Forbes annual list of billionaires around the world came out today. Jealous? And for the first time in 14 years Warren Buffett (at $62 billion) snatched the number one spot from Bill Gates (who came in at a dismal $58 billion.) This post was created using Explorer, not Firefox, in condolence. But who, you ask, took the top spots for the Bay Area? Well, Oracle founder Larry Ellison (coming in at #14 with $25......

San Rafael-based Edutopia Magazine, which is brought to us by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, looks to the future in its latest issue, identifying 10 ideas or trends that its experts believe can improve K-12 education. We found them thought provoking, and hope you agree. ...

There's only one thing better than absorbing nerdy cultural texts, and that's becoming a nerdy cultural text of your own. Voting on the Star Wars Fan Movie Challenge launched today; over the next month, a ton of fan-made Star Wars films will duel to the death to attract the attention of our local birthday-beardo, George Lucas. Winners are announced May 27 on Spike TV (corporate sibling of Atom Films). We adore Chad Vader, of......

Happy Birthday local auteur! It's year 63 for George Lucas, posing at right with ... what the hell? Is that supposed to be Yoda? Eesh. Anyway, as you can imagine, George's campus in the presidio, aka Naboo, is in a festive uproar today, with giant lumbering beasts, cheering crowds, ducks, and the handing off of a big swirly gazing ball to a drooling bipedal frog. We've watched George's career with great interest, and wish......

The always-reliable and smartly-snapping Drew Altizer stopped by the SF Film Society's red carpet awards ceremony on Saturday and passes along these views of the scene! Award recipients this year included: Robin Williams and Spike Lee (both of whom were eye-catchingly dressed and whose pictures are after the jump), and George Lucas, who's pictured above with Ron Howard and John Lasseter from Pixar. Thanks, Drew! Extra bonus: if you go through Drew's pictures on......

Everyone say hi to our newest correspondent, SFist Grace. Hi, SFist Grace! Sunday night, the SF International screened the world premiere of the film Fog City Mavericks at the Castro Theater. There were shades of Sundance as many of the films featured filmmakers and actors, including George Lucas and Robin Williams, casually red carpeted-their way to the theater, complete with flashbulbs and film cameras documenting the night. Mavericks, a new documentary by Gary Leva......

Did you get your tickets? We are speaking, of course, about free tickets to "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" which will be taping a week of shows at the Orpheum Theater starting on Monday. So, seriously, did you get tickets? And if so, can you take us with you? Actually, we will be going to one show, on Monday, when the guests will include Dana Carvey and the Arctic Monkeys. But man, we'd sure......

It's been forty-nine years of great cinema for the SF International Film Festival (SFIFF), and starting April 26 through May 10 2007, it'll be fifty! To celebrate their gold anniversary, the SFIFF is not only presenting the always-dazzling film festival itself, but hosting a huge array of events as well: from tributes to Spike Lee (and a screening of When The Levees Broke), and awards to locals George Lucas and Robin Williams, an address about......

This would have been even more awesome if it had been on top of a moving train. The police in Berkeley used a hook-and-ladder truck to conduct a manhunt on Telegraph Avenue rooftops after the robbery of a Noah's Bagels at around 6 a.m. Monday morning. After what was described as a tense "building-by-building, rooftop-by-rooftop search," the man was located on top of a building and arrested without further incident. Ah, the Stanford police blotter,......

em>You know, it's a weird thing about fireworks. We've seen them dozens of time, we're pretty much not kids anymore, and in pretty much everything else we've become jaded. Yet no matter how many times we've seen them, we're "oohing and aahing" just like everyone else. -Ain't no party like a New Year's party. ...

Total number of people pictured in this week's Swells society column: 67. Number of people pictured whose names we recognize: 8 (Trainas, Gettys, and figures in local politics only, including on-the-way-out Steve Kawa). Minority count: 4 (6%). Hats, capes, tiaras: 0, 0, 0 (but Gavin's hair looks a little funny). Getty v. Traina: 6-12. It's Dede Wilsey's Christmas party, that's why!!! Dede had laryngitis but wore Chanel and had the best hors d'oeuvres in town......

Patrick Rodriguez makes an argument for saving Stan "Tookie" Williams -- those Berkeley Republicans are always throwing curveballs. Sasha over at Left in SF wonders if the Residential Builders Association and the Bay Guardian can ever get along. Kimo Crossman at Webnetic points out why you should care about the SF citywide wifi process, and suggests you drop by the Board of Supervisors to argue for more public involvement. And MuniWireless posts the MetroFi......

They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and if the same goes for intellectual property theft and encroaching on other people's business, then a lot of people should be feeling very flattered this week. Pixar should be flattered by the attention they're getting from former owner George Lucas, who opened a computer animation studio in Singapore on Thursday. Rob Coleman, the new studio's animation and development director, name-dropped Pixar while describing......

Summer TV continues to bum us out as we just can't seem to get on board with the rest of the country and devote any of our time watching pseudo-celebrities embarassing themselves while trying to ballroom dance. We read about the success of this show and can't quite get our heads around it. Is it a sheer lack of any other programming that is driving the ratings up? Or is everyone in America just......

Apple switches to Intel; surprisingly, nothing goes to hell in an iPod sock....

Saturday morning, around 7am, a line started forming outside the Metreon to see British playwright Tom Stoppard's new film, based on a late-70s film by a young experimental filmmaker from USC. By 9:30, the line stretched down around Jillians and up over the stairs, spilling into Yerba Buena Gardens -- about 1,500 people were estimated present. But these were small-scale nerds, not the type who camp out for weeks; as employees of the LucasFilm......

Some of you aren't happy with San Francisco. You're the type who grew up here, maybe, or came here for college from some small town, and now you feel that you're getting a little to big for EssEff's britches. After all, you're William Faulkner, Joe Eszterhaus and Noam Chomsky all rolled into one, incredible author, and the only places that will really appreciate your inimitable talents are real big cities like New York and LA.......

SFist's had a complicated relationship with George Lucas since 1999. He reminds us of a high-school boyfriend who found us on Google and won't stop calling. Dude, we loved you so much at the time, but you're ruining our nostalgia for the relationship with your long email about your Amway sales! We employ this drawn-out metaphor to help illustrate our feelings about both George and his Marin County company Lucasfilm, which has been responsible for......

In the truly tasteless department, Low Culture tipped us off to the "Apocalypse Now" tour of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, one of Wild Frontiers "Reel Adventures." Kate Watson of Wild Frontiers, quoted in the UK's Guardian, says: We're really hoping to catch the eye of City boys with heaps of dosh who are after something that's very different from your average 'follow the flag' guided tour. Of course the film Apocalypse Now was filmed......

SFist is shocked to see that we failed for the 31st year in a row to make the Forbes list of the top 400 richest people in the world. Much like those US News and World Report stickers that show up on local editions of the America's Top Colleges magazines ("NORTHERN CALIFORNIA! Berkeley, Stanford, and Mills are represented in here!"), someone has thoughtfully compiled a compendium of California-based information for your perusal....

If at work you saw your computer programmers, IT workers, and Web designers walking around with a Christmas-y gleam in their eyes yesterday it was because in Geekville it was Christmas. For yesterday was the day that George Lucas bequeathed upon us the box-set DVD of the Star Wars Trilogy. Yep, the Holy Trinity of sci-fi flicks -- Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi were finally released on DVD. But......

George Lucas revisits his eager student past....