OK, now...If Cory doesn't actually write a story now titled "Bang the DRM slowly," I'll be tremendously dissapointed in him.

Not that he would care.

Posted April 1, 2005 9:11 AM by Skwid

The admins at the Comic Book Resources Forums are insisting that the boards switch over to paid format today, but few have bitten. I'm expecting something from the other major comics sites, but haven't visited them yet. I doubt anything will eclipse 2003's "Extreme Smurfs," though.

Posted April 1, 2005 9:15 AM by Michael Pullmann

Wikipedia is apparently getting slammed.

Posted April 1, 2005 9:17 AM by Paula Helm Murray

There's this one from Bloglines. I'm no expert, but it looks straight up to me.

Posted April 1, 2005 9:24 AM by Dorothea Salo

The Register went a little over the top in the writing style, but I did like this one.

Posted April 1, 2005 9:31 AM by abi

This one totally fooled me. Which nowadays doesn't happen very often.

Posted April 1, 2005 9:34 AM by Anna Feruglio Dal Dan

The Fug girls have had a change of heart. Their new site is GoHugYourself.com.

Posted April 1, 2005 9:48 AM by Andy Perrin

Spacedaily's main page has an article about the president announcing the space station was going to get dismantled and put on eBay that I blogged up at Futurismic :-)

Posted April 1, 2005 9:59 AM by tobias s buckell

Harry Potter fansite The Leaky Cauldron has launched the new portal Ask Peeves.

Posted April 1, 2005 10:06 AM by Andy Perrin

FoxTrot, Get Fuzzy, and Swine Before Pearls are obviously all in cahoots. I haven't found any other comic pranks, although PA addresses the topic with their usual panache.

Posted April 1, 2005 10:06 AM by Skwid

This one from this morning's Toronto Star had me fooled all the way down to the song lyrics.

Posted April 1, 2005 10:14 AM by Greg Ioannou

Oh, and of course, the traditional RFC, with a touch of political awareness this year for salt!

Posted April 1, 2005 10:15 AM by Skwid

Skwid, I noticed that too. I didn't see any others either.

Posted April 1, 2005 10:19 AM by Lenore Jean Jones

By the way, I LOVE the Google Gulp joke. Thanks, Teresa, for pointing it out!

Posted April 1, 2005 10:20 AM by Lenore Jean Jones

Water found on Mars!

Posted April 1, 2005 10:21 AM by Julia

Japanese video game company Irem puts on an elaborate April Fool's gag each year, with this year's spoof being mirrored here. Of course, if you don't speak Japanese the joke will be more than a bit confusing. Fortunatly the Gaming-Age Forums are obsessive enough to translate the gags. Granted, your own appreciation of the joke depends on how much of a video game geek you happen to be, but I figure everyone can dig on the joys of Zettai Zetsumei Yokocho/Desperate Alleyways, their new "Intoxicated Survival Action" salaryman drinking game. Their previous gags are also pretty entertaining, particularly Doki Doki Suikoden, the dating simulation game with 108 girls to choose from, or the high weirdness of Irem Burger.

Phil

Posted April 1, 2005 11:12 AM by Phil Lee

That post would probably have been more useful had I not completely failed to properly link everything. At any rate, you can find the Gaming-Age translations here:

http://www.ga-forum.com/showthread.php?t=41550

Phil, looking sheepish and shuffling back into lurkerdom

Posted April 1, 2005 11:15 AM by Phil Lee

Regarding "Wikipedia is apparently getting slammed."

Wikipedia's daily featured article (on the front page) is European Toilet Paper Holder, which if memory serves was an old joke article that surfaced again.

The front page also announces Encyclopędia Britannica announces an immediate takeover of the Wikimedia Foundation; the article goes to... some length.

There's a couple of other small hoax articles kicking around on there, I believe, but haven't gone to find them.

Posted April 1, 2005 11:28 AM by Andrew Gray

The joke's unfortunately highly dependent on knowing what's been going on in high energy physics, but this paper is an April Fool's joke.

Posted April 1, 2005 11:38 AM by Aaron Bergman

Glee! ThinkGeek usually has a good turnout, and this year is no exception, with my personal favorite being The Green Laser Aircraft Tracker.

Posted April 1, 2005 11:43 AM by Skwid

Bwahahaha! "We'll always have Paris."

(The idea of Paris Hilton playing Ilsa Lund in Casablanca remake. Oooo, the kidneys, they hurt.)

Posted April 1, 2005 12:00 PM by PiscusFiche

Our lab newsletter is amusing today.

Olympic Committee Seeks Bid from Fermilab

"Fermilab has much to offer," said IOC President Jacques Rogge, of Belgium. "The Tevatron and Main Injector rings would be an unparalleled venue for track events, and the lab already has an Olympic-sized pool and a Village. As for field events, Fermilab is almost nothing BUT field. Frankly, none of the bids we have received so far can compare."

Posted April 1, 2005 12:04 PM by Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey

Oh, I missed the April Foolsness of the Brad Fitz thing -- when he started talking about subordinates I tuned out and meant to query why he would suddenly start talking about his colleagues that way.

Well, that's all right then. I didn't make a public fool of myself because it was time to deliver the girl to school. I don't count this kind of making a public fool of myself.

Posted April 1, 2005 12:31 PM by Lucy Kemnitzer

TeeVee.org's eighth April Fool's prank is a rendition of TypePad devoted entirely to blogs "by" TV celebrities, including Dan Rather.

Posted April 1, 2005 12:32 PM by Jason

I planned on doing something at work -- replacing the usual Friday morning bagels and donut spread with a bowl of Ritz crackers -- but the receptionist who would have had to cooperate didn't want to go along. Feh.

Posted April 1, 2005 12:33 PM by Stefan Jones

How to Felt Acrylic.

Posted April 1, 2005 1:12 PM by G. Jules

quiet ahem?

Posted April 1, 2005 1:18 PM by julia

Tiger + Tiger, burning bright,
like a Photo iPod in the night,
what graphic designer's hand or eye,
dare pixellate thy symmetry.

Shame about that third line...

Posted April 1, 2005 1:20 PM by Skwid

Comics update: Heidi Macdonald's The Beat (www.comicon.com/thebeat) has 2 fake headlines for the price of one. Both, however, require some familiarity with the comics scene to get. (Google "Identity Crisis" and "Dave Sim misogyny" to understand the first, and just know that Joe Quesada and Bob Wayne hate each other for the second.)

Posted April 1, 2005 1:56 PM by Michael Pullmann

Opera Software has announced Platform-Independent Real-Time Speech Technology:

Opera Software's R&D department today announced the discovery of a new technology dubbed 'Opera SoundWave' - a platform-independent speech solution for short- and medium-range interpersonal communication. Based on open standards, Opera's patent-pending P2P speech technology uses analogue signals carried through open air, enabling users to communicate in real- time without the use of computers or mobile phones.

Posted April 1, 2005 2:16 PM by Lis Riba

LANDOVER BAPTIST SITE UNDER ATTACK!
http://objective.jesussave.us/shutdown.html

LANDOVER SITE HIJACKED!
http://www.landoverbaptist.org/

Posted April 1, 2005 2:26 PM by Stefan Jones

Stefan: that seems to be quite real. Why do you think it's a joke? Or am I missing something?

Posted April 1, 2005 3:09 PM by Xopher (Christopher Hatton)

[crushing your head]
Where did I say it was a joke?

Or more to the point, where did I not say it was a joke?
[/crushing your head!]

Posted April 1, 2005 3:15 PM by Stefan Jones

Pupna is the search engine puppy that retrieves EXACTLY what you are searching for (and absolutely nothing else!)

www.pupna.com

"A true breakthrough in Fetch Engine technology... Google and Yahoo have nothing even remotely comparable!" - Tech Review Magazine (April 1, 2005, print edition)

Posted April 1, 2005 3:48 PM by Pupna

Spring? What spring? From RealClimate.

Universal health care enacted for all Americans. From The Health Care Blog.

The American Street has been taken over by conservative columnists.

Posted April 1, 2005 4:01 PM by Linkmeister

"Harry Potter fansite The Leaky Cauldron has launched the new portal Ask Peeves."

Ask Jeeves has done its own version of itself.

You probably got this already, but the Thinkgeek anagram shirt decodes to "Shop at Thinkgeek, fools!"

Posted April 1, 2005 5:00 PM by Zzedar

Not to toot a horn closely related to myself, but the Spouse has given up comics; she'll set Dicebox aside for either computers, or cat anthropology.

Posted April 1, 2005 6:29 PM by Kip Manley

My favorite April Fools joke this year isn't online, and wasn't intended as a joke. Some background: The library where I work had a burst pipe last week; hundreds of gallons of water poured out before we could get the main shut off. No damage to the collection, but the library was closed for a week while we dried out, cleaned up, and patched and replastered the ceiling. So today our AudioVisual librarian comes back from vacation, hears the story--and doesn't believe it! He congratulated us on creating such an elaborate hoax and on getting everyone to tell the same details with such straight faces. He only believed us when we showed him the photo of the library director standing in the lobby soaking wet.

--Mary Aileen

Posted April 1, 2005 6:50 PM by Mary Aileen Buss

Ouch, Mary Aileen. That hits a little close to home. The principal U of Hawai'i library had a similar disaster last Halloween.

Posted April 1, 2005 7:40 PM by Linkmeister

Linkmeister: Yikes! Yeah, we were lucky: the damage was minor, we didn't lose any books or computers, and--most importantly--no one got hurt. Even so, the flood itself wasn't funny at all.

But the "April Fools joke" bit was hilarious.

Posted April 1, 2005 8:00 PM by Mary Aileen Buss

I can imagine.

"No, no, it's true, it's true!"

"Aw, c'mon. Good joke, guys."

"But, but..."

Posted April 1, 2005 8:06 PM by Linkmeister

RE: misia's plans to restore her virginity...

the old coochie snorcher??

Snorcher. What an excellent word.

Posted April 1, 2005 10:29 PM by pericat

The last segment on All Things Considered this evening was utterly hilarious.

Posted April 1, 2005 11:17 PM by Stefan Jones

Yes, the NPR thing on untapped maple trees--which can be heard by going here--was a winner.

Posted April 2, 2005 12:31 AM by Maines

Earlier tonight I heard Michio Kaku on the BBC saying that he had a device to travel through wormholes into other universes - a lookingglass, as in Alice's.

I was just thinking that might have been an AFD segment, but a Google search shows Alice coming up in relation to him and his new book, so I guess it wasn't.

Sounded a bit outlandish at the time...

Posted April 2, 2005 12:40 AM by Jon H

Oops! I just posted on the wrong thread a comment I meant to put here. (My computer may be confused and thinking it's still April 1. It's been acting strangely lately anyway.)

Anyway: a local radio station carried a report from CNN Radio that Congress was considering a ban on drinking while using the Internet. (The report did eventually 'fess up to being a spoof.)

Posted April 2, 2005 3:34 AM by Lois Aleta Fundis

A large number of Star Trek authors conspired to send an editor of the line their proposal to revive the sales: porn.

Posted April 2, 2005 12:47 PM by Glenn Hauman

U of Hawaii is a sister college to U of Maryland. All us Librarians-in-training shuddered when we heard about the flood. it coincided with a Preservation class, though, so the Prof took the opportunity to discuss how to go about the procedures for cleaning up and recouping. I hope I never have to deal with a wate rleak or flood in a library I work at.

Posted April 3, 2005 2:52 PM by Keith

OK, so April 1 was days ago, but I'm slow. The hands-down milk-out-the-nose winner, for me, was Michelle Maklin, done by Roxanne and her band of fools and helpers.

Michelle Maklin.

I particularly liked the "Mary Jane" post.

Posted April 3, 2005 4:27 PM by liz

Ahem. There's an unclosed [b] tag somewhere up there...

Here's one about visible expressions of love meant to last a lifetime. (Not for the easily squicked.)

Posted April 3, 2005 4:48 PM by Larry Brennan

Oh, and thanks for linking the NPR maple tree thing. I think it went over the top when they went to Samoa, though.

Posted April 3, 2005 4:55 PM by Larry Brennan

& www.locusmag.com has some amusing bits for Friday.

Michael Walsh

Posted April 3, 2005 5:44 PM by Michael Walsh

Stefan, Maines, thanks for the NPR maple tree story. A pledge drive segment ate up that part of ATC, apparently, so I didn't even know it existed. Funny funny stuff. "Danish" Samoa, indeed.

Posted April 3, 2005 6:58 PM by Linkmeister

A rather cruel prank by Wizards of the Coast

WotC recently had an author call and a friend of mine submitted some work to it. He got the following email:

Dear Mr. [Surname]

We would like to thank you for your submission, [title], to our new fiction open call. We had a total field of over 750 submissions, and it was a difficult task to select the top 10. It is thus my pleasure to inform you that your novel has made the cut. We would appreciate if you could send us your entire manuscript within the next week. In addition, your submission letter mentioned you were working this up into a potential trilogy, so we would appreciate if you could send us what, if any, work you have on the follow-up novels. Even if they just exist as notes, we would be curious in case we wish to option the entire series or just pick up the first novel.

At this point, you and your fellow finalists all have a good chance of being picked up for publication during fiscal year 2006, and this
final call will let us make the final decision about which novel will be our flagship, and the order to release the nine runners up.

Thank you again for your submission, and congratulations,

Peter Archer,
Wizards of the Coast.

PS: To any of your friends who read this and fall for it, please wish them a happy April Fools Day from all of us here at the fake letter writing department.

-*-

I actually think that crosses the line into cruelty.

Posted April 3, 2005 8:06 PM by TrepannyPeck

If that really was from WOtC, it was way out of line. Seems more likely, though, that somebody independent of WotC was playing a prank. Seems like a company would have more sense.

Posted April 3, 2005 8:49 PM by Melissa Mead

I hope that was someone other than WotC. And whoever it was, I wish them a bad case of boils, and a bout of painful gum disease.

Posted April 3, 2005 10:18 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

I know several people who have submitted to that Open Call.

None of them have reported getting that letter.

I wonder if the full headers are available?

Posted April 3, 2005 10:33 PM by James D. Macdonald

Oh, I'm an idiot!

It was my friend's April Fool's joke on his friends, because we all knew that he'd been submitted to the author call.

I'm sorry, everyone. I feel so stupid now.

Please forgive my libel of a perfectly innocent game company.

Posted April 4, 2005 9:46 AM by TrepannyPeck

I read my mom the Scientific American one while she was making salad and she made me stop because she was laughing so hard she thought she'd slice a finger off.

Posted April 4, 2005 11:09 AM by Melissa Singer

Ah! That makes a LOT more sense than WotC messing with writers' heads.

Posted April 4, 2005 5:24 PM by Melissa Mead