Former hacker warns UA audience of Internet risks
Tuscaloosa News – Oct. 13
Gregory Evans…the self-described “No. 1 Hacker in the World”…spoke at the University of Alabama on Tuesday night…
Crimson White – Oct. 13
Riverside hosts Bollywood Film Festival
Crimson White – Oct. 13
This month marks the third Riverside Bollywood Film Festival, hosted by the Honors College and Housing and Residential Communities at the Riverside Community Center. Once a week, throughout the month of October, a different Bollywood film classic will be showcased…Bollywood is cinema from India in the Hindi language, said Amy Holmes-Tagchungdarpa, assistant professor of Tibetan, Chinese and Himalayan history and faculty-in-residence for the Honors College Riverside Community. “Bollywood is a distinct form of cinematic experience,” Holmes-Tagchungdarpa said. “It incorporates music and visual language that is extremely different from Hollywood but is linked with Indian poetic traditions, as well as being reminiscent of 1930s musical cinema in Western countries.”…Holmes-Tagchungdarpa said the month-long film festival exposes students to a wide variety of Bollywood films, as well as get out and socialize with other people who share similar interests. “People make friends at these events, and, since many Riverside residents are freshmen, this is important to make them feel welcome at UA,” she said. Jeremy Henderson, Riverside Community director, said the Bollywood film festival exposes students to other cultures. “It can broaden their horizons and get them to learn about different groups of people who may have a different way of doing things,” he said…
McElroy on quest for Rhodes
Crimson White – Oct. 13
…McElroy’s focus has aided him in being the one student chosen by the University of Alabama to represent the school in the most prestigious, oldest international scholarship, the Rhodes Scholar program. Each year, only 32 U.S. citizens are among the Rhodes Scholars worldwide chosen to take up degree courses at Oxford University. “It’s been quite an experience,” McElroy said. “I actually submitted my application [last] Sunday night. It’s finished, it’s formally done and I’m just very, very pleased to have that in the rearview mirror…
IT Service Desk brings fresh outlook to customer service
Crimson White – Oct. 13
The HelpDesk has gotten a new name and a fresh outlook on customer service, according to a UA press release. Renamed the IT Service Desk over the summer, the organization has revamped its key customer-facing units by hiring more student and professional staff while adding several new services and resources. The service desk, which receives 200 to 225 calls and e-mails daily, now employs four full-time staff members and 10 to 12 student employees. “Changing the actual name of the IT Service Desk has already helped dramatically,” said Christina Frantom, director of public relations at the Office of Information Technology. “When it was called the Help Desk, we would get calls from all kinds of people and issues on campus. The word ‘help’ wasn’t specific enough to the service that we provide here at OIT. So because of all the extra calls and e-mails, it really reduced the amount of time that we had to help students, faculty and staff with IT-related issues.”…“One of the most exciting new services we’re offering students this fall is 24-hour call assistance,” Frantom said. “So if there’s an incident or a system that our office supports that goes down or some kind of reduction of service, we can answer the call physically, then get on the situation right away.”…
Gas prices rising in Birmingham area
Birmingham News – Oct. 13
… But consumers can’t necessarily blame oil companies for the rise. The real cause is the falling value of the U.S. dollar, said Peter Clark, a chemical engineering professor at the University of Alabama who follows petroleum markets. Crude oil is traded in dollars, so as the currency’s value falls, the price of oil rises in relation. As soon as the dollar’s value goes up, Clark said, oil will come down. He said oil companies can’t control the price at the pump any more than a wheat farmer can control the cost of bread at a grocery store “The price is set somewhere between the farmer and the consumer, and it’s pretty much true of oil, too,” he said. Any sort of oil shortage isn’t to blame, either, Clark said. “There isn’t any supply problem looming on the horizon,” he said.
Beat Auburn, Beat Hunger starts this week
Crimson White – Oct. 13
The kick-off for Beat Auburn Beat Hunger food drive began Monday at the Ferguson Center Plaza and will continue until Nov. 22. The Beat Auburn Beat Hunger competition, in which the two rival schools see who can donate the most food to their respective food banks, began in 1994. The University of Alabama donates to the West Alabama Food Bank and Auburn University donates to the East Alabama Food Bank. The event is sponsored by the Community Service Center at the University of Alabama…
2010 Homecoming Court announced
Crimson White – Oct. 13 (Print version only)
Pandora Austin, National Pan-Hellenic Council; Chelsea Banks, Baptist Campus Ministries; Anna Foley, Honors College Assembly; Shellie Street, Alpha Chi Omega; Bethany Travis, Kappa Alpha Theta
The queen will be announced Friday at 7 p.m., at the pep rally.
Nobel Prize nominee raises LGBT awareness
Crimson White – Oct. 13
…Mandy Carter, a 2005 Nobel Peace Prize nominee and black lesbian activist. Carter led a discussion Monday at 7 p.m. in Mary Hewell Alston Hall titled “Justice or Just Us?” She delivered her speech in honor of National Coming Out Day, an internationally observed awareness day for the LGBT communities…