Great Hacks and Pranks Of Our Time

Luther Blissett writes "There's a history of pranks and hacks in the year-end issue of the Economist, including MIT hacks, the Bonsai Kitten, and the Pentagon hack by my favorite, Abbie Hoffman." From the article: "At Harvard's neighbour, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 'hacks', as the MIT crowd calls them, are more serious. So serious, in fact, that in 2003 the institute's best hacks were assembled in a 178-page book, 'Nightwork'. The pranks at MIT tend to be feats of engineering. They are positively encouraged, because they teach students to work in teams, solve complex problems and, sometimes, get a message across. Mr Peterson's book includes an 11-point code for pranksters: leave no damage, do not steal, do not drop things off a building without a ground crew, and so on. In Cambridge, Massachusetts, at least, student pranks have become an establishment activity."

Comments

Re:The great whopper fiasco

[jpetts]

Guess you weren't studying English :-)

Re:Frenchisms

[operagost]

Sorry, but the grandparent poster has you beat. The quotes were both funny and true, while your empty speech couldn't sell the French flavor of pacifism to a Quaker.

Your Gallic-flavored idealism did little to save the lives of millions of civilians slaughtered by the third Reich.

Racism and ignorance have been with us for all of recorded history and will always be with us because of the hatred and greed in men's hearts. If you wait until evil flees before you take action, you won't be around.

Plus de choses changent, plus qu'ils restent la même chose.