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Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff Works dot Com. Join Josh

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Speaker 1: how Stuff Works dot Com, available now exclusively on iTunes.

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Speaker 1: Hi there, everybody, welcome to tech Stuff. My name is

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Speaker 1: Chris Palette. I'm an editor here at how stuff works

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Speaker 1: dot Com. Sitting next to me, as usual, is senior

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Speaker 1: writer Jonathan Strickland. Hey there, and uh, we have some

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Speaker 1: sad news to announce that they're going to cancel tech

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Speaker 1: Stuff and replace it with old episodes of Stuff you

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Speaker 1: Should Know. Yeah, apparently we just don't have the appeal

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Speaker 1: of Josh and Chuck. So we tried to hire Ira

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Speaker 1: Glass to do uh this how stuff Works dot Com life,

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Speaker 1: but wasn't available. And we really want to see if

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Speaker 1: someone out there would draw a comic strip of us,

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Speaker 1: just like Josh and Chuck got. But um, yeah, since

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Speaker 1: I'm animated and not actually a real person. That was

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Speaker 1: a problem. So I guess now we can just take

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Speaker 1: the rest of this time to um to bad mouth

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Speaker 1: everybody else, and then we can leave in a huff.

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Speaker 1: Except that this is actually an April Fools joke. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they're actual. I hope you weren't taking that seriously, UM,

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Speaker 1: if you were, got you so anyway, April Fools. April

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Speaker 1: Fools has been really big in the tech sector for

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Speaker 1: a really long time, and there are some tech journalists

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Speaker 1: who absolutely despise April first with all their heart. Can't

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Speaker 1: imagine why, Yes, with a hatred that burns brighter than

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Speaker 1: a thousand exploding suns. But yeah, and it's because this

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Speaker 1: is the day when a lot of people think they're

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Speaker 1: really clever and they make goofy jokes across the Internet,

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Speaker 1: and some of them are really funny. So of them

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Speaker 1: aren't so funny, and some of them are convincing enough

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Speaker 1: to send the nation into a tizzy every year around

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Speaker 1: this time. Truthfully, I think UM on the web it's

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Speaker 1: gotten to be sort of a a situation where everybody

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Speaker 1: goes looking for the funky websites. Yeah, they're actually websites

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Speaker 1: out there that just all they do is aggregate all

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Speaker 1: the different April Fools jokes that that people notice as

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Speaker 1: the day goes on, they'll they'll submit say, it's almost

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Speaker 1: like a dig, except it's specifically for April Fools pranks.

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Speaker 1: And uh, I think snopes dot Com sometimes does it,

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Speaker 1: and some other sites probably do as well. So yeah,

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Speaker 1: you can just keep your eyes open for that. But

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Speaker 1: there's certain, um, well, there's certain websites out there that

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Speaker 1: have made a reputation out of creating funny little April

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Speaker 1: Fools gags that we can talk about. I've got too.

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Speaker 1: In particular, I was thinking of that we could chat

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Speaker 1: about for just a second. One of those would be

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Speaker 1: Think Geek. I Think Geek, the website that offers various

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Speaker 1: toys and gadgets for the geek you know and love,

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Speaker 1: the mountain dew swelling cubicle dweller who works on tech stuff. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: actually we should um go ahead. And you know, that's

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Speaker 1: a good way of pointing out that a lot of

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Speaker 1: the gag gifts, the April Fools gifts that Think Geek

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Speaker 1: has come out with over the years, have to do

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Speaker 1: with caffeine and Geek's fascination with caffeine, so they're they're

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Speaker 1: they sell caffeinated soap and that's not a joke, No,

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Speaker 1: that really is a product they actually sell, so you

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Speaker 1: would that that of course makes these other caffeinated products

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Speaker 1: semi believable, so you might actually fall for them. For example,

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Speaker 1: the first year they ever did in the April Fools stuff,

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Speaker 1: one of the products they offered was caffeinated meatloaf. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I'm sure you would. They also have offered things like, uh,

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Speaker 1: the caffe drm patch, so it'd be sort of like

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Speaker 1: a nicotine patch, um, a caffeine inhaler where you could

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Speaker 1: just in hail you're caffeine directly and get that blast

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Speaker 1: as soon as possible. They also what about spas Troid's

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Speaker 1: the caffeinated cereal, So yeah, caffeine is big over it,

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Speaker 1: I think geek. Yeah, they probably make fun of, you know,

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Speaker 1: make up some caffeinated mints, except they sell those two. Yes,

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Speaker 1: they do. And they have plenty of other jokes that

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Speaker 1: they have put on all of us throughout the years,

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Speaker 1: and some of them have backfired. But we'll get to

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Speaker 1: the backfired one. That's the that's the I knew you're

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Speaker 1: going to go there. The piece to resistance is my

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Speaker 1: my uncle would say. But some of the other things

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Speaker 1: they've said that they were going to offer on April

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Speaker 1: one include remnants of the Mere space station UM and

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Speaker 1: Atari twenty system. They offered that for a brand new

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Speaker 1: ad on April one, um Wheaton X, which was an

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Speaker 1: operating system created by Will Wheaton. Actually, I bet he'd

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Speaker 1: get a real kick. I'm sure I'm sure that he

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Speaker 1: did get a real kick out of that. They offered

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Speaker 1: Duke Nuken forever. I noticed that the it was Nuken,

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Speaker 1: not Newcomb. So they had a PC easy bake oven

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Speaker 1: that would attach via USB's real not at the time

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Speaker 1: that they offered be Now they also a USB fonduce

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Speaker 1: at USB Tanning Center. Uh they were. They're big on

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Speaker 1: the USB devices, um so everyone else, which is why

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Speaker 1: it makes him believable exactly. My favorite, my favorite until

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Speaker 1: we get to the backfire one anyway, is the Beta

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Speaker 1: Max to h D DVD converter, so you can convert

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Speaker 1: all those Beta Max videos to h D DVD. That

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Speaker 1: was awesome. Now, of course we all know that's a

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Speaker 1: lie because HD DVD doesn't exist anymore. It's gone the

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Speaker 1: way of Beta Max. I think more people are using

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Speaker 1: Beta Max now professionals still use it probably, but the

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Speaker 1: one that backfired on them was last year two thousand

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Speaker 1: and eight, they introduced the soundtrack t shirt, a shirt

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Speaker 1: with a speaker in it that would play prerecorded sounds

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Speaker 1: and I think they even had a slot for a

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Speaker 1: card so you can insert your own music if you

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Speaker 1: wanted to. And they had this goofy video of a

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Speaker 1: guy going through all these different scenarios, and every scenario

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Speaker 1: he had the perfect music to play in the background

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Speaker 1: so that it would be the right mood. So like

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Speaker 1: in the chase scene he had chase music, and in

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Speaker 1: the fight scene it was a showdown music, and in

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Speaker 1: the love scene it was that wonderful seventies walking to

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Speaker 1: a wow music. Um. Well, there were so many people

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Speaker 1: who wrote in and said this is a great idea.

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Speaker 1: They said, why don't we do this? And so they did,

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Speaker 1: and now you can actually buy a soundtrack T shirt

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Speaker 1: on think geek, which before was just a joke. Well,

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Speaker 1: you know what, I'm willing to bet, having been a

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Speaker 1: think geek customer for for several years, that they would

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Speaker 1: love if they could do that every year and have

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Speaker 1: one product. It took off so well, and it's fakeness

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Speaker 1: that they wanted to actually make it a real thing.

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Speaker 1: I bet they would do that. Yeah, it would be

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Speaker 1: happy with it. I don't think that would have been

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Speaker 1: a burden to them, at least. Another website that's known

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Speaker 1: for doing lots and lots of jokes Google So not

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Speaker 1: only are they taking all your information and putting it

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Speaker 1: up on the web for you, they are making light

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Speaker 1: of it as well. So here's some of the Google

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Speaker 1: jokes that have happened over the years. There was the

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Speaker 1: Google Mental Plex that was a device that you were

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Speaker 1: supposed to just stare at and think about what you

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Speaker 1: wanted to search for and then click on it and

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Speaker 1: your search results would come up. And if you did this,

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Speaker 1: the search results were all about April Fools, and you

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Speaker 1: got a message at the top saying there were too

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Speaker 1: many voices in your head and it couldn't get the

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Speaker 1: right search results. Uh. Then they had Pigeon Rank, which

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Speaker 1: is where they revealed the page ran right where where

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Speaker 1: they revealed the secret to their search engine results. Pages

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Speaker 1: were a battalion of pigeons that would type them up

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Speaker 1: in real time. Uh. There was the Google Gulp that

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Speaker 1: was a drink that would make you more intelligent and

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Speaker 1: make you better at searching on the internet. Uh, there

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Speaker 1: was Google Romance, where you could find your soul mate.

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Speaker 1: By searching certain terms, you would find other people who

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Speaker 1: are also searching for it. Supposedly there was a Gmail

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Speaker 1: paper where you could say that email. They would convert

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Speaker 1: your email to hard copy format in paper, complete with advertising,

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Speaker 1: and then deliver it to the person that you were

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Speaker 1: sending it to. So essentially it was a letter. Not great,

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Speaker 1: of course it again this is just a joke. And

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Speaker 1: then there was the Google Toilet Internet Service Provider, where

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Speaker 1: they were supposedly running uh internet cables through the sewer

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Speaker 1: system and you would thus have a toilet that was

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Speaker 1: hooked up to the Internet and would act as your

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Speaker 1: wireless router. And then of course there was Good Day

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Speaker 1: g d a Y, which was an Australian based web

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Speaker 1: search engine that could search for web page that hadn't

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Speaker 1: even been uploaded yet. They could search for web pages

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Speaker 1: twenty four hours before they came to exist, because of

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Speaker 1: course Australia is a day ahead of us. True, And

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Speaker 1: weren't they going to build an interstellar base too? Yes,

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Speaker 1: there was the Copernicus, which was a moon base. You

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Speaker 1: know you can find all those online still, so if

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Speaker 1: you are curious to read the whole thing. And and

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Speaker 1: some of them have some quite amusing illustrations too, right,

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Speaker 1: and there these are hardly long jokes and and it's

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Speaker 1: just it's not just like a long joke with a

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Speaker 1: punchline at the end, their punchlines throughout the whole thing. Yep.

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Speaker 1: So let's see, do you have any more sites? Now?

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Speaker 1: Those were the two big sites. I've got plenty of

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Speaker 1: other jokes. But I figured i'd give you a chance

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Speaker 1: to talk for a while so I can drink my tea. Well,

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Speaker 1: I started doing research, and I found a list of

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Speaker 1: some very famous ones at the Museum of Hoaxes UM.

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Speaker 1: And basically I just I found tons of them. And

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Speaker 1: course they're all kinds like the uh, the Taco bell buying,

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Speaker 1: the Liberty Bell and some of the other ones. But

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Speaker 1: I stuck with some of the tech stuff, and some

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Speaker 1: of them I had never even heard of. Um, you

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Speaker 1: know talking about you know, John C. Warreck and PC

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Speaker 1: Computing talking about the bill going through Congress and uh,

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Speaker 1: apparently it was going to make it illegal to surf

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Speaker 1: the Internet while you were drinking, right, because you can't drink,

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Speaker 1: drink and drive on the Internet super Highway. That's right.

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Speaker 1: Of course, nobody gets the fact that the bill's number

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Speaker 1: is zero four zero one wrote this in and the

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Speaker 1: contact for that, by the way, if you're interested, is

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Speaker 1: Lerpa sloof, which is April fool spelled backwards. Apparently, uh

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Speaker 1: said Senator Edward Kennedy's office had to field a lot

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Speaker 1: of phone calls because people said he was sponsoring this bill,

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Speaker 1: and so people were calling his office to complain that

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Speaker 1: they didn't want This has gotten a lot crankier since.

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Speaker 1: But man, and that was way back in. Think about that.

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Speaker 1: The World Wide Web was essentially two years old at

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Speaker 1: that point. Well, um, okay, here's here's another one. Actually. Uh.

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Speaker 1: In four there was announcement going around that the Soviet

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Speaker 1: Union was going to join US. Net Um, here's another

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Speaker 1: one that backfired because it was it came from an

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Speaker 1: address from Turnienko at Krem vax Uh. For those of

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Speaker 1: you who are probably the majority of our audiences who

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Speaker 1: don't know what a vax is. It was a giant

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Speaker 1: mainframeish computer, uh, from Digital which later evolved into compact

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Speaker 1: and then hp UM and uh. You know these giant

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Speaker 1: computers were how you used to get on the Internet,

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Speaker 1: and everybody freaked out. They said, oh this is great,

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Speaker 1: you know, they want to join the Global Community. Well

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Speaker 1: it turned out it was a sort of a wishful

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Speaker 1: thinking hoax for for for a prank, but um in

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Speaker 1: when they actually came around, they chose krem Vas in

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Speaker 1: honor of that as there as there uh their host names.

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Speaker 1: So it gives you the warm fuzzies. That's kind of

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Speaker 1: a you know, all right, all right, you got us,

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Speaker 1: but uh, you know, but there's tons of those little

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Speaker 1: stuff like in BBC and they love their pranks too.

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Speaker 1: Said that Big Ben was going to go digital, yes,

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Speaker 1: which just makes me think of the Simpsons episode where

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Speaker 1: you see the shot of Big Ben and it's flashing

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Speaker 1: twelve over and over because no one's set the clock

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Speaker 1: after the power went out. Um well, how about in

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Speaker 1: nineteen seven there was a prank going around that said

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Speaker 1: the Internet would have to shut down for a full day.

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Speaker 1: I was that that was my next one. Yeah, okay,

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Speaker 1: well you go ahead and talk about that. Well no,

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Speaker 1: I mean you were supposed to turn off, turn off

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Speaker 1: your machines that were connected to the Internet because they

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Speaker 1: were going to clean out email, FTP and Gopher sites. Again,

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Speaker 1: this was and people were still using Gopher, and they

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Speaker 1: said between March thirty one and April two, you would

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Speaker 1: you should turn not only turn things off, but if

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Speaker 1: you could disconnect them so that they would not be

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Speaker 1: affected as the Internet was cleaned. And of course that's

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Speaker 1: just a joke, and that joke dates back. I mean

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Speaker 1: there were jokes that are similar to that that went

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Speaker 1: back to like the phone company. Well, they told you

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Speaker 1: used to have to place a bag over your phone,

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Speaker 1: so they blew the dirt out of the lines. You

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Speaker 1: don't want it to get all over your house. Well,

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Speaker 1: you know, it was coming from the Interconnected Network maintenance

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Speaker 1: staff from the main branch of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Yeah. Actually,

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Speaker 1: it reminds me of another one where the m I

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Speaker 1: T announced that they were that they were selling out

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Speaker 1: to Disney for six point nine billion dollars and they

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Speaker 1: were gonna they were gonna move it to UH to

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Speaker 1: take apart the entire school and move it to Orlando. UH.

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Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, they accompanied that with a

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Speaker 1: picture of the famous dome on campus with mouse ears

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Speaker 1: on top of it. Um, you know, it was gonna

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Speaker 1: have the School of Imagineering and the Scrooge McDuck School

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Speaker 1: of Management and the Donald Duck Department of Linguistics. Turned

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Speaker 1: out the web page was hacked, it wasn't actually an

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Speaker 1: official M I T. So yeah, so that doesn't even

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Speaker 1: follow the real M I T hack philosophy, but well

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Speaker 1: it kind of does, but it kind of shows. I mean,

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Speaker 1: M I T wouldn't do anything that would cause damage,

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Speaker 1: and you could argue that by hacking a site you are,

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Speaker 1: in theory damaging somewhat. But um, I've got a couple

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Speaker 1: of cell phone related pranks. In two thousand four, Virgin

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Speaker 1: Mobile announced that it was creating a line of left

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Speaker 1: handed cell phones and all the digital number pads were

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Speaker 1: going to be reversed, and people were immediately excited and

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Speaker 1: thinking like, wow, that's really cool. Let me clue you in, folks,

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Speaker 1: I happen to be of the sinister persuasion, which means

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Speaker 1: I'm ghosh, which means I'm left handed. And while I

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Speaker 1: might be easier to dial that way, um I still

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Speaker 1: read numbers left to right like everybody else. I don't

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Speaker 1: have to turn a book upside down or anything in

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Speaker 1: order to read it. So just a little Well, okay,

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Speaker 1: I don't have to is what I'm saying. I might

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Speaker 1: enjoy it, but I don't have to. Um. So yeah,

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Speaker 1: that was a joke. And if people have thought about

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Speaker 1: a little bit more, especially considering what day that announcement

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Speaker 1: came out, they might have figured it out. Another good

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Speaker 1: one though, all same year, two thousand four, a Swedish

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Speaker 1: newspaper and I'm not even gonna try and to pronounce

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Speaker 1: it because there's there's no hope, but a Swedish newspaper

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Speaker 1: announced that if you shook your old cell phone hard

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Speaker 1: enough and long enough, you would be able to access

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Speaker 1: the new three G network even though your phone is

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Speaker 1: on the old network. You just had to shake it.

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Speaker 1: So I'm I'm wondering how many customers lost their cell

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Speaker 1: phones in a frenzy of shaking and like flying. I

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Speaker 1: just see cellphones flying everywhere in Sweden on this day.

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Speaker 1: It's a beautiful site, although I'm sure it wasn't when

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Speaker 1: you had saw like all the batteries and stuff laying

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Speaker 1: on the ground. Oh great, you know. Um, there was

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Speaker 1: a press release about this company called web Node. They

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Speaker 1: had gotten this government contract, um, and it was for

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Speaker 1: the next generation Internet. UM. Basically you could buy a

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Speaker 1: node for about a hundred dollars or more than fifty

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Speaker 1: million of them, and basically the more traffic that came

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Speaker 1: through your node, the more valuable it would be. UM. Unfortunately,

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Speaker 1: business Wire this this press lease went out over Business Wire.

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Speaker 1: They didn't find it so funny. They actually filed suit

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Speaker 1: against the people pulling a prank for fraud, breach of contract, defamation,

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Speaker 1: and conspiracy. So uh, not really so funny. I got

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Speaker 1: a I got a couple of actually have a trio

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Speaker 1: of video game ones. Okay. The first one just comes

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Speaker 1: from someone being industrious and going out and registering a

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Speaker 1: domain name. Uh, and it was for g t A Chicago,

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Speaker 1: which would be Grand Theft Auto, which immediately made all

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Speaker 1: the fans of Grand Theft Autos think that there was

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Speaker 1: going to be a new entry into the series set

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Speaker 1: in the Windy City. Of course, I ended up just

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Speaker 1: being a joke. Another one, which I think is even better,

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Speaker 1: Bungee has a long running gag, Pimps at Sea. They

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Speaker 1: announced this game years ago. I think maybe two thousand

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Speaker 1: one was when they first announced that Pimps at Sea

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Speaker 1: would come out. And not only not only were you

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Speaker 1: a Pimp at Sea, but it was supposed to have

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Speaker 1: the most comprehensive and deep economic system ever seen in

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Speaker 1: video games up to that point. It was supposed to

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Speaker 1: be incredibly realistic, and it was going to be a

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Speaker 1: real time strategy game. And over the years they have

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Speaker 1: occasionally brought Pimps at Seed back as a joke and

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Speaker 1: added more features. So now it's like the most incredible

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Speaker 1: video game that never existed. It's like at C plus

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00:17:34,760 --> 00:17:38,160
Speaker 1: something like that. Very nice programming language jokes. So anyway,

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Speaker 1: the final one in this group is Monkey Island five

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Speaker 1: fans of the LucasArts Monkey Island series. I was a

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Speaker 1: huge fan. Now, in two thousand two, there was a

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Speaker 1: group called Mix and Mojo that managed to contact Dominic

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Speaker 1: our motto. Dominic was the voice for guy Brush three,

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Speaker 1: would the main character in the Monkey Island games. They

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Speaker 1: got Dominic to record a bunch of fake uh sound files,

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Speaker 1: and then they uploaded the sound files on April one

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Speaker 1: and said that this might be evidence of a brand

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Speaker 1: new Monkey Island game. And the sound files are hysterical

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Speaker 1: and you can still find them on the on the

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Speaker 1: web at the International House of Mojo. Um or actually

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Speaker 1: uh if Yeah, if you go there, you can find

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Speaker 1: the sound files. They host them there. You listen to them.

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00:18:24,160 --> 00:18:26,840
Speaker 1: They're really really funny, but one of them does give

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Speaker 1: away the fact that it is in fact an April

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Speaker 1: Fool's joke. All right, then you know, I got a

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Speaker 1: couple more British ones. The Guardian reported that British scientists

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00:18:38,720 --> 00:18:41,320
Speaker 1: had created a machine that would let them control the weather.

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00:18:42,400 --> 00:18:45,200
Speaker 1: You know. That means that they get long summers rain

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00:18:45,320 --> 00:18:48,000
Speaker 1: it would only rain at night and but always snow

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00:18:48,080 --> 00:18:53,760
Speaker 1: at Christmas time. You know, it might be nicely they yeah,

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00:18:53,840 --> 00:18:57,560
Speaker 1: no kidding. And they also send whatever whatever else to

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Speaker 1: the rest of Europe Continental europe Um. And then in

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Speaker 1: this is going to ring a bell with a lot

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00:19:04,119 --> 00:19:07,199
Speaker 1: of you probably when you hear it. BBC said that

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00:19:07,200 --> 00:19:10,600
Speaker 1: they were going to introduce Smell, a vision where they

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00:19:10,640 --> 00:19:13,359
Speaker 1: could do things on the screen and then you could

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Speaker 1: smell things and people called in. They cut onions on

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Speaker 1: on TV and brewed coffee and they said can't you

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00:19:19,560 --> 00:19:21,240
Speaker 1: smell this? And people called in and they said they could.

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Speaker 1: It's amazing how psycho semitic stuff can take effect, Isn't that?

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00:19:25,320 --> 00:19:28,760
Speaker 1: Isn't that nice? So in two thousand seven, Facebook introduced

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Speaker 1: a new feature, Live Poke. If you chose to live

355
00:19:32,600 --> 00:19:34,760
Speaker 1: poke one of your friends, then Facebook would send a

356
00:19:34,760 --> 00:19:37,359
Speaker 1: physical person to go out to that friend and poke them,

357
00:19:37,440 --> 00:19:40,800
Speaker 1: except not really because it was a joke. That's an

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00:19:40,840 --> 00:19:43,879
Speaker 1: awesome joke, like live poke my buddy, and like just

359
00:19:43,960 --> 00:19:46,879
Speaker 1: thinking about this person, like al right, tracking that person

360
00:19:46,920 --> 00:19:49,400
Speaker 1: down and then running after them down the streets of wherever.

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Speaker 1: No I have to poke you. It's awesome. Uh. And

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Speaker 1: then here's another good one in two thousand eight. You

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Speaker 1: remember what happened in two thousand eight at YouTube, every

364
00:20:02,200 --> 00:20:06,880
Speaker 1: single featured video to Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up?

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00:20:07,240 --> 00:20:13,200
Speaker 1: The YouTube Rick rolled the Internet completely blocked that. Thanks

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00:20:13,200 --> 00:20:16,040
Speaker 1: for you, welcome, And then I have a trio of

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00:20:16,080 --> 00:20:20,359
Speaker 1: iPod ones real quick. Yeah. So there was Gear four

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00:20:20,600 --> 00:20:23,919
Speaker 1: and two thousand six unveiled the Iron, which was supposed

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Speaker 1: to be an iron iPod doc. You would dock your

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Speaker 1: iPod in the Iron and it would emit steam in uh,

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Speaker 1: in rhythm with the music you played. Then you had

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Speaker 1: pop Express in two thousand six and they announced the

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Speaker 1: ipop Bra, which was a bra that featured a pocket

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Speaker 1: for your iPod and controls in the fabric. So imagine

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00:20:45,800 --> 00:20:52,000
Speaker 1: changing the volume on your iPod. Right, Okay, if only

376
00:20:52,040 --> 00:20:54,639
Speaker 1: you could have seen what I just did. Unfortunately I

377
00:20:54,680 --> 00:20:56,480
Speaker 1: did see what you just did. Way back in two

378
00:20:56,480 --> 00:21:01,119
Speaker 1: thousand four, you had the I Shave application Systems. Heidelberg

379
00:21:01,359 --> 00:21:05,040
Speaker 1: announced it. It was an electric shaving attachment for iPods.

380
00:21:05,080 --> 00:21:07,800
Speaker 1: You would uh slide this into the top of your iPod.

381
00:21:07,800 --> 00:21:10,800
Speaker 1: It would turn into an electric razor. It sounds like

382
00:21:11,119 --> 00:21:16,080
Speaker 1: a cut above. Yeah. Yeah, um, let's see. You got

383
00:21:16,119 --> 00:21:20,280
Speaker 1: a couple more um uh. They came out with total

384
00:21:20,320 --> 00:21:24,720
Speaker 1: home Remote Electricity, where Atmar Industries of Switzerland was going

385
00:21:24,760 --> 00:21:28,240
Speaker 1: to let you beam electricity through your house. You didn't

386
00:21:28,280 --> 00:21:31,960
Speaker 1: have to have your uh you know, appliance as electronics

387
00:21:31,960 --> 00:21:34,320
Speaker 1: plugged in. You can even make toast on your roof.

388
00:21:34,960 --> 00:21:39,040
Speaker 1: Sounds very tesla esque. Yeah yep. And then uh, you know,

389
00:21:39,240 --> 00:21:42,320
Speaker 1: this reminds me of your your Google mentioned a minute ago.

390
00:21:42,760 --> 00:21:49,520
Speaker 1: Um Red Herring brought out the telepathic email um tidal

391
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Speaker 1: wave of communications. You're a Maldini said that the technology

392
00:21:54,800 --> 00:21:59,560
Speaker 1: for telepathic email was created from encrypted communications sent during

393
00:21:59,560 --> 00:22:02,080
Speaker 1: the Gulf War. And they asked him how big it

394
00:22:02,119 --> 00:22:04,920
Speaker 1: was going to be, and he just sat quietly and said,

395
00:22:05,600 --> 00:22:07,240
Speaker 1: I sent you an email when they got back and

396
00:22:07,320 --> 00:22:14,200
Speaker 1: said it's going to be huge, simply huge, and uh,

397
00:22:14,320 --> 00:22:18,320
Speaker 1: I've got one that's that's really dated. In fact, the

398
00:22:18,359 --> 00:22:22,320
Speaker 1: New York Graphic in eighteen seventy eight told people that

399
00:22:22,480 --> 00:22:26,280
Speaker 1: Edison had had created a food machine, uh that would

400
00:22:26,280 --> 00:22:29,880
Speaker 1: turn dirt into cereal and water into wine and other newspapers.

401
00:22:29,880 --> 00:22:32,760
Speaker 1: I mean Edison was huge. He was the big guy

402
00:22:32,800 --> 00:22:36,280
Speaker 1: in tech at the time. He everybody believed him and

403
00:22:36,480 --> 00:22:38,520
Speaker 1: believe the paper, and they reprinted the story in their

404
00:22:38,560 --> 00:22:42,080
Speaker 1: their newspapers and basically, uh, the graphic picked up on

405
00:22:42,119 --> 00:22:44,119
Speaker 1: it and went, you know, we got all these people

406
00:22:46,080 --> 00:22:49,320
Speaker 1: you know well, you know, um as I recall How

407
00:22:49,400 --> 00:22:53,600
Speaker 1: Stuff Works has had one or two maybe Fool's articles

408
00:22:53,640 --> 00:22:55,440
Speaker 1: in the past. You want to talk about those really quickly.

409
00:22:55,640 --> 00:22:57,560
Speaker 1: I don't know why you would consider me an expert

410
00:22:57,560 --> 00:23:00,760
Speaker 1: on those. Um. Yes, yes, in fact, we we have

411
00:23:00,880 --> 00:23:03,000
Speaker 1: in the past. Uh. You won't find them if you

412
00:23:03,040 --> 00:23:06,120
Speaker 1: search on our site. You would have to search somewhere else,

413
00:23:06,200 --> 00:23:08,760
Speaker 1: like say, I don't know Google if you were going

414
00:23:08,800 --> 00:23:11,200
Speaker 1: to try to find these, but you might find uh

415
00:23:11,280 --> 00:23:16,359
Speaker 1: an article about water warfare called how Hydroordinance works, or

416
00:23:16,560 --> 00:23:20,720
Speaker 1: um another about how animated tattoos work that was very popular.

417
00:23:20,920 --> 00:23:24,040
Speaker 1: That wasn't quite a bit of email from that, and

418
00:23:24,320 --> 00:23:27,840
Speaker 1: how cell phone implants work also got a lot of email. Yeah,

419
00:23:27,880 --> 00:23:31,679
Speaker 1: partly because it's sort of semi true. Right, some of

420
00:23:31,680 --> 00:23:33,720
Speaker 1: these have actually kind of come true in the in

421
00:23:33,880 --> 00:23:37,399
Speaker 1: the years since we've written them. But then there's the

422
00:23:37,400 --> 00:23:39,480
Speaker 1: one you wrote. Yes, last year, I had the honor

423
00:23:39,520 --> 00:23:42,200
Speaker 1: of doing the April Fool's article and we wrote about

424
00:23:42,359 --> 00:23:46,159
Speaker 1: how the Air Force one hybrid works. Um and uh,

425
00:23:46,520 --> 00:23:49,600
Speaker 1: we got to to write about the latest in airplane

426
00:23:49,680 --> 00:23:53,160
Speaker 1: hybrid technology and it was and it spurred a lot

427
00:23:53,200 --> 00:23:55,760
Speaker 1: of thinking about how heavy those batteries were going to

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Speaker 1: be exactly. Yeah, it's it's sad because we actually were

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00:23:58,880 --> 00:24:01,040
Speaker 1: putting a lot of thought to how would we make

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00:24:01,080 --> 00:24:02,600
Speaker 1: this work? Well, I mean, you know what, it's not

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00:24:02,680 --> 00:24:06,000
Speaker 1: really that important. It's a joke then no, but we

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00:24:06,040 --> 00:24:08,240
Speaker 1: want to make sure we make it believable. So yeah,

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00:24:08,280 --> 00:24:10,560
Speaker 1: it's there's a there's an art to it there. Yeah,

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00:24:10,680 --> 00:24:12,800
Speaker 1: because you want to try to make it at least

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00:24:13,200 --> 00:24:15,520
Speaker 1: semi believable. I mean, if you're going to get onto

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00:24:15,520 --> 00:24:19,760
Speaker 1: somebody else's computer and replicate more than you know, extra

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00:24:19,800 --> 00:24:23,560
Speaker 1: copies of their their folders so that you can't tell

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00:24:23,600 --> 00:24:27,320
Speaker 1: which ones which or reverse their desktop or you know,

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00:24:27,400 --> 00:24:29,640
Speaker 1: something like that. You know, you want to at least

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00:24:29,640 --> 00:24:31,879
Speaker 1: be something that that's yeah, that's going to be confusing,

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00:24:32,680 --> 00:24:36,200
Speaker 1: you know, remap the keyboard. Yeah, all these fun little things. Well,

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00:24:36,240 --> 00:24:39,199
Speaker 1: and so guys, while you're out there, you know, on

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00:24:39,240 --> 00:24:41,359
Speaker 1: the world Wide Web on April first, just remember you

444
00:24:41,359 --> 00:24:46,040
Speaker 1: can't necessarily believe everything you see. Just keep that in mind. Also, uh,

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00:24:46,520 --> 00:24:49,520
Speaker 1: you know, don't fire off an angry email because in

446
00:24:49,560 --> 00:24:51,920
Speaker 1: two weeks you're going to find it funny. Yeah seriously.

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00:24:52,600 --> 00:24:55,040
Speaker 1: So um, well, I guess that pretty much wraps up

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00:24:55,040 --> 00:24:57,600
Speaker 1: that topic, except that it does bring us to that

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00:24:57,680 --> 00:25:01,560
Speaker 1: special time that we all love. Oh no, yeah, listener

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00:25:01,720 --> 00:25:09,080
Speaker 1: mail can come out. Okay, So today's listener mail comes

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00:25:09,160 --> 00:25:12,760
Speaker 1: from Emily, and Emily says, since you have an affinity

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00:25:12,840 --> 00:25:16,080
Speaker 1: for hacks and zombies. Austin, Texas recently had a local

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00:25:16,080 --> 00:25:20,960
Speaker 1: hacker tap into the Texas d Ot roadside safety signs.

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00:25:21,320 --> 00:25:24,920
Speaker 1: The new message displayed on my morning commute said zombies

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00:25:24,920 --> 00:25:28,920
Speaker 1: are coming head to colder climates. Just another beautiful example

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00:25:28,960 --> 00:25:31,600
Speaker 1: of how unemployed, super smart people spend their time in

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00:25:31,600 --> 00:25:34,560
Speaker 1: a recession. Thanks for the podcast you Guys Get Me

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00:25:34,600 --> 00:25:37,000
Speaker 1: through the day. Well, thank you, Emily. I had actually

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00:25:37,000 --> 00:25:39,080
Speaker 1: seen this new story. Um. In fact, I wrote a

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00:25:39,119 --> 00:25:41,359
Speaker 1: little bit about it for an article I wrote for

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00:25:41,640 --> 00:25:44,880
Speaker 1: the Discovery Channel, and uh, it's it's a pretty funny one,

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00:25:44,920 --> 00:25:48,440
Speaker 1: although you do have to remember roadside signs are really

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00:25:48,440 --> 00:25:52,480
Speaker 1: there for the driver and construction workers safety, so to

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00:25:52,480 --> 00:25:56,399
Speaker 1: to change those Uh, while it's funny as a chuckle,

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00:25:56,520 --> 00:26:00,760
Speaker 1: it could also possibly lead to dangerous situations and possibly

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00:26:01,400 --> 00:26:05,240
Speaker 1: j yeah yeah, no, its does turn out to be illegal.

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00:26:05,680 --> 00:26:07,600
Speaker 1: Um yeah that it turns out that the people who

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00:26:07,680 --> 00:26:10,959
Speaker 1: who hacks that had to cut away a lock in

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Speaker 1: order to do it, so um on more than one machine, right,

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00:26:14,680 --> 00:26:18,320
Speaker 1: they did on two? I think, so that would be um,

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00:26:18,400 --> 00:26:20,720
Speaker 1: that would be a bad thing. Bad. Yeah, don't don't

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00:26:20,800 --> 00:26:23,479
Speaker 1: don't break any locks people. No breaking and entering. It's

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00:26:23,520 --> 00:26:26,760
Speaker 1: not funny when you're jailed for it. No, well not

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00:26:26,880 --> 00:26:31,360
Speaker 1: to you anyway. So that brings us to if you

475
00:26:31,520 --> 00:26:35,800
Speaker 1: want to write to us with any suggestions, comments, jokes, haikus,

476
00:26:36,600 --> 00:26:39,439
Speaker 1: you can do so at tech Stuff at how stuff

477
00:26:39,480 --> 00:26:42,520
Speaker 1: works dot com. And remember we have blogs. If you

478
00:26:42,520 --> 00:26:44,399
Speaker 1: want to read our blog, our tech stuff blog, you

479
00:26:44,440 --> 00:26:46,719
Speaker 1: can find it at how stuff works dot com. Just

480
00:26:46,800 --> 00:26:48,919
Speaker 1: look over to the right and you'll see the blog

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00:26:49,000 --> 00:26:51,679
Speaker 1: section and uh, we look forward to talking to you

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00:26:51,720 --> 00:26:57,119
Speaker 1: again really soon, just kidding. For more on this and

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00:26:57,200 --> 00:27:04,560
Speaker 1: thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot Com,

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00:27:04,720 --> 00:27:07,320
Speaker 1: brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.

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Speaker 1: It's ready, are you