Posts by NFriday:
Mac Ideas that Actually Hurt People
February 26th, 2012by Nathanael Friday ’15 
1. A real lightsaber app… you know that wouldn’t end well.
2. Built-in explosive for too many wrong password attempts.
3. Literally razor-thin edges.
4. The Siri iDriver. Follows Google Maps to the letter.
5. iHivemind that takes control of every Apple product user and leads them to the iCountry.
6. Hardware made with actual fruit.
Marauding Maintenance
February 5th, 2012
In the velvet darkness of the blackest night, a single light shines from the Facilities Operations & Management shed. As the campus lies silent, the soft purr of the engine on a miniature vehicle reverberates off brick walls. Creeping along the sidewalks between buildings, this shadowy shape disturbs the puddles of melted slush with subtle ripples that will freeze solid by morning. But lo, what could this apparition be? Surely not the product of a late night partying and stumbling home in the wee hours? What lore speaks of its actions? For, in the snatches of starlight and LED security alarms, metal joints glimmer and an ad for Boloco is revealed. A set of sinister, sneering, glowing eyes hover at a medium height above the ground, full of the rejection proximity to the accepted has pickled to hate and sadistic malice. For this is no ordinary Dartmouth employee!
A streetlight illuminates the twisted features of Randolph T. Smyth, denied admission to this fine institution, whose sanity fell along with his ruptured dreams. For years he has worked his way into the establishment, to a position in which he may wring his revenge upon those oblivious preps and future leaders whose very existence torments his every day. For the blocky vehicle Smyth drives is nothing other than a modified Zamboni, spreading repetitive thin layers of water over the cobbled stones of walkways every freezing night, and cackling in glee every morning at the sprawling figures undone in their commutes by the slippery sheets of ice, ignorant of the lack of responsibility Mother Nature had in their misfortune. If you know the right location, this next moonless and freezing winter night stand on the corner and listen for the faint cries of triumph echoing over the wind, strive to catch a glimpse of a black shape stirring in the lonely alleys, its scarlet taillights illuminating the night and the puddles behind it.
Notes on Peeves of Aerial Traversal
January 22nd, 2012
by Nathanael “Nathaniel” Friday ’15
1. The panic TSA instills in an otherwise tranquil line of people, and the mounting horror at their dull apathy when, despite their violations, you realize you accidentally got onto the plane with a contraband item. Such as my pocketknife.
2. You know you are a captive consumer base once within security, as do the retailers, leading to burgers the price of a small Pacific island. Do not even inquire into purchasing a ‘snack pack’ once on board. Aggressive bargaining discouraged.
3. The single lavatory continuously and obstinately inhabited by what seems to be a line of fellow travelers with no working toilets (or fiber) at home. Meanwhile, the luxurious first class facilities remain tantalizingly empty. But they barricade themselves in when they see you approaching. Do the armed 99% unnerve them?.
4. The loudly squalling child kicking the seat behind you. The foreign couple talking unintelligibly (about you) in the other two seats in your row. Their linguistically dexterous and vociferous offspring on your neighboring side. People these days. So alarmed at the sight of edged, tempered steel.
5. The collection of people who appear to have regressed in their scale of social knowledge since grade school, as evidenced by their failure wait their turn to exit the plane. My blade will teach them manners…
Farewell to Nova Scotia, you sea-bound coast!
October 9th, 2011Coming to Dartmouth from Hawai’i has been an experience rife with surprises. Primarily were the icy winter conditions. No longer at a steady 80oF smelling and feeling like the inside of a tropical greenhouse, I stepped out of my dorm room into what must have been a raging blizzard, though the papers inexplicably remained mum about it and life went on as normal. The flurries of snow were so thick I couldn’t see my hand behind my back, and the icicles and ice-stalagmites formed a menacing set of jaws in the doorframe. I had to dig my way through the layer of snow that covered the Green (The lone ukulele I hear seeming lost and out of place) while enduring the odd looks of scantily clad coeds pretending it was still summer. The beams of sunlight froze and broke off with a tinkle as I pushed through them. On the path to Robo stood several ‘schmen from Florida and SoCal, encased in blocks of ice like carbonite. At last, after scaling the steps of FoCo and stumbling through the doors and past the food detectors I was prepared to eat all the mangoes I could.
Mauna Kea: Look! We have snow too on the tops of our mountains!
But, lo and behold, the food here is also so different. Gone were the pigs roasted on spits over coals (I’ll have to wait to get that as Alpha Chi), the fish pulled out of the sea and cooked in front of you, the fruity tropical drinks (sometimes on fire) and the mountains of sushi and spam. Head spinning from the lack of luau foods I stumbled back out, into the midst of a tropical beach party. But it all seems a perversion of what I knew. The music is the cheesy stuff played in the airport, and all the Hawaiian leis and aloha shirts seem somehow fake. The avenues are not filled with open bars, hotels and steel guitar music. The tikis have lost their cultural significance, and the ‘Hawaiian’ punch and ‘Hawaiian’ pizza have nothing to do with the state. The campus as a whole has me bamboozled. People speak of these ‘airplanes’ and ‘motorboats,’ while I paddled here in a double-hulled sailing canoe. Dancing no longer involves multitudes of flower leis and coconut bras and grass skirts to the beat of a gourd drum, and coconuts do not grow on the trees. America is such a large and foreign country, I don’t know every other citizen anymore. My Hawaiian is no use here and I must learn this new language, English, and use American money rather than giant stone coins (Come to think of it, trading the actual currency rather than oral rights to the stationary coins could be an improvement). There are no waves on the Connecticut, and I cannot find the Dartmouth Surfing team. The region is filled with hundreds of small hills the locals call ‘mountains’ though none of them spew lava. The somber brick buildings rise forebodingly against my memories of grass-shack schoolhouses and the solemn nature of H-croo/Vox/Lodj-croo stands in stark contrast to the eternal bright clothing, song and merrymaking of my island friends. I will struggle adapting to this brave new climate, lifestyle, world, but I know I will succeed because, hey, it’s Dartmouth and we will go until we succeed, pass out drunk or get distracted with the next adventure.
—Jak O’Lantairn Contributor Nathanael Friday