Hitting the road? You're definitely not going to be alone. Ever wonder how many people have died in accidents along the same roads on which you're driving? Okay, so it's not the most cheerful thought, but between 2001 and 2009, 369,629 people died on America's roads. more ›

Pro Publica has published a database that makes it easy for you to compare your access to quality education and at what cost in an effort to provide insight into the opportunity gap demonstrated by economic difference in the classroom. more ›

So what's next for Sam Hain, director of Star Trek: The Next Generation: A XXX Parody? Tonight, Hain will be seen on Last Call with Carson Daly in a pre-taped segment, talking about his love of sci-fi and its transformation into best-selling and critically-acclaimed adult movies. more ›

The mood on the set of every Star Trek incarnation has always been dictated by the actor playing the series' captain, and that has even proven true with Sam Hain's Star Trek: The Next Generation: A XXX Parody. more ›

In retrospect, LAist was either incredibly dedicated or insane (probably a little of both) to have been present for all four days of production on Sam Hain's Star Trek: The Next Generation: A XXX Parody. The first day, on the Enterprise-D bridge, ran over 20 hours, with at least one castmember falling asleep on-set until needed. more ›

When director Sam Hain told us last year of his plans to film a porn parody of Star Trek: The Next Generation, we could hardly contain our excitement, as his parodies of The X-Files (The Sex Files: A Dark XXX Parody and its sequel) were respectful of the series' established canon and received several prizes including Best Parody - Drama at the recent XRCO Awards. more ›

If you're a Sony PlayStation user, you probably noticed that you couldn't connect to the gaming console's online network for the past ten days or so. Most figured it was probably just a network outage. But as we learned Tuesday -- one week into the outage -- Sony deliberately pulled the plug on its online network as well as its streaming and on demand content services on April 20. PlayStation's unencrypted user database was breached, allowing hackers access to info entered by the network's 77 million users. If you are one of the 77 million Sony Playstation users with a PlayStation Network or Qriocity account, a class-action lawsuit was filed on your behalf Wednesday. more ›

NASA's Pasadena-based (Caltech) Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) left us all a little gift this week -- the first batch of data and images collected by an infrared satellite that captured the most detailed scan of the whole sky. more ›

Detailed info from the 2010 U.S. Census was released today, and takes a closer look at population totals and demographic characteristics in California. The data was shared with the governor and leaders of the legislature in the state and can be used to realign federal, state and local legislative districts. Among the findings include the not-so-surprising confirmation that Los Angeles is the most populated county in the state, with a population of 9,818,605, and a gain of 3.1 percent since 2000. more ›

Thousands of Gmail users found themselves without much of an email account recently, and now Google is stepping up with an explanation, though not all is fixed, says the HuffPo. At fault is "a software bug" that chewed up some account info and emails for 0.02% of their customer, which is "about 40,000 of the service's 200 million accounts," according to CNET. more ›

Last month we gave you the rundown* on when we can expect 4th-generation mobile internet speeds from the top four carriers. But we forgot about the little guy(s). MetroPCS is not-so-well known as the fifth-largest mobile provider in the U.S and today its 4G high-speed data network was lit up across L.A. (available only on the Samsung Craft 4G). MetroPCS has competitive rates and a map indicating decent coverage across L.A. But does anyone really use them? We'd love to know what you think. more ›

We've seen the billboards all over town: an oversized phone slathered with the words "first" and "4G." But those of us who don't accept "sometime later this year" for an answer have been left to ask: "So?" "When?" Sprint today announced plans to "officially" launch 4G WiMax mobile internet service across L.A. December 1. Sprint users have been reporting more and more 4G coverage across the metro area since the HTC EVO was released in early June. more ›

Where is crime trending right now in Los Angeles? Mostly in the Valley. To be specific, the West Valley. Violent crime is up significantly in Northridge, Chatsworth, Canoga Park and West Hills and property crime is up significantly in Winnetka and Porter Ranch. All this is according to the LA Times' new data-based project called Crime L.A. more ›

Census Bureau data released yesterday shows an increase in the poverty rate as reported in Los Angeles County, according to LA Now. Up from 15.2% in 2008, the 2009 figure for the County is 16.1%; over "1.56 million county residents lived below the poverty threshold, which is $10,956 for one person and $21,954 for a family of four." more ›

Eric Fischer has put together another stunning set of maps using color-coded data. This time, using 2000 Census information about race and ethnicity, Fischer has created maps of urban areas showing where the color lines are drawn, or in some cases, overlapping. more ›

New numbers released by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department indicate that the region they patrol is experiencing a continuing downward decline in criminal homicides, resulting in the lowest homicide rate since 1975. more ›

It's not just Bell, which pays the second highest property taxes in Los Angeles County, many cities with median household incomes below $50,000 are found have some of the highest property taxes, finds the LA Times, which has published data from each of the county's 88 cities. more ›

Forbes has released a series of maps using Internal Revenue Service data that chart the migration patterns from county to county as part of a series of articles called "Where America's Money is Moving." The maps were created using 2008 information, though not every move in the country is represented, since the IRS "only reports inter-county moves for more than 10 people." more ›

Finally. There have been various food truck-related websites and iPhone apps introduced to us over the past few months, but none of them satisfied our taste for real-time data until now. truxmap is a Google Maps mashup pinpointing the locations and times of where trucks are right now, where they'll be later and where they have been. And yes, there's a mobile version. They do, however, have one small warning: "Our program is 99.9% effective, but to be completely sure of a marker's accuracy simply visit that truck's Twitter page." Time to eat! more ›

When I moved into this neighborhood four years ago after driving out from Chicago, one of my first objectives was to test the various cellular phone (that's what we called them back then) providers. more ›

Statistics for 2008 crime in California were released today (.pdf) by the Attorney General's office, finding that homicides and many other crime categories were down. In 2007, there were 2,258 homicides, compared to 2,143 in 2008--a 5.1 percent change. Forcible rape slightly decreased 1.6 percent to 8,906 incidents. The other two violent crime categories, robbery and aggravated assault, also went down to 69,391 and 104,793, respectively. However, burglary and larcenty theft over $400 increased slightly. more ›

Independent business research and analysis organization The Conference Board has released their data for the ratio of job seekers to jobs posted online for the month of September. They found that there "were 5.66 people in the Los Angeles-Orange County metro area looking for jobs in September for every online help-wanted ad," explains the OC Register. more ›

With tens of thousands of crimes in Los Angeles, the LAPD's crime map tool will never be 100% perfect, but missing 40% of all reported crimes is a far cry from being complete. Thanks to an LA Times investigation--the second about the LAPD's touted crime map--today we learn that 26 homicides, 137 rapes and over 10,000 other nonviolent thefts remain off map, but not intentionally says the LAPD. more ›

A radar on the belly of a airplane flying above the Southern California region is taking in detailed data for scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab so they can study faults' shifting, straining in relation to seismic energy. "The data from this project could help scientists figure out where the risk of earthquake activity is highest, though the data will never be so specific as to predict a day, location and magnitude of a quake, explained the LA Times. “This will help us with the five- to 10-year time horizons,” Donnellan said. “We can see hot spot maps and ... figure out where to target our retrofitting,” said Andrea Donnellan, a JPL geophysicist. more ›

A study released last week ranks American cities in terms of job growth, and groups the results based on the size of the city. And when it comes to the country's "Large" cities, out of 66, the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Glendale Metro Division ranks a discouraging #56 (and 279 out of all 336 cities nationwide). more ›

The United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) is calling for a boycott of periodic assessment tests mandated by the LAUSD, and have "directed teachers to refuse to give them to students on the grounds that the tests are costly and counterproductive," according to the LA Times. more ›