What is Digg?98 Comments
- OmniMe, on 10/11/2007, -7/+147That takes balls...
- Eliza101, on 10/11/2007, -7/+114XKCD kicks so much ass. As do MIT students, apparently...
- PresidentSoup, on 10/11/2007, -5/+81XKCD is a webcomic that makes you proud to have a nerdy side.
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -6/+54Holy *****! Thats a lot of virgins.
- danakin, on 10/11/2007, -2/+45Sudo make me a sandwich
- xspinkickx, on 10/11/2007, -2/+41Make me a sandwich.
- evanbro, on 10/11/2007, -1/+39No.
- bposeley, on 10/11/2007, -2/+38Ok.
- hansonc, on 10/11/2007, -3/+35Not even remotely worthy of being listed on the mit hacks page.
Oooh they gained access to a lecture hall and dropped hundreds of playpen balls. Not enough to fill the room, not enough to almost fill the room, hundreds spread out across a large lecture hall.
But the big "hack" they did was print a bunch of labels and stick them to the balls.
BFD - strictnein, on 10/11/2007, -11/+41Basically, you're a hacker these days if you can write PHP and use gmail.
- Prysorra, on 10/11/2007, -4/+33Just one word...
GIRLS
/(ducks) - outz, on 10/11/2007, -5/+33and yet you use the name bofh?
- teaguehopkins, on 10/11/2007, -2/+29"The modern, computer-related use of the term is considered likely rooted in the goings on at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the 1960s, long before computers became common; the word "hack" was local slang which had a large number of related meanings. One was a simple, but often inelegant, solution to a problem. It also meant any clever prank perpetrated by MIT students; logically the perpetrator was a hacker. To this day the terms hack and hacker are used in several ways at MIT, without necessarily referring to computers. When MIT students surreptitiously put a fake police car atop the dome on MIT's Building 10, that was a hack, and the students involved were therefore hackers. Another type of hacker — one who explores undocumented or unauthorized areas in buildings — is now called a reality hacker or urban spelunker." - Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_definition_controversy
- juneau, on 10/11/2007, -5/+31The balls they dropped are actually inscribed with the odd against a girl at MIT being hot.
- TKDEE, on 10/11/2007, -0/+24X as in XKCD is a great comic
K as in the second letter in the name of XKCD
C as in Can't any one remember the name XKCD?
D as in dang XKCD is awesome. - drgruney, on 10/11/2007, -2/+23Surprisingly not big brass ones.
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -1/+20SneakerElph:
The name xkcd is not an acronym. Munroe has not given the name a meaning, except in a joking manner within the comic.He claims that the name was originally a screen name, which he selected as a combination of letters that would be meaningless, as well as phonetically unpronounceable. - armbo, on 10/11/2007, -0/+18so famous you misquoted?
- hansonc, on 10/11/2007, -7/+25just not the group that performed this "hack"
- scottique, on 10/11/2007, -3/+20At first, I thought the headline meant, "MIT Dropped the Metaphorical Ball, a Bunch of Times."
Glad to see I was wrong! XKCD is one of my favorite webcomics ever, and the playpen ball strip is a classic. When we filled my boss's office to the ceiling with balloons, even dropping the last few through the drop-in-tile ceiling, we taped that comic to the glass door. - TKDEE, on 10/11/2007, -0/+16Making fun of MIT kids in real life = immature.
Making fun of MIT kids on digg = jealous. - jhuynh, on 10/11/2007, -12/+25since when does copying a bunch of numbers and letters make you a hacker?
- maximumsteve1, on 10/11/2007, -1/+14@ilyag
1: you must not be that big of a fan because you can't even remember four letters.
2:you must not be much of a geek because you can't figure out how to bookmark a site
3:never, ever, call someone a moron for modding down your comments when the comment itself was the source of idiocy - tomcody09, on 10/11/2007, -3/+16so i get an email yesterday on the MIT re-use list serve and asked myself... wtf?
subject: [Reuse] large bin of bouncy balls
"email to claim, pickup
might need more than one person to move"
now i know... thanks digg. - petehume, on 10/11/2007, -0/+12Actually, when Randall Munroe (xkcd creator/artist) spoke at MIT, he explained where the name came from. The explanation given above by ilyag, that it was originally a screen name chosen for it definition-less qualities, is correct.
- dentonez, on 10/11/2007, -7/+17Dug down for using the phrase "uber lameness"
- evanbro, on 10/11/2007, -2/+12http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_hack
They've been around longer. Learn your history. - chicken101, on 10/11/2007, -3/+12So .01 percent of the materials used to make the room have had sex before? Interesting.
- mercurysquad, on 10/11/2007, -0/+7See if you find any or all of the stuff on this site 'gay' as well: http://hacks.mit.edu/
- tackle, on 10/11/2007, -1/+7This would have been great, if they had done it like a month back. They are still living in the past?
- Eliza101, on 10/11/2007, -0/+6Damnit, people, it's a reference to an xkcd strip!
http://xkcd.com/c150.html - SbooX, on 10/11/2007, -0/+6"What, your mom buy you a 'puter for Christmas?"
- Nerfdude, on 10/11/2007, -2/+8way to be tardy to the party, MIT. the internets are on to new memes and squabbling.
- Ozymandias42, on 10/11/2007, -2/+7Sneaker, I think maybe you're the one who doesn't understand how XKCD was named. Wikipedia says that it's a random series of consonants that the creator has never explained.
Unless you're the creator of the comic, in which case you might know. Or it's possible he told you. But I figure that's just unlikely enough to make it worth calling BS on you. - sneakerelph, on 10/11/2007, -2/+7...sounds like some people don't understand sarcasm.
they also don't understand how XKCD was named. - JorgeGT, on 10/11/2007, -2/+7cos ♥ = ?
- mercurysquad, on 10/11/2007, -3/+7do your research before making a fool of yourself...
- mancat, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4You plum sure should have! It was neat!
Nifty???? - Aliarse, on 10/11/2007, -4/+8@evilTak (#6734339)
You should go with him.
I'm sure they do lectures on trolling too. - miggz06, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3Release the raptors!
- rmacnguyen, on 10/11/2007, -1/+4http://img378.imageshack.us/img378/6929/1337hw1.jpg
- sygyzy, on 10/11/2007, -4/+7Wow, I had never heard of XKCD before this. Pretty cool stunt and comic.
- bposeley, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3Everything on stage (including the colored play-pen ball "hack") are references to this guest-lecturer's comics. It makes a lot more sense if you read through them all:
www.xkcd.com
He's a brilliant web comic. - inactive, on 10/11/2007, -1/+3Holy ***** - enough about the 16-byte AACS key already.
With the amount of airplay this is getting around here, you'd think digg's Ubuntu crowd had come up with the gene sequence necessary to grow a vagina on the back of a mouse.
Cripes, guys - log the ***** off once in a while will ya... - TheTankengine, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2This should sufficiently satisfy this issue:
http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/what_xkcd_means.png - mercurysquad, on 10/11/2007, -1/+3But there were so many more hacks related to the comics, that they could have pulled off. For one, I'd have liked to see a huge bubble with a guy inside it surfing the crowd :D instead of those small balls.
- h2g242, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2@tkdee
is that a robert lohse - family guy reference - mercurysquad, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1http://www.xkcd.com/c150.html
- piwy, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1so... what's with all they toy dino's?
- Lockhart, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1I am so lost.
Anyone care to explain? I Googled "XKCD" and understand that it's a webcomic.
But I don't get the playpen balls and the 16-byte AACS processing key.
Just curious. -
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