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Internet Jackass Day 2006

Posted Mar 31, 2006

Like every year, I'll be rounding up my favorite pranks on Internet Jackass Day (aka April Fool's Day). In case you're thinking of getting involved, Anil's got some advice for you. We're a day early, but it's April 1 somewhere, so let's get started.

* ThinkGeek's annual lineup of unusual new products
* Flickr goes catty on all "Explore" pages, in a timezone-sensitive hack; some screenshots
* Google Adwords unveils two new image sizes
* Google Rooms
* Bioengineering firm to create pet dragons
* Slashdot finds its feminine side (yawn!)
* Ask.com's RhymeRank
* Yelp buys rights to the Pets.com sock puppet
* Bungie's Pimps at Sea video game
* Yahoo buys Web 2.0, all of it
* Ars Technica reviews Duke Nukem Forever
* Google Romance (though Google isn't far off entering the personals market, in reality)
* TeeVeePedia: TeeVee's 10th annual entry carries on their tradition of the best written pranks ever
* SQL on Rails, don't miss the screencast
* Gamespot previews World of Starcraft, among other news coverage
* Google Earth adds some visitors to Area 51
* Wordpattern, Wordpress merges with Textpattern
* LinkFilter cribs Metafilter's design
* Homestar Runner goes upside-down
* DeviantArt previews new Web 2.0 redesign

Comprehensive lists: If you feel like drinking from the firehose, try Urgo's definitive list and Wikipedia's rapidly-growing collection. As Greg put it, be prepared for "less than half-assed humor."

Conclusion: Eh. The only two that made me laugh were the Flickr cats and SQL on Rails.

22 Comments (Add Yours)

Mar 31, 2006
11:05 AM  
Zach wrote:

The girlfriend already played a very mean prank on me :(

Damn the fact she's +8. I didn't get it till she told me April Fools.


Mar 31, 2006
11:18 AM  
Rod wrote:

First one I saw today: http://ipodcolo.com/


Mar 31, 2006
2:21 PM  
Andy Baio wrote:

Hmm, looks like they took that one down.


Mar 31, 2006
5:45 PM  
Rod wrote:

Me == forgetfulidiot. It was http://nanocolo.com/


Mar 31, 2006
8:09 PM  
bluno wrote:

"Car Tech" reviews at CNET:

1973 Mercury Marquis Brougham
http://reviews.cnet.com/4660-10863-6481077.html

1988 Ford Crown Victoria Country Squire LX
http://reviews.cnet.com/4660-10863-6481080.html


Mar 31, 2006
10:36 PM  
mikelietz wrote:

Geeks.com offers the new "thing": http://www.geeks.com/pix/2006/geekthing.html?sourceid=qIqiRC4eG6i-AnqQSzSQ&cm_ven=CJ&cm_pla=0041586763
http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=geekthing&cm_mmc=geekmail-_-daily_html-_-31mar06_GEEKTHING-_-GEEKTHINGmain


Apr 1, 2006
12:09 AM  
Megan wrote:

www.leakymug.com

Emerson and Melissa Anelli, due to constant pressure by slash fanfic writers, have married and merged their sites.

www.homestarrunner.com

It's... upside down. That's all I can see.


Apr 1, 2006
1:15 AM  
kim wrote:

You missed Zawodny defecting from Yahoo to Google.

http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/006571.html


Apr 1, 2006
1:30 AM  
Riff wrote:

http://www.fark.com has a rotation going, including "the hottest frog porn on teh intarwebs"

http://www.google.com/romance - 'nuff said, I think.


Apr 1, 2006
7:55 AM  
monk wrote:

http://www.mySiteFeed.com is adding new features to their automatic RSS Feed generator service. Instead of just scanning your website and creating a RSS Feed from the content, they will now also scan your answering machine, your spouse's wallet, and your diary. To get the new service, create your feed(2 easy steps) and click on the "Gottcha" button.


Apr 1, 2006
8:35 AM  
Philipp Lenssen wrote:

No hoax: Google released another April Fool's joke after Google Romance -- Aliens on Google Earth. Just search for "area 51" and scroll a bit to the left to find two blue aliens BBQ'ing and washing their UFO.


Apr 1, 2006
8:04 PM  
dave bug wrote:

A subtle one:
Gullible.info, which usually has trivia that seems unlikely and is false, today has trivia that seems unlikely and is true. (Although I have seen the cat-falling study discredited.)


Apr 3, 2006
3:47 AM  
Sarah Oteem wrote:

My point of view; the most foolish is that Apple hasn't announced any new product or any special event at that day, though it's Apple's 30th anniversary.


Apr 4, 2006
4:11 PM  
Britney wrote:

Another great round up can not wait for next years!


Apr 12, 2006
11:51 AM  
Scott Johnson wrote:

This year's April Fool's Day seems to largely have been a let-down. But then, how can you really top Gmail?


Apr 24, 2006
11:20 AM  
kilimanjaro wrote:

Awesome roundup! I missed a few of these.


May 10, 2006
6:34 AM  
Financial Reflections wrote:

Interesting list. I did notice the "Wordpattern" gag on my Wordpress site. I groaned.


May 18, 2006
3:24 AM  
me wrote:

Why is that YAWN?: Slashdot finds its feminine side (yawn!)
'Males can express themselves online better than in real life?' - is that the resoning behind that?
So what if you're a female that doesn't feel comfortable in the real world then? Maybe men should separte the internet into MALE-SIDE/ FEMALE-SIDE then so they don't have to come accross our FLUFFY pages??


May 20, 2006
9:33 AM  
Andy Baio wrote:

I wrote the "yawn" because I was disappointed and embarrassed by Slashdot's stereotyping of girl culture as dumb and pink and flowery, which really only alienates more women from the geek community.


Jan 31, 2008
1:38 AM  
Home Decorators Collection Promotion Codes wrote:

Useful site. Thanks!


Jan 31, 2008
3:23 AM  
Weight Watchers Food wrote:

Useful site. Thanks!


Apr 1, 2008
7:15 AM  
DerRoteHund wrote:

If you want to see a great April Fool's joke, do check out youtube's "Featured Videos" today. That's hilarious!


 

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Waxy Links
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The Onion's Random Roles with Teri Garr — like Random Rules, this format teases out insights and anecdotes from interview subjects
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Bush: 'Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over' — remarkably prescient article from January 2001
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QA Deathmatch — bug reporting as a multiplayer game (via)
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GameBridge, Jabber/XMPP bot for Z-Machine, MUSH, and other text games — nice list of text adventures on the Jabber bot
I-Fluid, PC game pilots a water droplet through a kitchen — with a nice be-bop soundtrack
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43 Folders on iPhone security — is the time saved for convenience worth the potential hassles of identity theft?
Baby's First Internet — "It doesn't matter what you say, just publish it twelve times per day." (via)
July 21, 2008
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Multiplayer Minesweeper — brilliant collaborative game, but only takes one jackass to ruin everyone's fun (via)
Cliche Watch: Pushing over the Leaning Tower of Pisa — many more in Pisa Pushers on Flickr
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The Quirkbook — Rands polls Twitter for everyone's odd quirks and mildly OCD mannerisms
Jane McGonigal on Werewolf at Foo Camp 2008 — ideal strategies, a sneaky all-villager variation, and the impact of the werewolf metaphor
Google interviews the creators of WarGames — great trivia about the making of the film and its impact on tech culture
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Logan Aube's Hockey Night theme — Something Awful goons tweak an online contest with funny results (via)
July 16, 2008
Sean Tevis is running for Kansas State Representative, XKCD-style — help a computer geek defeat the incumbent, a hard-right, anti-privacy Creationist; he's trying to get 3,000 to donate $9 each
How to Fake Being a Wine Snob — there might be supertasters out there, but most people are just faking it
The Economist responds to Freakonomics co-author's pasty/pastry mixup — tasty response to this original post (via)
Mike Arrington interviews Evan Williams at Foo Camp — great interview; thoughtful questions and brimming with information, without the sensationalism
Rick Trooper — The Empire rolls you.
Mocha VNC Lite, free VNC client for the iPhone — link opens in iTunes; like others, I'm hoping an SSH client is next
Annalee Newitz on Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog — exceeds the hype; the site's been down all day, so I just bought the season in iTunes for $3.99
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The Sound of Young America Live interviews Ze Frank — strange interview, but talks about the end of The Show and current projects; see also: Jay Smooth from Ill Doctrine (via)
Defender of the favicon — staggering hack puts a playable Defender clone in your browser's 16x16 favicon; Firefox and Opera only
Twitter officially acquires Summize — search.twitter.com is now live
July 14, 2008
Deep Note, the Guitar Hero bot — it got 820k points and 98% playing Through the Fire and Flames; amazingly, some humans can still beat it, for now (via)
Unofficial RSS feed of newly-added App Store applications — until Apple adds their own, I've been keeping tabs using this

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