Chad's News

From the article: “In Florida, Utah, and soon in Rhode Island and Wisconsin, selling your used CDs to the local record joint will be more scrutinized than then getting a driver’s license in those states.” For example, in Florida, the CD store is required to copy your identification and take your fingerprint. Just to sell a used CD?!? I think the author of the linked article hit it on the head when he suspects the music industry of being a force behind these laws.

Link: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/…

Women in France who come from families with Muslim values are feeling the pressure to be virgins when they marry. But what do you do when you’re not one? Just go to the doctor and have your hymen sewn back together.

Link: http://today.reuters.com/…
(via digg)

Penn and Teller played a joke on some environmentalists, getting them to sign a petition demanding that dihydrogen monoxide be banned. Dihydrogen monoxide is more commonly called water.

Thanks to Burt for this link.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/…

The picture tells all. (The discount is $1.24.)

Link: http://www.consumerist.com/…

A disturbing first-person account of someone with body identity integrity disorder (BIID). I’ve heard of this before but the article makes it more understandable.

Link: http://society.guardian.co.uk/…

Man bets wife in poker game and loses. Wife finds out, gets angry at man, and divorces him. Just to spite him, she starts dating the “winner.” The winner turns out to be better husband material, so she marries him. Guess you shouldn’t bet what you aren’t prepared to lose.

Link: http://www.metro.co.uk/…
(via digg)

The 2006 Darwin Awards are out. Taking the top prize were two college students who suffocated inside a large, helium-filled balloon (repeat after me, “helium is not oxygen”). Runner-ups were (1) an electrician who used copper wire to fly a kite, which subsequently touched a power line, and (2) a man who used a sledgehammer to take apart a rocket-propelled grenade.

Link: http://www.dailykos.com/…

Here’s an example of some quality line-painting work.

Link: http://www.neatorama.com/…

The Mapuche Indians in Chile are suing Microsoft (in Chilean courts) for translating Microsoft Windows into Mapuzugun, a Mapuche language. The Indians are contending that Microsoft needed their permission to utilize the language.

It seems to me that the real problem is a cultural clash between the technology of the West and the lifestyle of an indigenous people, and the court case is merely the Indians’ best way of responding to it.

Link: http://today.reuters.com/…
(via Slashdot)

Yes, the Nobel prizes were awarded this week, but the real news is the Ig Nobel awards.

http://arstechnica.com/…

Chinese officials in the city of Dandong were planning to cut teaching jobs, but they made a special exception for single parents. The result? More divorce filings from a single school in one week than for the whole city in all of 2005.

http://go.reuters.com/…

14-year-old Shannon Derrik loaned her new iPod to a friend who managed to lose it. Shannon, being a typical modern-day American, filed a lawsuit to recoup the cost. But now the ludicrousness has gone even further, as both parties have agreed to appear on the Judge Judy show.

http://www.engadget.com/…

UPDATE: New developments in this case have precluded a Judge Judy appearance. Further updates to come.

UPDATE #2: This case has been resolved, with Shannon’s friend ordered to give her 30GB iPod to Shannon as a replacement for the stolen iPod Nano.