April Fools Shenanigans
April 1, 2010 8:16 AM   Subscribe

April Fools 2010: The Definitive List from TechCrunch. Prank-pulling on this day has been around for more than 500 years. The earliest recorded association between April 1 and foolishness can be found in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (1392). In other parts of the world: it's poisson d’avril in France and Canada, only until noon in the Commonwealth countries, prima aprilis in Poland, was Hunt-the-Gowk Day in Scotland, Maj-kat in Denmark and on December 28th in Spain.

Another version of basically the same cyber mischief but with pics: Top 10 April Fools' Day Fake News Items for 2010 from PCWorld.

A list of some notable April Fools' Day pranks.
posted by nickyskye (32 comments total) 7 users marked this as a favorite
 
Techcrunch misspelled "Hadron Collider" as "Hardon Collider" which got me excited for a minute. It would have been a better April Fool's joke than the one they were describing, actually.
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 8:31 AM on April 1, 2010 [1 favorite]


This is a joke.
posted by Drasher at 8:32 AM on April 1, 2010


meta
posted by Drasher at 8:33 AM on April 1, 2010


They gave their own April Fool's jokes an A+ and A++ respectively. Humble.
posted by chundo at 8:44 AM on April 1, 2010


This means every subsequent 4/1 post is a dupe, right?
posted by delmoi at 8:52 AM on April 1, 2010 [3 favorites]


My favorite April Fool's Day website changes:

#1 (every single year) ThinkGeek. It's not just the main page; all advertised products have their own pages. Faves this year: Dharma Initiative Alarm Clock, Monolith Action Figure, and iCade: the iPad Arcade Cabinet.

Previous years' classics in the right-hand column include Squeez Bacon, Buzzaire Metered Dose Caffeine Inhaler, and Wireless Extension Cords.

Two runner-up sites for me this year: woot.com (which has become a "choose-your-own-adventure" shopping game, in which you can, in fact, die, and xkcd--try typing "cat," or "make me a sandwich," followed by "sudo make me a sandwich". Many other fun commands to try out. (Think text adventure commands.) Cheating by looking at the source code is uncool (but reveals LOTS of fun to be had).
posted by tzikeh at 8:57 AM on April 1, 2010 [1 favorite]


This Techcrunch article seems like it was written by someone with one hand on an iphone whilst driving.

Our grade: Throw some D's on that bitch.
posted by haveanicesummer at 8:59 AM on April 1, 2010


Not (yet) listed: Wikitravel has named Mordor its Destination of the Month. ("Not unlike Detroit, visitors to Mordor must face the very real possibility that they will be imprisoned, killed, or even eaten during their visit.")
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 9:17 AM on April 1, 2010 [1 favorite]


Is April Fools Bah Humbug the new black? People seem so grumpy about it this year.
posted by Kimberly at 9:31 AM on April 1, 2010


I thought their grading system was a little out of whack too. That Windows 3.1 training video from Train Signal made me LOL so hard the baby kicked.
posted by czechmate at 9:32 AM on April 1, 2010 [1 favorite]


The nsfw element in HTML5 (sfw)
posted by brundlefly at 9:39 AM on April 1, 2010 [1 favorite]


The phrase "enterprise chatroulette" made me happy.
posted by aubilenon at 9:45 AM on April 1, 2010


Only until noon? I had no idea.
posted by Kevin Street at 9:49 AM on April 1, 2010


guest@xkcd:/$ vi
You should really use emacs.

o_O
posted by xorry at 9:56 AM on April 1, 2010


Rock Paper Shotgun is posting reviews and articles about PC games as if it were 1993.
posted by straight at 10:19 AM on April 1, 2010 [1 favorite]


The "Half-Life 3 Shipping Now!" banner on Think Geek actually got me, even while I was laughing at all the new items. Well done.
posted by Big_B at 10:36 AM on April 1, 2010


"Mordor
Middle Earth : Mordor

This page may not meet the Wikitravel criteria for a separate article, and should be merged into Brussels. "

Classic.
posted by grubi at 10:58 AM on April 1, 2010 [1 favorite]


Moog has finally come up with an auto-detune
posted by ddaavviidd at 11:12 AM on April 1, 2010


Now seems like an appropriate time to relink to Anil's "Your April Fool's Joke Suck" and "Your April Fool's Day Joke Continues to Suck".
posted by cgomez at 11:24 AM on April 1, 2010


Sunlight Labs has a new CMS.
posted by finite at 11:36 AM on April 1, 2010 [1 favorite]


oneword ran out of words.
posted by Lucinda at 11:52 AM on April 1, 2010


The IETF published Google's RFC 5841: TCP Option to Denote Packet Mood
posted by finite at 12:49 PM on April 1, 2010


From the "other parts of the world" link:

In Denmark the 1st of May is known as “Maj-kat”, meaning “May-cat”, and is identical to April Fools’ Day, though Danes also celebrate April Fools’ Day.

I'm actually Danish, and this is the first time I've heard the expression Maj-kat. There might have been such a tradition once, but there certainly isn't anymore. April 1st is the day for pranks; it's the day when newspapers might report on an entirely made-up story, for instance. It would be quite unheard of for this to happen on May 1st.

Incidentally, May 1st does have a well-known name in Denmark; it's called Arbejdernes internationale kampdag, roughly meaning "Workers' International Fight Day". (The word kamp, meaning "fight", can also be translated as "battle" or "struggle".) I don't know if it was the popularization of Workers' Day that led to the demise of the maj-kat tradition, but it seems like a plausible explanation.
posted by Tau Wedel at 1:12 PM on April 1, 2010


I kind of want 'Lil Guildies to be real.
posted by bondcliff at 1:36 PM on April 1, 2010 [1 favorite]


TripAdvisor emailed me this "Update" today. I am undoubtedly too easily delighted but I love it.
posted by bearwife at 2:45 PM on April 1, 2010 [1 favorite]


Brilliant: www.ryanseacrest.com
posted by smackfu at 4:46 PM on April 1, 2010 [1 favorite]


I always check this list to see if I missed any good ones.

So far, no.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 4:47 PM on April 1, 2010


Whoops, that was last year's. Here's the current one.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 4:49 PM on April 1, 2010




As always, Wikipedia had a special April Fool's Day Main Page, in which the Featured Article (fully sourced, compliant with all guidelines) is one which is true but sounds odd or is written up (on the main page) to highlight its odd corners. Wife-selling was in fact real. All the other sections are edited similarly now so that they either point to normal articles in a weird way or to odd articles. The only rule is that it is all real -- no hoaxes permitted.

Although this is obviously a day in which many come to Wikipedia to specifically write hoax articles or insert hoaxes into existing ones, vigilance is high. The genteel main page shenanigans are considered the appropriate way to celebrate the day by the community.
posted by dhartung at 6:58 PM on April 1, 2010 [1 favorite]


The best one I heard today was Daniel Alfredsson, the Swedish captain of the Ottawa Senators being interviewed on CBC about his plan to run for Mayor of Ottawa. It was totally deadpan and believable until he started talking about his plans to raise taxes to bring them in line with Swedish levels, and finally going on to talk about how he would be able to conduct city business from the bench during games when it became clear it was a very well-played joke.
posted by Flashman at 7:01 PM on April 1, 2010


April Fool's @ Pixar
http://tinyurl.com/yzqrqgl
posted by wraplan at 8:50 PM on April 1, 2010


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