A bird-brained scheme

While it has never been properly verified we think this is a fantastic story regardless:

“The legend goes that an MIT student dressed in a black-and-white striped shirt went to the Harvard football stadium every day of one summer, blowing a whistle while scattering breadcrumbs or birdseed to coax neighbourhood pigeons down onto the field. At Harvard’s opening game of the season, upon the referee’s first whistle, it’s said that hundreds of pigeons descended onto the field, causing a half-hour delay.”

This may seem like a lot of work for a simple prank. But it’s little effort compared with the ingenious project of Yale students who, in 2004, managed to coordinate the Harvard crowd to spell out their own shortcomings…