September 25, 2007

AN IMPORTANT FACT YOU MIGHT HAVE OVERLOOKED -- by Steve Nadis

A friend in Switzerland asked me to write about the annual "Mystery Hunt" at MIT, which is something like the Olympics of puzzle-solving. I spoke with a veteran of that event yesterday who told me something I was not aware of, despite the fact that I have been to MIT literally hundreds of times--for volleyball, a research fellowship, and for journalistic and other work. We all know MIT is famous for science and engineering and is consistently rated one of the top universities in those areas. But the Institute is much more than that, he told me: “MIT has produced some of America's top tiddly winkers.”
Posted by Snake at 12:45:09 | Permanent Link | Comments (8) |
Comments
1 - ZARDOZ SAYS:


tiddly winkers are what exactly ,,marathon man ?


zardoz (Comment this)

Written by: Anonymous at 2007/09/25 - 16:00:35
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2 - Hello Z -- I couldn't put this in words & borrowed the description from Wikipedia: "Tiddlywinks is an indoor game played with sets of small discs called "winks" lying on a surface, usually a flat mat. Players use a larger disc called a "squidger" to pop a wink into flight by pressing down on one side of the wink. The objective of the game is to cause the winks to land either on top of opponents' winks, or ultimately inside a pot or cup." (Comment this)

Written by: Snake at 2007/09/25 - 22:43:06
3 - think U forgot to mention something 'key' to Z...
[;)~] that calling someone a "tiddly winker" is a slightly derogatory term implying the person is just into frivial [even if creative] pursuits. (You're gonna have to look those up in yer Funk & Wagnall's, there, Z!) -Marco Polo (Comment this)

Written by: Anonymous at 2007/09/26 - 00:04:22
4 - So it makes sense that MIT produces a lot of the top tiddly winkers. Mystery Hunt, putting cars on top of the dome, measuring the Mass. Ave. bridge in Smoots--it doesn't get much more trivial than that. Especially for a group of people with a collective IQ greater than Donald Trump's income. (Comment this)

Written by: gatemouth at 2007/09/26 - 09:42:47
5 - Very well put. Or a group of people where- the IQ of any ONE would be atleast a magnitude of 10 beyond that of the current Iranian "leader".

(I LUV that one where the undergrad built a 'gizmo' that whipped him a cold beer at the couch. Now THAT, my friend, takes creativity, determination, hand skill... & thirst.)

-Marco Polo(tried to 'join' but it keeps looping) (Comment this)

Written by: Anonymous at 2007/09/26 - 13:56:33
6 - Nicely put, Gatemouth & MIT. Unlike, perhaps, some of us, I actually went to MIT. But, unlike most of the people who went to MIT, I only went there for volleyball. --SNAKE (Comment this)

Written by: Anonymous at 2007/09/26 - 14:05:00
7 - zardoz says:


thanks MARCO POLO,

BUT i am sure their are more derogatory terms
more common to everyday use ,for us dwell upon.

Depending on the times , of course

there was a time , late 60"s that being called
NEARDERTHAL was very obscene. =Z=
 (Comment this)

Written by: Anonymous at 2007/09/27 - 02:33:43
8 - Surprised you didn't know this, Cousin Steve. Years before I competed in the World Championships of Rock, Paper Scissors, brother Kenny had his heart broken at the national tiddly wink trials. He was just a wink and a tiddle away from making the national time.

To this day, Kenny blames his loss on one an unscrupulous act by one of MIT's finest winkers of all times. Kenny doesn't talk about it much any more-- too emotional. However, just after it happed he told me the full story.

According to Kenny, his finest squidger was messed with just before the semi-finals. The squidger looked and felt just as it did before. Kenny knew it was messed with because it was warm and smelled like Old Spice -- the telltale sign that it was what they used to call (Comment this)

Written by: cousin bob at 2007/09/27 - 03:29:30
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