets.

Stolen from my post at Chowhound: Four friends and I gathered together last night for a Frutivale five burrito showdown. We usually hit up El Ojo de Agua about once a week. Their burritos are the best that we’ve found in the neighborhood, and it’s well-worth the trek from the confines of Rockridge to get some mind-blowingly amazing burritos. But we often forget that El Ojo is but one taqueria amidst many in Fruitvale, so we decided to give some…

It’s Norouz (Persian New Year) time again, and for the first time on my own, I’ve set up a haft seen. I’m really glad that I did this (although my cat is eyeing the fish). The Traditional Haft Sîn The Traditional Haft Sîn Haft Sîn (هفت سین) or the seven ‘S’s is a major tradition of Norouz. The haft sin table includes seven items specific starting with the letter S or Sîn (س) in Persian alphabet). The items symbolically correspond…

In case you hadn’t heard, I have a new gig as a freelance (read: part-time) producer for Your Call Radio on KALW 91.7 FM (that’s San Francisco’s oft-neglected other NPR affiliate). My first show as a producer, which will air on March 13, will be covering students’ views on sharing private information in a public, online forum, such as blogs, YouTube, MySpace, Facebook and the like. So, if you’re a student at any Bay Area university, college, or community college,…

Ed: Here’s my third piece to date for The Economist. The Economist: THE people, places and things inside “Second Life,” a thriving online virtual world with millions of residents, may be imaginary*but the power consumption of the computers that maintain the illusion is all too real. Nicholas Carr, a business writer and blogger, recently worked out that each of the 15,000 or so residents logged in at any one time consumes electricity as a result of their activities in the…