Don’t forget whose network you’re on

The other day I saw a link online during my “lunch break” (i.e., the time between 12 and 12:30 when LeechBlock allows me to view my usual websites) about the difficulties Peter Jackson and others faced while working on the recent Hobbit movies. The danger, of course, inherent in reading something icon the internet is that it might cause you to read something else on the internet. In this case, I wondered if any fans have edited the three Hobbits into a shorter, more cohesive movie. It turns out that somebody has. Called “The Tolkien Edit,” this version trims many of the parts that were not in the books, resulting in a single four-ish hour movie. The website links to a torrent for the edited version, which is surely illegal but has gotten quite a bit of media attention. “I would be interested in watching that,” I foolishly thought, “But I don’t have anything that allows me to download torrents on this computer.” “Hey,” I continued even more foolishly, “The website has a link to a torrent client. I should click that.”

NOTICE: YOUR ACCESS TO THE INTERNET HAS BEEN SUSPENDED DUE TO ILLEGAL FILE SHARING. PLEASE REMOVE ALL FILE SHARING PROGRAMS AND CONTACT IT SERVICES IN ORDER TO RESTORE SERVICE.

My first thought upon receiving this notice was, “Shit!” My second was that I didn’t even download the software. My third was that explaining all of this to IT over the phone was going to be embarrassing. My fourth was that I had to go e the bathroom and that I should do so before making a phone call to deal with all of this since I had a lot of work to do that afternoon that would require access to the internet. Thankfully, somebody in IT must have noticed that the idiot in this case was a faculty member and restored my network access in the few minutes it took me to walk down the hall to the bathroom and back.

There are two morals to this story. The first is that considering downloading potentially-illegal files from work is stupid. The second is that if they wanted to, the people in IT could probably access a log of every stupid website I’ve ever visited while on the campus network, which makes me consider visiting fewer stupid websites. I can just see the letter reporting the outcome of my tenure application: “Although John has been marginally productive, the committee has regretfully decided not to grant tenure in his case. If even a fraction of the time he devoted to Buzzfeed quizzes had been spent on scholarship, it is likely that this outcome would have been different.”

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“Like” Memoirs of a SLACer on Facebook to receive updates and links via your news feed, but maybe not from work.

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Realistic princesses

Over a year ago, I wrote about some efforts to depict a more “realistic” Barbie. Now, Loryn Brantz at Buzzfeed has taken a similar look at Disney princesses, focusing on their waistlines (tackling the size of their eyes and wrists might be beyond human capabilities).

Even with more realistic waists, the princesses are still very thin, but is is interesting how easy it is to overlook their ridiculous thinness (seriously, look at the unaltered image of Jasmine!) until seeing a more realistic take like this.

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“Like” Memoirs of a SLACer on Facebook to receive updates and links about princesses via your news feed.

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TV news is dead

Tuesday night, the most exciting thing to watch was not available on TV, it was only available as a web stream. Texas State Senator Wendy Davis’s attempted filibuster of Senate Bill 5, which would have make abortions in Texas very difficult to obtain, and its aftermath, were far more interesting than anything on cable news late at night. As this post at Buzzfeed highlights, however, the cable news channels were focused on things like reruns and the number of calories in blueberry muffins. This post at Medium.com gives a good rundown of the experience of watching the stream of the proceedings online with others on social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr.

Davis’s filibuster, and the public filibuster that followed and prevented the Texas State Senate from voting before the midnight deadline was ultimately successful (although it took until after 3 am for them to admit it), though this success is likely short-lived, as Governor Rick Perry has scheduled another special session starting July 1 that will likely end in the passage of the bill. Nevertheless, as this Slate article suggests, Davis’s filibuster raised the profile of a bill that Texas hoped to pass quietly and may have revitalized the Democratic party in Texas.

Beyond the fate of Senate Bill 5, Davis’s filibuster was one part of an online explosion this week signaling the death of TV news. In addition to the fact that coverage of the filibuster was not available on TV, news of the Supreme Court’s rulings on important cases such as the Voting Rights Act and DOMA marked the first time that I turned to Facebook for news, first repeating the basic rulings and then linking to the best sources for insight and analysis – the sort of role that TV news would usually play. Even the ESPN analysts on tonight’s NBA draft program are referring to information about trades that they have received via Twitter.

As a freshman in college, my 20th Century History professor told the class that if there was ever a war or terrorist attack (this was after Oklahoma City but before 9/11) he would not be in class because he would be sitting on his couch watching CNN. This week, I imagine that he spent his time online, glued to Twitter.

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