Aside

Amigos y Amigas, For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been working on a grant to produce a one-hour, bilingual radio documentary about the history of taco trucks in California. I’m pleased to announce that I’ve just submitted it to the California Council for the Humanities! Here are the opening paragraphs of our grant application: In California Spanglish, they’re known as loncheras. But in English, they’re known simply as taco trucks. Regardless of what you call them, most Californians simply…

In honor of His Excellency, President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s speech before the United Nations General Assembly, I hereby propose a drinking game: Now, safety first, kids: no drinking before age 21 (if you’re in the United States), drink responsibly, and if you are drinking under-age or irresponsibly, it’s not my fault. That aside, grab your favorite brew, find some friends, and cozy up to the radio, TV, or this MSNBC webcast sometime around 4 pm…

The Associated Press, September 21, 2009: For a new crop of journalists, with many more wannabes starting journalism school this fall, tumult in the news industry means new opportunities for connecting with readers online, but also fresh anxiety about finding a way to get paid for it. Consider the latest job market statistics. According to a survey released this summer by Lee Becker at the University of Georgia, only six in 10 graduates from journalism and mass communication schools during…

Dear Friends, I’ve been informed that my commentary on Park(ing) Day will be on Weekend Edition Sunday (September 20)! It will be available on any of these stations (and their Internet streams). New York – 8 to 10 am Eastern – WNYC – 820 AM – www.wnyc.org Washington, DC – 8 to 10 am Eastern – WAMU – 88.5 FM – www.wamu.org Los Angeles – 5 to 10 am Pacific – KPCC – 89.3 FM – www.kpcc.opg Boston – 8…

So I have a set of data in a Google Docs spreadsheet of SF Bay Area Farmer’s Markets. Each market has data for the following columns: Day, County, Location, Hours, Months, Intersection, City, State, ZIP, Phone, URL. There are entries for over 100 markets. What I want is a simple web page (ideally iPhone-friendly) that will have a few text input fields: ZIP, City, Day (or even a pull-down menu for each one). Then based on those inputs, the program…

Dear Friends, I’ve been informed that my radio piece on the new Iraqi law to censor the Internet is airing today. It will be available on any of these stations (and their Internet streams): NYC – 3 pm Eastern – WNYC – 820 AM – www.wnyc.org Washington, DC – 8 pm Eastern – WAMU – 88.5 FM – www.wamu.org Los Angeles – 12 pm Pacific – KPCC – 89.3 FM – www.kpcc.opg Boston – 4 pm Eastern – WGBH –…

I have the honor of speaking at the “Emerging Technologies & Media Mythologies” conference at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich. on Tuesday, October 6, 2009. I’ll be the Tuesday lunchtime speaker, where I’ll be talking about the Iranian Internet, before and after the recent election — I’ll be drawing from my forthcoming book, “The Internet of Elsewhere,” (Rutgers University Press, 2011). I’m truly flattered to be invited to take the place of Iranian journalist and human rights activist, Akbar…

Amigos, this weekend marks the premiere of the third season of CBC’s (that’s the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, folks) tech culture show, “Spark.” They’ve got a new time slot (Starting September 13: Sunday afternoons on CBC Radio One at 1:05/1:35 NT (4:05 PT) and/or Tuesday afternoons on CBC Radio One at 3:05/3:35 NT) and have been expanded from a half-hour to a full hour. Regardless of where you are, you can listen to the show — right now! — here, or…

So I’ve been so busy with my New York gig that I’ve barely had time to blog, but I’ve been in Linz for the last couple days, working at the Ars Electronica 2009 conference. I’m moderating the cloud computing panels today, which you can watch live here. We start at 08h30 GMT/10h30 Linz/01h30 Pacific. Also, I walked around the show floor a little bit with Sonja Bettel and met up with the Drink Pee folks for the latest episode of…

Cyrus Farivar | 01 Sep 2009 On June 20, 2009, as she watched demonstrators at an Iranian reformist protest gather on Tehran’s Kargar Avenue, Neda Agha-Soltan, 27, was suddenly shot in the chest and killed, ostensibly by a nearby Basij militiaman. Had this tragic incident taken place just a few years earlier, it might have been lost to history. As it happened, however, two separate amateur videos of Neda’s shooting and subsequent death were quickly posted online, where they spread…