Since I’m spending this week at home, last week when I finished *shudder* American Wedding and popped it in the mail, I changed my address in Netflix to point back to my Mom’s house. The day I arrived there, so did a new movie. She’s a Netflix member too, and it’s been real nice having 6 movies to pick from this week. We’ve been watching things from both of our queues and mailing them back. Today, since I’m going back up to school soon, I set my address in Netflix back to Champaign and I’ll have a movie waiting there when I arrive.

How many other services are as easy and portable to modify for the holidays (or, really, any week long trip?) I didn’t have to put it on hold – I took it with me. And in a few web-clicks, it was really simple to do. This is another example of an unsung awsome feature of Netflix: My same queue, the same red envelopes, same fast/effective service in a completely different town.

I wonder if people who commute a lot (working extended weekends or weeks in another city,) point their Netflix queues to their short-term hotel/motel housing? I don’t see why it wouldn’t work, and I’m certainly impressed with how easy it was to take it with me.

(obDisclaimer: I am not a lawyer, or a librarian (yet.) I am just a know-it-all student and information scientist with an opinion. This is a rant-in-time post, of an opinion that may change over time or be supplanted by something even dumber in the future. I welcome any discussions that move that along.)

There was a story floating around the blogspace this month about a student at Umass / Dartmouth University who ordered a special version of “The Little Red Book,” a communist text, via a university inter-library loan (ILL in the lingo.) Allegedly, (anytime I use/hear that word, I think of the movie “Primal Fear”) the student was approached by federal officers who questioned him at his home about the loan. This was proof to the academic and librarian circles that library requests are being monitored by the PATRIOT act, and everyone’s been buzzing about it. (I’ll post-edit this later with backstory links. If you know of any good ones, please let me know.)

Turns out, this was all a hoax. The student made up the claims about the federal interrogations. This was not proof of law enforcement agencies (LEAs) monitoring ILLs. The student didn’t seem to have a good justification for why he made up the elaborate story, but he did note it made him more popular. It’s also worth noting that if he wouldn’t have kept making the story grander and grander each time he told it, his ruse (cunning attempt to trick me) would never have been discovered.

That doesn’t mean PATRIOT sponsored government monitoring doesn’t happen, but it shows two important things: The interested folks (information scientists, some librarians, some well connected bloggers; some are both,) go crazy when they get tangible information about the information monitoring/smothering effects of the PATRIOT act, even if it’s not true. And, because of the stealthy nature of the PATRIOT act it’s completely possible for people to get wrong and bad information and run with it. National Security Letters (NSLs, the enforcement instruments of the PATRIOT act,) are worded to gag the information providers (librarians or ISPs or the like,) who receive them from informing the being-monitored persons of the request. The information providers are prohibited from talking about the NSL at all, in any form.

This kind of cloak-and-dagger enforcement works against the open trial, habeas corpus, full disclosure rights and protections of the rest of our legal system. It’s the reason the public has no trust or reliance in the PATRIOT act – we all agree we’d like to stop terrorism, but there’s no proof monitoring student’s library usage, especially without any notice or justifiable evidence or court/judge/jury/DA approval. We further our society by publicizing our legal system, which allows us to examine current cases and precedence and get a better feeling for the just-ness of our society. This eventually leads to social reform, but it has to happen in an open, questionable environment. PATRIOT blocks this, in the name of stopping terrorism.

I hope that PATRIOT has been effective, and that the post-9/11 is safer because of it, but I’m also glad that the bill has serious bipartisan opposition in Congress, and it was not blindly renewed. Smarter people than me will continue to review the law (thanks, in part, to Michael Moore film – whether you agree with it or not,) and hopefully rewrite it so that the world can be kept safe and free without suffering freedom or personal liberty.

Next semester, I’m taking a class focusing on libraries and society, and things like personal liberties and law enforcement in information societies will certainly be discussed. I’m looking forward to that.

I watched Hard Eight last night. It’s a Paul Thomas Anderson movie (Boogie Nights, Magnolia, *cough, choke, gasp* Punch-Drunk Love) and I knew going in it was going to be weird. But, it involved a master and an apprentice gambler and ripping off casinos, and the name and one of the subthemes in the movie involves making a $2000 craps bet on hard eight (rolling four and four.) I might have shied away because of my aversion to Anderson’s other films, but this one had a star cast and a gambling plot, so I threw it in the queue.

Overall, I was impressed. There’s a haunting, pulsing theme that runs through this movie (similar to Boogie Nights and Magnolia,) with some stellar performances. We see raw, natural characters portrayed by John Reilly and Sammy L. (the purple one, muthafucker!) Jackson, and Gwyneth. (Ah, Gwyneth.) The take-away performance from this movie came from Philip Baker Hall; he’s up there on my short list of extremely enjoyable, talented actors. He really made the movie. (Similar to how Cruise was a shining light in Magnolia.)

The plot was simple, and never fully disclosed. It read like a short-story or play, and I dug it. Not for movie of the year or even the Academy, but for a simple noir story excellently spun.

I’ve been playing a lot of 3d logic recently. It’s a neat little 3d puzzle game. Tonight, I won. I beat all the levels (I won’t give away how many levels there are.)

How well can you do?