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Live a Month At the Museum of Science and Industry 70

Posted by samzenpus from the be-careful-of-the-monkey dept.
theodp writes "Even usually snarky Gawker loves the idea of living in a science museum for a month. Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry is 'looking for someone to take on a once-in-a-lifetime assignment: spend a Month at the Museum, to live and breathe science 24/7 for 30 days. From October 20 to November 18, 2010, this person's mission will be to experience all the fun and education that fits in this historic 14-acre building, living here full-time and reporting your findings to the outside world.' Oh, and if you're The Chosen One, you'll also walk away with $10,000, a package of tech gadgets, and an honorary lifetime membership to MSI. Visit the Month at the Museum site for details and to apply — the deadline is August 11th."
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Live a Month At the Museum of Science and Industry More

Live a Month At the Museum of Science and Industry

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  • ah memories... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Midnight's Shadow ( 1517137 ) on Monday July 19, 2010 @09:42AM (#32950192)
    Sounds like my phd program only without the chain to the desk and with more money.

  • The blog... (Score:3, Funny)

    by AnonymousClown ( 1788472 ) on Monday July 19, 2010 @09:47AM (#32950246)

    spend a Month at the Museum, to live and breathe science 24/7 for 30 days. From October 20 to November 18, 2010, this person's mission will be to experience all the fun and education that fits in this historic 14-acre building, living here full-time and reporting your findings to the outside world.'

    Touched a dinosaur: man! those things are delicate!

    The U-Boat was awesome!

    Farm equipment was pretty good. Drove the tractor around a little bit before it ran out of gas.

    At the baby chick hatchery. They're so cute! Awe shit! I left the door open! brb...

    Went to Jim Hensen's Fantastic World [msichicago.org] and had a threesome with Kermit and Miss Piggy.

  • rerun? (Score:2, Funny)

    by eshbums ( 1557147 )
    Didn't Pauly Shore do this in BioDome?

  • How many party goers can you invite over? I think that would be a pretty cool place to hang out. Or, my friends and family would have to pay $20 for a museum ticket to hang out with me.

    I'm assuming you have to sleep aboard the u-boat, which probably gets a bit toasty in the warm summer. Alternately you can re-enact scenes from "creation science" and sleep hiding from the dinosaurs.

    The lack of shower facilities would probably not bother most slashdotters, but it would bother the museums other patrons. Th

      • Absolutely no visitors overnight or when the Museum is closed to the public.

        And yet, we have this [msichicago.org], which says:

        We're looking for someone to take on a once-in-a-lifetime assignment: spend a Month at the Museum, to live and breathe science 24/7 for 30 days. From October 20 to November 18, 2010, this person's mission will be to experience all the fun and education that fits in this historic 14-acre building, living here full-time and reporting your findings to the outside world.

        So, there will be at least one vi

    • I doubt they'd have you sleep in the bunks on the uboat... but temperature isn't really an issue. The entire sub is inside a giant enclosure now and it doesn't get to be 100 degrees when it's hot out.

      The coolest part of this is that they say you'll have access to the normally off-limits stores of stuff, and presumably they'll have people live in the Green (like, ecologically neutral) house there. It's pretty pimp.

      http://chicagoist.com/2008/05/07/green_can_be_go.php [chicagoist.com]

  • Not what it used to be (Score:5, Interesting)

    by wandazulu ( 265281 ) on Monday July 19, 2010 @09:54AM (#32950306)

    Don't get me wrong, I'd love to do this, but since we've been taking our kids to the museum (their favorite as well as mine), I've noticed that a lot of the exhibits I loved have been replaced by dumbed-down equivalents. Take the original computer exhibit that used to be there; yes it was sponsored by IBM (who provided all the equipment), but that exhibit taught the actual nitty-gritty about how computers work; I can still remember "getting" how binary worked standing there and to a 10 year old geek-wannabe, that was awesome. Now they've got a half-hearted "net" exhibit that is more on "wow" than the specifics of how it works. Did they feel that really trying to explain things would turn people off?

    I'm also disappointed that they removed so many of the planes; I *loved* walking in and seeing that F-104 right above my head, now there's just empty space. Why? The whole place was stuffed with ... stuff ... to look at and be excited by, and somewhere along the way they decided to rip so much of it out; they turned many an exhibit area into offices or "swing" spaces that are just empty.

    On the plus side, they ripped out the ancient model train layout and replaced it with a sweet HO gauge one that is a lot cooler (Chicago to Seattle), and they have more than one or two trains running now..

    All in all, I'd sign up and stay for a month. Wouldn't think twice. It's just that great a museum, even if, IMHO, it just isn't as great as it was.

    Sigh...now get off my lawn!

    • I went to this museum regularly as a kid, too, and I know what you mean about comparing it then to now.

    • Re:Not what it used to be (Score:5, Funny)

      by blackfrancis75 ( 911664 ) on Monday July 19, 2010 @10:27AM (#32950712)

      I can still remember "getting" how binary worked standing there and to a 10 year old geek-wannabe,

      I don't believe you could have understood binary when you were only two years old!

      • It was an IBM exhibit. He meant one year old.

      • Binary for two year olds? YES, and NO.

        Do they understand YES? Probably.

        Do they understand NO? Not likely, though it's possible.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by etnoy ( 664495 )

        I can still remember "getting" how binary worked standing there and to a 10 year old geek-wannabe,

        I don't believe you could have understood binary when you were only two years old!

        There are 10 types of people in the world:

        Those who understand binary,

        those who don't,

        and then there's people who don't understand zero-based indices

    • Also agree... went regularly as a kid, then not for many years. When I came back I was very disappointed by the way things were dumbed down (although having a Master's in Physics probably also had something to do with the fact that everything seemed "too simple" lol).

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by shess ( 31691 )

      Don't get me wrong, I'd love to do this, but since we've been taking our kids to the museum (their favorite as well as mine), I've noticed that a lot of the exhibits I loved have been replaced by dumbed-down equivalents. Take the original computer exhibit that used to be there; yes it was sponsored by IBM (who provided all the equipment), but that exhibit taught the actual nitty-gritty about how computers work; I can still remember "getting" how binary worked standing there and to a 10 year old geek-wannabe, that was awesome. Now they've got a half-hearted "net" exhibit that is more on "wow" than the specifics of how it works. Did they feel that really trying to explain things would turn people off?

      In the SF bay area, there is the Exploratorium in San Francisco, which is kind of like they took the crazy hands-on area of every science museum I've ever seen, and put them all in one place. Just about everything is physically interactive, it's awesome. Then there is The Tech Museum in San Jose, which seems like a lot of displays and button-pushing exhibits - push the buttons in the right order and you'll get a neat printout! But I was terribly disappointed by the entire thing, because it's interactive

  • Just spend most of the time sleeping in a room of the futuristic 'green home' [msichicago.org] which is at the museum. It'd rob much of the novelty but still get you the bragging rights and one month of your life rent-free not to mention ten grand and the gadgetry and t-shirt.

    For bonus points get two sandals made mostly out of carbon to emphasize your greenness by having a good carbon footprint. Also grow a beard beforehand and spend time giving tours to guests, slipping in green slogans and propaganda. Demand access to th

  • Interesting ... but one whole month? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Ihlosi ( 895663 ) on Monday July 19, 2010 @09:57AM (#32950358)
    That'd be a bit boring.

    The _original_, however, probably contains enough stuff to keep any geek busy for a month. And the beer is better, too:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsches_Museum [wikipedia.org]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      They have/did have planes, trains, rockets, computers, clothing, salt, coal mines ect.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Ihlosi ( 895663 )
        I like the Museum of Science and Industry, but it's a place where I would take my kids while they're young. Too much of the stuff looks somewhat dumbed-down to make it palatable to a young audience and/or the general public. If I want to see, say, the evolution of steam engines to steam turbines, the Deutsche Museum is definitely the place to go, though it's not as kid-friendly. Unfortunately, they also had to move several exhibits (cars, trains) to different locations since they're running out of space.
  • Why is this in Idle?

  • If you are a person who is out of work, you could do this. Looking at the rules, they basically are getting you on the cheap. 10k for 720+ hours of work (there are appearances after the 30 days are up as well). That comes out to $13.89 per hour. Though the rules don't specify that you can leave daily for a regular job. It is a good promotional trick though.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by irving47 ( 73147 )

      From the looks of it, the rules state that the person WILL perform a day job by doing meet and greets as well as running some of the science demo shows.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rufey ( 683902 )

      From http://www.msichicago.org/matm/the-details [msichicago.org]

      Agree to very limited contact with the outside, and limited and/or prohibited personal use of cell phone, texting, e-mail, Facebook, etc., during the residence period.

      Absolutely no visitors overnight or when the Museum is closed to the public.

      You must be available to live in the Museum for 30 days with no outside personal or work responsibilities.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Arccot ( 1115809 )

        From http://www.msichicago.org/matm/the-details [msichicago.org]

        Agree to very limited contact with the outside, and limited and/or prohibited personal use of cell phone, texting, e-mail, Facebook, etc., during the residence period.

        Absolutely no visitors overnight or when the Museum is closed to the public.

        You must be available to live in the Museum for 30 days with no outside personal or work responsibilities.

        It seems like they're really missing out, there. One of the best ways to promote something like this and popularize the museum is to require regular social media postings to places like Twitter, Facebook, etc. so people can get excited about what the person is doing. What a loss.

        It would also be great for things people would always want to do in the museum, but never are allowed to, due to safety, security, or just too many people...

        • Just walked through the mine exhibit with only headlamps. Forgot about the
        • I am imagining that the goal here is that you only post to MSI-branded social networking. They would want you to limit your personal facebook and twitter usage and focus on using the blog that they expect you to maintain and other things that are tied to the MSI.

          I would imagine a lot of people would follow this person on twitter or want to friend them on facebook...but you want to present an clean image of the MSI, not their drunken facebook past.

  • Does it come alive at night? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Trip6 ( 1184883 ) on Monday July 19, 2010 @10:12AM (#32950532)

    Could I be chased by an old Commodore 64?

  • The experiment runs from October 20 to November 18, 2010.... who's idea was that? They could have easily increased their pool of qualified applicants by running the experiment in the summer. I know a gaggle of grad students who would have loved to sign up.

    • They wouldn't get very many kids on school trips during the summer. While many other people visit the museum, I think that's their bread and butter during the day outside of the summer.

  • Back when I was a young kid I stayed overnight at a science museum a couple of times. I think it was for Cub Scouts, and a couple of troops went.

    It was cool, we got to see the exhibits and stuff after it was closed to the public and such. Though there were a lot of proctors and parents making sure that we weren't sneaking off in the middle of the night. With fewer people around and more freedom I felt more inclined to see more of the exhibits... even things that I might not think twice about if I was jus

  • Would love to do something like this, but my firstborn is due October 17th. Go figure...

  • When I was a kid growing up in Chicago's Little Italy neighborhood, my Dad would take me to one of the Chicago museums every Sunday morning after I discharged my duties as an altar boy (no dirty jokes, please). The Museum of Science and Industry was by far my favorite, and many times I wished I could live there. First of all, the cool air on a hot summer morning stimulated the mind and the massive scale of the place lifted the spirit.

    But the amazing displays, from the captured German submarine to the work

    • Re:Sign me up. (Score:4, Funny)

      by Macrat ( 638047 ) on Monday July 19, 2010 @10:26AM (#32950700)

      When I was a kid growing up in Chicago's Little Italy neighborhood, my Dad would take me to one of the Chicago museums every Sunday morning after I discharged my duties as an altar boy (no dirty jokes, please).

      I'm sure your discharge was very clean.

  • ..paging Ben Stiller.

    Nah, he only lasted a night (or two now)

  • Prisoner (Score:4, Funny)

    by RJFerret ( 1279530 ) on Monday July 19, 2010 @10:27AM (#32950716)

    From the rules:

    - Agree to very limited contact with the outside, and limited and/or prohibited personal use of cell phone, texting, e-mail, Facebook, etc., during the residence period.

    - Reside exclusively in the Museum during the residence period. Occasionally, the candidate will leave the Museum to see science where it happens or appear at events on the Museum's behalf.

    - You must be available to live in the Museum for 30 days with no outside personal or work responsibilities.

    They should have called it "Prisoner at the Museum".

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by elrous0 ( 869638 ) *
      Wow, I can spend a month trapped in a place where I'm surrounded by bratty kids all day, without pay? Sign me up!
      • $10,000 for a month of dealing with kids isn't that bad, especially if you consider what teachers get paid these days.
  • Unfortunately for anyone interested, Ben Stiller's Resume [imdb.com] is just too ideal for this. ...If this article were a movie it would be night at the museum crossed with biodome.
  • I know where I'd be sleeping -- in the U-Boat!

  • Having spent years working in a museum, and more than once spending the night due to a missed train, I must respectfully decline.

    I've seen enough giant mutant cockroaches to last me a lifetime, thanks anyway.

  • Requirements of the Month at the Museum

    The winning candidate must:

            * Pass a drug test, behavioral assessment, and background checks.

    Yeah, okay.

    • What's the fun in being surrounded by gigantic T-Rex skeletons in a creaky old museum all alone in the middle of the night if you can't be trippin'?

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