Our sister site, LAist--which is a fantastic read, by the way, even if you live north of the Grapevine--came across this handy video explaining how Twitter is used. Check it out so you can follow SFist (or, you know, pathetic SFist staff members who tipsily tweet while watching King of Queens reruns), which will send out regular Twitter updates starting tomorrow.......

People always asks us this. Old people ask us this, we should say. And usually it comes off more like a statement than a question, so we rarely bite. But when we do, here is our sad explanation: "It's, like, short emails. Or Facebook's "is" blurbs without the annoying profile, or...people saying how they feel, we guess. Not sure, really." Anyway, if you don't know what it is, check out Twistori. It simply aggregates......

The ubiquitously annoying program, Twitter, finally has bragging rights to being useful: UC Berkeley graduate student, James Karl Buck, alerted his Twitter network to his arrest in Egypt, sparking an international campaign for his release. Buck was in Egypt doing a project on Egyptian bloggers who tend to be, according to The Mercury News "mostly leftist, anti-government bloggers." When photographing a demonstration, Buck and his translator, Mohammed Salah Ahmed Maree were both arrested. Buck sent......

Show is over, everyone. The torch is on its way to South America now. To check out images of today's flame switcheroo acrion--including "No MSG" man and more--go here. Whew. brochtrup: "no ceremonies. at all. pft." (3:52) njudah: "flight of the valkryies: the helis covering the torch are swarming my house!" (3:50) brochtrup: "'torch relay over;' presidio park area to hold closing ceremonies now. what?" (3:30) brochtrup: "coming out of a federal police radio......