The World's Largest Scavenger Hunt Returns

mresolver writes "University of Chicago students have once again emerged from the library after a long winter to participate in the world's largest scavenger hunt. The multiple day event is famous for the working breeder reactor that students managed to build during the 1999 hunt. This year, the official list (PDF) includes a superconductor, working wood refrigerator, hot air balloon made to Montgolfier specifications, one-way funhouse mirror, and a walk-in Kaleidoscope."

Comments

Spoilers

[Anonymous Coward]

The goal this time is to build a working Atari 2600 from everyday household objects.

Re:Spoilers

[krakelohm]

Visit any trailerpark in America.

What?

[Umbral Blot]

What, no human organs? How boring.

Re:What?

[nerdguy0]

They have a book bound in human skin (#143). Skin is an organ, right?

Re:What?

[hackstraw]

Skin is an organ, right?

Yup, the biggest one we have.

The 2006 first annual Slashdot scavenger hunt

[Centurix]

1. 2 lines of source code from Duke Nukem Forever
2. DNA From a) Bill Gates b) Linus Torvalds c) Larry Ellison
3. 1 Site which can withstand a force 10 slashdot effect (Not a search engine)
4. Someone who can actually write IAAL
5. Used items belonging to the goatse man
6. 3 pounds of lime green duct tape
7. 1 pound of Sillier Putty (tm)
8. 1 Signed Microsoft UAT
9. A travelling salesman who understands non-deterministic polynomial time
10. A girlfriend

Re:The 2006 first annual Slashdot scavenger hunt

[Anonymous Coward]

Well the first nine should be fairly easy in comparison.

Re:The 2006 first annual Slashdot scavenger hunt

[StarkRG]

I just hope you don't have goatse's traffic cones...

Re:The 2006 first annual Slashdot scavenger hunt

[CortoMaltese]

1. 2 lines of source code from Duke Nukem Forever

/* Duke Nukem Forever
Copyright (C) 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 3D Realms */

Re:The 2006 first annual Slashdot scavenger hunt

[Hillgiant]

/*drunk. fix later*/

Re:The 2006 first annual Slashdot scavenger hunt

[Anonymous Coward]

Only if she doesn't mind.

How dare they!

[AuMatar]

Ok, most of this list was harmless fun. But how dare they violate the valuable IP of patent #6,368,227? Don't bother letting these hardened criminals rot in jail- just shoot them for their crimes against humanity.

Re:How dare they!

[WalterGR]

But how dare they violate the valuable IP of patent #6,368,227? Don't bother letting these hardened criminals rot in jail- just shoot them for their crimes against humanity.

In reference to the patent you mention, this text is from a New Scientist article on the patent:

A five-year-old kid from Minnesota has patented a way of swinging on a child's swing...

Peter Olson[, his father,] told New Scientist: "I had told him that if he invented something he could file a patent." His son had not seen sideways swinging because the swings at his school are closely spaced, so he asked his father to file the application.

But that's coo, Slashdot. Mock away. That's what you do best.

Re:How dare they!

[kansas1051]

There is actually a interesting history behind that patent. It was subject to a "director" ordered reexamination, which means that the USPTO itself thought the patent was so bad that it had to be withdrawn and prosecuted again. Director ordered reexaminations are incredibly rare, particularly when there isn't a lot of money at stake.

As the patented swinging method had been long known in the art, the USPTO invalidated all claims of the patent (as it should have the first time around), rendering it unenforceable. Because a patent with no claims is worthless, its owner allowed it to expire on 5/10/2006 by nonpayment of issue fees.

I got #1

[TheEternalVortex]

I give you as many as 5 lines: int main() { throw NotImplementedException(); return 0; }

Re:I got #1

[VGPowerlord]

give you as many as 5 lines: int main() { throw NotImplementedException(); return 0; }

Uh oh, 3D Realms is going to sue you for posting the game's entire source code!

Aluminum tubes being used!

[Phoinix]

If they used "Aluminum Tubes", then they may qualify for a free bonus WMD point/strike from GW...

Moving Violations Required?

[penguinland]

From the rules on how to conduct the road trip:

[The driver] may not have received no moving violations or convictions or court-ordered supervision.

I really hope that's a typo... I'm not sure how easy it would be to find someone with a prior conviction to send on the road trip.

Participation points

[SirWraith]

So i'm going to visit my friend at U of C this weekend, and she says, "oh, this was a good week to come, you will get to participate in the scav hunt." obviously, i figure, "hmm, this would be fun for a short while." Then... i see this article. "damn, this is gonna be hard." but compared to Centurix's list up there, this is a walk in the park. sure anyone can find things like "2. DNA From a) Bill Gates b) Linus Torvalds c) Larry Ellison" and "9. A travelling salesman who understands non-deterministic polynomial time" but if i was able to find something like "10. A girlfriend" do you really think i would be writing this at 4:56, come on, at least make it a realistic list.

Worlds largest egh ?

[Anonymous Coward]

of course the http://www.geocaching.com/ concept is smallfry, but no, a school in USA has the biggest right ?

this is like the "World Series" where the winners are "World Baseball Champions" when only teams from USA play, most American kids dont even know what the world is.

F***ing

[floki]

11. That Fucking road sign.

Poor people of Fucking, Austria (Europe). As if they didn't have enough tourists stealing their sign. At least it has become harder to steal now:

... In August 2005 the road signs were replaced with theft-proof signs welded to steel and secured in cement to make the signs harder to take. ...

Lets not forget a few....

[CFD339]

Cmon, we can do better than that...

B1. Ponies!
B2. Desktop Cold Fusion, the energy of the Future!
B3. Gray Goo.
B4. Profit!
B5. AI Based dust collecting overloards.
B6. A working automobile metaphore.
B7. An actual first post.
B8. An editor who actually reads the articles before posting them.

Can't believe this hasn't been done

[goldaryn]

...

11. Weapons of Mass Destruction
12. A copy of "Where's Waldo? Special Osama Edition"
12. George Bush's rear end
12a. Tony Blair's puckered lips

g.

Re:Found Itemd that I think is against the rules..

[cmcfaul]

The key is the line, "Think S.P.C.A guidelines." I don't know the guidlines all that well, but my understanding is that bees are not considered worth protecting. At any rate, the enforcement of the list rules is done by our ORCSA advisor, who checks the List to make sure we're not doing anything dangerous/illegal. I'm not sure where exactly they would draw the line, but it appears to be somewhere between insects and mammals.

OTOH, the story I've heard from judges older than myself is that the original source of the no-animals rule is a Little Bo Peep item gone awry several years ago.

Finally, and for what it's worth, Item #228 ("T Bee A") has been revealed: Catch a bee.

--colin, Keeper of the Scrolls