A Plexiglas-protected dance floor made of 6" television monitors in the back of your SUV? Fine. A smoothie machine in your vintage VW van? No problem. Swapping your driver-side airbag for a video monitor? Uh-uh.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has slapped a $16,000 fine on West Coast Customs, the car shop featured in MTV's "Pimp My Ride," for an illegal customization job. Of course, I'm guessing they're not hurting too badly, given that $16,000 probably just about covers the ashtray replacement.

We may not have the best air quality or the best employment rate, but here's a year-old reminder that darnit, Fresno's one of the best places in the whole country for getting a good night's sleep. From Jody Murray's December 2003 story in The Bee:

Continue reading "Fresno will help you get your Zs" »

A receipt from Taco Bell, KFC, Pizza Hut, Long John Silver's, or A&W Restaurants will earn you a four-week membership to Bally's gym in January. The press release says the value of the month-long membership is $50. That's a pretty pricey chicken soft taco. Sweet.

Word of caution, though. If KFC's your Bally's-membership-gettin' fast food venue of choice, make sure it's Kentucky Fried Chicken, not, say, "Kennedy Fried Chicken" or "Kantacky Fried Chicken." I'm serious. (Both via MetaFilter.)

If you've been reading the Beehive, you already know about the California Virtual Campus. Well, here's a new e-learning destination -- Fathom, a collaboration among a group of educational institutions to bring online seminars to your computer.

To kick off 2005, here's a look at all the new-and-improved coverage FresnoBee.com brought you last year. And here's to more innovation in the new year. Macromedia Flash Player required.

Earlier, we told you about a guy in Colorado who'd wired his Christmas lights so visitors to his website could turn them on and off.

Turns out, eh, not so much.

Continue reading "A not-so-high-tech holiday house (Correction)" »

In yet another situation where real life imitates Hollywood hit movies, there is currently a 1-in-300 chance that Asteroid 2004 NM4 will collide with Earth. Some sources say the probability is more like 1-in-37.

The Earth Impact Effects Program allows you to calculate what effects, if any, you may experience based on the size, speed and distance from the impact.

The game playing gurus over at 1UP.com present Child's Play II today. They took kids from the 21st century and sat them in front of games from the late 20th century. They (the kids) were not amused:

Continue reading "A duck ate me" »

Martin Scorsese's latest doesn't disappoint, especially because there's a quick Fresno shout-out less than an hour in. Blink and you'll miss it. (Actually, it's spoken, so blink all you want.)

This is months old, but is anyone planning to take Engadget up on the Pac-Fresno idea? Let us know.

Just in time for Christmas, get a look at 12 families and individuals whose tremendous contributions to their communities haven't gone unnoticed. Macromedia Flash Player required.

This has been out there for a while, but Wired brought it back to our attention today. Maniac Mansion, one of the strangest, most awesome hit video games ever to rock the console has been remade and polished up by a guerilla team of adoring fans, in 256 colors and glorious MIDI music. It's a free download -- hours of holiday fun! Nuke the hamster to your heart's content.

Continue reading "Maniac flashback" »

Very simple patterns of motion match up with straightforward characteristics like gender, mood and emotion. Or at least that's what this crazy robot model from the BioMotionLab suggests. Make the walking figure masculine or feminine, heavy or light, happy or sad, and see how the little dots and lines respond. That's a good five minutes of slack-jawed wonder, right there. (Via Metafilter.)

And when that's over, it's time for pro thumb wrestling. Because we care. (Via The Red Ferret Journal.)

Did Christmas in the Valley really once look something like this? It seems implausible. But who am I to question Thomas Kinkade, the painter of light?

By the way, you too can be a painter of light. And also, you too can live in a painting of light.

From the Beehive this week comes a look at a Fresno Realtor who's secured a patent for what she hopes will be a burgeoning industry -- the business of potty painting.

The Christmas season is peppered with references to Bethlehem, the North Pole, Whoville ... heck, even Pennsylvania gets a shoutout (and not for Bethlehem, PA, either!). But the Central Valley gets no love.

In 2000, two Fresno musicians each set out to change this state of affairs. And so, sports fans, we bring you "Everybody Sings Fa-La-La" and "The Lights Still Shine." You may now put away your Wham! "Last Christmas" CDs.

(And that doesn't mean putting on the Jimmy Eat World version. Oh, but act now, while supplies last, to sample this indie rock cover of Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas Is You." Pure holiday gold.)

America's darkest hour is ahead. A worldwide computer crash beginning in 1999 will plunge the global economy into a depression. Governments will declare bank holidays when panic spreads throughout society. The biggest meteor storm in 33 years will destroy several vital satellites. Violent solar storms will disrupt telecommunications and the electric power grid. Families will shiver in the winter of 2000 when electric utilities shut down. An oil shortage and severe drought will devastate America's food supply. Drinking water will be rationed by National Guard troops. Terrorists will launch a coordinated attack in America's 100 biggest cities.
-- From the back cover of Judgment Day 2000, by Richard Wiles

Continue reading "Trip down paranoia lane" »

You Must Be Present to Win has undeniable proof that people will sign anything.

If you've been living under a rock today you may not know that Time named President George W. Bush its Person of the Year. Blogs had been rumored to be in contention, but it just wasn't meant to be.

Here's what the Time editors said about their pick:

For sticking to his guns (literally and figuratively), for reshaping the rules of politics to fit his ten-gallon-hat leadership style and for persuading a majority of voters that he deserved to be in the White House for another four years, George W. Bush is TIME's 2004 Person of the Year

Here's an excellent LiveJournal thread on where to eat in Fresno. Er, parental advisory -- explicit language. Also, don't listen to the haters.

Quite probably, you will not find a keener thing than this .
A summ'ry of the year's events from The Economist.
It comes in at four-thousand words, so reading it takes time.
But check it out! The tale is told entirely in rhyme!

(Repeat: Coolest. Thing. Ever. Via Slate.)

It's Friday, when young folks' hearts turn to thoughts of River Park; no time to be talking about more school. But still, this is pretty sweet. The California Virtual Campus is a huge listing of all the online courses available in the state. Take a class in cruise sales specialization from West Los Angeles College, or learn how to know your camera at Golden West College online. A lot of the courses are pretty inexpensive if you live in California (the photography class is just $18, as opposed to $168 for out-of-state students).

The new Web database of California sexual offenders was launched yesterday. The site seems a bit hosed at the moment, no doubt due to parents furiously typing in ZIP codes, trying to make sure the Woodsman isn't living next door. But not everyone's happy about the site, of course.

Continue reading "Sex offender registry" »

OK, everyone knew that America's Army was a creative way for the U.S. Army to recruit. The Web site is full of recruiting materials. You have to give up a lot of personal information for the download and the propaganda is obvious. But it's an awesome video game -- and free!

Now, though the Army is taking the next step. Setting up competitions and pitting video gamers against their real-life counterparts. Then passing out the recruiting material and waiting for video gamers to give up the digital army and sign up for the real.

In 1980, a year after releasing "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer", the San Francisco-based duo of Elmo Shropshire and Patsy Trigg divorced. Since then, Patsy has stayed out of the limelight (save for a possible spotting in a picture with a Peoria DJ).

Dr. Elmo strode headlong into pseudo-stardom. To this day, he's an avid 5/10K runner. He's still recording albums. His stardom has even earned him a chance to shmooze at 107.9 the End's Jingle Ball 2004 with the likes of Switchfoot and Avril Lavigne.

Today brings us the last episode of a funny three-part NPR series on the possible disappearance of men. Episode one focuses on the gradual decline of the Y chromosome, number two's about the possibility of lab-created sperm for reproduction, and number three is "a look at whether men are still useful members of society." As a member of the endangered gender, all I can say is, "Gulp."

Rob over at Fimoculous.com has started to compile a list of all those year-end best-of lists.

Highlights include ...

• "Peloton" at number seven on Merriam-Webster's list of most-searched-for words (it means "the main body of bikers in a bicycle race". "Blog" was the most-searched-for term.
• New Year's Eve in Times Square -- it's just like being there! Maybe. One of Amy Campbell's top 10 Web diversions.
• The Onion A.V. Club's collection of the year in swag.
• National Geographic's pictures of the year.

Rumors are circulating that the FCC is planning to allow cell phone usage on airplane flights. (The organization just voted to allow broadband access on planes.) If you hate cell phones in public places, don't panic. Even if the FCC ban was struck down -- which they say could take "at least a year" to happen -- the Federal Aviation Administration ban remains, which Reuters said might last another year on top of that. That leaves plenty of time for these to make their way over to the U.S.

Eyeglasses can be a pain sometimes -- I should know since I've worn them since high school. Now there's a surefire way to keep track of your lenses without wearing the ever-popular cord.

Yes, now you can bolt them directly to your head. Be warned, though, the pictures can be jarring to the extremely squeamish. (Update: Apparently you can also mod your eyeball if you really, really want to. [via MeFi])

If piercing's just too much for you, maybe you'd rather get a tattoo.

Holidays got you stumped? Got a wired loved one you don't mind slapping down 100 bucks for? From the "Cool Product of the Week" file, here's a pocket router you can plug in to any Ethernet outlet to make an instant wireless network. (Via the Red Ferret Journal.)

We're no chumps in the Central Valley when it comes to Christmas Trees and celebrations (although we do fall a bit short on the snow front).

The BBC is taking a look behind the tree, though. They've got psychologist Ingrid Collins taking a gander at pics of trees and their decorators and giving the low-down on what it all means.

Continue reading "Psycho-symbolics and the holidays" »

Fresno's got America's longest Christmas Tree Lane, but Colorado's got Alek Komarnitsky and his 17,000 lights. Oh, and did I mention that they're all controllable through the Web? Turn 'em off, turn 'em on. Pan the Web cam. See who else has been online.

Amazing.

But there's a serious side to the holiday tradition. Just this weekend an Oregon family lost their home in a fire that's being blamed on either a faulty light strand or an overloaded circuit.

Continue reading "A high-tech holiday house and safety" »

If you're a gamer you know about Halo 2 and Doom 3 and the rest of the slew of sequels gracing the holiday shelves for $50 a pop.

But, are you aware of the Independent Games Festival and it's annual contest? They've just announced this year's finalists and it's a list of some of the best games designed by some of the most unknown coders, artists and all-around gaming geeks out there.

Since I travel between the West and East Coast all the time, I'm always on the lookout for cheap airfare. Until now, I've just been using Orbitz. A post on MetaFilter today may have opened my eyes to a whole new world of cheap-fare-searching. The post says, in part:

Catering to skinflints who can't be bothered to check multiple sites for the best fares, travel aggregator sites like Mobissimo, CheapFlights, Qixo, or Sidestep allow you to search Expedia, Orbitz, and Travelocity with a single query, as well as bargain airlines like JetBlue and Southwest, which aren't covered by the big three.

The aggregators aren't exactly quick. I tried Mobissimo, CheapFlights, and Qixo, and each took anywhere from 5-10 minutes. But even that amount of time wouldn't kill me, if the deals really are better.

Below I've listed the lowest-priced results I got, searching for a roundtrip ticket from San Francisco to Orlando leaving Dec. 31st and returning Jan. 3rd:

Continue reading "Fly cheaper?" »

A heartbreaking story appeared in yesterday's New York Times:

They went out late. It was ugly weather. Six below zero in the Brooklyn night. Wind took garbage into the air. A blizzard was in the forecast. It was Lincoln's Birthday, 2003, in Brighton Beach. Not a night for humankind, but the sisters, one 73 and the other 70, didn't get holidays off, didn't get snow days.

In years of miserable low points, it was one of the lowest. As they had done the day before and the day before that, Lillian and Julia hobbled out to Coney Island Avenue, a lineup of chromatic storefronts, to beg from strangers in their cars. They were known out there, regulars among the mendicants. The money was for their bilious nephew and his crack habit, their own blood who was smoking up their lives. He had already cost them their house, their savings, their dignity. "I need one more," he would tell them when he desired a hit, "one more."

A year ago this December, a front-page story in the Bee described how the problem of elder abuse plagues Fresno. It's worth reproducing in full.

But first ...

Continue reading "Elder abuse" »

Tuesdays may be for DVDs, but Fridays are all about new movie trailers. Quick, while you're still on your broadband connection, take a look at the goodness that is headed our way.

Continue reading "Trailers park" »

Wangari Maathai, the Kenyan woman who won the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize, has written an excellent op-ed about her Green Belt Movement in today's New York Times.

What is the Green Belt Movement and who is Wangari Maathai? Read on. (Or read the op-ed. Or both.)

Continue reading "Arborocracy" »

When your kids are watching TV nonstop to find new toys to add to their wish lists and have ripped the corners of the Christmas presents to take a peek inside, it's time to leave home. Take them to your local library to make a gingerbread house. Dates, times and locations are at FresnoLibrary.org.

The holiday shopping season is in full swing, and to indulge my "I hate shoppers" mentality, I've only been fighting quirks in the Internet.

I've done the majority of my holiday shopping since I fell in love with Amazon.com in 1999. I lived in the middle of the New Mexican desert and to have a company that would wrap and mail my heart-felt gifts was just too good an opportunity to pass up. And, trust me, I am not alone.

Continue reading "You track my surfing? Really?" »

Watch out for left-handed people, two French researchers say.

Continue reading "Shifty lefties" »

... or Santa Claus might knock your lights out.

In Britain, at least.

With all the hubbub about Barry Bonds and Marion Jones and BALCO focusing media attention on San Francisco, it's easy to forget that the whole thing started in Fresno.

That's right.

Victor Conte, the head of BALCO, the man at the heart of the scandal, Jones' and Bonds' alleged steroids supplier, is a child of Fresno. Sanger, to be specific.

Continue reading "Doping drama" »

The Supreme Court is mulling how much control states should have over regulating alcohol sales from out-of-state. Should, for example, California winemakers have to jump through hoops to ply their wares to New York customers? The 21st Amendment says yes, according to attorneys for Michigan and New York. A little-noticed part of the Constitution's commerce clause says no, according to the winemakers. Give me wine, or give me death, says Slate's wonderful Dahlia Lithwick.

What makes a person mark himself forever? December's Rite of Passage is the story of Jordan Jackson, who shortly after his 18th birthday has decided to get a tattoo. Macromedia Flash Player required.

Via Fresno Famous, here's a good S.F. Chronicle article we missed, on the rivalry between the Fresno State and UC Davis wine programs. Actually, no one quoted in the article really focuses on the rivalry, although the article itself does (it's called "Wine School Wars"). The article's sources mostly say the two programs have different strengths -- Fresno's being better for the nitty-gritty essentials of wine-making, and Davis' being better for getting a handle on the theory.

Continue reading "More on wine" »

Mark your calendars. The wine will be flowing at the Fresno State Winery at its first-ever Christmas Open House Thursday night, December 9.

An article in Wired magazine this month makes the point that making roads more chaotic-seeming actually makes them safer. According to a new school of traffic engineering, the article says, we can improve roads by stripping them of signs, putting pedestrian areas right next to the flow of traffic, and generally forcing drivers to use more creative thinking.

This is how to revitalize the Fulton Mall. Just take out the curbs and the stop signs, and let drivers negotiate the maze of forestry, pedestrians and public art.

Not too long ago, California tried to make it so that credit card companies would have to tell their customers exactly how long it would take to pay down their credit cards if they just made the minimum payment every month. A federal judge struck that effort down in 2002.

Minimum payments just perpetuate the debt cycle when large credit card balances are involved. Why? Here's a free program that can explain why. Check it out.

Continue reading "Figure out credit card debt" »