Vietnam bans booze in karaoke bars in a move to help "in curbing serious social evils". I guess we won't be holding the next MoFi meetup there then.

Curling, curling with desire! (Quicktime direct link) The Swedish national women's curling team do what Swedes do best to promote their team: appear in a deathmetal music video with Hammerfall. It's in English! Here's the Windows Media link, too.

A complete lack of morals. Woman loses camera in Hawaii. Canadien familly finds camera. Woman politely asks for camera back. Family refuses, saying that their 9 year old son loves the camera, and they "can't bear to take it from him."
I find this behaviour on the part of the family to be utterly despicable, and I can't see how they think they are instilling good values in their son--what with promoting stealing and all. I am shocked.

Earth at Night What if you could see Google Maps/Google Earth at night? You can, and at dusk, day, and other options as well. Similar to the last link in this post but more fun because you can navigate the world.

Old pottery recorded sounds (2 minute, >5MB, mp4 video, in French, from the Lire la vidéo link here). Apparently scientists have decoded the grooves on ancient pottery, which acted as crude sound recording, to get a short snippet of the voices and laughter of the potters. Video includes short sample of the sound. Too cool! [via]

Will we let Jill Carroll be killed? Philosopher Peter Singer on kidnapped journalist Jill Carroll. (Via C&L.)

Cool Guitar Tuner A great little utility for tuning up...

Monk-e-mail Shamelessly stolen instantaneously from mefi. more inside

Fascinating article and discussion about how careless users leave password files, payroll data and other stuff out there for anyone to find, with just a simple Google search. Not only an interesting read, but fun to try on your own.

Sacked for assault with a dead fish. more inside

Adultery? Just been wandering tonight - it seems there is a whole industry devoted to this - how to fix - how to find out if it is your partner etc. If you chose to follow the link you will find the inevitable christian guidance and porn sites - but i was just wondering??? (Oh and the hard boiled detective novel developing in another thread also caused this!!) more inside

Resource Discovery Network "the UK's free national gateway to Internet resources for the learning, teaching and research community". Portal to a veritable shed-load of stuff.

The Economics Of Prostitution, on forbes.com. Reference is also made in that article to an earlier article from the Journal of Political Economy titled "A Theory of Prostitution." (.pdf link) [via hajen]

Dell vs Dell: The short version of the story is here and it's been going on quite some time. Paul Dell had the audacity to register dellwebsites.com in 2001. Since then, Dell (you know, that huge computer company) have been trying to stop him using that domain. more inside

Squid Soup! Guess who's doing a TV SHOW! more inside

The most horrific car crash you'll ever see (Google Video). Don't watch this if you're the least bit squeamish. Lesson #1 - DON'T RUN FROM THE COPS; Lesson #2 - WEAR YOUR GODDAMED SEAT BELT!

The SimpsonMaker!

Drunken Tree Gets Axe The Stanford Tree has been fired for drinking on the job. Yes. You read that right. Stanford University, here in the ever-puzzling Bay Area, has a mascot, The Tree, and the woman inside the tree suit was found to be drinking at a basketball game, and subsequently tested to have a .15 blood acohol level. Just another entry in the long-running rivalry between Cal and Stanford.

Treasures of the European Digital Library more inside

A Map of Slave-Labor Products Click on a product to learn more about its connections to slave labor. Product information will open in a popup window. Didn't know it was still going on in the US. via memepool