As the people who brought you the useless 511.org struggle through yet another year of technical glitches with their Translink scheme, BART's EZ-Rider is sailing along with new features and only a single public snafu (a misspelled URL in their last email newsletter). EZ-Rider works just how a transit card should: wave it over the turnstile and it automatically debits fare from a preloaded account; when necessary, it'll recharge itself by automatically grabbing $50......

From the tallest skyscraper in the City of Brotherly Love to Canadian tourism copywriting brilliance, here's what you should know from our -ist cities: This week, Phillyist took a gleeful listen to the White Stripes' exciting new release, watched in awe as their new tallest skyscraper was finally completed, found a cheaper way to get to Gothamist, invented a tasty new dessert, and brought back their Craigslist Round-Up feature with a bang. Bostonist watches......

We just got an SMS that traffic (including Muni) is blocked on Potrero between 20th and 22nd, and that everyone is advised to avoid the area. What's going on? Anyone nearby? We can't find anything in the news about it. UPDATE! Readers report lots of helicopters, and the evacuation of the hospital due to a suspicious device. What do you suppose the device is? A sandwich, or a speak-n-spell, or CAT scanner?......

We have good news, and good news, and we also have more good news: you SFist readers have generated more TextMarks. So there are now additional Muni stops at which you can get arrival predictions via text-message, yay! If you'd like to generate a prediction keyword for your favorite bus stop, check out our instructions here. The full list appears after the jump, and we invite all readers to participate in the success of this......

Those NextMuni LED signs are popping up at shelters so fast we can hardly keep track of them! (And neither can Muni, apparently -- we asked for a map of NextMunied shelters, but according to sources, no such thing exists.) But what do you do if there's no LED sign in sight? Or if you're down the street from a shelter, hanging out with friends or enemies, and you want to know when to......

It's been a while since we published a tech roundup. But the Internet turned 15 last Sunday, we got a new laptop from an entrepreneur and friend who'll be enabling this 'Fister's addiction to blogging, and SFist Chuck, whom we dearly miss, was kidnapped by Disney, who force him to Imagineer at gunpoint. All the while, you've been lost in the unmapped multiverse, wondering who Supr.c.ilio.us and TechCrunch are, and which is the hipper one......

Some of you just can't get enough Gavvy Gav -- Berkleyist finds a picture of him and Sofia Milos (Newsom?) by Luke Thomas. Us, we can't get enough MC Hammer! This may be SFist, but we Hella Heart Oakland. Lots of other new blogs of note. Jon Swenson says Phil Zajicek is blogging his Tour of California ride. And just in time for spring training, El Lefty Malo finds a new Giants blog, Giants......

Ian over at WULAD must have smoked some Ombuds before deconstructing some political graffiti. Dinah Sanders explains her votes in the election -- before a new TV campaign from Herr Governator can get to her. In a mood to protest, but not to get off the couch? The UK brings us two technologies to let folks tele-protest via SMS. Ever had a domain hijacked? The guy who forged documents to steal sex.com from a......

We decided to take a day trip on the Muni. And now that we have our wireless card, we decided to warbus the city. Live blog updates after the jump. Ever since we found out 94110 is the most saturated WiFi zip, we had to see how the other neighborhoods fared. We know it's geeky, and we know you love it. We're rolling with a 12" G4 PowerBook and an Airport Extreme. We've also got......