Remember, you can no longer prattle away on your phones while driving after the mandatory hands-free cell phone law goes into effect tomorrow. And while the new law will not be as enforced as, say, the Click It or Ticket seatbelt rule, which became a car-ride standard over two decades ago, you can land yourself $100 ticket for talking on your pretty little iPhone while heading down Highway 280. But it's still legal to......

KTVU has some choice footage of last Saturday's Muni crash over on King Street near AT&T Park. Since major news networks inexplicably don't believe in the religion of Embedded Code, we are forced to link to it here. (Oh, and then you have to click on "RAW VIDEO: Watch Muni Surveillance Footage Shot On Trains Involved In Collision.") If some kind soul wants to upload or find us the same footage, YouTube- or Flickr......

Last Saturday's T-Third meets N-Judah collision might be, according to to investigators, might have been the result of a speeding Muni driver and/or someone chatting on their cell phone. KCBS reports: Investigators say one of the MUNI rail cars involved in a crash Saturday afternoon was speeding and the driver may have been talking on his cell phone. (...) MUNI says drivers are not allowed to talk on the phone while operating a vehicle.......

Since your Editor's cell fell down the toilet while chatting and evacuating a pressing stream of urine at the same time, we cannot try out this allegedly nifty feature. But according to Amit Gupta, who snapped up the above image, "MUNI does a pretty good job of telling you how long you need to wait for the next bus or train." So, dear readers, let us know: does it work? Better than sf.munitime.com (which......

Gangsta rap aficionado and geography major Stefanie Gray has conveniently mapped out all of Ludcris' hos from his ditty "Area Codes." Awesome. Here's just a taste of some of his ho-based area code shout outs: I’ll jump off the G4, we can meet outside/So control your hormones and keep your drawers on/’Til I close the door and I’m jumping your bones/3-1-2’s, 3-1-3’s (oh), 2-1-5’s, 8-0-three’s (oh)/Read your horoscope and eat some horderves (sic)/Ten on......

Hi readers! Scavenger hunt time. Can you send us a photo of a Muni driver on a cell phone? We'll be your best friend if you do. Y'see, a friend of SFist is working on a super-cool Muni-related video project and asked us for some help; and so we're dutifully passing the buck along to you. If you already have a photo of drivers with phones: great! And if you don't: could you keep......

Can you feel it? The Macworld Expo 2008 approaches. Shhh, you might scare it. When your editor worked in the consecrated halls of Macworld, we were surprised by the ilk that attended the annual Macworld Expo - a bit like the Oracle World people, but minus the vile behavior and false sense of entitlement. let's see, we remember two clinically-obese Mac fans fainting while waiting in line to hear keynote speaker Steve Jobs introduce......

Free range, organic, hormone-free, but not self-sustaining. This young lady (the one on the right) was asking for "change for BART" while toting a fetching little purse outside of Whole Foods on 4th and Harrison. (We apologize for the horrendous quality of the photo, but since this gal will probably be powering up her fancy new iMac later this evening and logging onto SFist, we're sure she'll be grateful that our cell phone takes......

Photo of a bunch of old cell phone chargers along with news of a new universal standard. ...

Someone in Vallejo (or San Francisco?) thinks he's freakin’ hilarious flooding 911 with crank calls. The crank caller has been using a donated cell phone, perhaps one that was donated to the homeless (why do the homeless need cell phones?), to call in fake emergencies. The man, known as “Nomar” has made around 2,000 calls to 911 since March. Calls, it seems, are made in San Francisco, but are about incidents in Vallejo. These......

Just when we started feeling like the disconnect between today's urban youth and, well, people from our generation couldn't get any bigger, we ran into this gem outside the Metreon on Wednesday. We were on our way for a little well-deserved retail therapy at Bloomingdales during our lunch hour, when we saw this stache-adorned MUNI bus stop ad of Selma Blair on Mission at 4th. It's nice to know that mustaches are still as hilarious......

Okay, there's a very troubling article in today's New York Times about a road trip with Laura Albert (reg. req'd.). Laura Albert is, of course, the 41-year-old mother and local literary scenester who made up the character of JT LeRoy, and then got her sister in law to dress up (in shades and a blond wig) as the gay, male, former teen hustler when his purported "memoir" hit the big time. Albert was later sued......

We had been a proud, satisfied owner of an Apple PowerBook for a little over two years (and a blue-and-white G3 for five years before that) when it all went quickly downhill last November. Our computer started making these frightening, crackling, static, grinding noises, accompanied by nonsensical beeps, and then it crashed hard. We did an "erase and reinstall," which bought us about two weeks. Then, we had to pay our first somewhat quick......

You might want to wait before buying an iPhone. Google has developed a prototype phone that they're currently showing to cell phone manufacturers -- eee! -- a product that some say could rival the Apple's iPhone. Sure, rumors about it are already out there, but now it seems that they're in the process of actually making the thing itself. According to Ben Ames of PC World, one way Google's phone would differ from the......

You have questions, we have answers....

The SFPD arrested the guy who murdered the anti-crime activist in the Haight, Joe Konopka, in an S&M session gone wrong. They believe Konopka, who was found handcuffed, choked to death on plastic covering his face. After Konopka died, the murderer took his laptop, jewelry, and cell phone before fleeing the scene. Does anyone know what happened at 16th and South Van Ness Wednesday night? We walked by there around 9 p.m. and there were......

We're all for technology that simplifies and informs, but sometimes we see a new service that sounds a little silly to us. eWine Match allows you to text message an ingredient or cuisine type to a very easy-to-remember number (411511); the service will respond with a few options that'd fit....

The City Attorney's gone through all the residency documents that beleaguered Burlingame boy and erstwhile supposed San Francisco Supervisor Ed Jew provided last week, and ---- baaaaaaaaahmp -- (that's supposed to be a buzzer sound like when you guess something that's not on the board on Family Feud): the City Attorney has concluded that the documents currently on file are insufficient to demonstrate that Ed Jew lives in San Francisco. Oh no, Ed Jew! Namely,......

The CHP is recommending to the Solano County DA's office that they press reckless driving charges against State Senator Carole Migden, for her wild, lane-changing, simultaneous cell-phone-talking and paperwork-reading 30-mile drive in Fairfield, culminating in a fender-bender. Reckless driving is a misdemeanor and has a max penalty of $1000 and/or 6 months in jail. Migden was found at fault not only in rear-ending the other car, but also in hitting a guardrail earlier in the......

We had just opened our laptop this evening on our ride back across the Bay when a dialog popped up: "None of your usual wireless networks could be found. Do you want to join wifi_rail?" Yes, please! Looks like BART is test-running a free wireless network. Our laptop only picked up on it in the Civic Center-Embarcadero range (the same area where our cell phone works), and it didn't allow us to connect to......

Hey, remember last Friday when State Senator Carole Migden got in a fender bender in Fairfield? It was the same day that Ed Jew's office got raided, so you might have forgotten. So the original story was that Migden was lost, and took her eyes briefly off the road to make a cell phone call and hit someone's bumper. Not great, but sure, it happens. Well, now KTVU is reporting that the CHP is......

--Whoa, Ed Jew! See below. Aaron Peskin told the I-Team that the FBI was searching Jew's City Hall office for "$100 bills with specific serial numbers listed." That does not sound good at all. Jew told the Chron he's being investigated for accepting $40,000 from businessmen needing permit approvals. The businessmen were trying to open Quickly stores. --Also, there's going to be massive layoffs at the Chron. Oh, we hope they're not going to......

Guess who's back talking about MUNI for the ABC 7 I-Team?????? (4:33 on the video). Since Gavin hasn't done anything outrageous lately, Dan Noyes turns his attention to the perennial favorite of complaining about MUNI -- this time discovering the name of the driver who's gotten the most citizen complaints (for ignoring a beating at the back of the bus, refusing to call the police on pickpockets, and swearing at passengers, to name a few.)......

This week we'd like to congratulate the -ist network's Mother Hen, Gothamist's Jen Chung, who found herself a recipient of Wired Magazine's Wired Rave Award. If that doesn't sound terribly exciting, keep in mind another recipient was J.K. Rowling. Yep, that's right, the -ist network and Harry Potter now have something in common. Go us. ...

Photos from San Francisco's Critical Mass, April 2007...

In an effort to crack down on people riding in the carpool lane without being in an actual carpool, State Sen. Abel Maldonado (R-Santa Maria) is asking you, the commuter, to pitch in and help. Mainly by snitching on people who are breaking the law, breaking the law. ...

Spring is when we get busy here in the Ist-A-Verse. Very busy. But, after staying bundled-up indoors all winter, it's nice for us to be out, about, and collecting things to write about for you. Here's a glimpse at what's been keeping your favorite citybloggers busily away from home and out of bed. For LAist, strong winds attacked LA on the same day the Feds raided the Crips. Not to fear, though: the Japanese version......

We couldn't help but notice this letter to the editor in Sunday's Sporting Green: ...

Gunshots on Market Street! Around 1:30 p.m. on Thursday, the SFPD had to close down Market between 8th and 9th after a guy in a white car and another guy in a darker car traded shots. The guy in the white car jumped out and started yelling at the people in the darker car; the darker car tried to make a U but was (of course) blocked by the F-Market trolley, and the guy from......

We love when people send us little things that are going on in the city. It's that whole citizen journalism thing at it's best. Today, we have somebody who saw a recent development in a story in today's Examiner. Hey, and if you got something you think we'd find interesting, drop us a line at editor at sfist.com ...