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Caltech Pranks MIT's Prefrosh Weekend
Posted by
Zonk
on Mon Apr 11, 2005 01:20 AM
from the our-nations-youth-at-work dept.
from the our-nations-youth-at-work dept.
doughnuthole writes "Caltech students ventured to Massachusetts this past Wednesday to unleash a series of pranks at MIT's prefrosh weekend. They distributed shirts with MIT on the front and '...because not everyone can go to Caltech' on the back. They placed inflatable palm trees in the infamous Tomb of the Unknown Tool and around the great dome and floated Caltech balloons in building seven. A banner transformed Massachusetts Institute of Technology into That Other Institute of Technology. Saturday night a LASER spelling the letters C-A-L-T-E-C-H was directed at the top of the Green building. A full account of the pranks is located at www.caltechvsmit.com."
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MIT Hackers Appropriate Caltech Cannon 329 comments
Bob Hearn writes "Some Slashdotters might remember the story Caltech Pranks MIT's Prefrosh Weekend from a year ago. MIT Hackers have gotten even. Sometime in the middle of the night, Caltech's famous cannon appeared at the base of MIT's Green building. A plaque in front of it reads: 'CALTECH CANNON April 6, 2006 MIT hackers posing as the Howe & Ser Moving Company Appropriated this cannon on March 28, 2006. It later appeared on MIT's campus with the addition of a large brass rat made of gold-plated aluminum. In honor of its previous owners, the cannon points towards Padadena, CA.' The brass rat (MIT ring) is really a rather impressive bit of aluminum machining. Harvey Mudd College previously stole the cannon, in 1986, but later had to give it back."
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spelling? (Score:5, Funny)
Memo about admissions... (Score:5, Funny)
To: All Admissions Staff
From: Director of Admissions
In order to continue fundraising, we have to admit 40% legacies that are shit for brains. They can't read or write, but their fathers have us on an allowance, and we want the money. Plus, without legacies, there would be nobody there to say "You got me again, you silly nerd!". The other 60% will be merit admission, with 30% comming from India. Please be mindful that engish is their second language, and some of them might feel more at home taking baths in the Boston River. The other 30% are American Chinese students. Unlike the other 70%, they know american grammer and spelling.
But feel good, at least we are not Harvard. There legicies are dumber than our legacies.
Caltech to MIT: (Score:5, Funny)
MIT Email (Score:5, Funny)
>Someone apparently released a number of balloons in lobby 7 with
>CalTech written on them. There is also a much larger Mylar Balloon
>with C.I.T. My initial reaction, and the reaction of most people I
>talked to was "C.I.T, what's that?"
>
>Several suggestions were made on what to do about this since if we do
>nothing the balloons will float mockingly over lobby 7 for days:
>
>-Remove the balloons tonight (might be able to get a number of them
>with a needle on a stick from the intersticial space).
>
>-release a second large mylar balloon that says "SUCKS"
>
>-Hack Caltech.
>
>one friend I talked to commented that she was friends with the moles,
>the "legitamate" hackers at CalTech, and they claim to have no
>knowledge of this and are busy with some other project. It would be
>good if we could find out who did this. Could it have been an overzealous prefrosh?
>
>
>As I said my initial reaction was "what is C.I.T? I have drafted an
>article that I hope to send to the Tech Newspaper. Offering an
>alternate explanation.
>Comments, and suggestions are highly encouraged as this is a first draft.
>
>Amilio
>amilio@alum.mit.edu
>
>
>
>>>proposed tech article follows below>>
>
>
>C.I.T Looses BALLoonS
>
>The Center for Incompetent Technologies lost all of their display props
>on the way to the activities midway today. Representatives from the
>research group lost numerous small balloons and a larger one bearing
>the group's acronym while crossing lobby 7, "We thought slip knots
>would hold," said Ben Bitdiddle director of C.I.T.
>
>The Center for Incompetent Technologies is a newly formed nationwide
>research group interested in developing ineffective, arcane, and
>generally useless technologies. "So many companies and institutes are
>focused on doing 'good research' and developing 'useful technologies'"
>said Mr. Bitdiddle accenting his comments with air quotes, "we decided
>there was an untapped niche market for useless technologies." The
>group's motto is taken from an episode of The Simpsons: "Aim so low
>that even if you succeed, no one will care"
>
>The smaller balloons were apparently leftover from numerous C.I.T
>events at Caltech. The balloons were custom printed for the school
>where the group is apparently very popular. Many of the poorly made
>balloons have already popped and are littering the floor of lobby 7.
>"We probably should have had some new customized balloons made, but if
>we wanted to do things well, we wouldn't be CIT."
>
>The lost balloons were originally mistaken for a hack, but
>representatives for the hacking community quickly corrected the error,
>commenting "No, that was just a screw up, hacks are generally more
>interesting and creative," Jack Florey.
>
>>>>>
>
Lose/loose, the continuing controversy (Score:5, Funny)
To use both in a sentence: If you lose your dictionary again, I will loose my wrath upon you!
Or, to use some other tenses: Loosing her exquisite talent on me last night, she made it clear that she had long since lost her virginity.
Argh... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Argh... (Score:5, Funny)
MIT = a freaking huge droid [mit.edu]
I don't know about you, but the winner is clear...
Re:Argh... (Score:5, Insightful)
My perception from the INFORMED public (in part from talking to both MIT and Caltech prefrosh, and my own experience at Caltech) is that Caltech is seen as a little more hardcore in the amount of work one has to do and in its nerdiness. To quote some MIT prefrosh I talked to just a few days ago (while posing as an MIT prefrosh on the bus from the airport.. yay free ride!), responding to why she isn't going to Caltech's prefrosh weekend next week, "I didn't even apply. I want to be alive in 4 years." Another one informed me that "Caltech students have the reputation of being the epitome of nerdiness."
I'm not convinced that this repuation describes the truth, though. From my own observations, the student populations seem very similar, though MIT's larger population perhaps makes it easier for it to pass as less nerdy to those who want to see it that way. On the other hand, prefrosh interested in hacking and nerdy delights will no doubt see a paradise ignored by those who want normal social lives but top notch science or engineering education. Caltech may have the same proportion of on-the-surface-normal kids as MIT, but their absolute smaller numbers make it more difficult for them to present a unified front, as if there's a population threshold a group must pass to be easily noticed.
Students at both schools seem to think they're getting the best science/engineering educations available in the world, and they probably are. Many also regret that fact because of the pain and sleepless nights such an education can lead to.
More questions? Do some research for yourself, in both Caltech and MIT tradition: http://www.google.com/ [google.com]
In conclusion, they're all fine houses.
Re:Argh... (Score:5, Informative)
Search for the THES World Rankings (it's a pdf). Caltech has been the best training ground for young scientists for the past decade. Look at the data for yourself.
They get into better grad schools (again, data available online), have higher starting jobs, work harder, play more sports, enjoy much better weather, have a huge legacy (Feynman, Millikan, Einstein, Hale, Beckman, Richter, and more) and have much more depth in education than anyone out there. They write the important papers, and do the hottest research.
If you want to be a scientist, Caltech is the place to be.
I call hoax. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I call hoax. (Score:5, Funny)
MIT wins (Score:5, Funny)
Last laughs (Score:5, Funny)
MIT pranks (Score:5, Informative)
I'm unimpressed by Caltech if they can't pull pranks that are better than the pranks MIT pulls on itself.
Caltech /had/ some talent... (Score:5, Interesting)
I still think the 1961 Rosebowl prank [museumofhoaxes.com] is one of the very best. But yeah, these latest MIT ones were lame.
Sounds like an Onion headline... (Score:5, Funny)
3 little pigs. (Score:5, Funny)
http://www.bash.org/?482717
Prank war rules (Score:5, Interesting)
From http://www.caltechvsmit.com/overview.html [caltechvsmit.com]:
Both Caltech and MIT require that students put in a lot of hard work studying math and science. Because the stress is so intense, we students at Caltech believe that pranks are an important, if not essential, way to relax and have a little fun. We are familiar with MIT's tradition of hacks and hope that we can merge the cultures at the two schools, if only for a short time.
We propose that MIT joins us in a pranking/hacking war. As you may have already noticed, we struck first, so now it is MIT's turn. Obviously the distance between schools poses a great difficulty, but we believe that MIT students will find that this difficulty can be overcome. In fact all of the pranks need not even be on the other school's campus so long as the pranks are made public enough through the media.
The rules of the contest are simple and are essentially the same as Caltech's prank ethics and MIT's hackers' code. Pranks should be reversible. No permanent damage should be done and the pranksters must provide some sort of contact information on a note so they can be contacted if things are damaged. The note need not contain names, but it must be a reliable way to contact the pranksters.
Pranks should be creative and display some form of originality. Novel ideas, particularly novel ideas involving technology, are generally well received, but repeats are strictly discouraged. We suggest that those wanting to participate make themselves very familiar with the history of pranks and hacks at both schools in order to prevent repeating pranks.
Finally, we wish to inform MIT students that Caltech Prefrosh Weekend is next weekend. It may not be possible to organize something so quickly, but we have faith in the ingenuity of MIT students. We hope to see you all in Pasadena soon.
As a side note, denial of service attacks are lame. Anybody can do that. Wouldn't your time be better spent trying to put a '2' on the scoreboard?
Re:Who's Caltech, by the way? (Score:5, Interesting)
On the other hand, I know about MIT damn well. When I've been to the ACM world finals, those bastards defeated my team (through pure luck, I'm sure). Two other our teams fixed that stain on honour later, of course.
And Caltech... who's Caltech?
Re:Who's Caltech, by the way? (Score:5, Funny)
So has anyone done any experiments to determine whether or not this theoretical college exists?
Re:Who's Caltech, by the way? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The Last Caltech/MIT prank... (Score:5, Funny)
In their own words [harvardsucks.org], or as told by the Yale Daily 'News' [yaledailynews.com].
Don't worry... (Score:5, Funny)
I remember meeting a kid from Cal-Tech, and to this day his impression remains with me. I have never met such a mix of intellect with insanity. He was working for the summer at Northwestern University, and I spent a couple days at his rented house (which a friend of mine from high school was renting with his girlfriend, there were 6 people living in this old house). Anyways, this guy had a pet spider, but not any spider, a black widow. And one night he wanted to cook for all of us. He boiled a big pot of water, Dropped in a head of chopped lettice, and two slices of american cheese. He then served it to us with so much pride. Later that night I broke out a huge jug of Vodka and a half gallon of OJ. We were making screwdrivers that were nearly see-through. After his first glass, he started crying about how he's never been with a woman. By his second glass, he was singing in chineese. He could not finish his third glass, he fell asleep on the floor right there. So the next morning we wake up, and I look in his fishtank, and the black widow is gone. I ask him what happened, and he said he felt bad for it and let it lose the night before. I asked where, and he said "I don't remember, maybe in your room" FUCK! I left that day, and never returned.
Re:Sophomoric pranks (Score:5, Funny)
I'd much rather stay in warm CA during April than go to MA. Invite the MIT whiz kids down and haze them in the relative comfort of your own hometown. For chrissakes, what fun is it to freeze your ass off over there?
MIT has a weather machine. It's always warm and sunny on prefrosh weekend. This one was no exception.
Re:Wow, going cross country... (Score:5, Informative)
As I understand it, there's a series of one-way rivalries which goes something like so: Harvard targeted by MIT, which is targeted by Caltech, which is targeted by Harvey Mudd. Members of the targeted school are largely oblivious that they're the subject of said rivalry.
Hopefully getting this on the slashdot front page (which is widely read by folks at both Caltech and MIT) might escalate the current prank war. It should be fun to have an active prank trade-off going between both MIT and Caltech. Hopefully people have a lot of frequent flyer miles.
I have no idea how the Caltech students managed to find the free time for this, though. Maybe they're all seniors or something?