from the future. The convention was organized by Amal Dorai with help from current and former residents of the MIT living group Putz, one of the halls in the East Campus dorm. As of the date of the event, it was the most significantly publicized Time Traveler Convention, including front-page coverage in the New York Times, Wired, and Slashdot. It was presumed time travelers would have the capability to visit any particular time if they could travel to that general time period at all. The idea originated in a Cat and Girl strip by Dorothy Gambrell. The convention was held at 22:00 EDT on May 7, 2005 (May 8, 02:00 UTC) in the East Campus courtyard and Walker Memorial at MIT. That location is 42.360007 degrees north latitude, 71.087870 degrees west longitude. The Convention was announced in advance (that is, before the event) and over 300 contemporary people attended. (For fire safety reasons, a handful of attendees watched the convention via a closed circuit broadcast.) The spacetime coordinates continue to be publicized prominently and indefinitely, so that future time travelers will be aware and have the opportunity to have attended. The convention featured lectures on various aspects of time travel from MIT professors and faculty, including Erik Demaine, a MacArthur "genius grant" winner, Alan Guth, an Eddington Medal winner for theoretical astrophysics, and Edward Farhi, winner of numerous MIT teaching awards. A Delorean, the car featured in the Back to the Future trilogy, was also on display, near the "landing pad" located at the exact coordinates advertised. The convention inspired a full-length musical entitled The Time Travelers Convention, in which three college students, who all want to change their pasts, hold a convention in the hopes that they will be able to borrow an attendee's time machine. Although the school in the musical is not MIT, MIT is mentioned twice, once by name and once in the coordinates, which are the same as the coordinates given in the original convention. Hacking Hacking at MIT can refer to two distinct but closely related activities. Both have a rich history at MIT, despite being unsanctioned activities and often violating official policies. MIT hacks A "hack" is a practical joke or prank display anonymously installed usually during the night. Many hacks commemorate historical or popular culture events, particularly those relevant to science and technology. Roof and tunnel hacking The term "hacking" typically refers