Yesterday eBay confirmed the rumors that it has acquired StumbleUpon, a really great web service that helps you discover interesting websites through user recommendations. Over the last year I’ve seen an increasing amount of traffic coming in from StumbleUpon, which lasts a longer period of time with more engaged visitors, compared to other services that just send a high volume of traffic in short spikes, sending visitors that are not as interested in the content. It will be interesting to see how eBay integrates StumbleUpon into their existing services and how StumbleUpon will grow with their newly added resources.

Congratulations to Garrett Camp and the whole StumbleUpon crew.

UPDATE: According to Om Malik, eBay paid $75 million for StumbleUpon. Here’s more coverage from TechCrunch and Mashable.

Get ready for some great “boxing” action, the Cardboard Robot Rumble takes place this Saturday, June 2nd in San Francisco’s Dolores Park starting at 6pm.

Get your old cardboard robot costume from the 5th grade out of the closet add a little foam padding (maybe add a lot) and go to Dolores park in SF at 6 pm. This is like the pillow fight only with stupid cheesy (padded) cardboard robot costumes instead of pillows. Meet in Dolores park then be lead somewhere else.

Did mom throw your old mouse ridden robot costume thing out in 9th grade?…. no problem… show up a few hours early say … 3 ish. There will be cardboard and styrofoam there to wax creative robot-ish-ness with.

Steve Jobs and Bill Gates had a historic live discussion on stage yesterday at The Wall Street Journal’s D: All Things Digital (D5) conference in Carlsbad, CA. Ryan Block was on the scene providing excellent blow-by-blow coverage for Engadget. Steve and Bill were interviewed together by D hosts Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher. AllThingsD has a full coverage of the interview, including video.

Bill Gates: “First, I want to clarify, I’m NOT Fake Steve Jobs.”

Thanks to RICK! for the tip!

Drew Curtis, who runs the notorious offbeat news website Fark, has a new book out which was just released today:

“It’s Not News, It’s Fark: How Mass Media Tries to Pass Off Crap As News”

A drop-dead hysterically funny look at the go-to stories mass media uses when there’s not enough hard news to fill a newspaper or a news broadcast. It’s not media’s fault per se, the main problem is that ads have been sold. You can’t sell a blank newspaper full of ads, broadcast white noise bracketed by commercials, or expect people to visit a website full of ads with no content.

Purchase his book and Drew will buy you a beer. He’s currently doing a book tour, so catch up with him in a city near you.

Joe Reifer came across a Doggie Diner Dog Head on Maui. Right on Joe, what a great find! Here’s more info on the legendary Doggie Diner.

So like it or not, the LOL hyper-meme explosion shows no signs of slowing down, causing English teachers to cringe at the very sight of these grammar destroying image mutations.

First there was the breakout Lolcats. A few early websites were on the scene, but it was I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER? that perpetuated and propelled this image macro meme into internet history. Here’s my previous write-up on lolcats.

Taking the meme to the next level, Irina Slutsky, Schlomo Rabinowitz and Veronica Belmont joined forces to make a live-action lolcat show in “Vloggies Show Episode 8”.

But it doesn’t stop there. Anyone can start their own LOLx meme and online tools like LolCat Builder make it even easier to amass your image macro empire.

So with that, here’s my brief history and round-up of LOL mutations:

Two early copylolcats had the same theme, lolgay and LOLgays. It’s not clear if the LOLgays post on Gawker by Choire Sicha was inspired by the lolgay blog which pre-dates the post by a few days.

LOLTrek by Live Granades, expanded the meme to long form, morphing a classic Star Trek episode into “We Has Tribbles And Also Toubles”.

Next up was lolgeeks. Here’s my write-up from earlier this month.

Then there was the birth of LOL President, along with a Fark Photoshop contest.

The first non-mammal entry was LOLmaps by Nikolas R. Schiller.

LOL the News recently emerged from the void, lolifiying news images.

Making a cultural leap, lolburners showed up to the party, attempting to transform Burning Man imagery into the next big meme.

Moving away from images altogether, LOLCODE, helps you program in LOL.

And it just keeps getting more absurd, with the latest entry, The LOLcky Horror Picture Show, LOLing the entire cult film. [via Boing Boing]

Something tells me that this is just the beginning. If you find others, let me know in the comments and I’ll update the post.

Ok, the floodgates have been opened. So just to beat this meme to a pulp, I’m going to start listing all of the LOLsites that we come across. Special thanks to Xeni who sent a bunch our way.

LOLBOTS

Lolbats

Lolpr0n

LolPilgrims

Lol*lost

Speaking “Jumping the Shark”, check out LOLFonz.

lolnin

LOLTHEORISTS

lolvangelists

LOLgod

lolgoth

lolbrarians

LOLHeroes

lolsingularity

LOL: Boing Boing by Ian McKellar using LOL Feeds

lolcopz

LOLTHULU

LOLRAPZ

Pink Floyd LOL Wall

Ape Lad reports on the real origin of Laugh-Out-Loud Cats.

LOL80’s

UPDATE: I’m no longer adding new LOL’s to this post, but if you have one that is not listed here, just post it in the comments.

SF Indiefest presents the 4th Annual Another Hole In The Head horror and sci-fi festival, June 1st through 14th at The Roxie in San Francisco. This year they are adding animation to the mix with their new IndiFest: Gets Animated series.

Like an old-fashioned movie matinee twofer or a cinematic yin and yang, SF IndieFest unleashes ghosts, madmen, monsters, and cartoon merriment concurrently at Another Hole in the Head Film Festival plus SF IndieFest: Gets Animated running June 1st–14th. During the daylight hours of summer, the brand new IndiFest: Gets Animated program offers some of the finest in independent animation as well as studio rarities. But when the sun goes down, the spooks come out for miles of celluloid horror at the 4th annual Another Hole In The Head Film Festival. Advance tickets and other information for both festivals can be found at www.sfindie.org.

Don’t miss the Another Hole In The Head launch party and fundraiser this Thursday, May 31st at The DNA Lounge featuring Me First and the Gimme Gimmes.

There are a bunch of great trailers for the films being show at the festival, including one for “Simon Says”, a new horror film by DarkMoon Pictures staring Crispin Glover.

June 13th through 23rd there will be a special presentation of “Night of the Living Dead” performed live on stage by The Primitive Screwheads at the Hole Head Playhouse in San Francisco.

Allan Hough just made an amazing discovery. He found the legendary Frank Chu on the streets of San Francisco using the new Google Maps Street View feature that was released yesterday. Frank’s image was captured at 24 Willie Mays Plaza outside of AT&T Park during a San Francisco Giants game. Frank is always trying to get on camera, so he should be pretty happy about this new outlet to help get the world out about his ongoing saga of the 12 Galaxies.

Could it be that Frank Chu is a Google Maps easter egg? That would be great.

Something tells me that this is just the beginning. People are going to start digging up all kinds of interesting stuff people will start using new image data tools like Street View.

UPDATE 1: Niall Kennedy points out that the Street View team at Google posted for a photo that can be found while navigating the Google campus. [via Simon Willison]

UPDATE 2: Christine has found Bushman’s bush, but where is San Francisco’s world famous busker Bushman? Maybe he scared the camera crew away?

UPDATE 3: Far out man, Mark Celsor found a hippie icon in Berkeley.

UPDATE 4: streetviewr just launched, tracking all kinds of interesting locations on Google Street View.

UPDATE 5: RICK! points out a possible break-in in progress or maybe he just locked himself out.

Forget about Zombies, singing and dancing 19th century newspaper boys is the new unstoppable meme. This Saturday, June 2nd newspaper boys and girls of all types will be meeting at 12 noon in San Francisco’s Union Square for a Newsies Flashmob. Based on the 1992 Disney film “Newsies”, the gathering newspaper boys will magically transport back to 1899 in New York City and will break out in spontaneous song and dance as they go on strike against Pulitzer and Hearst.

It’s 1899 in NYC and Pulitzer and Hearst have raised the prices of newspapers, enraging the already struggling newspaper boys. Inspired by recent strikes, the newspaper boys or newsies call a strike of their own, join forces and spontaneously sing and dance in the face of “the man”.

On June 2nd, 2007, a corner of San Francisco will become New York in the late 19th century and a mass of people (perhaps including you) will become Newsies.

If you loved the movie and the musical, if you find yourself singing “Seize the Day”, “The World will Know” or other tunes and if you’ve always wanted to be one of those paper boys/girls . . . this is your chance. The message that the Newsies have in their songs are very applicable today so keep that in mind as well.

At the Where 2.0 conference today in San Jose, Google announced the launch of Street View, a new feature integrated into Google Maps that shows street level images of the area on the map. Currently Street Views are only available in San Francisco, New York, Las Vegas, Denver and Miami, but more cities will follow in the future. Brady Forrest has more on the launch over on the O’Reilly Radar blog.

Google has created a silly little video showing how the Street View feature works.

Chris LLorca recommends a fun first trip down Lombard Street, San Francisco’s famously crooked street. Just follow this link and head east.

On a related note, Microsoft added a 3D feature to it’s Live Search Maps today for New York City and several other US cities.

UPDATE: Google also released a preview of their new Mapplets feature today, which are small applications that developers can create for Google Maps using the Google Maps API.

Our friend Brian McCarty has just announced that “Plastic Fantastic”, a new animated kids show featuring his amazing toy photography, is currently in development at Nickelodeon. Congratulations Brian!

Brian made this announcement via his ePostcard #50 which features “God of Animation’” designed by James Jarvis for the upcoming PLATFORM International Animation Festival which takes place June 25-30 in Portland, OR.

Thanks to David Pescovitz for the tip!

Justin.tv has just launched their new lifecasting network. Previously they only had one live stream which focused on Justin.tv founder Justin Kan, but today they announced the first new channel, iJustine, featuring video blogger Justine Ezarik who is based out of Pittsburgh, PA. On April 18th, Justine took over Justin.tv for 24 hours as a trial run, now she’ll be streaming her life 24/7.

Justin.tv also launched an officecam channel, streaming the Justin.tv offices 24/7. They plan on introducing a new show each week for the next eight weeks.

Jessica Guynn has more coverage of the launch over at the San Francisco Chronicle: “Can’t get enough Justin? You can watch Justine”

Chicken John presents the 16th installment of Lost Vegas this Saturday, June 2nd at Ace Auto in San Francisco. According to Chicken, Ace Auto is closing and this will be the last event there ever.

This is the re-scheduled event that was originally planned for April 21st, but was canceled due to rain.

Chicken John presents:
Lost Vegas
at Ace Auto Dismantlers,
June 2nd, 2007 $10

It’s an evening to dismember, so put on your finest and come on out
to the last show ever at Ace Auto Dismantlers to do the Lost Vegas
grind!

All gambling is real. You play with chips, that you cash out for
valuable prizes. Ahem. This is less spectacle and more action-
oriented. You place the bets! You race the roaches! You spill your
drink! It’s all about you!!!!

LET IT RIDE: Just like the big boys, you can win big! Big! BIG!!!
ROCK: To the sounds of Mongolounge!
ALOHA: Wink and Yoni from the big island!
1983! Sparklemotion will warm your legs!
1883! Kimrick and his steam-powered weinie gun!
WEEP: Like a baby as our sharks take all your chips!
VOW: Dr. Hal or Rev. Burke will offer short duration marriages!
CROON: At the Karaoke station, Chicken’s bus hosted by Beyond Paul!
CASH OUT: At the Ace Auto redemption booth with friendly Bill the
Junkman!
OOGLE: Belinda the friendly Junkwoman!
CRY: Out in disgust at our cockroach racing!
SLUR: Your words, by patronizing out bar!
DRESS: To the nines; Lost Vegas has an un-enforced dress code!
TRIUMPH: As Otto von Danger jumps the Ramp of Death on fucking fire!

The games of Lost Vegas are like the real Vegas but a little funner:
These are all games you can win big on. Big. Big!!! BIG!!!!!!!!!!
The show goes late, so come early all over the place.
DJ/VJ KROB And Josh Cantplaybass

Back by unpopular indifference, Lost Vegas is the original show of
schmoes. It’s a casino environment where you get to really gamble!
To win fabu-less prizes! Here’s how it works: you get some chips at
the door, you visit the games… place your bets and win BIG!!!! Take
your chips to the Ace Redemption Center, where you talk to Bill the
friendly Junkman who lets ya take home a few choice pieces of prize…
It’s fun! But that’s not all! Check this out:

Dr. Hal and Rev. Ben Burke perform short duration marriages. With
rings!!!!!

KROB provides ambient Vegas music and video….

Stuart Mangrum does a toast to Dean Martin…

The Naked Fire Babes do the wild thing…

Mongolouge rocks the house…

And as our main headlining event… the one and only Otto von Danger
will attempt the impossible… with his motorcycle… he will jump
the Ramp of Death on Fucking Fire!!!!!

Backed by the Odeon All Star Band fronted by 3 lovelies:
Sally Wishna,
Robin Commer (Loop Station)
and Samaki Dorsey.

Arnold Shaflanknia,
Kiko Almond
and Josh Cantplaybass
will provide the live accompaniment to the dynamic stunt feature:

Otto von Danger will ride a Harley Davidson motorcycle over the Ramp
of Death totally on fire. Yes, that’s right. The man will be in
flames. And while on fire, go over the Ramp of Death. On a
motorcycle. Yes. Otto. Yes, that Otto. On a motorcycle. On fire. Over
the Ramp of Death. OR I WILL GIVE YOU DOUBLE YOUR MONEY BACK ON THE
SPOT.

That’s right, DOUBLE YOUR ADMISSION back at ya if what I say isn’t
absolutely the truth. Otto von Danger will ride a Harley Davidson
motorcycle. On fire. Over the Ramp of Death. It’s a great trick, but
he can probably only do it once. You will not be disappointed!!!
Ramp of Fire. On death. Right.

This is the 16th installment of Lost Vegas. We hope to see ya
there…..

We are featuring this year:
The wheel of SMUT
Cockroach Racing
Rat Roulette
Crap
Short duration marriages
Kareokie

New rides by Cyclecide as well…
The bicycle powered Ferrris Wheel
The Bumblebee

Directions:
http://www.aceautosf.com/aceautodirections.html

Come on down and hang out all over. We’ll see ya at LOST VEGAS!!!!!!!!!!

Here are my photos from last year’s Lost Vegas at NIMBY in Oakland.

UPDATE: Here are my photos from Lost Vegas.

The Long Now Foundation presents the North American premier of the groundbreaking sound and image art installation “77 Million Paintings by Brian Eno”. There are two public events on June 29th and 30th from 8pm to 2am and a private event for Long Now Charter Members on July 1st from 7pm to 2am. All three events will take place at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco and tickets are on sale now. Here’s more information on the Long Now event, 77 Million Paintings project and Brian Eno.

Conceived by Brian Eno as “visual music”, his latest artwork, 77 Million Paintings is a constantly evolving sound and imagescape. The kaleidoscopic display of the projected images and slow, rhythmic evolution of the artwork create a singular experience for the viewer. In addition to the exhibition, the Grand Lobby will set up for conversations and refreshments, including a full bar, and will also have demonstrations of Long Now’s Clock and Library projects.

Apple has a great article about Brian Eno’s 77 Million Paintings project and how he created it using Mac computers.

UPDATE: Here are my photos from the July 1st Long Now members event.

The Voyager imagines what Google search might be like in 20 years.