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Canadians Hang Bug Off Golden Gate
Strider- writes: "Early on the morning of Feb. 5th, a group of Canadian Engineering students from the University of British Columbia accomplished their annual prank: hanging a Volkswagen Beetle off of some structure, usually a bridge. However, to celebrate the 20th aniversary of this annual event, they went for the creme de la crem, la piece de resistance: They
hung the Beetle off of San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge."
I thought it would have been common sense to just make sure there was no shipping traffic below the bridge, then cut the cord...
You can't just leave a few hundred pounds of scrap metal in the bottom of the bay! That's one of the purest bodies of water on the planet -- no-one has ever indiscriminately thrown trash in there.
Slashdot is jumping the shark. I'm just driving the boat.
> - suspended below the Lions Gate Bridge
> - suspended above the Lions Gate Bridge
So, what you're telling me is that they're going to hit San Francisco again next year?
- David
True. But how exactly do they get charged in a Canadian court for something that happened in the US?
Well duh!
Stepping forward to be tossed in jail would be pretty stupid. It'd be like DeCSS and then mailing it to the MPAA with your return address on it.
No harm was done, no jail time or $10,000 fine should be needed.
It's fairly common knowledge at UBC who the engineers are who perform these pranks. Nobody actually acts on this information though because in most cases they don't cause any problems and no harm is done. They'd be insane to step forward and let some over zealous cop arrest them.
The one year that actually damaged something (nothing major, but they scraped up whatever they mounted the VW on) a cheque was delivered to the city (anonymously) for damages.
I don't remember the details exactly, but it's fairly obvious that while they're pulling a bit of a stunt they aren't actually damaging anything.
It's not really terribly hard. Just use a Really Big Rope(tm) and strip the VW of all the heavy parts. And they had practice, this was twenty years after the first time...
Until we hear further we won't know if they just tied the rope to a railing and pitched, or if they went under the bridge earlier to rig up a better tie-down. I suspect they did, if only to deny easy access to the rope and prevent a few brawny cops with a winch or block and tackle from pulling it back up again.
Anyways, their original pranks required a bit of skill. Their later pranks seem to be more quick little reminders of how odd it seemed when they did the first one, rather than a true prank in their own rights.
IMHO they should take the VW to new heights, attach it between high-rises in the downtown core, or something similarly bizarre. Park it in the street and have it self-winch itself up at 7am, or something.
I think it was funny, but nothing exceptional.
GO CANUCKS!
Back in the early 60's my father and his friends pulled this same prank on one of his high school teachers but they reassembled the car in the teacher's office. As chance would have it the high school in question is in Vancouver. Of course then they had to take it apart again and redo the whole thing or face suspension... probably didn't quite seem as funny then.
The news account I heard on television indicated that they used bungees to hold the shell of the beetle, which they estimated to be 500 lbs. Considering that the UBC guys used two cords and I've seen a 300 lb guy bungee jump on one cord (really not a pretty sight) I'd say they were within tolerances for the bungees.
FWIW, the author is wrong in stating that the Golden Gate is the creme de la creme of suspension bridges. There's one in Japan that's significantly longer. I saw the Discovery program on it and it's a pretty wicked piece of tech. The main span of the Akashi-Kaikyo bridge is 6532 feet compared to the Golden Gate's 4200 foot span. And it survived the earthquake that hit Kobe with no problems whatsoever - it connects Kobe to Awaji Island so it took a pretty massive hit from the quake.
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Slán leat agus go n'eirí an bóthar leat
It is PROUD to be Canadian, especially Western Canadian...... :)
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I like your attitude, but exactly what law did they break. Is their a San Fran statute that states that no vehicle will be suspended from bridges? My favorite charge (from the article) is the trespassing. How do you trespass on a public bridge?
I'm of two minds deciding wether it would be worthwhile, or even proper, to prosecute the cuprits (if they're ever found).
:)
Sure, its a great 'hack' in the true sense of the word, but can we truely rely on their safety assurance skills? Also, look at the traffic trouble they caused: I wonder how many people missed their flights from SFO because of the trouble.
Personally, I think they should both be congratulated, and be sentenced to community service at the same time
Micrososft responded today by hanging 63,000 bugs off of windows. Bill Gates was heard to say that those Canadians were wimps for only doing one. We will kick their collective ass.
He then proceeded to buy canada, and lay off all the students who had done this.
Wow, close to first post.. Anyhow, having been a victim of the traffic caused by the VW this morning.... I will share...
Anyhow... rumorville says that in the past years, they have managed to get a VW onto the bridge towers back home -- which is more impressive, IMHO, then tossing a car off the bridge. I mean... hanging a VW (chassis only, almost) off the side of the bridge via nylon cable sounds pretty simple... Tie car to bridge, throw car off bridge with multiple people, or off a ramp. Done.
But... getting the car to a higher ground would be far more challenging... I wonder how they managed to get the VW up onto the bridge towers in the past without getting caught...
Despite being inconvenienced, I thought it was pretty amusing. My only gripe was that they chose to do this prank on a bridge with already horrible visibility... Thankfully the VW was 100 feet off the ground, but if it ended up getting hung lower, we'd have ferries crashing into it...
No, only engineers (and others) with a sense of humor. Which they did.
sulli
RTFJ.
Part of the reason thet I imagine they're being so picky about this is that the Golden Gate Bridge has a huge draw for such things. They stopped realeasing the number of people who have killed themselved by jumping off of it years ago because they thought it was only encouraging others. Though the number is no doubt much higher than for your average bridge. (There was a special on the History Channel, sorry i don't remember more details)
It's a highly patroled area and the city/police are very concerned with anything that goes on there in general. To simply let them get away with this would no doubt be an insult to the efforts they've made and would encourage a far larger than average number of "copycat" pranks that would endanger many (being that few would be by engineers)
I really don't think that this group researched things well enough to say that they were truly concerned with "safety first". There are pranks, and then there's crimes, things you just have to suck it up and deal with the consequences for once you've done them.
The oddest thing I noticed in the article was the quote from the president of the university, "There's a little bit of a cheer that goes up when you see someone has found a way to put us on the TV and helped raise people's awareness about engineering...I think we all cheer when students do this." I don't know what James Stukel (president of the University of Illinois) would say if some of his students did something like this but I doubt he would encourage others to "cheer"...
Yawn. :-)
:-) ) is one time a small group of CalTech students hacked a grandstand placard display from a college team back east. Done back in the days before computers were common, the result was that during a game at the Rose Bowl when the team's fans held up the placards, instead of the something of the colors of the home team it really spelled out CALTECH.
The UBC prank seems totally unimaginative compared to some of the hacks pulled off by California Institute of Technology (CalTech) students.
Who could forget when someone hacked the scoreboard at the Rose Bowl so during the Rose Bowl game it showed CalTech winning over MIT? I saw this on live TV some years ago and that was a real classic.
But still, perhaps the most famous hack of all time (IMHO!
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
Hanging a manor from the GG bridge would, indeed, be an impressive feat of engineering, as well as a dramatic perversion of the classis physics model. You'd have to shrink it a bit.
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ALL YOUR KARMA ARE BELONG TO US
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Are they going to close down the border? Really, I doubt that SF is going to pay to send cops to another country to investigate a prank. Let alone pay to send an lawyer to Canada to get them extradited? The prank is funny, but the cops commenting in the story are smoking crack.
IIRC, the engineers (or the aggies) also put up "sculpture" all over the campus over a period of months.
It was ooohed and ahhhed over by the arts students. Fine art sculpture on campus!
Then the pranksters spent one fine spring morning razing the sculptures.
The artsies, and university, freaked. Most amusing.
IIRC, they also did something with signposts on campus.
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Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
You (and I) wish.
The NAFTA agreement makes it pretty clear that we're fucked. We started supplying the assholes with electricity, so we *have* to continue supplying it.
We no longer have control of who we sell to, at what price and when.
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Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
I remember that story, a bit better. I don't remember the year, but for those interested it goes something like this:
Buchanin (the new arts building at the time) received a bunch of new sculptures that Plant was suppose to put up. Plant are the guys who run the steam plants (yes we have steam tunnels at UBC) and do all the maintenance. Of course plant was taking their sweet time. So Engineering decided to play a prank.
They came up with the most hiddious statues you can think of and then put them inplace. They then started a campaign in the university newpaper, letters to the editor, articles and similar things, about how bad the art students' taste was and how they could make statues just as bad. The arts students fought back saying that the statues were master pieces.
It came to head one day when the engineers went out and started smashing the statues. It all ended when the engineers admitted that they made the statues, and the real ones were still waiting in a basement somewhere for Plant to install them.
The Engineers are UBC have done a similar thing with 'indecent' books at the main library. Planting the books in the library, complaining about all the smut and then having a book burning later on.
Software Engineer & Writer of Military Science Fiction and Fantasy Blog: petermwright.com Twitter: WrightPeterM
Check out "If At All Possible, Involve a Cow" by Joel Steinberg. It's available at Amazon or wherever, and details all sorts of college pranks, including extensive info on CalTech and MIT and even a short section on UBC.
Do you understand context? When quoting, use enough of the original text to maintain proper context.
..." and still not apply because it's PROFESSIONAL CONDUCT they're talking about. Unless these engineers took a contract to hang this car, it wasn't a work situation.
The full sentence was "Schools have no place teaching ethics or morals, asside from those directly releated to the job, and even then it's a "peer-accepted code of conduct".
That "Code of Ethics" you posted was directly work related.
Even if a school should be teaching ethics or morals outside of a work environment, #2 was directly work related. "... professional assignments..." That explicitly refers to a paid working environment, instead of pranks or back-yard projects.
You're obviously over your head here, relying on personal attacks. I said nothing about my view of how things WERE, I stated my views on how they should be.
A certain level of professional conduct is required from an engineer, but professional conduct means the way they conduct themselves professionally. If they're not working, the code of ethics is inapplicable. The code could directly say "... shall never hang cars from bridges
Then you skip everything you don't have an easy answer for to support your views....
I mentioned that they were threatened with a lawsuit instead of being asked for damages; it is unclear if anything was even damaged.
I also asked if you felt the need to submit to my arbitrary punishments for your actions, as misguided as you may consider them. And if not, why you see wild threats and accusations as being meaningful just because they're from a government official and not when they're from a private citizen?
Face it, they did something you couldn't do, you're jealous. If you had anything to base your complaints on you'd have posted something on-topic and meaningful.
It sounds like an urban legend but it's not, it's well documented. There's a long history of student pranks here in Finland, and that (among other good ones) is quite true. They keep records of these things at the university, since there is actually an annual student prank contest at the University of Technology. This year some guys exchanged the labels on some cans of beans (or whatever) at supermarkets with authentic-looking labels thay advertised the cans as containing "Seal meat" (or "norpan lihaa" in Finnish, "norppa" is a variety of Finnish seal which on the protected animals list). The store managers were reportedly quite puzzled when irate shoppers saw the cans on the shelf...
Well, then you gotta worry about the wannabes who will imitate the prank, possibly not listening to the implicit "don't try this at home kids".
Then there's the issue with San Francisco - possibly the VW beetle capitol of the US. No small number of vintage aircooled VW fans were deeply offended today at a destruction of a piece of automotive history. You can take that to the bank.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
CalTech hacked the Rose Bowl game.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Seriously, lets declare war on them and force them to feed California all their electricity!
Actually, BC Hydro is already supplying a big chunk of electric power to California. Last week, with over $400M owing, the California utilities announced they would only be paying 15 cents on the dollar. BC might not be sending much more juice south if this situation continues.
Trickster Coyote
Howl at the Moon!
Ideology is for ideots.
According to Bartleby, it's Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, though it was apparently a common saying at the time.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
If you were one of the boats waiting to cross under the bridge for 4 hours, losing money all the time, I bet you and your lawyers wouldn't be laughing so much.
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I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
So this is my Ask Slashdot... what other schools have cool geek tradition like this, aside from the obvious MIT (but have they ever accomplished anything this amazing?)
And companies?
Keep innovation and prankstership thriving!
"a powerful and unexpected ally..."
I'm sure your definition of a real engineer is the correct one...
Respect for a legal system that's threatening overblown fines and jail time for a harmless prank? Dude, even your own citizens don't respect your laws, why should anyone else?
I would agree that someone should come forward if they caused harm, like a driver stopping instead of speeding off after an accident, but I don't think this is anything like that.
Why would they pay for someone to fish it out of the bay? It wasn't them who dumped it into the water. If the officials cared about it, they could have either winched it back up or attached a longer rope to it and lowered it onto a barge. I'd agree that the engineers should pay for any work entailed in a rational cleanup, but nobody is asking that. Instead they threaten jail time.
A cheque was the term used when I heard about it, but I'd guess that it was a money order, or other pre-paid cashable.
Sure, so a bunch of people come forward after having written something like DeCSS, and they all get sued back into the stone age. For what purpose?
Everything they accomplished by releasing the source code can be done with an anonymous release, as well as staying out of a corrupt court facing insane damages for lawyers for a faceless corp.
The engineers didn't do anything that required blocking traffic. At most, one lane should have been blocked while they hauled it up. That would have been a disruption, true, but if they were asked to make reasonable restitution for it, I think they'd do it. But to expect them to come forward to be stuck in a foreign prison in a country with an appalingly back record when it comes to justice... No.
As for the Ghandi/MPAA thing, I do think it's a bad metaphor. But, not all change must come with a martyr. Releasing something like DeCSS and watching the corps scramble when its shown that their bought laws are irrelevant to the issues at hand and that they're willing to violate the rights of anyone who gets in their way to protect their ill-gotten profits... That says more to the public than someone getting arrested and tossed in jail to rot, while the MPAA-owned media calls them an evil hacker.
You may think that quiet suffering is the only force for change, but I disagree.
I've always thought that a great way to paralyze the US for a day would be to coordinate about two dozen people in major cities across the US to buy $100 junkers, drive them down the freeways during morning rush hour, and park them at strategic locations, pop the hood, toss in a smoke-bomb, and drive off in a freind's car.
The rubberneckers would keep the roads clogged for hours.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Blame Canada
For all the Volkswagon Bugs
they go around hangin' 'round like thugs
Seriously, lets declare war on them and force them to feed California all their electricity!
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It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
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Canadians actually buy into that turbonium stuff...
No one gets hurt 'cause they're ENGINEERS.
Yeah, and Windows wont crash because they're SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS!
Karma karma karma karma karmeleon: it comes and goes, it comes and goes.
Thanks. You said exactly what I've wanted to say to those who are underestimating this task.
But leaving aside engineering cleverness, the rigging work below the bridge deck must have taken a lot of courage. Working aloft, in the dark, in constant danger of arrest or falling is not everyone's cup of tea.
I submitted this very story yesterday before, and it was rejected.
2001-02-06 02:50:18 Engineers Suspend VW Bug from Golden Gate Bridge (articles,humor) (rejected)
Even the wording was very similar. What's with Slashdot's submissions process? There seems to be a strong bias towards only accepting articles from a certain "in" group. Bastards...
Actually, the "b" stands for "believed." As it "Believed to be false, but you can't prove a negative."
Slashdot's token middle-aged housewife
One day in the early 1980s, the high bridges were found full of cars. It quickly turned out to be a well-funded lobbying operation by several local businesspeople wanted the interchange finished. They'd brought in a large crane late at night, and simply done it as if it was a construction project, with guys in hard hats, flares, and lights. It worked; they got enough political attention on the interchange to get the money to finish it, and today it's the biggest interchange in the South Bay.
What? When was the last time MIT students traveled halfway across the hemisphere into a foreign country, risking their academic careers (A jail + court stint can really cut into your class time!) and preformed an [illegal] engineering feat? MIT almost always stays on their home turf, and pulls from a student base signifigantly larger than UBC's. I have undergrad engineering friends here at Lakehead (a northern Ontario U) who know that UBC will be the toast of all the engineering conventions for the rest of the year, and the year's just begun. Nothing like having the canuck's invade your soil to put you in defense mode, eh?
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Desperation is a stinky cologne
Sure, its a great 'hack' in the true sense of the word, but can we truely rely on their safety assurance skills?
You rely on their skills every day, in every manufactured product you use.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
The engine alone weighs 275 lbs.
This, I know, from experience.
Without the engine, two strong men could lift the body of a beetle over their heads. With the engine, three, maybe four are required.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Y'know, of all the possible definitions for the word "bug," this was the last one I was expecting when I opened this article. ^_^
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hemisphere is half of the globe. Half of a half = 1/4
so it's a slight exaggeration. I do mean slight.
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Desperation is a stinky cologne
Its not the point of if you think it is fair to punish them or not. This is irrelvant to the issue. Its called respect for the legal system.
Respect for the legal system??? The same one that passes the DMCA? The same one that is mocked around the world? When even many Americans have no respect for their legal system, what makes you think that foreign nationals would care one bit.
It was a prank, ok? Perhaps if Americans spent less time abusing their own system to their advantage, by suing everytime they fall over, they might be a little more relaxed and be able to sit back and appreciate the cleverness of such a prank.
The point of the annual bug toss is to draw attention to engineering and particularly to those who build bridges. It is also a challenge to city engineers made by engineering students -- specifically, can the city engineers figure a way out to recover the thing. Obviously, the Americans couldn't comprehend this, so they dumped the thing in the ocean. Greaaat.
How can a cheque be anonymous? You can always trace it back. Who signed it?
The UBC Engineering Students' Society has bank accounts of its own. Nobody said it was anonymous -- the ESS paid for it on behalf of the engineers who did it.
Same two guys, standing on a ferry below the golden gate. Camera pans out to show beetle hanging from above:
"Didn't I tell you to let out on the clutch easier?"
Let's try not to let fact interfere with our speculation here, OK?
I first heard about this story before UBC had taken credit. I turned to the person who told me and, having heard mom's stories from when she was dating a UBC engineer, said, "You know, I bet the UBC Engineers ran out of Vancouver bridges to hang bugs off of. Imagine my suprise when I turned out to be right. Heh.
Hats off to em, going to a foriegn country, and executing this prank in a very public place, without being caught. Bravo!
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Remove the rocks to send email
On the whole, I find that I prefer Slashdot posts to twitter ones because I don't get limited to 140 chars before
THAT'S why they look like little Nazi helmets!
Actually, it was the underlying engineering that Porsche was wholly responsible for, that was amazing about this car. Not the sheet metal.
The aircooled engine would be reliable in a desert.
The small displacement would provide fuel economy.
The rear-engine placement would aid in the efficient weight distribution of the car (as well as allow rear-wheel drive, for better turn-radius, and simpler manufacturing).
The flat-four engine design allowed for a lower profile and less space required inside the car - allowing for a better aerodynamic profile.
The torsion-bar suspension allowed for excellent handling and weight capacity, and could also be very cheaply manufactured - as an added bonus, torsion-bars are adapted most well to offroad applications (thus the amphibious kubelwagen, or VW Thing, which was Germany's equivalent to the US Jeep - and the same scheme has been applied in countless dune-buggy-adapted beetles).
These same principles were applied to the legendary Porsche 356, and 550, which kicked-ass all over the sports car and racing scene of the 1950's. Porsche added two cylinders onto the end of the flat four, for the 911 (leaving the traditional flat four in the 912), and continued the legacy of creating the "Sports car for the rest of us" (true. . Porsche's are too expensive for your average American, but they're FAR more affordable, traditionally, than your Ferrari's, Jaguars, and Lambourghinis).
So, while Hitler gave a rough outline for the sheetmetal, it was based off of the nascent science of aerodynamics, mainly pursued by Porsche and his collegues in the 20's. Hitler was a layman follower of that school of automotive engineering, so it was no mistake that his design was fairly compatible with the ideas Porsche already had pioneered. The main principles shown in the Beetle, are still part of today's most advanced Porsche cars; the rear-engine (despite Porsche's ill-advised Audi-inspired foray into the front-engined 944 and 928; pieces of crap designed to appeal to Americans who were afraid to learn how to deal with the handling characteristics of rear-engined cars), flat-six design. The suspension is more modern, as are the engine cooling systems, etc - but the basic design is still the same, tried and true from the 1930's. Truly, the Porsche is the Unix of the car-world. Front engine, front-wheel drive cars are obviously the MS Windows cars.
Ferdinand Porsche was a man who cared little for politics, and was not a fan of Hitler or his ideas, and strongly resisted, at first, the idea of actually producing this car for him - until Hitler told him that he was right, it was probably impossible; and that challenge took advantage of Porsche's pride.
Henry Ford, on the other hand, was a well-known racist, and supported the Nazi party from America.
After the war, the French asked Porsche to come to France to help design a French version of the Beetle (which was not really in production yet, because they were still trying to rebuild the factory). When he arrived, they arrested him as a war criminal, and he was put to work repairing tractors.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
The only thing that being an engineer dictates is how they should perform their job. I don't expect a doctor to be any more or less ethical than anyone else, outside of the work environment. If non-medical students would perform a prank, I can't see why a doctor wouldn't. I'd just imagine that they'd be a bit better an making sure that it had less potential for harm.
Schools have no place teaching ethics or morals, asside from those directly releated to the job, and even then it's a "peer-accepted code of conduct". Teaching ethics is no better than a school teaching "proper christian behaviour" or any other subjective view.
The city threatened to sue. How typically USA... They didn't ask for money, they threatened to sue for unspecified and no doubt inflated damages.
If they were asked to cover actual damages or expenses, that'd be different.
There's a huge difference for taking responsibility for your actions, and being the brunt of whatever assinine punishments someone choose to arbitrarily hand down to appease their hurt feelings.
I don't suppose you'd like to submit to twenty lashes for posting your message? It's the penalty I assess for people who post irrational and unreasonable replies to my posts. Come on, take it like a man.
For all you jingoistic Americans fearing an insult to your national hacking pride, rest assured by visiting At http://hacks.mit.edu/
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the pen is mightier then the sword. the sword is mightier then the court. the court is mightier then the pen.
I live in SF and thought it was hilarious. So did everyone I know. Who are the locals who got angry about this?!
sulli
RTFJ.
And what, pray tell, does circumcision have to do with UNIX?!
UNIX, when pronounced as a word, has a homonym that describes a person who has endured a somewhat more radical alteration of the male anatomy. Lest you be confused.
Most people seem to understand and enjoy my sig, based on the sheer volume of e-mail that it creates for me.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
The "culprits" are now safely back in Canada. They're tired, but very happy.
Their three goals? Coverage on international press (Sydney, Australia covered it), coverage on CNN (accomplished), and coverage on Slashdot.
As for all you weenies saying they should be prosecuted or forced to pay for all the time lost, just go ahead and subtract that from the $200 million+ your state has stolen from our province.
I'd be more impressed if they could:
Solve "the Quebec Problem"
Build Canada a functioning economy
Reduce Canadian taxation levels
Get Jean Chretien to resign
End the socialist dictatorship system in Canada
Rewrite the Constitution and Bill Of Rights of Canada to allow Canadians to have free speech, defend themselves, and own property (apart from just paying taxes on things they own)
Raise Canadian job opportunities and salaries to US levels
THOSE would be impressive engineering feats. But that would be beyond their ken.
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
In addition to it being illegal to climb on the underside of the bridge (which other people already pointed out), it is also illegal to throw anything over the side of the bridge. In the cases of both the Golden Gate and the Bay Bridge, the police enforce these statutes VERY strictly. I was cuffed, arrested, and fined $250 about 10 years ago for throwing a SODA CAN over the side of the Golden Gate...so I can only imagine how bad these guys'll have it if they get caught.
There is nothing so pathetic as seeing a beautiful young theory roughed up by a tough gang of facts.
Attaching a beetle with a good wire and then pushing it off the edge of the bridge doesnt seem to be very technical. I would have hoped that they would have done something more creative (what they did, any hick with a truck and an empty beetle shell could have pulled).
Imagine for instance if they suspended the beetle with match sticks (assume they figure out the tensile strenths involved), or more realistically if they used wire made out of spider webs (I think this might just be the right material). I would highly be impressed and it would definetly be worth the trouble of hanging the car there and causing all the traffic mishaps. Maybe the might even win an award?
Trust the source!
One of the major factors of any engineering design is resource management; in these case how to accomplish their goal with as little work as possible.
So what was their goal? To safely hang a VW from a bridge in a manor that would receive media attention. To do this they would have to choose a bridge that was seen by the world. This means they had very little access to the bridge and very little time to accomplish their task. Also they had to design a system that was difficult to undo or the authorities would have quickly pulled the car back up the way it went down.
If any hick could do this why don't you tell us of a system that meets all of these criteria. Remember that how their hang was implemented is still a mystery; even to those who could directly observe the results. If you can't understand the skill that went into successfully pulling off such a caper then you aren't the type of person that engineers are trying to impress.
>No one gets hurt 'cause they're ENGINEERS. They have looked at all the contingent risks and eliminated them.
Three words following these: Tacoma Narrows Bridge.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
"but can we truely rely on their safety assurance skills? Also, look at the traffic trouble they caused: I wonder how many people missed their flights from SFO because of the trouble. "
Wooaaahhh. I don't think you like the idea of people of people trying out skills and hacks... . Come on. It didn't fall down. These people knew what they were doing. Maybe we should deny computer students access to telnet/ ftp / internet on the basis that we can't rely on their 'safety assurance skills'. ;-)
Yup, they broke the law. But I think they were careful not to endanger anybody. Who did they harm?
The world is a grey enough place as it is. I think we should encourage more of this kind of activity.
Try typing in BLAMECANADA when you play the next version of Flight Unlimited, Flight Simulator or Pro Pilot and then fly under the Golden Gate. The developers might pay tribute :)
--- Hot Shot City is particularly good.
You wrote:
"However, the long term benefits of pioneering the coolest hack (on-line or off-a-bridge), far outweigh any temporary inconvenience"
What are some of the "long-term benefits" of hanging a Volkswagen off of a bridge? How is the prank "pioneering"? Is this some sort of breakthrough event that will pave the way for the next bunch of silly college students to hang a tractor-trailer rig off of the Bay Bridge?
The stunt was a juvenile, disruptive, and life-threatening bit of pointless nonsense.
The ridiculous press release proudly proclaims that the prank was done to "draw attention to the masterful feats of professional engineers and to celebrate the skills of the tradespeople who built the bridges" but Ms. Steele is at least honest enough to admit its true purpose: "someone has found a way to put us on the TV"
I found the remark about the 'tradespeaople' especially immature: the tradesemen that built the bridge risked their lives to feed their families and create a beautifull and functional structure that has great practical and aesthetic merit. Invoking the name of the 'tradespeople' in an attempt to justify a worthless, potentially harmfull prank is offensive.
.. I also live about 2 miles from the Golden Gate... would have been cool to walk down and check it out.
You said it yourself...
Back in high school, the class three years ahead of mine somehow got a VW bug on the roof of the school, and they didn't lighten it by losing the engine the way these guys did.
I give this prank a c-.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Given the fact that one of the two major power companies in Califoria just defaulted on thier 500 million dollar plus payment to BC Hydro a.k.a. Powerex (paying only 15 cents on the dollar) I would have to say way to go UBC Engineers. We've kept the lights on in California for too long. Go ahead press charges... and hold court by candlelight. To the guy who wonders how many people missed flights because of it... I wonder how many flights were saved because of us silly reckless Canadians who have the forsight to plan ahead when it come to our infrastructure. Just plain good engineering all around I say!
Anyhow... rumorville says that in the past years, they have managed to get a VW onto the bridge towers back home -- which is more impressive, IMHO, then tossing a car off the bridge.
The rumours are true. In our proud 20 years of E-week stunt history, the UBC Engineers have placed beetles in all sorts of places:
Other pranks of note:
Happy E-week everybody! ERTW!
--
Free Mac Mini
They mention that the perpetrators could go to jail. But how? What law prohibits this kind of thing? (I'm sure the authorities will find a suitable charge if they want - something like Obstructing a Public Highway, or Causing Undue Disturbance, or some blanket law that lets them prosecute this kind of undefined crime).
Any ideas folks?
http://foxnews.com/etcetera/020401/mit.sml
Although usually it's barber's poles rather than park benches. Has a Fb (false but...) in the AFU FAQ. Other sightings include Caltech, Harvard, and MIT. (many of the pages are quite long, search for "barber").
Say no to software patents.
Look here for a history of the VW Beetle, which seems to clarify that this was indeed the case. It also seems to indicate that Hitler refiened Porsche's designs.