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Star Wars Prequels Media Movies

Star Wars Hack @ MIT 90

Posted by justin++ from the may-da-force-be-widdya dept.
jmtpi writes "Hackers at MIT turned the top of the Great Dome in the center of campus into R2D2 yesterday. See story in Yahoo News. " Anyone have more pics? If so, label accordingly and make a submission - I'll be sure to link them. Update: 05/18 07:06 by J : An article at Wired.Update: 05/18 07:42 by J : Shot 1, Shot 2, and Shot 3. Thanks to Aidan Low. More pics from tcs.
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Star Wars Hack @ MIT More

Star Wars Hack @ MIT

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  • Re:Crackers *not* hackers! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    > No, Pranksters, not hackers.
    > Hackers are people who break into computer systems.
    > Crackers are people who remove copy protections, nags, and stuff.
    > That is my definition for those words, and ALWAYS WILL. Thank you.

    And guess what? You're wrong. Thank you for playing. Here is your consolation prize, a lovely clue by four.

    MIT is where the word "hack" evolved. Want some background? Read up on the Tech Model Railroad Club (TMRC). You can find some good material on it in Hackers by Stephen Levy.

    -Todd

  • No. Hackers, not crackers (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Evolution of hackers:
    • Pulling stunts like this (cool and harmless) at MIT.
    • Included pulling stunts on computers.
    • ARPANet/Internet comes about. MIT dominates new medium, term adopted into computer culture as well, to mean good tricks.
    • Perverted by Media to mean breaking into computers

  • Re:Bah! (Score:1)

    by Erich ( 151 )
    This thanksgiving.

    Of course, changing anything on the Tech Tower requires skill, talent, planning, and most importantly, smarts, something which isn't found at UGA...

    :-P Let the flamewar-rivalry begin.

  • Re:Bah! (Score:1)

    by Erich ( 151 )
    The T is always returned to the school; usually given as a gift to a retiring prof or something.

    And it's so much more of a challenge than putting stuff up on a building... I mean, we put a hula hoop on top of the Shaft [gatech.edu] soon after it was put up... but it's too easy.

    More fun: doing research on creating a detergent capable of passing through the shaft's fountain's filtration system!

  • Heh (Score:1)

    by drwiii ( 434 )
    Silly MIT.. You should browse through their hacks gallery some day. Lots of fun stuff in there.

    PS - Disco sucks [min.net]

  • Posted by Rivendell:

    Now at most universities, that may be a relevant response. But what you fail to realize is that a Hack at MIT is not vandelism, nor is it dangerous. Why? Because it is carefully engineered. After all, what is MIT famous for, if not it's engineering skill? The hacking community at MIT is quite sizable, and they have established many guidelines on how to execute a safe and respectable hack. Also, a hack such as this was not the result of a last minute decision to go do something fun. It most likely involved weeks of preparation to get it JUST right. Think about it. If that hack weren't engineered to perfection, how could they have possibly scaled the dome, one of the most visible locations on campus, deployed a hack over the whole thing, and escaped, without being sighted by the campus police?
  • Posted by mizzer:

    I rember my tour guide talking about this when i visted. IIRC he said that the engineering students pride themselves on being better than the pros because of this incident. But i would like to see those giant angular slabs of rock that you can climb on turned to a new angle. That would be impressive :)

  • MIT Hacks page (Score:5)

    by Smack ( 977 ) on Tuesday May 18, 1999 @10:36AM (#1887951) Homepage
    There is a whole page at MIT about their hacks -- hacks.mit.edu [mit.edu]. Very nifty. Other "modifications" to the dome have been a police cruiser at the top and the whole thing done up as a jack-o-lantern.
  • As I understand it, the professionals damaged the statue when they reset it. (From a soon-to-be Rice freshman, so I better know this stuff... :)
  • I think it's hilarious that you trust the text of an anonymous post more than a JPG. Which one seems easier to falsify to you?

  • Sure is classy. And shows that the perpretators were responsible enough to care about others' safety when they did it. The Jargon File ( http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon/ [tuxedo.org]) describes some other similar hacks performed previously by MIT alumni, and show the same characteristic touch as this recent one.

    But what I like most is the fact that the police officers were cool enough to leave the decoration 'til Thursday.

  • The orange tour goes up there every year and
    has been for a long time...So far things have
    been safe so I wouldn't get so worked up about it.

    Besides there is a lot of space on that roof.

    Wisp

  • Troll (Score:2)

    by deanc ( 2214 )
    Ha ha. Very funny.
    The test of a true troll on a slashdot forum is the "Anonymous Coward" tagline. No one who _actually_ believed something as silly as what you wrote would have hid behind an AC identity.

    Please find some other way to amuse yourself.

    -Dean
  • ..my favorite is still one that happened at Rice about 10 years ago. Of course, at Rice they are called "Jacks", and aren't as smiled on by the administration.

    At Rice, there is a rather large statue of William March Rice in the middle of the academic quad. Some engineering students were miffed at the administration and wanted to raise a stir, so they decided to remodel the main quad a bit.

    They snuck into the quad one night with a pair of large wooden A-frames, and some ropes and pulleys. With some ingenuity, they then managed to lift up the statue, pivot it 180 degress, and then place it back down on its support pins backwards. The story goes that the frames splintered *just* as they lowered it back down, but the statue was unharmed.

    The next day, all the kids went out to classes to found their founder backwards. :) The administration had to hire a construction firm to bring in a crane and set it back. Well, I suppose they could have just asked the kids to do it again, but they didn't want to do that...

    Man, hacks are cool.
    --Lenny
  • The construction firm botched the job and bent a support pin when trying to place the statue back. Fixing *that* cost a fair amount. One of the coolest parts of the jack was that the students, working in secret with nothing but some wood and ropes, got it right whereas the guys with the crane messed it up. I believe that sufficient funds were generated from T-shirt sales commemorating the event to pay for the clean-up, which is cool.

    This year was the 10th anniversary of the prank and, at homecoming, the ever-wacky Rice band (the MOB) did a half-time show about the event. They made a mock-up of the statue with one of the original pranksters posing as William Rice, and turned him.

    When you get to Rice, check out the MOB -- they are a witty bunch.

    --Lenny

  • This happened at Lancaster Uni in the UK when my friend was there: a group of engineers took a mini apart, took all the bits up in the lift to the top of an accomodation block, and rebuilt it up there - including the engine. A complete drivable car on top of a (something like) 12 story block.

    It stayed there for a couple of years until the university rented a crane to get it down (ignoring the more fun option of a brick on the accellerator and a clear area below).
  • Did something change?
    Cause thats the same link as in the story.

  • the coolest part (Score:3)

    by luge ( 4808 ) <slashdot&tieguy,org> on Tuesday May 18, 1999 @10:49AM (#1887961) Homepage
    ... is that the official MIT web page [mit.edu] has a link to this on their front page. I don't know about other schools, but Duke has a pole shoved so far up it's a** that if we pulled anything like that, not only would we be arrested, the school would do everything in their power to suppress the news. No way it would stay up for a day- much less make it to the school's front page. Argh... if only I could tolerate cold :)
    ~luge
  • Kudos to the "Rebel Scum", and may they succeed in their deperate struggle for freedom from the "Imperial Drones". :)

    All my co-workers are looking at me funny. I guess I shouldn't laugh out loud like that while I'm supposed to be working. I really should go back to slaving away now...
  • The MIT Museum has published 2 oversized, coffee-table style books on hacks at MIT. They are:

    _The Journal of the Institute for Hacks Tomfoolery & Pranks at MIT_, Brian M. Leibowitz, 1990, published by the MIT Museum, ISBN 0-917027-03-5

    _"Is This the Way to Baker House?"_, edited by Ira Haverson and Tiffany Fulton-Pearson, 1996, published by the MIT Museum, ISBN 0-917027-04-3

    Both are B&W illustrated, the first is a history and the second is a collection of essays.

    They aren't availible from amazon.com or bn.com, but the MIT Museum shop online has them for $20.95 each here. [mit.edu] Ordering Instructions are here. [mit.edu]

  • Is bill as big a fan ?
  • They always do that. That's the point of a good hack. Although, I think the donuts may have been intended as kidding, rather than a treat.
  • It wasn't a whole car, it was the "shell" of one. Also, it was the R2D2 dome.
  • some of my favorite hacks of the Great Dome are the telephone booth and the greeting for commencement speaker Chancellor Helmut Kohl.
    They might not have left donuts for the PhysPlant worker who had to take down the phone booth, but at least they had the courtesy to call him on the phone when he got to the top of the dome.
    Commencement is held in the Great Court just below all those flat roofs and the Great Dome, so the security for a former Head of State was pretty insane. I read about that just as Kohl got up to speak, a radio-controlled banner unfurled from the Dome welcoming Kohl and reminding him that at MIT nothing is impossible.
    - just another follower of Jack Florey.
  • Maybe you don't realize the extent of
    the tradition at MIT, in the spirit of
    which this hack is performed...
  • You whipper-snippers wouldn't remember when same dome was turned into an enormous breast, nor when a 'phone booth was discovered atop it - and found to be entirely functional, light and all, when the maintenance people got up there to remove it.

    And then there were the sporting events...
  • I moved to the Boston area about two years ago. One day a coworker and I headed over to the MIT area for lunch. He pointed out a tall building on the campus with a dome on top (not the R2-D2 dome) and told me that one day, students managed to put a car up there, they did it piece-by-piece.

    Is this true?
  • I commute past there and saw the article. The dome was cleared off by the 5pm commute last night even through the article claimed they'd leave it up until thursday
  • Sigh...tear in eye...reminds me of the hack - dare I call it that in light of such a grand effort? perhaps minihack, or microhack - me and a friend did at university in Bangor, North Wales, when we decorated the Main Lecture Theatre with a printout from banner "Didn't we have a luverly time the day we went to Bangor". It just fit as well, to within an inch or so, and stayed up a lot longer than we'd expected; it survived past the end of the academic year but had gone by the start of the next. I suspect it came down shortly after someone (not us) lp'd banner "bang her" and stuck it on top of "Bangor" ;-)

    Did anyone else out there in slashdotland go to Bangor between 1986 and 1989?
  • I bet you were the guy who wasn't laughing and cheering when the football game was interrupted.

    Were you holding a beer and hotdog saying "Those MIT jerks interrupted a game I paid GOOD MONEY to see"

    You worry about getting killed for a hack. Well, a great many people die laying on their couches. The sum of the probabilities of something bad out there getting you in the end is exactly 1.
  • I am quite aware of MIT's hacking tradition, and the use of the term hacker over that long history.

    I am referring to the debate between crackers and hackers, and how hackers want the word to ONLY mean implementing a cool hack on a COMPUTER.

    I am calling for the word hacker to be large enough to encompass the ingenious hacks, such as the R2D2 dome, that are not necessarily implemented in binary digits.

  • Meaning of Hacker (Score:3)

    by PD ( 9577 ) <slashdotlinux@pdrap.org> on Tuesday May 18, 1999 @10:22AM (#1887975) Homepage Journal
    The meaning of hacker has become diluted in recent times, but we must all remember and pay homage to those folks who may or may not program computers, but still implement the most ingenious hacks.

  • Ever heard of a hack-saw?

    (just teasing a bit)

    --bricktoad
  • Sure, Douggie...you and your disco thing. *grin*

    Jammer
    --
  • For those too lazy to cut and paste, here you go [yahoo.com].

  • R2-D2 press release (Score:3)

    by Eric_Scheirer ( 14197 ) on Tuesday May 18, 1999 @11:12AM (#1887979) Homepage
    MIT issued an official press release praising the hack. You can read it here. [mit.edu]
  • Does anyone else find it strange that Wired News felt the need to explain to its readers exactly what R2-D2 is?
  • There is an excellent book on college pranks by Neil Steinberg, entitled If At All Possible, Involve a Cow. A few pages are dedicated to the various decorations which have graced this dome at MIT over the years; my personal favorite is the phone booth which began ringing when campus security approached. The book has a whole chapter dedicated to MIT/Caltech type "Tech Pranks," and another covering Caltech's Ditch Day. Good reading.
  • MIT was the first place at which the term "hacking" was used to describe computer tinkering. By then, it had already been long used to describe elaborate, carefully-engineered pranking. If someone from MIT calls it a hack, it's a hack.

  • Classy prank (Score:3)

    by bobdehnhardt ( 18286 ) on Tuesday May 18, 1999 @10:21AM (#1887983)
    I like the fact that they left behind donuts and removal instructions. The kids had some class, didn't do any damage, didn't want damage to be done during the cleanup, and left a little treat for the ones who would have to do the cleanup. That's Class.

  • hehe.. I like practical jokes that require thought :)
  • Check out the additional link on the bottom of the original post (Wired). It states, "what appeared to be a police cruiser." Appearantly, its true.
  • So? I _could_ have been run over while riding to work this morning? Should all the motorists have been arrested on the chance that they _may_ have run me over?
  • I saw it from inside the Prudential, and it was a nice view. It's been awhile since any really visible hacks have been brought to us Bostonians from our friends across the river.
  • I guess all the old hacks have just built up a tolerance. I think it's the ongoing tradition of (mostly) good taste in these matters displayed by the hack-ers.
  • In MIT terms, stealing something is not a hack. That would just piss of the school. A hack has to be non-destructive and in good taste
  • The use of the word "hack" at MIT to describe this sort of thing has been around for over fifty years. hardly recent.
  • Rice.... *bah humbug*. They were the only school I applied to that rejected me :-( Ahhh.... who wants to live in Texas, anyway?

    "Software is like sex- the best is for free"
  • Have you ever considered acquiring a sense of humour? This is fairly funny and I fail to see why anyone should be arrested for putting him or herself in danger without risks for innocent bystanders.

    --- This is a genuine, handcrafted sig.
  • you need to go look at the hacks page. [mit.edu] The hack in question is here [mit.edu]
  • Yeah, but at least the male:female ratio is approximately .5 here.
  • Unfortuantely the campus police didn't have anything to do with it. This falls under facilities and maintnance and THEY DIDN'T KEEP THEIR WORD. I walked by the great dome today and the hack had been taken down! It's only Wednesday for crying out loud!

    sluke@mit.edu
  • Yeah, but making all the lights in "TECH" glow red during a home football game vs. UGA would qualify... hmmm, when does GT play UGA at home? =)

    Grandpa
  • so true, classy prankers seem very rare theses days. too bad there aren't more pic's of it.
    but i really do like the treats that a nice touch. shows how much time they spent on planing this.

    nmarshall
    #include "standard_disclaimer.h"
    R.U. SIRIUS: THE ONLY POSSIBLE RESPONSE
  • Picture at

    http://dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/p/ap/199905 17/us/star_wars_mit_2j8.html
  • Did something change?

    Yes. When originally posted, the article said something like "I don't have pictures yet. If you do, submit them."
  • If you're interested in some of MIT's other hacks, go here. [mit.edu]
  • Chatting with some of my friends there led me to believe something big was planned for today.

    Now I know.
    I expected something about SW, but not that

    Another Hack in the great tradition.

    RB
  • All schools have their little longstanding traditions. MIT has one of something called "Hacks". They are practical jokes that:

    A. Are in good taste.
    B. Non Destructive.

    This is merely an example of one. This is a tradition. And a fun one at that.

    RB
  • http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/nr/1999/r2d2.html

  • Yes, very classy.

    I wish I was there to see it in person.

    Would that all student pranks were this clever, and this well-received. ;)

    [I need to send this one to my dad -- he used to do that kind of thing in college ...]
  • We at Caltech can certainly appreciate a good hack, even from our rival university.

    Interesting enough, coincidentally (?), Ditch Day here at Caltech was yesterday as well. While there were many interesting things found all over campus (and plenty of students dressed up like Jedis), nothing compared to this nice hack at MIT.

    Best,
    Joe Kiniry (Caltech PhD CS '99)
  • Pretty cool, although I wonder where they find the time, having to deal with the workload at America's 2nd best technical school... :)

    foley
    Caltech '96
  • This is the kind of thing that makes me dream of going to mit.

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