Heck, I should never have gotten to meet Mason.
Mason was a Caltech student who graduated in 1998, well before I arrived. Once or twice a year, though, he would appear on the couch in our house's gathering area known as Lower Crotch. Long after everyone he went to school with had moved on with their lives, I would walk down the stairs and find him sitting there in the same sweat pants, faded Lloyd shirt and sneakers with the same messy, curly hair.
But anyway, eventually I graduated and I didn't really ever think of him again. Except he keeps reappearing! Last month, it was in a friend of a friend's wedding pictures, and this week in a press release about Caltech's latest book of pranks (he's an editor).
"The Legends of Caltech series contains a collection of first-hand accounts
and remembrances of high jinks past, compiled by the Herculean efforts of a
handful of alumni. This latest installment, edited by alums Autumn Looijen
('99) and Mason A. Porter ('98), illuminates Caltech student life and the
schemes that often stemmed from late-night study sessions fueled by donuts
and caffeine. Colorful escapades described in Legends III include pranks
ranging from the elaborate to the simple: reprogramming fellow classmates'
clocks to run backwards; reengineering a building elevator to consistently deliver
passengers two floors below where they wanted to go; or freezing a dormitory
hallway floor to create a rink for "alley broom ball" (ice hockey a la Caltech)."
and remembrances of high jinks past, compiled by the Herculean efforts of a
handful of alumni. This latest installment, edited by alums Autumn Looijen
('99) and Mason A. Porter ('98), illuminates Caltech student life and the
schemes that often stemmed from late-night study sessions fueled by donuts
and caffeine. Colorful escapades described in Legends III include pranks
ranging from the elaborate to the simple: reprogramming fellow classmates'
clocks to run backwards; reengineering a building elevator to consistently deliver
passengers two floors below where they wanted to go; or freezing a dormitory
hallway floor to create a rink for "alley broom ball" (ice hockey a la Caltech)."
Anyway, this is a pretty long post for a pretty short purpose, which is basically to say: look guys, Mason edited a book of pranks, isn't that weird? Oh, and also the book is named Legends of Caltech III: Techer in the Dark.
Yeah.
4 comments:
It should have been called Legends of Caltech: Episode III - Revenge of the Dork.
i second Sandip's suggestion...speaking of Mason, he's done some really neat stuff that's gotten him into the news over the years. i forget where i originally heard about this, but one paper was for modelling the voters/polls used for the BCS rankings as a group of "well trained monkeys." i would argue that a more realistic model would have used the poop from slightly brain-damaged, untrained monkeys, but i digress. another paper analyzed, more or less, the degree of partisanship in the House of Reps. i feel like i read about that at the NYT? anyway, here are links to those papers at his website:
The Bowl Championship Series: A Mathematical Review
A Network Analysis of Committees in the United States House of Representatives
apparently the Olive Walk maze we put up is in there, or at least an Olive Walk maze :-) I'm totally gonna buy a copy!
I just got my copy. It's really good. I particularly like the cover, a blue book, with "45/100 A+" written on it. Kevin wrote a nice article about the maze including photos, diagrams and even statistics :-)
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