Slashdot Mirror
MIT Hackers Appropriate Caltech Cannon
Bob Hearn writes "Some Slashdotters might remember the story Caltech Pranks MIT's Prefrosh Weekend from a year ago. MIT Hackers have gotten even. Sometime in the middle of the night, Caltech's famous cannon appeared at the base of MIT's Green building. A plaque in front of it reads: 'CALTECH CANNON April 6, 2006 MIT hackers posing as the Howe & Ser Moving Company Appropriated this cannon on March 28, 2006. It later appeared on MIT's campus with the addition of a large brass rat made of gold-plated aluminum. In honor of its previous owners, the cannon points towards Padadena, CA.' The brass rat (MIT ring) is really a rather impressive bit of aluminum machining. Harvey Mudd College previously stole the cannon, in 1986, but later had to give it back."
As dean of your University, I have worked with the financial office and the office of the provost to appropriate two grants.
The first will be a large scale grant to beef up our offensive against all other universities by using the rocket and aerodynamic sciences departments to further develop a V3-Schneider program. Remember, we care not about the surrounding buildings of our targets, but only require a half mile 'radius of terror' so that we can effectively instill fear into the hearts of other academic institutions.
The second grant will go to the physics department so that they can develop hilarious Rube Goldberg booby traps around our V3-Schneider platform in an effort to reduce sabotage. Another part of it will go into a free weight old fashion stationary trebuchet aimed at the one lone road into the University. In the event of an invasion, all incoming vehicles will have flying refrigerators to contend with.
Remember people, this is war and we will not waver or falter.
My work here is dung.
Ahhh, the one reason why I would have considered going to MIT. So many of their hacks are truely inspirational.
IHTFP : Interesting Hacks To Fascinate People
Now MIT can truly claim more bang for the buck.
What kind of sysadmins are they!?
For you see, all nerds have inside them at least a little bit of 'cannon envy'...
My work here is dung.
Subject: Caltech cannon
Date: 28 March 06 19:56:34 PST
To: [HMC internal mailing list]
Howdy,
Did anyone steal the Caltech cannon Monday night/Tuesday
morning? They called and said it was stolen and were hoping it was here.
Chris Sundberg
Associate Dean of Students
Harvey Mudd College
I can't rtfa because it's slashdotted. Stealing a cannon isn't particularly clever. On the other hand, if I understand correctly, MIT is on the east coast and CalTech is on the west coast. These guys get an 'A' for effort.
My own favorite first year engineering trick: Many years ago people arrived at the main building of the University of Manitoba to find a stump in the middle of the lawn. Everyone was up in arms. Who cut down the stately old pine? It was quite a while before someone realized: "Hey, there was no tree there in the first place."
Comment removed based on user account deletion
In response, Caltech destroyed MIT's web servers by submitting the story to Slashdot. Caltech: 2, MIT: 1.
I know whenever there is a comparison between Caltech and MIT, the first thing I want to know is the quality of their police force.
Never been to Caltech, but when I was at MIT [mumble-mumble] years ago, I think the primary job of the Campus Police was to make sure we didn't get arrested by the Cambridge Police.
A BRASS rat. whose composition includes neither copper nor zinc.
MIT's materials science program sure has come a long way...
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Yeah but now the other houses can't prank Fleming by messing with the cannon. So it really does affect everybody. I know that was always a popular target when I was there (Page House '97.)
Wait... you put 10 2.5M graphics on your web page describing an escalation of rivalries between two cross-continental engineering schools, and we killed your web server?
Ummm...actually...they did give a rat's arse. Not only did they give the rats arse, but they machined a ring with said arse out of aluminum, plated it in gold, drove 3000 miles, stole the cannon, put the rat's arse on the cannon and dragged the thing 3000 miles back with said arse firmly attached. Okay, so maybe they didn't actually give anyone just the rat's arse...but there definitely was some rat arse involved.
Next fall, Caltech will offer undergraduate course 93A: "Preventing Homoerotic Cannon Theft". Lectures will be given in 201 E. Bridge by Nobel-prize winner Dr. A. Troll. Lab work will count as 50% of the final grade. TAs will demonstrate how to recognize a brass rat from a gold-plated aluminum rat using simplified mass spectrometry, or possibly a bathtub filled with water. Knowledge of quaternions is strongly recommended, however, skill with card pranks is an acceptable substitute. May not be taken Pass/Fail.
What prevents them from going to MIT and just taking it back by force?
That's sweet. Techers mess with MIT's admissions weekend, and in return MIT improves the Caltech campus by doing some blight removal. Maybe if some enterprising frosh does another small RF against MIT in response, the east-coasters will demolish the north houses and save Caltech a ton of money and trouble.
"oh, no, whatever you do, don't take that jackhammer to Page House! And don't take that dumpster of debris when you leave!"