Cyrus Farivar

Newswire.co.nz: Residents of the remote Pitcairn Island are a step closer to the outside world with the introduction of a host of modern communications. Thanks to funding from the British Government, all homes now have a private telephone and fast internet connection, as well as live television broadcasts. Pitcairn’s Deputy Governor, Matthew Forbes, says islanders previously communicated via unstable satellite phones and an intermittent internet service. He says the new services will help reduce Pitcairn’s isolation and are being met…

E&P: [Dexter] Filkins, one of the longest-lasting and most-honored reporters in Iraq, said that many situations lately have become even too dangerous for Iraqi reporters to report on. He described the current climate as “anarchy,” and, when asked if the country was already involved in a civil war, he said, “Yeah, sure.” Asked what advice he had for a reporter from a small paper going to Iraq now without the kinds of money and backup that the Times was able…

Just for the record, there needs to be more movies where Sacha Baron Cohen plays a gay French race car driver. Or better yet, there needs to be more movies with Sacha Baron Cohen period.

Here’s audio for the first version that I recorded for NPR earlier today. (If for some reason that doesn’t work, try this link.) This first aired, as far as I’m aware, at 22h00 Eastern today. There’s a second version airing sometime tonight/early tomorrow. Comments/suggestions welcome!

So I just finished recording two “spot news” one minute pieces for NPR which will air at the top of the news hour sometime tonight. No idea when, though. Lemme know if you hear it! Went well, and thanks again to Rick Karr. 🙂 Back to the Engadget trenches.

So tomorrow I’ll be covering the Apple Special Event at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in downtown San Francisco — but this time for N P FREAKIN R ! That’s right, thanks to my radio instructor Rick Karr from Columbia, I got a call from National Public Radio to cover the event in the absence of Laura Sydell. Fortunately on Thursday I bought myself a new Marantz PMD660 from Leo’s Audio here in Oakland, so I have my…

I ran into this problem tonight, but Dan Moren of MacUser had the answer: Dan Gillmor’s Blog. Thanks Dans!

I’ve been in LA since Thursday evening, visiting my parents and friends down here. On Friday, I lunched with Jason Calacanis (my new boss‘ boss‘ boss) at the Daily Grill, where we ran into Danah Boyd as we were leaving. Later that night, after dinner with my family at Javan Restaurant, I re-met a very old childhood friend, whom I haven’t seen in over 20 years, Arianna Haut. She recently moved back to LA — naturally we headed straight for…

Los Angeles Times; August 27, 2006: But experts say the biggest culprit in rush-hour traffic snags is a boom in Westside commercial development that has lured and created jobs. Job growth has transformed the area into the region’s premiere commercial hub, second only to downtown Los Angeles in the number of jobs. Each day, workers pour into office buildings lining busy corridors such as Wilshire Boulevard, the burgeoning towers of Century City and the rows of Santa Monica office parks…

I often like to say that The Daily Californian was my real journalism school. In the spring of 2001, my second semester as a Berkeley student, we had an editor in chief named Daniel Hernandez, or as he was sometimes known among his mates from the paper, “Street.” Having a nickname like that gave him, at least to me, a sort of a respectable rugged journalistic air about him. I never knew much about him, and never had the chance…