Events

* High-Tech Goes Hollywood: Want to know the impact technology has had on the entertainment industry? Check out Herring on Hollywood, where Hollywood and the Internet collide, at the Loews Santa Monica Hotel in Santa Monica today and Tuesday. For more information, call (415) 865-2277 or go to https://www.redherring.com/events/hoh/.

* Computers That Think: The 15th National Conference on Artificial Intelligence and the 10th conference on Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence are being held through Thursday at the Monona Terrace in Madison, Wis. Attendees will be examining the latest smart computer advances as well as where all this cool stuff is headed. For more information, go to https://www.aaai.org/Conferences/National/1998/aaai98.html/.

Yes, it’s been hot. Seems to be all we hear about these days (it even temporarily replaced all that Monica and Viagra talk). For people who live in a city that doesn’t have a lot of weather, we sure spend a lot of time worrying about it. Well, now you use all that time spent kvetching about the weather to do something a little more productive: Spend some time online learning about it.

* The Weather Starts Here: A logical first stop is the Weather Channel (https://www.weather

.com). Get today’s headlines and breaking weather, maps, city forecasts and “This Day in Weather History” (it’s more interesting than it sounds). The site also has sections for golfers and travelers and on health and allergies.

* The Official Forecast: The National Weather Service’s Forecast Office for L.A. and Oxnard is online at https://www.nwsla.noaa.gov). Check out the latest info on El Nino and La Nina, temperature and precipitation summaries, weather cams, SoCal historical data, satellite pictures, storm warnings and even info on earthquakes and traffic.

CYBERSPACE

* Try This Port in a Storm: From the “it could be worse” files, head to Storm 98 (https://www.storm98.com). They’ve got exciting- sounding stuff like Tornado Tracker, Lightning Stalker and a Pacific Parade. Most of it doesn’t apply to us, but maybe it’ll make you feel better knowing others have it worse.

* The Answer’s Blowin’ in the Wind: All your pesky weather questions should be addressed directly to Weather Wonder (https://www.geocities.com

/CapeCanaveral/6346/). Read others’ queries or submit your own.

* Facts and Fiction: “Be very, very careful what you put into that head, because you will never, ever get it out” (Cardinal Wolsey, 1475-1530) warns Bad Meteorology (https://www.ems.

psu.edu/~fraser/BadMeteorology

.html)--a site not about bad weather but about bad teachings. The site sets the record straight on such issues as the shape of raindrops, the greenhouse effect and the Coriolis effect, the notion that water in a sink or toilet rotates differently in the Northern and Southern hemispheres.

* Do-It-Yourself Weather: Not satisfied with the weather maps other sites generate? Then head on over to the Weather Visualizer (https://covis.atmos.uiuc.edu

/java/image.html), which allows you to make your own.

* Heated Debate: Just because you’re feeling the heat doesn’t mean the planet is really getting hotter. State of the Climate (https://www.panda.org

/climate_event/) is a climate and global warming resource. It claims that global warming is not some distant future threat but that there is evidence it’s already upon us. On the other side of the coin is Skepticism: Global Warming (https://www.carnell.com

/global_warming/index.html).

* Gnarly Web Sites: Feel like playing hooky but not sure if today’s the best day for it? First check out the surf report at https://www.surfrider.org/Surfreport1

.htm. Surfline (https://www.surfline.com) offers a daily surf report, with live pictures even.

* Going to Extremes: The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s site has a page all about extreme heat--what it can do to your body and how your community can prepare for it. It’s at https://www.fema.gov/library/heat.htm.

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Please send site suggestions to cutting.edge@latimes.com.