MIT - Hacks

MIT Hacks



Discovered on the second floor of Building 5 right around Christmas 2001. A well-executed hack... except the same thing was observed around the same time in 2003. Repeat, or are the admins in on this?


Not sure how this one came about. Probably floor patch before gold eyes, though.


I didn't date this photo, but a goose comes to Lobby 7 (the main entrance to MIT). I guess the parachute failed to deploy.

I had a much better camera for this hack (well-engineered and humorous prank).


Backstory: In 2003, all was normal. Then one day, someone happened to notice a room missing. The Vannevar Bush room, named after one of MIT's legendary mythological statesmen (hey, let me tell a story here), had disappeared from the Infinite Corridor. 10-105 was gone -- replaced by an indentation where its door had been. And people wondered: Did a hack cover over the entrance? Was the room ever really there? Is there something in the water? And so it came to pass, that in spring 2004, signage for the mysterious Bush room reappeared, and people discovered that just around the corner was the new entrance, to the new room, bigger and better than before. And there was much rejoicing. But the indentation remained. And people noticed that the Infinite Corridor was not whole. 10-105 had disappeared, leaving a void that could only be filled by: 10-105.5! And so it is written, and so shall it be.


Welcome to the Massachvsetts Institvte of Shrvbbery! The only accredited grantor of B.Ni! and M.Ni! degrees.

Ocean Engineering died after the fall of 2004, absorbed into Mechanical Engineering. I knew an Ocean Engineer, and while she admitted the department was small and couldn't realistically be maintained as its own entity, there was a lot of love and pride. Fitting, then, that a hack commemorating this tragedy stands for over a week in the Kresge Oval, defying The Man (aka administration) and refusing to let the spirit of OE die.


More views of the sinking ship that is Ocean Engineering. There's still a pirate on top of the mast. Why? ARRRRRRRR.


Together, these "tombstone" fragments spell "XIII RIP OE 1886-2005". XIII is Course 13, the number of OE. A note: 1893 is the date that OE officially started, but 1886 is when marine engineering was first offered as an option under mechanical (Course 2). Fitting, then, that OE returns to whence it came.

That's not the whole story. Caltech stole this cannon from Harvey Mudd years ago, and that school once tried to pry its cannon back from Caltech. Then again, rumor has it that Harvey Mudd themselves had stolen the cannon from a boarding school. There are many conflicting rumors about who the rightful owner is, but the actual owner of the cannon was for a time, at least until Caltech students drove up with a tow truck to reclaim it, MIT.


The cannon sits gracefully by the Green Building.


A Size 319 (or so) brass rat was fashioned for the barrel of the cannon. I think my own ring looks better.

Susan Hockfield gets passed the buck in an inaugural hack, May 2005.


On 10/25/03, Pirates of the Caribbean came to LSC, and pirates of hacking came to the Great Dome.


Note to hackers: If you're going to be funny, first check your spelling. Second, be funny.

More MIT photos
Other hacks ("official" site)
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