What happens when a geneticist tries to act like he understands computers? He gets the Boing Boing. This might be the funniest thing I've ever seen in academia -- a video lecture from a U.C. Berkeley biology class lecture. Fast forward to about 48:50, and watch the professor, Jasper Rine, melt down over his laptop having been stolen. Let me paraphrase:
"I know you all are smart enough to get into Berkeley, but someone took my laptop and I didn't back up my shit, so I am going to try to bluff you into thinking that we have photos, eyewitnesses and transponder data that will reveal the thief's identity. The thief will then be hunted by the Microsoft, the NIH (whatever that is), FBI, the SEC, Federal Marshals and God only knows who else, and he will be sent into prison forever, where his anus will be stretched beyond belief by a bunch of well-endowed criminals. The only way to save yourself is to turn the thing in before I leave for my next business trip, which, coincidentally, is when I desperately need the data that was on my stolen laptop."
After watching the video, check out this pretty funny cartoon spoofing it.
As we watched, we had a few reactions:
Bullshit. 15 minutes? Microsoft never moves that fast. Bullshit. Bullshit. Yeah, right. He must think these kids are stupid. Ooooo. Serious petty theft time. Ironically? Oh, the irony! Tasteful? Did he say tasteful? What is a "partial image?" Oh, shut up already. If the evidence is so strong, just bust the guy.
Update: Berkeley trimmed the meltdown off the official realtime video. You can, however, listen to the professor on an mp3 available here. No definitive word on whether he will send the RIAA out to your house if you listen. If you know how to use torrents, you can download the video here. A mp4 quicktime link here might work, too.
Updated Update: Here's the complete and desperate transcript:
"Thanks Gary. Uh, I have a message for one person in this audience. I'm sorry the rest of you have to sit through this. Uh, as you know, my computer was stolen in my last lecture. Um, the thief, uh, clearly wanted to betray everyone's trust, and was after the exam.
The thief was smart not to plug the computer into the campus network. But the thief was not smart enough to do three things: he was not smart enough to immediately remove Windows. I installed the same version of Windows on another computer. Within fifteen minutes, the people in Redmond, Washington were very interested to know why it was that the same version of Windows was being, uh, signaled to them from two different computers.
The thief also did not inactivate either the wireless card or the transponder that's in that computer. Within about an hour, there was a signal from various places on campus. That's allowed us to track exactly where that computer went, ev, every time it was turned on.
I'm not particularly concerned about the computer. But, the thief, who thought he was only stealing an exam, is presently, uh, we think, probably still in possession of three different kinds of data, any one of which can send this man, this young boy, actually, to federal prison -- not a good place for a young boy to be.
You are in possession of data from a hundred million dollar trial, sponsored by the NIH, for which I'm a consultant. This involves some of the largest companies on the planet. The NIH investigates these things through the FBI. They have been identified; they've been notified about this problem.
You are in possession of trade secrets from a Fortune 1000 biotech company -- the largest one in the country -- which I consult for. Uh, the Federal Trade Communication is very interested in this. Federal marshals are the people who handle that.
You are in possession of proprietary data from a pre-public company planning an IPO. The Securities and Exchange Commission is very interested in this and I don't even know what branch of law enforcement they use.
Your academic career is about to come to an end. You are facing very serious charges, with the probability of very serious time. At this point, there's very little that anybody can do for you. The one thing that you can do for yourself is to somehow prove that the integrity of the data which you possess has not been corrupted, or copied. Ironically, I am the only person on the planet that can come to your aid, because I am the only person that can tell whether the data that was on that computer are still on that computer. You will have to find a way of hoping that if you've copied anything you can prove that you have only one copy of whatever was made.
I am tied up all this afternoon; I am out of town all of next week. You have until 11:55 to return the computer, and whatever copies you've made, to my office, because I'm the only hope you've got of staying out of deeper trouble than you or any student that I've ever known has, ed, ever been in.
I apologize to the rest of you to have to bring up this tasteful matter, but I will point out, though we have a partial image of this person, we have two eyewitnesses, with the transponder data, we're going to get this person. Thank you."
Would you hire this man as a consultant on your pre-IPO assignment or your hundred million dollar lawsuit? I wouldn't. He's not even smart enough to hang onto his laptop.
Further Thoughts: I am considering sending an email to him at [email protected] to confess to him that: "I am the thief. I'm sorry that I caused you to get into trouble for violating your Windows license by installing the same version twice. I hope you don't get fined the full $7,500. I threw the laptop away, just to be safe, once I had made about 630 copies (okay, honestly, it was 631) of the pre-IPO data (thanks for the stock tip, by the way), the trade secrets (which actually weren't that interesting) and the lawsuit data (which I am told I could sell to the opposing party for one million dollars). Good luck finding the homeless guy who probably, we think, has the transponder and the laptop by now. Oh, and I'm considering telling the police about the fourth kind of data on your machine that could send a boy like me to prison -- that certain type of poorly-encrypted video and still images I found on it. And you know exactly what I'm talking about, don't you? So let's just both shut the hell up before it gets on both of our permanent records."
Update to the Updated Update: ABC was running a story on this, but they pulled it. Why? I don't know. But the funniest thing I've seen since the actual video is this quote by Rines himself. "Facts just aren't that important," says Jasper Rine, professor of genetics in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology. Somehow, I can picture him saying that.
Did the absent-brained professor respond to the email?
Posted by: mac daddy | April 26, 2005 at 22:52
Not even a good bluff for an educator who obviously knows little about windows.
Posted by: John | April 24, 2005 at 17:03
I'll send that email.
Posted by: jimmyraq | April 24, 2005 at 15:13