Reg April Fools '08

The Register April Fools, 2008 The Facebook Initiative – Bill Gates's greatest invention: Taking the hardship out of friendship Blogging Whitehall mandarin had top secret 'panopticon' plan: Leaked document reveals Sir Bonar's guilty secret Jimmy Wales resigns from Wikipedia: And Wikia too IBM unveils nano-projector based …

[Beezle Bob]

Not a bad day's work, El Reg

Just goes to show how much free time you guys have!

Only kidding, I'm sure you all wrote these pieces in your free-time! Or it's been a slow news week!

Still, all good fun, nonetheless.

;-)

[David]

HA!

I had all but two of them pegged. And the two I didn't get is because I didn't read them.

Black helicopters, because El Reg will probably kill me! ;)

[James Henstridge]

what about the others?

Does that mean that the rest of the stories were real?

[Mike]

@James Henstridge

yes, apparently it does... which means they were being serious with the "this is not an april fool" comment on that phorm article! personally i had that pegged as a definite april fool - even that comment wasn't enough to convince me it was real

[Senor Beavis]

reality distortion field

By the end of yesterday I had no fookin' clue which were real stories anymore. So I went to the pub and drank to forget. Photo of me later attached

[Anonymous Coward]

It's too orangey for crows...

...I missed the panopticon one because its general slant was too plausible. Well done.

[breakfast]

That's crazy

I guessed all those, but I also guessed a whole bunch of others too.

Maybe my thresholds are a little high.

[Sarah Bee]

Re: That's crazy

That'll be the modern malaise that is inverse gullibility, breakfast. It's an allergic reaction which develops after being caught out once or twice by a Photoshopped pic of a shark lunging at a man in a canoe, or a virus hoax. The brain starts to produce massive amounts of scepticism chemicals when presented with anything that could possibly be untrue. Hence, messageboards groaning under the weight of anaphylactic cynics sneering that only an idiot could possibly fall for that one, it's so obviously a hoax and u must be a moron lol, even when it's clear to anyone with eyes that it's real.

Yeah, that.

[Adrian]

So the Boeing robocopter is true?

Announcing that it'll be available in black was the clincher for me that it was 1st April as if black is a useful colour to be in the sky (even at night).

Black helicopters. Well, because....

[Andrew Thomas]

Enough April fools rubbish

OK, so the spaghetti tree in the 1960s was quite funny, but now every single news website feels the need to post some "hilarious" April fools joke. It ain't funny, it's tired. It's like saying the same joke on the same day every bloody year. Why don't they just so their job and post proper news instead?

[Daniel Winstone]

What if an ElReg'.....

Forgets he made up the story as an April Fools day joke??

Maybe it's happened but we'll never know as it could turn into a self fulfilling prophecy!!

Where's a Harry Potter Icon for those times when believing in Magic (and the power of Courage and Right) is easier than believing in technology, ISO and the Lester Hain's stories??

Sometimes it's best not to use an icon!

[Mike]

Re: Enough April fools rubbish

@Andrew Thomas

Twat.

[Dave Murray]

lol @ Apple fanatics

Nice to see the article about crap screens on the new Mac laptops was true. Wonder if the fanatics will even notice, probably not.

[Scott Earle]

@ Mike Re: Re: Enough April fools rubbish

Before using the time-honoured "takes one to know one" argument, or the even more concise "no, you!", I have to agree with Andrew Thomas on this one. I mean seriously ... just what is the point?

Spaghetti trees were a classic, and I thought the flying penguins were quite special, but overall it gets pretty tired pretty quickly.

As my esteemed brother pointed out on http://www.23x.net/ yesterday, "If you post a hoax on the internet, can you remember Google will index it and it's only funny one day a year? The rest of the year, you're just a lying twat."

Wise words indeed.

[Anonymous Coward]

@ Scott Earl

"If you post a hoax on the internet, can you remember Google will index it and it's only funny one day a year? The rest of the year, you're just a lying twat."

That is so massively massively profound.

I salute your brother, sir

[ca8h]

Royally duped! Blushered! Virgoogled!

Royally duped! Blushered! (That's Mars-speak for caught napping on April Fool's Day). We thought we were dreaming when we logged on to Google but didn't hesitate and thought what a great idea and what a great opportunity to jump in at the start of something wild like that and draw attention to our tythe-mania business model we're cranking up. Looks like your average stitch-pitch, but believe me we worked hard to make it real ourselves and knew the world-spirit behind it would pay dividends for us all on the big E. Got to start changing perspectives, and it starts here, with the seemingly quotidian at ca8h.com. So here's what we wrote after setting up a New User Group (Dirty Sexy Money and Dirty Sexy Earth, to draw attention to making money and the plight of the Earth - some correlation methinks) thinking we were reaching the world through Virgile - who knew (not us, obviously)...

"Dirty Sexy Money? Doesn't have to be. We could all contemplate a future on Mars and give up on planet Earth, or we could all work together to create the universal paradise this was meant to be and still is for some - the thing is it could be for all. We just need to work together. Most are too poor, too hungry, too weakened by neglect to do anything about it, but here's the thing: If we work together, we can create the only miracle that matters - feeding, clothing, housing, loving and educating every single child on this planet. We mean to do something about it at ca8h.com. Join us."

The key is tything. Oprah Winfrey does it for Chris'sakes! Nuff said;)

'Cept... We were virgoogled!

[Slaine]

mmmm

Okay - I got all but the Comcast one, but then I ddn't read it either. I also deliberately played the AF card on at least one article that wasn't. I gotta admit though, there was also an article or two that I believed wrongly to be AF's and weren't. Another double shot of sceptism anyone?

[Mike]

Re: @ Mike Re: Re: Enough April fools rubbish

@Scott,

I realise that my eloquent and detailed breakdown of Andrew Thomas' posting may have been too subtle for you to get, but fundamentally just because a joke was done before doesn't stop it being funny ever again. Anybody who complains about someone who is trying to make life a bit lighter is basically a twat, this is perhaps a little bit general, but just because you don't find something funny it doesn't mean that everybody thinks it's unfunny, I'd rather hear 1 funny joke and 99 not very funny jokes than no jokes at all, maybe it's just me, but life is just too short to be that miserable.

Personally I think it would be better if you find somthing funny than unfunny, if you don't , you don't, but to actually go out of your way to winge that you don't find it funny is a special type of sad.

If you think my opinion makes me a twat because I enjoy the efforts that people put in to raise a smile, and am disappointed by pointlessly negative people then that's cool by me, I suspect I'd rather be me than you.