MIT maths department art, featuring Spongebob!

The other day I was walking through the maths department (or math department, I suppose) and I found......

Yep, "TRASH ART", positioned in front of art which probably cost money, in the form of a mural.

There were four bits of art. The helpful coffee cup sign, and then these three guys...

How wonderfully nerdy is this?!?!?! Fourier Trasform Spongebob, a boxcar, and get a sinc-ed up Patrick.

I didn't expect to see Spongebob Fourier transform themed corridor art at MIT, but I don't really expect most of the things I see at MIT.

It's-a-me, Post-It note Mario (and friends)

Whilst I was away these appeared in the windows of the Koch Institute at MIT

It's-a Mario! A glorious 8-bit post it note Mario! (Halfway down the photo, a third of the way in from the left, in mainly red and green) 

It's like all those offices in Paris did last summer. But it's not just a Mario, also a gooper! And a Link, and probably a Zelda - I don't think it's Princess Peach, and she's standing right next to Link, so it's probably Zelda.

I hope they do an 8-bit Yoshi soon. I like Yoshi.

Happenings in the Infinite Corridor (nearly!) - MIT turns purple

On my walk home this evening I noticed that lobby 7 seemed different.

There was no disembodied voice talking about MIT because the "Under the Dome" video screen was broken, but that was not it.

Instead the mood felt different.

Then I looked up....

The middle bit is kind of turquoise. I would totally keep the dome like this all the time. 

....the dome was purple!! 

And hard to photograph. I was not the only person repeatedly waving my phone above my head.

Then I left lobby 7 I saw that the symbol dude (or, more properly, Alchemist) was also pinky purple.

You can see the pinky purple ceiling of the dome through the entrance to MIT. I also particularly like the Pi themed graffiti on the Symbol Dude. Not that I am pro graffiti, but I like the fact that MIT graffiti is nerdy.

Unexpected. But just what I needed at the end of a long day arguing with compilers. 

Of course, people didn't turn MIT purple to cheer me up. I hope it is a statement for marriage equality, and will keep an eye on the Tech to confirm/deny my suspicions.
Update: It's actually been turned purple for the Relay for Life according to the Tech. The Tech also has a much better picture! You should click through and have a look-see.

This is one of the things I really like about MIT. There are these big shared spaces that get creatively decorated for a whole variety of reasons. Not only is it a sign of an engaged community, which considerately draws attention to the causes it is passionate about, but it always makes walking around campus an interesting experience.

Embiggened hipster (i.e. instagrammed) symbol dude.

MIT Valentine

On Valentine's Day last week I woke up in my special, dancing Snoopy, Valentine's Day pyjamas.

I enjoyed looking at flowers in my new vase/old cold cup.

I ate my last heart shaped, kreme filled donut. In fact, I ate two (only 30 cents more than one).

I painted my nails to be pink and red. They matched my replacement cold cup. I thought pink and red nails would cheer me up whilst I was typing at work. They didn't.

It was all a bit depressing. My Valentine is far away.
So I was pleased to see this in the lift in the department.

Nerdy and not really romantic. But still sweet. Very MIT.

It made me laugh in the elevator at work on a day which felt a bit sad (which wasn't helped by the crazy donut sugar rush). Fortunately there wasn't anyone else in the elevator with me, although I imagine they would have laughed too.

MIT is a little strange

I like MIT a lot; my department is very nice and everyone I speak to is pretty much normal and very friendly (Hi Employers! Don't worry, I'm being nice about you on the internet - please don't fire me! Plus it's true, MIT is great. Go Beavers!). But every so often, or rather, most days, when I'm walking to work I'll see something and just think to myself "Wow! MIT is really MIT-y". By which I mean it's charmingly nerdy. Nerds are King! You can even buy "Nerd Pride" stickers and shirts in the Coop.

Today's nerdiest moment was seeing this in the lobby of building 7, which is the building you can see behind me in my current profile picture, up there on the right. 

Yep, MIT has already decided whose side it is on when the human/robot war comes, and it is standing with Skynet. Hell, someone in MIT is probably building Skynet right now. Maybe they have already built Skynet! Just because they wanted to see if they could, and they thought to themselves "It'll be a cool project, robots are cool". 

In fact, stuff like this is ALL OVER campus. Every day I walk from the lobby of building 7 to my building through the infinite corridor, which traverses most of campus and is lined with poster boards and has little seating areas. There are always nerdy posters advertising nerdy events, like a recital from the singing group "The Asymptones", or another recital, from another nerdily named singing group, "The Logarhythms". Yesterday I saw a girl in an amazing unicorn hat. If the corridor wasn't so busy I would probably stop to take a photo of a cool poster every 10 metres. Even today there wasn't just one thing that I thought was worth taking a photo of on campus:

So, admittedly this isn't as good as the robot overlord thing, which really made me chuckle and stop dead in my tracks, but the sign did still made me laugh out loud (LOL IRL). I saw this in front of the student center (by Dunkin' Donuts). Yesterday morning this sign said "tech fair" - this morning "car thief". There are just low-level hacks happening everywhere. MIT has a big tradition of "hacks" (a wikipedia article is proof of real, legitimate thing, people). According this site - "The word hack at MIT usually refers to a clever, benign, and "ethical" prank or practical joke, which is both challenging for the perpetrators and amusing to the MIT community (and sometimes even the rest of the world!)". There are even posters all over campus explaining the best hacks, my favourites are this, this and this. 

The first day I arrived here I came across a hack. I walked straight through the lobby of building 7, very jet lagged, and the entire lobby was covered in xkcd comics. The comics were marking the 1000th xkcd (now that I think about it, I'm surprised MIT didn't wait for 1024 to celebrate). There was a big banner and everything. I totally didn't realise it was a hack (which it was, because it's featured on the hack website). I thought that MIT was doing something nice for xkcd, because it is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and it is nerdy, and xkcd is nerdy too. Boy, is MIT nerdy. On my first weekend there was a giant puzzle game happening all over campus. Last weekend there was a cardboard boat regatta in the Zesiger pool, which I did not realise was for boats that should carry people until I saw that photo on the front of the Tech. The regatta is called the "Head of the Zesiger". 

It's not just the big hacks all over campus that make me smile, this is what the fire alarm looks like on the floor above mine at work.

Little nerdy moments are everywhere. It certainly makes walking to work more interesting.

I can't wait until Pi day - I have been assured it will be good. I hope there's pie........

UPDATE: The soldiers are everywhere!