Vol 5, Issue 7: readme celebrates carnival (PDF)
the issue in which we try to figure out how many laws we can break before CMUPD stops us
Rejected Headlines
- Topologist reveals Ferris wheel to be dodecahedron all along.
- Hardest job imaginable: affirming therapist to drone strike today.
- CUC gym administrators remove all first-floor machines to make space for a merchandise sweatshop.
- Alumni find 50% of soul returns after donating to Readme (cmureadme.com/donate).
- Wild Blue opens as gas station food for buggy repair depot.
- How to tell if your ice sculptures are ethically sourced.
- Repeatedly saying "No hablo ingles" has not helped me get out of my Spanish final.
- Local gnome discovers his house has been stolen by SDC booth.
- Opinions: Dishwashers are the LLMs of the household appliance world.
- Tired of protein shakes? Gym bros invent "carb shakes" comprised of beer, ground pasta, and soft-serve ice cream.
- Artemis 2's local Claude instance hallucinates, makes a call to the "blow_up_ship_violently_with_cameras_watching" API.
All this and more, not in this issue!
Please
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www.cmureadme.com/donate
Sweepstakes forbids new live-birth method
Just weeks ahead of Carnival, Sweepstakes has dropped a bombshell on all buggy teams: due to existing rules prohibiting mass loss during a race, the “live birth method” is officially banned. In previous years, buggy drivers would impregnate themselves prior to Carnival, nourishing the fetus with Stack’d and melatonin gummies. Then, they would induce labor the morning of race day.
The method unfolds in two parts. As the driver takes the first downhill, they must fight to stay pregnant. Extra weight means extra momentum, and on the course, every kilogram meter per second matters. While some train their pelvic …
The Tell-Tale Tartan
The idea first entered with levity.
A prank, someone said.
A joke, said another.
A bit, I asserted, and all agreed this was the fairest possible framing.
This was no exercise in greed. I desired not money and, indeed, am hardly starved of such, given my Californian parentage. Power neither did I want, for there is little to be gained by dominion over sporadically published gratis periodicals (which happen to serve chiefly as insulation, kindling, and versatile booth-construction material). No, I think it was the spirit of the thing: their hateful abundance! Those neat little stacks …
What to say to a tour guide
It is admitted students weekend. Yes, it is Carnival, but it is also admitted students weekend. And admitted students weekend means it is the perfect opportunity to impart some well-earned knowledge upon the bright-eyed pests scurrying about campus, excited for their “futures” or whatever. Because caring about that’s lame as frick!
Next time you witness a harried student clad in the ugliest red polo shirt you’ve seen in your life shepherding an ill-behaved mass of overbearing Indian parents through Hamerschlag Hall, here are a few things you can do and say to make their shift just a little bit …
On my time working in the Allegheny cannon factory
Back in 2023, I got this lucrative job working at the cannon factory down the street from the old abandoned steel mill (the very same steel mill I had my first kiss in eight years ago). They would pay me to come in every day, no matter the rain, sleet, snow, or hail, nor the birthdays, baseball games, or religious demonstrations, all just to sit in this dirty old cannon for two hours at a time. They were real particular about those hours too. On Sundays it was 7-9 AM, on Mondays 2-4 PM, Tuesdays 3-5 in the glassy-eyed hours …
Don't Come Back
It’s Spring Carnival, meaning our campus is once again clogged with the shambling corpses of alumni who refuse to die with dignity. This is a group that includes you, probably, and if it doesn’t, it will. Every April, you ooze back onto campus in your quarter-zips, grinning like dim-witted Golden Retrievers recalling where they buried a bone during the Obama Administration. “Wow, they haven’t torn down Donner yet?” “I haven’t painted the Fence since SAE held it for two weeks in the freezing cold.” “I remember when Jim and I …” Shut the fuck up. No one cares.
We …
A Freshman's Guide to Carnival
You and I have one thing in common: We’ve both never been to Spring Carnival. Fear not, because my expert sleuthing over the past few days has allowed me to gain insight into this mysterious campuswide event. What does a midway taste like? Who’s in the doghouse? I’ll answer all your questions and more in the guide below!
Spring Carnival came to be when CMU administration realized that the student body may revolt without bread and circuses. Hence the tradition of selling snacks so unhealthy they make Stack’d Underground look like a dietician’s haven. The rest of Carnival’s events …
A Grad Student's Guide to Carnival
Me and the freshman from the other page have one thing in common: we have never been to Spring Carnival. If you’re a first year Master's student, you need to lock in, because there’s a good chance your program (which also has a 1 in 5 chance of having the word “AI” in it) runs for three semesters. This means that this might be your one and only chance to participate in Carnival as a student. If you’re a Ph.D. student, why are you reading this? Go back to your lab, bitch. If you did your undergrad here and came …
New job opportunities for recent graduates.
Dear Recent Graduates,
Now that we have your attention, have you made your way into the terrifying depths of the real world? Do you long for the days when the biggest fear was looking at your grades instead of making a mistake on your taxes and being arrested? Whether you escaped Pittsburgh or are still creeping around this city like a stalker at parties, you are now officially old and withering away. The sweet embrace of Wean Hall during Carnival season is your highlight of the year, and it’s time to accept that.
You aren’t getting any younger, …
Nine-and-a-half theses on comedy
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When the humorist writes, he ought to will the entire piece be one of intelligibility.
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Satire cannot be understood as merely the presence of references and proper nouns; artificial intelligence, Farnam Jahanian, Palantir, and Charlie Kirk do not a joke make.
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When references are to be made, timeliness is of utmost importance.
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More generally, timing is essential. In writing, this is achieved through punchiness and restraint.
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They preach only false doctrines who teach that a sentence becomes funnier by being made longer, stranger, and more subordinatedly …
Introducing Tall Booth
As students, staff, and alumni flood the Midway this Carnival, they’ll notice the usual arrangement of booths, each with its own unique design. Navigating through the Midway, entranced with the artistry of Spring Carnival, they’ll walk slowly into the shadow lurking at the back of the Midway. There, they’ll find the newest addition to the Booth competition: Tall Booth.
The point of Tall Booth is not simply to build a sound structure with a nice exterior. Instead, the simple objective of Tall booth is height. Build the tallest booth imaginable. How tall? To space and beyond ideally.
According …
There will come soft Tanks
“The bathrooms are down to your left, past the staircase,” he threw out to no one in particular. His hardened grey face stared, with a thousand-yard stare, into an assortment of broken glass, bent metal, and the vandalized remains of a few abandoned bikes that had been left for far longer than seven days. He waited. Then another. “If that’s all, I’ll get back to work.” His misshapen ears couldn’t hear the wind jostling up the dust outside. His prominent nose couldn’t smell the lingering stench of fermented noodles, rotten chicken, and broken bodies in various stages of decomposition. In …
Tales from Frick Park IV: They have a mouth and must not scream
“Alright everyone, if we could gather in a semicircle—yes, perfect— watch your step there. Welcome to Carnegie Mellon University! My name is Victor and I’ll be your tour guide today.
Behind me you’ll see one of our most iconic landmarks: Walking to the Sky. Feel free to take a photo, just no flash. Sudden stimuli can … interfere with the finish.” Everyone squints upwards. “Yes, it is quite tall. The sculpture represents aspiration, forward motion, the limitless potential of CMYou.”
A faint, papery crack as one of the figures shifts almost imperceptibly. “That lifelike texture is intentional,” Victor …
We're broke
Today, Readme spent the last of our meager budget purchasing kibble from PetSmart to stave off the death throes of one of our small, orphaned staffwriters. On our way out of the PetSmart, we were attacked by a man with a knife who took all of our print quota, forcing us to outsource this issue’s printing to one of our parents. To put it simply, we are pitiful, abject, and loathsome. Please give us money. Even a penny would go a long way; we need copper to fix the wires for the 5W generator that powers everything we own, so …