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ScavHunt211
VoidEngineer writes "Well, it's that time of the year again... the World's Largest Scavenger Hunt has begun again. (This is the same annual Scavenger Hunt where the students built the breeder reactor, for item #240, back in 1999...) Anyhow, you can find the list here. This year, the competition is between 9 teams and there are 307 items. Nerdy items include, but are not limited to: #2 From the fetid swamps of Lotan to the teeming forests of Jojojop, Endor is an ancient, mysterious, beautiful land, deserving to be rendered as a full-color map fit for National Geographic, circa TA 3019; [51 points] #46 Mobius stripper. Must be non-orientable. Must not emphasize the one-dimensionality of the stripper's personality. [28 points]. #98 A piece of the Space Shuttle Columbia with NASA verification [155 points] #101 A hologram of an entire team member. [50 points]
#136 Explain string theory using only sock puppets. The Judge must understand. [19 points]"
I remember summer camp scavenger hunts -- we'd just have to look for trash on the last day of camp.
A piece of Columbia for a scav hunt is not Nerdy its a desecration.
"It's so convenient to have a system where everyone is a criminal" - A. Hitler
NASA has said that any one who is in poession of said parts will be liable for criminal conduct.
I remember back in the day, we'd bug the neighbors for different things, beer, wine, cigerettes, and ya know what? They actually gave it to us because they saw it on the list!
...#98 A piece of the Space Shuttle Columbia with NASA verification [155 points]...
Does anybody else think that this is in bad taste? Why not ask for shrapnel removed from a Iraqi bombing victim or one of the envelopes that anthrax spores were mailed in last year.
I appreciate that NASA may have given away or auctioned off parts of Columbia prior to the recent disaster but, legitimately acquired or not, why ask for a piece of that particular shuttle? Why not a piece of Atlantis, Discovery, Endeavour or even Enterprise?
I'm sorry but, even though I enjoy a good scavenger hunt as much as the next man, I can't see how anyone could possibly enjoy the 155 points they could get from a Columbia debris fragment. (And, clearly, getting hold of a debris fragment is the target goal here.)
Sick, sick, sick.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
An original Idea for the scavenger hunt that doesnt weakly attempt to show how witty, creative, pretentious and just plain lame we actually are. The Judges must look like the morons they are. [242 points]
It's also illegal.
What's funny about this item is that last year I wrote up a PBS-oriented kids show, about a mad professor black hole (think of a black sock puppet with a mustache, googley eyes, and a black swirley patterned outfit) called "The Great Abyss". He went around talking with his sidekick, every now and then making hilarous jokes about Twistor Theory.
I'm sure we could dig up the old material if anyone wanted to adapt it to string theory. Heh.
Holy shit, get over it. Besides, next time you hear something called "Chipendales" (or however it's spelled) is near your town, offer some woman a ticket - I'm sure she'll be interested in taking it... Maybe it's the assholes that try to make everything politically correct that make life suck so much.
SIG: HUP
For some of my (former) TAs, this would be 19 easy points.
Wait.. they said "The Judge must understand. ". Oops, never mind.
how about a LUG member who has had sex?
Umm, who said it had to be a woman?
GeekNights!
Late Night Radio for Geeks!
(Note: a 'phrenologist' is a guy who studies the brain by the bumps on the skull.)
--
"103. Phrenological examination of a Judge.
Points: (IQ of Judge) / 10, with IQ as determined by the phrenologist.
Double points if you have a licensed phrenologist."
--
Cover your eyes and click this link!
On top of that, how many women do you know named "Mobius"?
308. _______ An clear and understandable methodology that will enable scavenger hunt organizers and judges to get a date, finally! [532 points for an actual woman] [54 points for compliant farm animals]
#158. Yarr!
(Of course, I must assume that all slashdotters actually read the article like good... um.. slashdotters.)
GeekNights!
Late Night Radio for Geeks!
Just one. Her arguments are all totally one-sided.
-rimshot-
GeekNights!
Late Night Radio for Geeks!
Who said strippers have to be women? Or could it be that you're the sexist asshole here?
You are assuming that it isn't a male stripper. I knew a very good stripper that worked at a printing shop. He was male. ;-)
"terrorism" and "pedophilia" are the root passwords to the Constitution
Why is it always with the feminists that we find such blatant cluelessness and absolutely ZERO sense of humor?
Like the people who bitched about the NASA thing, get a grip! This is the group that put a breeder reactor on last year's list. They're JOKES, nobody seriously expects people to do it. Go on. Read the damn list, it's hillarious.
Are you people still wondering why no women want to enter the fields of engineering or computer science? It's a hostile environment, plain and simple, and you assholes are the cause.
Isn't it funny how the people who bitch the loudest about stereotypes, never hesistate to use 'em themselves? Your statement is about as true as "all girls like frilly dresses, dolls, and playing dress-up, and hate math." I've also seen the same women who complain about men treating them like 'sex objects', oogle at a guy in tight jeans. Get a grip, it's called sexual attraction, and it's natural in BOTH sexes.
By the way, most CS/Engineering types I knew in college were -scared- of women, not beer-guzzling chauvenist pigs. They were some of the nicest, most intelligent, well-balanced people I knew. Pick someone else to vent your "I hate the world" rage on, please.
PS, you're still using a written-by-male-pigs spell-check, otherwise your post would have spelled womyn correctly!
Please help metamoderate.
Since when are women the only strippers around? Last time I checked, we had a male strip club right across town.
yrs,
Ephemeriis
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
#136 Explain string theory using only sock puppets. The Judge must understand. [19 points]"
Anyone else feel that Mr. Rodgers or Seaseme Street ruined our childhoods by not doing this.
see the Count, count dimensions....it could work
Yes they are muppets, but it's still just a glorified sock puppet.
Why is it always with the feminists that we find such blatant cluelessness and absolutely ZERO sense of humor?
Like the people who bitched about the NASA thing, get a grip! This is the group that put a breeder reactor on last year's list. They're JOKES, nobody seriously expects people to do a lot of the items; they're there for laughs. Go on. Read the damn list, it's hillarious.
Are you people still wondering why no women want to enter the fields of engineering or computer science? It's a hostile environment, plain and simple, and you assholes are the cause.
Isn't it funny how the people who bitch the loudest about stereotypes, never hesistate to use 'em themselves? Your statement is about as true as "all girls like frilly dresses, dolls, and playing dress-up, and hate math." You've just blanket-labelled the CS and engineering profession as male pigs.
Most CS/Engineering types I knew in college were practically -scared- of women, not beer-guzzling chauvenist pigs. They were some of the nicest, most intelligent, well-balanced people I knew, and a number of them were involved in long-term relationships with rather indepentent, intelligent women. Pick someone else to vent your "I hate the world" rage on, please.
PS, you're still using a written-by-male-pigs spell-check, otherwise your post would have spelled womyn correctly, right?
Please help metamoderate.
I think the real reason for these is to see how clever the participants really are. I remember doing quite bad at scavenger hunts as a kid because I was too literal. "Find a Fish" so I was angry because the time limit wouldn't allow me time to go fishing or to go to the store even, but wait, every other person got it! They made a "fish" out of paper, or drew one on the back of the item list.
My point is that some of these are meant to be stupid or un-realistic. The challenge is to see if the participants can think in a way that isn't a straight line. How clever is the guy who got every thing on the list, but just went out and bought/stolen each item. How about the gal who was able to fake it and still got the credit. Better yet how about the other fellow who declared the whole universe to be an illusion, and won because there was no contest in the first place.
Ignore me because I'm not really here.
Last time I checked, we had a male strip club right across town.
That's nice. Exactly how often do you check?
Can they be Me, Myself, and I?
According to this story from 1999, the guys who made the breeder reactor were U. of Chicago physics majors Justin Kasper and Fred Niell. They assembled it in Justin's dorm room.
"Weapons should be hardy rather than decorative" - Miyamoto Musashi
I think that goes for OS's too
A "mobius stripper"? Why is it always with the nerdy population that we find such blatant sexism and a desire to exploit women? Are you people still wondering why no women want to enter the fields of engineering or computer science? It's a hostile environment, plain and simple, and you assholes are the cause.
A "stripper" is a job title which pertains to no particular sex, and as a male one, I am deeply offended that you associate my profession with one half the population. YOU try wearing a UPS uniform and spinning a cardboard box over your crotch at an Andrea Dworkin fundraiser, THEN you can spit ideas of "hostile environments" at me.
Now I'm just pissed and need to go to the emergency room as my tongue has punctured my cheek.
Bored with karma, be a fan/freak
A "mobius stripper"? Why is it always with the nerdy population that we find such blatant sexism and a desire to exploit women? ...
Wait, wait, wait. Where did it say that the stripper had to be a woman? Please review:
#46 Mobius stripper. Must be non-orientable. Must not emphasize the one-dimensionality of the stripper's personality. [28 points].
Unless I'm missing something, the requirements for Item #46 on the list could be fulfulled by either a man or a woman, as long as they're "a stripper." So who's making the sexist assumptions now?
And topologically speaking, it might actually be easier to construct a Mobius strip from a man's body anyway, assuming of course that he's limber, big *ahem*, and stupid (1/2 gen[i]us).
-Mark
In Canada, we don't fancy things like socks
...that one must be one of the people with *legitimate* access to the actual debris? And while it was, yes, a tragedy, that'd point to one of the people actually looking for the *answers*, which I don't think is in bad taste at all.
In honor of our new Freedom of Information, inform as many people as you can of the home phone numbers of John Poindexter, John Ashcroft and Tom Ridge in a massive publicity campaign.
"Weapons should be hardy rather than decorative" - Miyamoto Musashi
I think that goes for OS's too
Perhaps only if the scavenger picked it up and hauled it in for a prize. If the scavenger simply points it out to the proper authorities and got a receipt, it could be a good thing, sorta.
I'll stick with GeoCaching :o) (see journal entries)
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
It'd be funny, although sad as well, if the hardest working team forgot item #291. Forgetting it means disqualification.
They had done an item:
Verified and confirmed by Matt Groening - The one true state in the United States that Springfield exists in.
And no, the official "No state" answer is not acceptable.
GPL'd web-based tradewars themed space game
a correctly formatted version of the pdf with no bitmapped fonts (200 points).
tired... the list this year isn't as good as it was last year: we had to go rummaging around 57th st beach and dig for it-- meaning only two teams actually got a hard copy, so the judges gave in and released the list to everyone early. catch is that everything is in metric time, so my team missed item 291... anyhoo: in case any of you are interested: i finished item 66 a this morning at around 2: a uofc-themed pr0n site... after a short nap of 2 hours, now i'm on item 214, wolfenstein in the regenstein: use the quake level editor. another teammate is programming an entire game of tetris from scratch (item 58).
Only 19 points for explaining string theory with sock puppets?
I know theoretical physisists who don't understand string theory well enough to explain in a years worth of lectures.
IMHO this is an extremely underrated item =+/
You need to take this stuff with a grain of salt. I happen to be in the software field, and there are a lot of women in my office doing the same or similar job as me, and everything is as professional as you can get it. Yet these are the same people that would laugh at this in a context other than the office. Hell, I've met some of these women outside of the office, and they like off-color humor just as much as the guys. In the office, yes, it would be inappropriate. But what we're talking about here can hardly be considered in this context.
This is not the right battle to fight.
Karma: Frotzed (mostly due to the Frobozz Magic Karma Company)
I happen to be in the software field, and there are a lot of women in my office doing the same or similar job as me, and everything is as professional as you can get it.
Yeah, but are they HOT???
Stupid, and in poor taste. I am sure I'll get bitched out for being far too "PC" (never heard this one in real life, for some reason) or for not having a sense of humor, which would somehow apply here, but that doesn't make it any less stupid.
Oh someone mentioned that they want it "NASA certified" so it's not debris they are looking for, well why the fuck don't they ask for Discovery, Atlantis or Endeavour then?
sic transit gloria mundi
They SO did. I'm a Scavenger Hunt judge, and the man who built it just received his Ph.d from MIT and works in the Space Labs. If you check the discussion from the post on this event from a couple months ago you will find much discussion on this point, and many people who professed your viewpoint being proven dead wrong.
-kd
I know...do you? Let's test the Slashdot smarts.
-R
Well, I guess you can't accept my word for it, but Justin and Fred were two of the most brilliant people I've ever met.
They built the reactor, and you have an entire campus full of geeks to attest to it. If you think that everyone on the campus where the first sustained nuclear chain reaction occured couldn't tell whether the reactor was a breeder or not, then I guess we'll never prove anything to you.
Physics is in the blood of half the student body here, and the wool was not pulled over their eyes.
-R
Just find whatever state has a Shelbeyville, and it'll have a springfield too!
Any additional states having Shelbeyvilles must be destroyed immediately.
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
This would make a wicked "reality TV" special! Of course it would have to be Nickeloden or Discovery channel, but it would do wonders to actually show something "useful" like this on Kids TV. [edited for content of course, but anymore that's not a big deal!]
Any minute now I'm going to succumb to the urge to figure out what that says.
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
211 is hex for 529!
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
HAHAHAHA
Man - this was good.
The point of the item is not to get a piece of the Columbia, but rather the NASA signature, which would be impossible for an actual piece of the Columbia.
Now, as a Public Service, Phoenix Does Dallas Presents:
John Poindexter: (301) 424-6613
John Ashcroft: (816) 471-7141
vacation home: (573) 334-7044
Tom Ridge: (610) 274-3276
Did you ever notice that *nix doesn't even cover Linux?
Your argument is highly fasifiable.
Namely, by removing the neutron source, the evidence for the breed isotopes would have declined. Return the neutron source, and the evidence would have returned.
Now, I can't claim that this occured, as I wasn't there. However, I can recall that a member of staff from the nuclear physics group was called in, and was convinced that they had a working breader reactor going. Given how simple it is to prove that the reactor was having an effect, and that a breed isotope was observed, I think that I must go with the reacotr team.
Nota Bena: Recall that a breeder reactor is one that manufcatures fissionable material from aterial that is not fissionable, generaly taken to mean that the reactor makes fuel for itself, but not nessecerilly (a pair of coupled reactors are still breeder reactors). They did not produce plutonium. They breed U-233 (A fisionable material), from thorium. Essentially, they noted that bombarding thorium with neutrons would result in manufacture of U-233, and that U-233 is theoretially fissionable (Not actually used anywhere). This is falsifiable - you could disprove this (theoretical) step. Next, they made a neutron generator from an alpha source, and put the two in sequence. Then they borrowed some gear (I forget what) to detect the emission from U-233 decay.
In short, no one claims they made Pu, except you. Therefore assertations that they could not have made Pu is a straw man argument.
Aside: The reason that this reaction is not exploited commercially is down (to a large extent) to raw materials. There is a large, cheap source of pure (as in, isotopically pure) U-238, as a result of U-235 programs (weapons and reactors). Thus breeder research was focused on using up that U-238 as much as the principle of breeder reactors.
Hah, a printing joke. :)
Too bad my shop is all digital so we got rid of all the strippers. Company parties just aren't the same with a digital assembler popping out of the cake.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Check out The Hunt.
-R
No, finding it is perfectly legal. Not notifying the authorities is illegal.
In fact, finding a piece of Columbia is quite a public service. NASA needs all the information it can get.
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
I might believe that they made U-233 from Th-232. However, when you state that "no one claims they made Pu, except you." You are way off base. This claim is made above and in the New York Timesarticle.
Also, you state that a "breeder reactor is one that [...]" that's right, A breeder reactor is a reactor. What they built was a neutron source and a target, not a reactor.
Finaly they probably wanted to observe the Th-233 decay (into U-233) which would be evidence of the existnace of the U-233, and much easier to observe. However, they are very few people who understand taking these measurements at near background levels because most nuclear physicists don't work near background--no reason and it is hard and not as useful.
look I'm not trying to say that they didn't do something interesting, I'm just saying it is a little hyped up.
Skeet Surfing is on the list (#15)!
This is the sport introduced in the Top Secret! movie (1984), where you shoot skeets while surfing... and that's surfing as in ON A SURFBOARD. ON WATER. ON HIGH, TRICKY WAVES. WITH A LOADED SHOTGUN. This has got to be the world's most difficult sport to master...
I have no doupt that somewhere there is a piece of derbies that they will let you borrow for a short time. I don't think a piece of the arm mount is of much use to the investigation for instance, so if they have that they can be talked into letting you borrow if for a short time. Finding the right person is likely difficult, but that is a different story.
P.S. I know the arm wasn't installed, I'm refering to whatever part of the shuttle it would attach to if it was installed.
Lawn Gnomes! [Points: World conquest.]
"Much work is lost, for the lack of a little more." -Edward H. Harriman
1) Pandering my ass. I do everything in my power to make fun of the poor bastards. Like throwing the socks I'd been using to stuff my underwear for the fashion right at them so Sam "Scavvy" Hunt had to catch them. And I had been too busy to shower for the last three days. 2) Monetary Prize? When was the last time this actually got paid out? And it's on the order of $500 for the *whole* team. The winning teams usually consist of ~50 members. So $10 each is a prize? That's barely a reimbursement for the duct tape and aluminum foil I used this year to convert an Acura Integra into Marty McFly's delorian! 3) Elitist? WTF? We're in Chicago, for frag's sake! 4) We have a Humanities program, so neaner, neaner , neaner. bl0nd13 PS: When's the last time an MIT student set Lake Eerie on fire?
Ah yes what seems to be sexism gets people enraged, but implicit homophobia on slashdot does not. Wonderful. MK
hahaha. Sam will be amused that he got mentioned on Slashdot. hahaha. Funny comments, potato ears. Okay I'm out of here. Maybe I'll check back after next year's ScavHunt. MK