David Bowie recently cut an Audi commercial that mashes up his classic "Rebel, Rebel" andhis new "Never Grow Old." Now Audi and Bowie are holding a competition to see who can do the best new mashup of any two Bowie songs, with a new car to the winner. Link (via Copyfight)

I just returned from a conference in Estes, Colorado at the Stanley Hotel. Built in 1909 by the inventor of the Stanley Steamer, the hotel is apparently quite haunted. In fact, the spookiness so inspired Stephen King that he spent five months there in 1973 pounding out The Shining. Stanley Kubrick's version of the film wasn't shot at The Stanley, but much of the 1997 TV remake was filmed at the hotel. Unfortunately, I didn't see any ghosts during my stay, but I did see The Shining. The Kubrick version plays around the clock on the hotel TV channel. Link

Gadgetopia's Deane Barker sez: "Check out the comments on this thread. I posted this note about Bill Gates' philanthropy. There are dozens of comments from people who apparently think Bill Gates posted it and will give them money. It's fascinating to read -- what are these people thinking? I thought about shutting off the comments, but I have this perverse desire to read them. Every couple of comments I have someone leave their phone number and/or home address that I have to go edit out."

i was defrauded from my life savings, by a firm called financial asvisory consultants. the president of this firm had a ponzi scheme going for 20 years, and many investors lost thier life savings. its been all over the papers here in los angeles...if there is anything that you can do to help me out of this situation, i would be forever in your debt. please feel free to contact me if you have any questions, or need additional information in regards to this matter.

Link

Here's a 12 MG Windows Medis video clip of Unreal's fantastically detailed world. Link

"Sapphire" is a sythetic liquid that doesn't get stuff wet.

Pelton submerged several items into a tank of Sapphire that was on the Good Morning America set. Books did not get wet. Electronics were not be destroyed. Items that were submerged in the liquid were dried in a matter of seconds, and showed no ill effects according to Charles Gibson, Diane Sawyer and other members of the Good Morning America staff who saw items plunged into it.

Link (via /.)

Comedian/musician "Weird Al" Yankovic lost both his mother and father this weekend in an accident involving carbon monoxide poisoning. He's posted a message on his website expressing thanks to fans for their kindness and support in his time of need, and he corrects errors in media coverage on the tragedy. Condolences, and much admiration and respect to Al and his family. Link

John Battelle breaks the news on Amazon.com's new search engine.

A9, Amazon's much discussed skunk works search project goes live today, so I can finally write about it. I saw it last month (caveat: unbeknownst to me until recently, Amazon targeted me as their conduit to break this news - I think they wanted it to move from the blogosphere out, as opposed the WSJ in) and had to keep the damn thing to myself, it was hard, and here's why: On first blush it's a very, very good service, and an intriguing move by Amazon. It raises a clear question: How will Google - and more broadly, the entire search-driven world - react?

Link

Neat looking bowl made from partially-melted plastic soldiers. Reminds me of the wonderful Mattel Strange Change machine from back in the days when toys that got hot enough to melt plastic were considered a good thing. Link

It's been six months since the residents of Manor Green Road in London have had an uninterrupted night's sleep. "[T]hey have been hearing five repeated thuds in the middle of the night and cannot trace the source. Double-glazed windows and ear plugs have been no match for the tumult." Link (Via Fark)

Today on the NPR program "Day to Day," a report on the debate over government regulation of online pornography and how veterans of such debates -- like publisher and Hustler magazine founder Larry Flynt -- plan to weather the storm.
Link to archived online audio. Read a related interview with Larry Flynt on Wired News.

Spam containing pornographic text or images will be required to bear a warning in the subject line for easy filtering, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission said yesterday. This is gonna solve the problem? I'm not holding my breath.

Starting May 19, sexually explicit e-mail will have to bear a label reading " Sexually-Explicit:" and the messages themselves will not be allowed to contain graphic material, the FTC said. Outrage over unsolicited pornography and other forms of junk e-mail spurred Congress to pass the first nationwide antispam law last year, which required the FTC to develop labels for smut.

Link to Reuters coverage, Link to AVN coverage.

You won't find any subservient chickens in these poultry housing units, which were thought by some to have been an elaborate April Fool's joke -- but were printed as the real deal in the Times of London, The Register, and elsewhere. Designed so that city-dwelling humans can add a little bokbok to their daily lives, the iMac-like eglu may just be "the world's most stylish and innovative chicken house and [a] perfect way to keep chickens as pets."
Link (Thanks, Giordano!)

UPDATE: Erin says, "A fresh-egg-lovin' pal of mine showed me the Eglu last week. It's no hoax, but it isn't designed for "city-dwellers" as such - most cities prohibit keeping poultry for health reasons, but there are a lot of little hamlets (omelettes?) in England where it would be perfect. Apparently their design was inspired by the iMac. Perhaps this heralds a new era in chicken coop fashions? :D"

Nominations for the 16th annual Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards have been announced. BoingBoing pal Warren Ellis received no fewer than three four (thanks Rui Soares!). Link (Thanks, Susannah!)

BoingBoing reader Charles Vestal says:

A East London dance club held an all-deaf rave, featuring signing-karaoke, deaf rap, a standup comdian, and all the pumping basslines they could handle. Problem was, the lights were flashing so much, no one could chat with each other at the bar. Perhaps they should hook up with this guy to get a more moving experience.

Link

Alfie Dennen of the phonecam blogging service Moblog UK says:

We operate the site code on a copyright commons basis, and with users like Warren Ellis (who want to retain control of their images/video/audio), we urge people using the site to do the same. The fact that Textamerica and mblog etc own your content once it hits their servers got us so angry we felt we had to make an alternative.

We carry no advertising, and are donation supported. In terms of the code itself, we support multiple image posts, multiple audio and image posts, in pretty much every format that phones can produce. The site is very malleable, if you can make a css style sheet, you can make the site entirely your own look, still hosting it with us. We are a community that consists partly of a lot of artists who want to make sure they keep some ownership of their work.

Link

Koleman Strumpf, the co-author of the first-ever empirical study on the impact of file-sharing on record sales, has found himself on the receiving end of a withering attack from the music industry who argue that their bought-and-paid-for, non-empirical "research" trumps his analysis, attacking his conclusions.

Two years ago, Strumpf and Oberholzer-Gee set out to research the matter. Strumpf's interest was piqued by the Napster trial, where the recording industry alleged copyright violations that led to the demise of the pioneering Web site in 2001. In the testimony, experts argued that music downloads had to be the cause of slumping sales.

Strumpf read the studies they cited. They were horrible, he said.

"I was like, 'Boy, this is pretty amazing,' " said Strumpf, a Philadelphia native. "Nobody has done a serious study."

Link (Thanks, Thomas!)

Retrocrush has put up a marvellous gallery of scanned vintage Underoo packaging -- they're looking for more. Can you fill in the gaps in the collection? Link (via Fark)

The Onion's deadpan satricial news-stories, musch-forwarded and chuckled over, have frequently been reported as fact by variou snews agencies, law-enforcement departments, and pressure groups.

[T]he Branch County sheriff's department in Coldwater, Michigan, which had been investigating telemarketing scams targeting the elderly, issued an urgent press release.

"In the course of this investigation, it was learned that this is going on throughout the United States, and some of these telemarketing programs are believed to be operated by al-Qaida," the release stated. "The CIA has announced that they acquired a videotape showing al-Qaida members making phone solicitations for vacation home rentals, long-distance telephone service, magazine subscriptions and other products."

Link

If you play the Fibonacci Sequence through a MIDI engine, you get something eerily Philip-Glass-like. Link (Thanks Quinn!)