Interesting Links for 12-08-2013

[andrewducker]

• Hamlet banned by the British Library for being too violent.
  This is what web censorship does. Falsely censors things that you don't expect, while leaving access open to things you would.
  (tags: censorship web )
• There's something linguistically interesting going on here.
  (tags: comic funny language )
• Tracking devices hidden in London's recycling

Comments

[bemused_leftist]

So this guy Googles for "MIT Hamlet" and when he gets a garbage message he doesn't just Google for "Hamlet full text" or something, he takes his computer to the desk etc etc to the last syllable of recorded time. Imo the librarians deserve a medal for humoring the clueless.

(To check for a bug blocking the whole MIT site, he could have tried "MIT Peter Rabbit".)

From the article:
I Googled Hamlet MIT, because the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has put the entire works of Shakespeare up on the Internet. (It takes 70 mins to order a physical book). I clicked on the link and...

A message came up from the British Library telling me that access to site was blocked due to "violent content".
[....]
I took my computer over to the information desk, and after I had explained to them what MIT stood for (really), they called the IT department and told them about the webpage that I had been blocked from.

[....]
'But,' I said. It's one of those points where you just want somebody to understand the central point. 'The British Library has banned Hamlet for being too violent.'

And the lady behind the desk nodded and smiled.

It's one of those points where I don't know whether they're insane, or if it's me.