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IJAM: MIT's taking Caltech's Fleming Cannon
Yes, I know this is sorta old news, as it happened a few years ago. But I just thought of it recently and thought it would be fun to include.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a famous tech college/university/post-secondary institution in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. The California Institute of Technology (Caltech) is a famous tech college/university/post-secondary institution in Pasadena, California, USA.
So there exists a tradition at MIT called "hacking". Well, actually the term refers to two different activities, neither of which are related to computer hacking nor cutting things into little pieces with machetes. There's "going hacking", which refers to exploring rooftops, tunnels, crawl spaces, shafts, and other usually-unseen spaces in buildings. Then there's "pulling a hack", wherein a "hack" is some sort of elaborate prank that requires some substantial amount of effort and ingenuity to enact, and generally follows a set of unspoken ethical guidelines. Famous examples include putting a campus police car on top of the Great Dome (one of the notable architectural features of the campus), putting a working telephone booth on said dome, putting a firetruck on said dome on one 9/11, flying a banner across an extremely wide athletic field between two tall dorm buildings, and such. More examples can be found here: http://hacks.mit.edu/ . Apparently, Caltech has a similar tradition of "pranks", but I am not well-versed in it, as I didn't go there.
So one year, some Caltech students decided that making a new rivalry with MIT would be a fun idea. They came to the MIT campus during its Campus Preview weekend (an annual late-spring event), and proceeded to do such things:
* replace some stacks of the student-published newspaper, The Tech, with a fake version of it. It was the right size and color (monochrome black on newspaper stock), though the font was a bit off. Of course, it contained various articles making fun of MIT and its activities.
* distribute t-shirts that said "MIT" on the front and "...because everyone can't go to Caltech!" on the back. This was a parody of an existing (and long-known) MIT shirt that said "Harvard" on the front and "...because everyone can't go to MIT!" on the back, as the MIT-Harvard rivalry has existed for years anyway, what with the two being probably the most famous Cambridge-based institutions of higher education.
* Place inflatable palm trees across the front of the top of the main entrance to the MIT campus. This is a location that has frequently been accessed by hackers; while I will not describe how to get there, needless to say that it is not particularly secret knowledge. However, it was still an interesting spectacle.
* and probably a few more things I'm forgetting. And also a posing a challenge to MIT that it should respond in kind.
Approximately a year passed. Then one day, an iconic full-size cannon, which usually stands outside Fleming House (a dorm at Caltech), was noticed to be missing. It was apparently transported out by someone from a moving company...except it was no ordinary moving company. Caltech students at first suspected fellow California tech school Harvey Mudd, which had stolen the cannon two decades (minus one day...) ago as a prank.
A few days later, it was found on display, across the country, prominently on display between the a towering building and a grass-filled green, on the MIT campus. It was even fitted with an MIT school ring, custom-sized, around its barrel. (A bunch of bikini-clad girls from the nearby dorm even posed with the cannon for photographs; these were later made into a calendar for that dorm's fundraising if I recall correctly.)
The moving company was known as Howe & Ser.
* Taking the & to be "and" in English, we have "Howe and ser", or "how we answer".
* Taking the & to be "et" in Latin, we have "Howe et ser", or..."Howitzer".
A webpage for the "company" can be found here: http://www.mitcannon.com/ . (I hear that the funds for this move were raised mostly by alumni.)
And just to top it all off, this cannon was on display...during Campus Preview Weekend.
Caltech and Fleming House then quickly arranged for a return trip. A couple days later, about fifty Fleming residents were found, with a moving truck, reclaiming the cannon. I hear it got back just in time for Caltech's CPW.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a famous tech college/university/post-secondary institution in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. The California Institute of Technology (Caltech) is a famous tech college/university/post-secondary institution in Pasadena, California, USA.
So there exists a tradition at MIT called "hacking". Well, actually the term refers to two different activities, neither of which are related to computer hacking nor cutting things into little pieces with machetes. There's "going hacking", which refers to exploring rooftops, tunnels, crawl spaces, shafts, and other usually-unseen spaces in buildings. Then there's "pulling a hack", wherein a "hack" is some sort of elaborate prank that requires some substantial amount of effort and ingenuity to enact, and generally follows a set of unspoken ethical guidelines. Famous examples include putting a campus police car on top of the Great Dome (one of the notable architectural features of the campus), putting a working telephone booth on said dome, putting a firetruck on said dome on one 9/11, flying a banner across an extremely wide athletic field between two tall dorm buildings, and such. More examples can be found here: http://hacks.mit.edu/ . Apparently, Caltech has a similar tradition of "pranks", but I am not well-versed in it, as I didn't go there.
So one year, some Caltech students decided that making a new rivalry with MIT would be a fun idea. They came to the MIT campus during its Campus Preview weekend (an annual late-spring event), and proceeded to do such things:
* replace some stacks of the student-published newspaper, The Tech, with a fake version of it. It was the right size and color (monochrome black on newspaper stock), though the font was a bit off. Of course, it contained various articles making fun of MIT and its activities.
* distribute t-shirts that said "MIT" on the front and "...because everyone can't go to Caltech!" on the back. This was a parody of an existing (and long-known) MIT shirt that said "Harvard" on the front and "...because everyone can't go to MIT!" on the back, as the MIT-Harvard rivalry has existed for years anyway, what with the two being probably the most famous Cambridge-based institutions of higher education.
* Place inflatable palm trees across the front of the top of the main entrance to the MIT campus. This is a location that has frequently been accessed by hackers; while I will not describe how to get there, needless to say that it is not particularly secret knowledge. However, it was still an interesting spectacle.
* and probably a few more things I'm forgetting. And also a posing a challenge to MIT that it should respond in kind.
Approximately a year passed. Then one day, an iconic full-size cannon, which usually stands outside Fleming House (a dorm at Caltech), was noticed to be missing. It was apparently transported out by someone from a moving company...except it was no ordinary moving company. Caltech students at first suspected fellow California tech school Harvey Mudd, which had stolen the cannon two decades (minus one day...) ago as a prank.
A few days later, it was found on display, across the country, prominently on display between the a towering building and a grass-filled green, on the MIT campus. It was even fitted with an MIT school ring, custom-sized, around its barrel. (A bunch of bikini-clad girls from the nearby dorm even posed with the cannon for photographs; these were later made into a calendar for that dorm's fundraising if I recall correctly.)
The moving company was known as Howe & Ser.
* Taking the & to be "and" in English, we have "Howe and ser", or "how we answer".
* Taking the & to be "et" in Latin, we have "Howe et ser", or..."Howitzer".
A webpage for the "company" can be found here: http://www.mitcannon.com/ . (I hear that the funds for this move were raised mostly by alumni.)
And just to top it all off, this cannon was on display...during Campus Preview Weekend.
Caltech and Fleming House then quickly arranged for a return trip. A couple days later, about fifty Fleming residents were found, with a moving truck, reclaiming the cannon. I hear it got back just in time for Caltech's CPW.
Comments
^
> Evil College (also known as MIT)
Funny how MIT's nickname among students is "Hell".
An MIT student went to Harvard's football field every day during the summer. He would blow a whistle, then spread birdseed across the field.
Then, Harvard and Yale had their annual football game, at Harvard Stadium. The referee blew a whistle...