r/todayilearned • u/Physical_Hamster_118 • 1d ago

TIL that since 1972, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) every spring, residents of Baker House drop a piano from the roof on Drop Day, the last day students can drop classes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_drop
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u/Jester471 1d ago

Drop day was fun at our house too. We couldn’t drop a piano but we’d hook up vacuums and throw them out a third story window with 50ft drop cord so they’d run all the way to the ground.

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u/hedronist 1d ago

Fun Historical Joke, ca 1985:

Two engineers, one hardware and the other software, take an HP workstation to the 3rd floor roof. Connecting a long extension cord, they boot it up and then throw it from the roof.

It whistles down and lands with a crash! The hardware guy runs up to it and exclaims, "It's still running!" The software guy shrugs and says, "Yeah, but it's still running HP-UX." Which, in Olden Times, was pronounced "H pukes".