tams-lore
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+---
+title: Tidbits
+feature_text: |
+  Short bits which might or might not be true about TAMS
+feature_image: "https://picsum.photos/2560/600?image=873"
+excerpt: "A demo of Markdown and HTML includes"
+aside: flase
+---
+
+#### The Vending Machine Story
+
+Probably the most famous TAMS story is the vending machine, and has been talked about by many alumns. 
+
+Person 1: Did you hear that some kids use counterfeited money to get cokes out of the vending machine? They decided to make up dollars using their own pictures on it. They wondered if (in 1991) the machine could tell the difference. Appearantly the machine counldn't, but the man collecting the dollars could. The picture with the dollars led to a federal investigation, and they were kicked out.
+
+Person 2: They didn’t use their own pictures, but they also didn’t use gloves, and there were witnesses to the copying (at the copy shop behind Voertmann’s, if I remember correctly) and to the spending of some of the funny money. 
+ 
+Apparently the dollar bill scanners only looked for the appropriate light/dark patterns and nothing else. 
+ 
+Again, if I recall correctly, they used these dollars everywhere on campus except McConnell at first. They started with coke machines and then graduated to straight up change machines for greater profits. 
+ 
+There were conversations with the Secret Service, but not everyone was kicked out right away.
+
+#### IT Guy Tidbits
+
+“Quite a few kids have gotten kicked out for doing illegal stuff on computers.”
+
+“This was a really, really long time ago, but I remember there was a kid selling pirated copies of Windows 95 out of his dorm. He was kicked out, seeing that he clearly knew what he was doing was illegal. When we talked to him, he really didn’t seem to care that he was being kicked out.”
+
+#### Old Wikipedia Edits
+
+“In the past, an ongoing tradition at TAMS was for the senior class each year to steal the sign in front of McConnell Hall, the dormitory housing the TAMS students. Each time this occurred the sign was replaced by the TAMS or UNT administration, but several times the new sign was misspelled or mislabeled.
+Stealing the sign, although certainly illegal, is a relatively tame prank. Since the Academy was founded, the rule book has continuously grown, as each new class discovered new diversions that met with the disapproval of the administration and were subsequently forbidden. Additionally, illegal pranks also seem to have declined greatly. Early years saw numerous visits from the FBI and the Secret Service due to various technological shenanigans as TAMS has been in the past a major hub of data piracy (including copies of the movie 300 mere hours after its theatrical release), and dangerous activities such as dropping broken CRT monitors from windows or rappelling out of the building after curfew were observed. Many other pranks, such as vadding through the tunnels beneath McConnell, using bathtubs to cook ramen, or using the Chinese eggroll as a replacement to doorknobs are much more harmless.
+It should be noted that most pranks are playing on typical themes of protest much like those observed in typical high schools. Little danger exists, as pranks are not usually concerned with matters that violate laws.
+Setting off the fire alarms on the night before the first Biology exam has become increasingly popular in recent years. In the Falls Semesters of 2005, 2006, and 2007, the TAMS administration had to put the dormitory into "lock-down" five times, where students are confined to their rooms until the chosen period of punishment has ended. Lock-downs of the dormitory have been met increasingly fiercely by the students, who see it as an unfair to suffer for the crimes of others. It was expected that there would be too much security (as well as rumors of a double-length "lock-down") on September 20 for anyone to successfully set off the fire alarm. Although the administration is unaware, most residents in his wing do not worry because it was not suspected.”
+
+ "Bathrooms on the third floor have been the scene of abominable shenanigans in recent times. For example, one community bathroom was found to be covered in human feces, on the floor, walls, and in the showers, and was shut down for weeks. Other bathrooms are routinely defaced, by vomiting on the floor, urinating on the floor, defecating on the floor, and writing obscenities on the walls. One student recently complained of stepping in feces, and a brown trail was subsequently visible leading from the bathroom back to his room. The showers also lack hot water."
+
+#### Other fun bits
+
+"My brother and his friends made up the word Siberia. This was in 2008."
+
+"Person 1: “There was a tornado last year. I ran under the vortex form Kerr to the BLB for the fun of it, then watched the tornado touch down outside.” Person 2: “I was in Discovery Park, and we had to go to the bottom floor. The part they don’t tell you about is that it used to be a nuclear weapons storage facility.”
+
+“I actually know the couple that Sinclair said were ‘studying biology’ in the practice rooms. They were really weird. What they were doing wouldn’t really qualify as ‘sex’ as much as ‘being inappropriate.’ They got us kicked out of the practice rooms for the rest of the year, but I don’t think many people stopped going because of that. I do know that they did have sex multiple other places throughout campus.”
+
+"There’s a story for every rule in the handbook. One year, we started getting calls of from people getting light shined in their eyes while walking past McConnell. After a while, one person was able to identify which window it was coming from, and we figured out who the offender was. For fun, this kid was was shining a laser pointer at people walking past McConnell at night. In response, we docked the kid, and added ‘no laser pointers’ to the TAMS Handbook.” Now, it’s mentioned three times in the handbook that laser pointers are banned!"
+ 
+“One year, one of my brother’s friends cut off the power for the entire Life Sciences building. TAMS was blamed because it was right before a bio test. He ended up ruining millions of dollars worth of experiments. Of course, he was tracked down and kicked out.”
+
+ “My class (2013) had a less than 50% retention rate due to behavioural issues. There were a ton of kids drinking, someone pulled another knife on another student, people climbed out of windows at night - it was great. I graduated, but I’ve certainly done some stuff that could have gotten me kicked out. I’ve climbed on the roof - back then you just needed a stool to get to the latch in front of the stairwell - I’m sure they’ve covered that up now. One time, I came back drunk and the hall director was waiting for us, knowing what we were doing. Instead of letting him kick me out of TAMS, I called the cops for some violation of privacy that he had done to find out that we had gone to the party, which could have cost him his job. Luckily, I stayed in TAMS while he kept his job.”
+
+"Favorite TAMS story told at Pi Day Houston: That time Jennifer and I found ourselves stuck on the I-35 feeder with flood waters over our hood, somehow got the car to start and drive out anyway, pulled over at a gas station to bail out the floorboards ... and then were immediately written up for missing curfew upon our return to McConnell."