SXSW, sleep deprivation, and another great way to punch your ticket to hell.

The fine folks from the South by Southwest (SXSW) music conference/festival/coolest thing on Earth want to give you 764 free mp3s. Again for 2008, the organizers have put together a little sample of the up-and-coming artists that will be featured in Austin, TX next week. Part 1 went up today, you can stream it here or here or get the whole shootin' match via BitTorrent (legally!). The whole package is 3.42 GB so it might take a while, but your ears and your iPod will thank you.

The Center for Disease Control has confirmed that 30% of Americans are sleep deprived. Another unsurprising result is that folks in New England had the biggest bags under thier eyes, while Hawiians were feeling just fine, thank you. What is surprising is that the CDC did not seem to realize how counter-intuitive an event called "National Sleep Awareness Week" is, as Ars Technica points out.

Just in case you wanted a quick and easy way to punch yourself a ticket to hell (not to mention jail) a Vancouver man has come up with maybe the fastest way to do it. A man in his 40s is wanted for stealing three rings from a 91-year-old woman as she lay in hospital recovering from surgery. Let's all take a minute to appreciate just what a disgusting crime that is.