WEBVTT - TechList: Famous April Fool's Tech Pranks 0:00:05.400 --> 0:00:09.600 Hey there, it's Jonathan Strickland, and I'm here to introduce 0:00:09.760 --> 0:00:14.560 a playlist of ten episodes of my podcast tech Stuff 0:00:15.040 --> 0:00:20.000 that are all about entertainment and entertainment related fields, from 0:00:20.120 --> 0:00:25.720 video games to television series, two films to internet videos 0:00:26.000 --> 0:00:30.440 from yesteryear. So I hope you guys enjoy these episodes. 0:00:30.560 --> 0:00:34.440 You can go to the tech Stuff podcast page and 0:00:34.479 --> 0:00:38.000 subscribe to listen to all sorts of episodes about tech 0:00:38.080 --> 0:00:42.240 from all realms, and hopefully this will provide a little 0:00:42.240 --> 0:00:46.040 bit of entertainment, a little bit of education, and probably 0:00:46.080 --> 0:00:49.000 more than a few puns, because that's kind of how 0:00:49.080 --> 0:01:06.240 I roll. Enjoy this playlist. Welcome to tech Stuff, a 0:01:06.319 --> 0:01:14.240 production from I Heart Radio. Hey there, and welcome to 0:01:14.280 --> 0:01:17.040 tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive 0:01:17.040 --> 0:01:20.319 producer with I Heart Radio and I love all things tech, 0:01:20.520 --> 0:01:24.880 and today we're going to listen to a classic episode 0:01:25.520 --> 0:01:28.440 for our entertainment playlist. This one published all the way 0:01:28.440 --> 0:01:31.840 back on April first, two thousand nine. It's all about 0:01:31.880 --> 0:01:35.720 April Fools tech pranks, and my co host Chris Palette, 0:01:35.760 --> 0:01:39.840 and I talk about some pretty classic tech gags that 0:01:39.880 --> 0:01:41.640 were done back in the day. I hope you guys 0:01:41.720 --> 0:01:45.000 enjoy we have some sad news to announce that they're 0:01:45.040 --> 0:01:47.880 going to cancel tech stuff and replace it with old 0:01:47.920 --> 0:01:51.400 episodes of stuff you should now. Yeah, apparently we just 0:01:51.440 --> 0:01:55.040 don't have the appeal of Josh and Chuck. So we 0:01:55.160 --> 0:01:57.720 tried to hire Ira Glass to do uh this how 0:01:57.760 --> 0:02:00.560 stuff works dot com life, but right is an available 0:02:00.600 --> 0:02:02.360 and we really wanted to see if someone out there 0:02:02.360 --> 0:02:05.440 would draw a comic strip of us, just like Josh 0:02:05.480 --> 0:02:09.280 and Chuck got But um, yeah, since I'm animated and 0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:12.839 not actually a real person, that was a problem. So 0:02:12.960 --> 0:02:15.120 I guess now we can just take the rest of 0:02:15.160 --> 0:02:18.720 this time to um to bad mouth everybody else, and 0:02:18.720 --> 0:02:21.520 then we can leave in a huff. Except that this 0:02:21.600 --> 0:02:27.880 is actually an April Fools joke. Yeah, they're actually taking 0:02:27.919 --> 0:02:31.000 out I hope you weren't taking that seriously, um if 0:02:31.040 --> 0:02:36.120 you were, got you so? Anyway, April Fools. April Fools 0:02:36.120 --> 0:02:38.480 has been really big in the tech sector for a 0:02:38.560 --> 0:02:41.520 really long time, and there are some tech journalists who 0:02:41.639 --> 0:02:46.959 absolutely despise April First with all their heart. Can't imagine why, Yes, 0:02:47.080 --> 0:02:51.440 with a hatred that burns brighter than a thousand exploding suns, 0:02:51.480 --> 0:02:54.880 but yeah, and it's because this is the day when 0:02:54.919 --> 0:02:57.400 a lot of people think they're really clever and they 0:02:57.440 --> 0:02:59.840 make goofy jokes across the Internet. And some of them 0:02:59.840 --> 0:03:02.560 are really funny, some of them aren't so funny, and 0:03:02.600 --> 0:03:04.960 some of them are convincing enough to send the nation 0:03:05.000 --> 0:03:08.880 into a tizzy every year around this time. Truthfully, I 0:03:08.880 --> 0:03:11.520 think on the web it's gotten to be sort of 0:03:11.520 --> 0:03:17.160 a situation where everybody goes looking for the funky websites. Yeah, 0:03:17.160 --> 0:03:19.400 they're actually websites out there that just all they do 0:03:19.480 --> 0:03:22.440 is aggregate all the different April Fools jokes that that 0:03:22.760 --> 0:03:26.120 people notice as the day goes on, they'll they'll submit say, 0:03:26.360 --> 0:03:29.639 it's almost like a dig, except its specifically for April 0:03:29.639 --> 0:03:32.959 Fools pranks. And uh, I think snopes dot com sometimes 0:03:32.960 --> 0:03:35.280 does it, and some mother sites probably do as well. 0:03:35.680 --> 0:03:37.920 So yeah, you can just keep your eyes open for that. 0:03:38.000 --> 0:03:42.320 But there's certain, um, well, there's certain websites out there 0:03:42.360 --> 0:03:47.160 that have made a reputation out of creating funny little 0:03:47.200 --> 0:03:50.120 April Fools gags that we can talk about. I've got too. 0:03:50.120 --> 0:03:52.080 In particular, I was thinking of that we can chat 0:03:52.080 --> 0:03:54.680 about for just a second. Alright, one of those would 0:03:54.720 --> 0:03:59.440 be Think Geek. I sink Geek, the website that offers 0:03:59.520 --> 0:04:02.840 various toys and gadgets for the geek you know and 0:04:02.880 --> 0:04:07.600 love the mountain dew swelling cubicle dweller who works on 0:04:08.200 --> 0:04:11.760 tech stuff. Yeah, actually we should um go ahead. And 0:04:11.760 --> 0:04:13.920 you know, that's a good way of pointing out that 0:04:14.040 --> 0:04:17.640 a lot of the gag gifts, the April Fools gifts 0:04:17.680 --> 0:04:19.880 that Think Geek has come out with over the years, 0:04:20.279 --> 0:04:24.440 have to do with caffeine and Geek's fascination with caffeine. 0:04:24.520 --> 0:04:27.080 So they're they're they sell caffeinated soap and that's not 0:04:27.160 --> 0:04:30.000 a joke, No, that really is a product they actually sell, 0:04:30.160 --> 0:04:32.839 So you would that that of course makes these other 0:04:32.880 --> 0:04:37.279 caffeinated products semi believable, so you might actually fall for them. 0:04:37.920 --> 0:04:41.040 For example, the first year they ever did in the 0:04:41.080 --> 0:04:43.919 April Fools stuff, one of the products they offered was 0:04:44.200 --> 0:04:49.320 caffeinated meatloaf. That, yeah, I'm sure you would. They also 0:04:49.520 --> 0:04:53.680 have offered things like, uh, the caffe doerm patch, so 0:04:53.760 --> 0:04:57.239 it would be sort of like a nicotine patch, um, 0:04:57.279 --> 0:05:01.720 a caffeine inhaler where you could just in hale you're 0:05:01.760 --> 0:05:04.880 caffeine directly and get that blast as soon as possible. 0:05:06.000 --> 0:05:12.320 They also what about spas Troid's the caffeinated cereal. So yeah, 0:05:12.480 --> 0:05:15.920 caffeine is big over it, I think geek and they 0:05:15.960 --> 0:05:19.560 probably make fun of, you know, make up some caffeinated mints, 0:05:19.600 --> 0:05:22.240 except they sell those two. Yes they do. And they 0:05:22.279 --> 0:05:27.159 have plenty of other jokes that they have put on 0:05:27.200 --> 0:05:29.160 all of us throughout the years, and some of them 0:05:29.160 --> 0:05:32.200 have backfired. But we'll get to the backfired one. That's 0:05:32.240 --> 0:05:35.040 the that's then you're going to go there. The piece 0:05:35.120 --> 0:05:39.120 to resistance is my my uncle would say. But some 0:05:39.160 --> 0:05:41.640 of the other things they've said that they were going 0:05:41.680 --> 0:05:44.960 to offer on April one include remnants of the Mere 0:05:45.040 --> 0:05:50.680 Space station UM and ATARID system. They offered that for 0:05:50.880 --> 0:05:55.960 a brand new ad on April one, UM Wheaton X, 0:05:56.240 --> 0:06:00.240 which was an operating system created by Will Wheaton. I actually, 0:06:00.279 --> 0:06:01.400 I bet he'd get a real kick out of it. 0:06:01.480 --> 0:06:03.240 I'm sure I'm sure that he did get a real 0:06:03.279 --> 0:06:08.359 kick out of that. They offered Duke Nuken Forever noticed 0:06:08.360 --> 0:06:12.520 that the it was Nuken, not newcome. So they had 0:06:12.760 --> 0:06:16.760 a PC easy bake oven that would attach via USB. 0:06:17.720 --> 0:06:20.400 That's not real not at the time that they offered 0:06:21.440 --> 0:06:25.560 be Now. They also a USB fonduce at USB Tanning Center. 0:06:26.640 --> 0:06:29.520 Uh they were. They're big on the USB devices, um 0:06:29.720 --> 0:06:31.280 so is everyone else, which is why it makes him 0:06:31.279 --> 0:06:35.040 believable exactly. My favorite, my favorite until we get to 0:06:35.080 --> 0:06:37.840 the backfire one, anyway, is the Beta Max to h 0:06:38.000 --> 0:06:41.760 D DVD converter, so you can convert all those Beta 0:06:41.800 --> 0:06:44.320 max videos to h D DVD. That was awesome. Now, 0:06:44.320 --> 0:06:46.200 of course we all know that's a lie because HD 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:51.719 DVD doesn't exist anymore. It's gone the way of Beta Max. 0:06:52.000 --> 0:06:54.240 I think more people are using Beta Max now than 0:06:54.560 --> 0:06:58.320 ding professionals still use it, probably, But the one that 0:06:58.360 --> 0:07:01.120 backfired on them was last year two thousand and eight, 0:07:01.160 --> 0:07:05.440 they introduced the Soundtrack t shirt, a shirt with a 0:07:05.560 --> 0:07:09.680 speaker in it that would play prerecorded sounds, and I 0:07:09.760 --> 0:07:12.320 think they even had a slot for a card so 0:07:12.360 --> 0:07:14.480 you can insert your own music if you wanted to. 0:07:14.880 --> 0:07:16.760 And they had this goofy video of a guy going 0:07:16.800 --> 0:07:19.560 through all these different scenarios, and every scenario he had 0:07:19.600 --> 0:07:21.800 the perfect music to play in the background so that 0:07:21.840 --> 0:07:24.640 it would be the right mood. So like in the 0:07:25.000 --> 0:07:27.680 chase scene he had chase music, and in the fight 0:07:27.760 --> 0:07:29.880 scene it was a Showdown music and in the love 0:07:30.120 --> 0:07:33.040 scene it was that wonderful seventies walk a Wow music. 0:07:33.520 --> 0:07:36.080 Um well, there are so many people who wrote in 0:07:36.120 --> 0:07:39.520 and said this is a great idea. They said, why 0:07:39.800 --> 0:07:43.520 don't we do this? And so they did, and now 0:07:43.600 --> 0:07:48.200 you can actually buy a soundtrack t shirt on Think Geek, 0:07:48.560 --> 0:07:53.280 which before was just a joke. Well, you know what, 0:07:53.600 --> 0:07:56.880 I'm willing to bet, having been a Thinking customer for 0:07:56.880 --> 0:07:59.240 for several years, that they would love if they could 0:07:59.280 --> 0:08:01.600 do that every year and have one product that took 0:08:01.600 --> 0:08:04.720 off so well and it's fakeness that they wanted to 0:08:04.760 --> 0:08:07.200 actually make it a real thing. I bet they would 0:08:07.240 --> 0:08:08.880 do that. Yeah, they would be happy with it. I 0:08:08.920 --> 0:08:13.480 don't think that would have been a burden to them. 0:08:13.840 --> 0:08:16.640 Another website that's known for doing lots and lots of 0:08:16.720 --> 0:08:22.120 jokes Google So not only are they taking all your 0:08:22.160 --> 0:08:24.000 information and putting it up on the web for you, 0:08:24.280 --> 0:08:27.360 they are making light of it as well. So here's 0:08:27.400 --> 0:08:29.679 some of the Google jokes that have happened over the years. 0:08:29.720 --> 0:08:33.560 There was the Google mental Plex that was a device 0:08:33.600 --> 0:08:35.920 that you were supposed to just stare at and think 0:08:35.960 --> 0:08:38.559 about what you wanted to search for and then click 0:08:38.600 --> 0:08:41.080 on it. And your search results would come up. And 0:08:41.120 --> 0:08:43.600 if you did this, the search results were all about 0:08:43.720 --> 0:08:46.439 April Fools, and you got a message at the top 0:08:46.520 --> 0:08:48.520 saying there were too many voices in your head and 0:08:48.520 --> 0:08:51.600 it couldn't get the right search results. Uh. Then they 0:08:51.640 --> 0:08:54.520 had Pigeon Rank, which is where they revealed the page 0:08:54.600 --> 0:08:57.360 right right where where they revealed the secret to their 0:08:57.360 --> 0:09:00.600 search engine results pages, where a battalion of pigeons that 0:09:00.600 --> 0:09:03.360 would type them up in real time. There was the 0:09:03.400 --> 0:09:06.600 Google Gulp that was a drink that would make you 0:09:06.679 --> 0:09:09.720 more intelligent and make you better at searching on the internet. 0:09:10.600 --> 0:09:13.720 There was Google Romance, where you could find your soul mate. 0:09:13.760 --> 0:09:16.439 By searching certain terms, you would find other people who 0:09:16.440 --> 0:09:20.320 are also searching for it. Supposedly. There was Gmail Paper 0:09:20.840 --> 0:09:24.280 where you could save the email. They would convert your 0:09:24.320 --> 0:09:28.600 email to hard copy format in paper, complete with advertising, 0:09:29.200 --> 0:09:31.920 and then deliver it to the person that you were 0:09:31.960 --> 0:09:34.199 sending it to. So essentially it was a letter not 0:09:34.280 --> 0:09:35.880 great of course, it again, this is just a joke. 0:09:36.440 --> 0:09:38.640 Chris and I will be back to talk more about 0:09:38.720 --> 0:09:40.680 tech pranks in just a moment, but first let's take 0:09:40.760 --> 0:09:51.640 a quick break. There was the Google toilet Internet service 0:09:51.679 --> 0:09:57.200 provider where they were supposedly running uh internet cables through 0:09:57.200 --> 0:10:00.679 the sewer system and you would thus have a toilet 0:10:00.679 --> 0:10:02.400 that was hooked up to the Internet and would act 0:10:02.440 --> 0:10:05.280 as your wireless router. And then of course there was 0:10:05.920 --> 0:10:09.480 Good Day g d a Y, which was an Australian 0:10:09.559 --> 0:10:13.680 based web search engine that could search for web pages 0:10:13.760 --> 0:10:17.000 that hadn't even been uploaded yet. They could search for 0:10:17.040 --> 0:10:19.480 web pages twenty four hours before they came to exist, 0:10:19.480 --> 0:10:23.120 because of course Australia is a day ahead of us. True. 0:10:24.960 --> 0:10:27.640 And weren't they going to build an interstellar base too? Yes, 0:10:27.679 --> 0:10:31.280 there was the Copernicus, which was a moon base. You 0:10:31.320 --> 0:10:34.400 know you can find all those online still. Yeah, so 0:10:34.440 --> 0:10:36.640 if you are curious to read the whole thing, and 0:10:36.800 --> 0:10:39.679 some of them have some quite amusing illustrations too, right, 0:10:39.760 --> 0:10:43.360 and there these are long jokes and and it's just 0:10:43.480 --> 0:10:45.800 it's not just like a long joke with a punchline 0:10:45.840 --> 0:10:49.520 at the end, their punchlines throughout the whole thing. Yep. 0:10:50.080 --> 0:10:52.959 So let's see, do you have any more sites? Now? 0:10:53.000 --> 0:10:55.080 Those were the two big sites. I've got plenty of 0:10:55.080 --> 0:10:57.000 other jokes, but I figured i'd give you a chance 0:10:57.040 --> 0:11:00.360 to talk for a while. So I can drink my tea. Okay. Well, 0:11:01.000 --> 0:11:04.640 I started doing research and I found a list of 0:11:04.840 --> 0:11:10.360 some very famous ones at the Museum of Hoaxes UM 0:11:10.400 --> 0:11:13.079 and basically I just I found tons of them. And 0:11:13.400 --> 0:11:16.080 of course they are all kinds like the the Taco 0:11:16.120 --> 0:11:19.120 bell buying, the Liberty bell, and some of the other ones. 0:11:19.160 --> 0:11:21.280 But I stuck with some of the tech stuff, and 0:11:21.280 --> 0:11:24.960 some of them I had never even heard of. Um, 0:11:25.000 --> 0:11:30.040 you know talking about you know, John C. Warhe and 0:11:30.280 --> 0:11:33.520 PC Computing talking about the bill going through Congress, and uh, 0:11:34.040 --> 0:11:36.200 apparently it was going to make it illegal to surf 0:11:36.320 --> 0:11:39.280 the Internet while you were drinking, right, because you can't drink, 0:11:39.600 --> 0:11:43.040 drink and drive on the Internet super highway. That's right. 0:11:43.080 --> 0:11:46.439 Of course, nobody gets the fact that the bill's number 0:11:46.520 --> 0:11:52.320 is zero four zero. One wrote this in the contact 0:11:52.360 --> 0:11:54.480 for that. By the way, if you're interested, is lerpa 0:11:54.559 --> 0:11:59.600 sloof which is April fool spell backwards. Apparently, said Senator 0:11:59.760 --> 0:12:02.560 Edward Kennedy's office had to field a lot of phone 0:12:02.600 --> 0:12:06.000 calls because people said he was sponsoring this bill, and 0:12:06.040 --> 0:12:10.439 so people were calling his office to complain that they 0:12:10.440 --> 0:12:14.880 didn't want This's gotten a lot crankier since then. But man, 0:12:15.080 --> 0:12:18.600 and that was way back in. Think about that. The 0:12:18.640 --> 0:12:24.680 World Wide Web was essentially two years old at that point. Well, um, okay, 0:12:24.720 --> 0:12:27.760 here's here's another one actually. Uh in four there was 0:12:27.760 --> 0:12:30.560 announcement going around that the Soviet Union was going to 0:12:30.640 --> 0:12:34.640 join us NET. Oh yeah, here's another one that backfired 0:12:34.800 --> 0:12:37.640 because it was it came from an address from Turnienko 0:12:37.840 --> 0:12:41.160 at krem vax. Uh. For those of you who are 0:12:41.240 --> 0:12:43.200 probably the majority of our audiences who don't know what 0:12:43.200 --> 0:12:47.319 a vax is, it was a giant main framish computer, uh, 0:12:47.679 --> 0:12:51.200 from Digital which later evolved into Compact and then HP 0:12:51.960 --> 0:12:54.880 um and uh. You know, these giant computers were how 0:12:54.920 --> 0:12:57.120 you used to get on the Internet. And everybody freaked out. 0:12:57.160 --> 0:12:58.800 They said, oh this is great, you know, they want 0:12:58.800 --> 0:13:01.920 to join the Global Community. Well it turned out it 0:13:01.960 --> 0:13:05.280 was a sort of a wishful thinking hoax for for 0:13:05.280 --> 0:13:09.240 for a prank, but um in when they actually came around, 0:13:09.600 --> 0:13:14.120 they chose krem vacs that is there as their their 0:13:14.120 --> 0:13:16.520 host names. So it gives you the warm fuzzies. That's 0:13:16.600 --> 0:13:18.839 kind of a you know, alright, alright, you got us, 0:13:18.840 --> 0:13:22.079 but you know, but there's tons of those. A little 0:13:22.120 --> 0:13:25.839 stuff like in BBC and they love their pranks too, 0:13:26.600 --> 0:13:29.080 said that Big Ben was going to go digital, yes, 0:13:29.920 --> 0:13:32.240 which just makes me think of the Simpsons episode where 0:13:32.280 --> 0:13:34.680 you see the shot of Big Ben and it's flashing 0:13:34.720 --> 0:13:37.240 twelve over and over because no one's set the clock 0:13:37.280 --> 0:13:41.400 after the power went out. Um, well, how about in 0:13:41.520 --> 0:13:44.959 nine seven there was a prank going around that said 0:13:45.000 --> 0:13:47.840 the Internet would have to shut down for a full day. 0:13:48.160 --> 0:13:50.200 Was that that was my next one? Yeah? Okay, well 0:13:50.240 --> 0:13:51.640 you go ahead and talk about that. Well no, I 0:13:51.679 --> 0:13:54.839 mean you were supposed to turn off, turn off your 0:13:54.840 --> 0:13:56.680 machines that were connected to the Internet because they were 0:13:56.679 --> 0:14:00.640 going to clean out email, FTP and Gopher sites. Again, 0:14:00.679 --> 0:14:04.240 this was and people were still using Gopher, and they 0:14:04.280 --> 0:14:06.920 said between March thirty one and April two, you would 0:14:06.960 --> 0:14:09.040 you should turn not only turn things off, but if 0:14:09.040 --> 0:14:12.440 you could disconnect them so that they would not be 0:14:12.480 --> 0:14:15.480 affected as the Internet was cleaned. Then of course that's 0:14:15.559 --> 0:14:17.760 just a joke, and that joke dates back. I mean 0:14:17.800 --> 0:14:19.880 there were jokes that are similar to that that went 0:14:19.920 --> 0:14:22.000 back to like the phone company. Well, they told you 0:14:22.160 --> 0:14:23.680 used to have to place a bag over your phone 0:14:23.720 --> 0:14:25.240 so that they blew the dirt out of the lines 0:14:25.240 --> 0:14:28.080 and you don't want it to get all over your house. Well, 0:14:28.120 --> 0:14:31.000 you know it was coming from the Interconnected Network maintenance 0:14:31.000 --> 0:14:36.360 staff from the main branch of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Yeah. Actually, 0:14:36.400 --> 0:14:39.560 it reminds me of another one where the m I 0:14:39.640 --> 0:14:43.320 T announced that they were that they were selling out 0:14:43.320 --> 0:14:46.760 to Disney for six point nine billion dollars and they 0:14:46.760 --> 0:14:48.560 were gonna they were gonna move it to UH, to 0:14:48.600 --> 0:14:51.760 take apart the entire school and move it to Orlando. UH. 0:14:51.880 --> 0:14:53.960 As a matter of fact, they accompanied that with a 0:14:53.960 --> 0:14:56.440 picture of the famous dome on campus with mouse ears 0:14:56.480 --> 0:14:59.440 on top of it. Um, you know it was gonna 0:14:59.480 --> 0:15:02.640 have the School of Imagineering and the Scrooge McDuck School 0:15:02.680 --> 0:15:05.720 of Management in the Donald Duck Department of Linguistics. Awesome. 0:15:05.840 --> 0:15:08.000 Turned out the web page was hacked. It wasn't actually 0:15:08.000 --> 0:15:12.120 an official m I T. So yeah, so that doesn't 0:15:12.160 --> 0:15:14.600 even follow the real M I T hack philosophy, but 0:15:14.680 --> 0:15:19.400 well it kind of does kind of shows. I mean, 0:15:19.520 --> 0:15:21.640 M I T wouldn't do anything that would cause damage, 0:15:21.680 --> 0:15:24.280 and you could argue that by hacking a site you are, 0:15:24.680 --> 0:15:29.160 in theory damaging somewhat. But um, I've got a couple 0:15:29.200 --> 0:15:33.360 of cell phone related pranks. In two thousand four, Virgin 0:15:33.400 --> 0:15:35.840 Mobile announced that it was creating a line of left 0:15:35.880 --> 0:15:39.480 handed cell phones and all the digital number pads were 0:15:39.480 --> 0:15:42.800 going to be reversed, and people were immediately excited and 0:15:42.840 --> 0:15:46.040 thinking like, wow, that's really cool. Let me clue you in, folks, 0:15:46.600 --> 0:15:49.520 I happen to be of the sinister persuasion, which means 0:15:49.560 --> 0:15:53.560 I'm ghosh, which means I'm left handed. And while I 0:15:53.680 --> 0:15:57.320 might be easier to dial that way, UM, I still 0:15:57.440 --> 0:16:00.720 read numbers left to right like everybody. ELPs. I don't 0:16:00.840 --> 0:16:02.920 have to turn a book upside down or anything in 0:16:03.000 --> 0:16:07.800 order to read it. So just a little well, okay, 0:16:07.840 --> 0:16:11.720 I don't have to, is what I'm saying. I might 0:16:11.880 --> 0:16:15.160 enjoy it, but I don't have to. Um. So, yeah, 0:16:15.200 --> 0:16:17.400 that was a joke, And if people have thought about 0:16:17.400 --> 0:16:20.080 a little bit more, especially considering what day that announcement 0:16:20.120 --> 0:16:22.440 came out, they might have figured it out. Another good 0:16:22.440 --> 0:16:26.240 one though, all same year two thousand four, a Swedish 0:16:26.240 --> 0:16:28.640 newspaper and I'm not even gonna try and to pronounce 0:16:28.680 --> 0:16:31.440 it because there's there's no hope, but a Swedish newspaper 0:16:31.480 --> 0:16:34.640 announced that if you shook your old cell phone hard enough, 0:16:34.760 --> 0:16:37.640 and long enough you would be able to access the 0:16:37.720 --> 0:16:40.560 new three gen network even though your phone is on 0:16:40.640 --> 0:16:44.120 the old network. You just had to shake it. So 0:16:44.280 --> 0:16:48.160 I'm I'm wondering how many customers lost their cell phones 0:16:48.240 --> 0:16:51.480 in a frenzy of shaking and like flying. I just 0:16:51.520 --> 0:16:55.880 see cellphones flying everywhere in Sweden on this day. It's 0:16:56.200 --> 0:16:58.400 a beautiful site, although I'm sure it wasn't when you 0:16:58.440 --> 0:17:00.560 had saw like all the batteries and suff laying on 0:17:00.600 --> 0:17:06.480 the ground. Oh great, you know. Um, there was a 0:17:06.520 --> 0:17:09.520 press release about this company called web Node. They had 0:17:09.520 --> 0:17:12.439 gotten this government contract um, and it was for the 0:17:12.480 --> 0:17:16.320 next generation Internet. UM. Basically you could buy a node 0:17:16.400 --> 0:17:18.879 for about a hundred dollars or more than fifty million 0:17:18.960 --> 0:17:22.120 of them, and basically the more traffic that came through 0:17:22.160 --> 0:17:26.920 your node, the more valuable it would be. UM. Unfortunately 0:17:27.200 --> 0:17:29.960 business wire, this this press release went out over business Wire. 0:17:30.000 --> 0:17:33.160 They didn't find it so funny. They actually filed suit 0:17:33.359 --> 0:17:36.760 against people pulling a rank for fraud, breach of contract, defamation, 0:17:36.840 --> 0:17:42.240 and conspiracy. So uh, not really so funny. I got 0:17:42.240 --> 0:17:44.280 a I got a couple of actually have a trio 0:17:44.440 --> 0:17:47.480 of video game ones. Okay, the first one just comes 0:17:47.560 --> 0:17:50.440 from someone being industrious and going out and registering a 0:17:50.560 --> 0:17:54.760 domain name. Uh, and it was for g t A Chicago, 0:17:54.880 --> 0:17:57.800 which would be Grand Theft Auto, which immediately made all 0:17:57.800 --> 0:17:59.520 the fans of Grand Theft Auto think that there was 0:17:59.560 --> 0:18:02.240 going to be a new entry into the series set 0:18:02.240 --> 0:18:04.560 in the Windy City. Of course, I ended up just 0:18:04.600 --> 0:18:07.840 being a joke. Another one, which I think is even better, 0:18:08.440 --> 0:18:14.959 Bungee has a long running gag, Pimps at C. They 0:18:15.000 --> 0:18:17.320 announced this game years ago. I think maybe two thousand 0:18:17.440 --> 0:18:20.280 one was when they first announced that Pimps at Sea 0:18:20.359 --> 0:18:22.679 would come out, and not only not only were you 0:18:22.760 --> 0:18:25.840 a Pimp at Sea, but it was supposed to have 0:18:25.960 --> 0:18:30.439 the most comprehensive and deep economic system ever seen in 0:18:30.560 --> 0:18:32.800 video games up to that point. It was supposed to 0:18:32.840 --> 0:18:36.240 be incredibly realistic, and it was going to be a 0:18:36.240 --> 0:18:39.080 real time strategy game. And over the years they have 0:18:39.200 --> 0:18:41.919 occasionally brought Pimps at CE back as a joke and 0:18:42.000 --> 0:18:44.880 added more features, so now it's like the most incredible 0:18:44.960 --> 0:18:47.560 video game that never existed. It's like Pimps at C 0:18:47.720 --> 0:18:52.040 plus something like that. Very nice programming language jokes. So anyway, 0:18:52.200 --> 0:18:54.960 the final one in this group is Monkey Island five 0:18:55.680 --> 0:18:58.560 fans of the LucasArts Monkey Island series. I was a 0:18:58.640 --> 0:19:02.080 huge fan. Now in two and two there was a 0:19:02.840 --> 0:19:06.800 group called Mix and Mojo that managed to contact Dominic 0:19:07.119 --> 0:19:10.480 ar Motto. Dominic was the voice for guy Brush Threepwood, 0:19:10.560 --> 0:19:13.720 the main character in the Monkey Island games. And they 0:19:13.720 --> 0:19:17.920 got Dominic to record a bunch of fake uh sound files, 0:19:18.240 --> 0:19:20.720 and then they uploaded the sound files on April one 0:19:21.320 --> 0:19:24.240 and said that this might be evidence of a brand 0:19:24.280 --> 0:19:27.040 new Monkey Island game. And the sound files are hysterical 0:19:27.080 --> 0:19:28.639 and you can still find them on the on the 0:19:28.640 --> 0:19:33.080 web at the International House of Mojo um or actually 0:19:33.200 --> 0:19:35.040 uh if yeah, if you go there, you can find 0:19:35.080 --> 0:19:37.719 the sound files. They host them there. You listen to them. 0:19:37.720 --> 0:19:40.400 They're really really funny, but one of them does give 0:19:40.440 --> 0:19:42.760 away the fact that it is in fact an April 0:19:42.760 --> 0:19:46.800 Fool's joke. Alright, then you know, I got a couple 0:19:46.880 --> 0:19:52.600 more British ones. The Guardian reported that British scientists had 0:19:52.640 --> 0:19:54.920 created a machine that would let them control the weather. 0:19:56.000 --> 0:19:58.760 You know that means that they get long summers rain 0:19:58.880 --> 0:20:01.600 it would only rain a night and but always smell 0:20:01.640 --> 0:20:05.639 at Christmas time. You know, it might be nice. Basically, 0:20:05.680 --> 0:20:08.960 the camel. They yeah, no kidding, And they also send 0:20:09.000 --> 0:20:12.960 whatever whatever else to the rest of Europe, Continental Europe. 0:20:13.240 --> 0:20:15.720 We've got a little bit more to say about Shenanigan's, 0:20:15.760 --> 0:20:17.320 but before we get into that, we're going to take 0:20:17.359 --> 0:20:28.040 another quick break in this is going to ring a 0:20:28.080 --> 0:20:30.600 bell with a lot of you probably when you hear it. 0:20:31.080 --> 0:20:33.680 BBC said that they were going to introduce Smell, a 0:20:33.760 --> 0:20:37.560 vision where they could do things on the screen and 0:20:37.560 --> 0:20:40.240 then you could smell things, and people called in. They 0:20:40.400 --> 0:20:43.840 cut onions on on TV and brewed coffee and they said, 0:20:43.920 --> 0:20:45.640 can't you smell this? And people called in they said 0:20:45.640 --> 0:20:49.000 they could. It's amazing how psycho semitic stuff can take effect, 0:20:49.040 --> 0:20:52.200 doesn't That isn't that nice? So in two thousand seven, 0:20:52.320 --> 0:20:56.960 Facebook introduced a new feature, Live Poke. If you chose 0:20:57.000 --> 0:20:59.200 to live poke one of your friends, then Facebook would 0:20:59.200 --> 0:21:01.320 send a physical person to go out to that friend 0:21:01.320 --> 0:21:03.640 and poke them, except not really, because it was a joke. 0:21:05.240 --> 0:21:08.040 That's an awesome joke, Like live poke my buddy, and 0:21:08.119 --> 0:21:11.240 like just thinking about this person, like alright, tracking that 0:21:11.359 --> 0:21:13.520 person down and then running after him down the streets 0:21:13.520 --> 0:21:19.040 of wherever. No I have to poke you. That's awesome. Uh. 0:21:19.080 --> 0:21:21.320 And then here's another good one in two thousand eight. 0:21:22.160 --> 0:21:24.480 You remember what happened to in two thousand eight at YouTube, 0:21:26.280 --> 0:21:30.879 every single featured video went to Rick Astley's Never Going 0:21:30.920 --> 0:21:34.160 to Give You Up the YouTube Rick rolled the internet 0:21:35.960 --> 0:21:40.000 completely blocked that thanks for reminding you, welcome, and then 0:21:40.040 --> 0:21:43.040 I have a trio of iPod ones real quick. Yeah, 0:21:43.119 --> 0:21:46.800 So there was Gear four and two thousand six unveiled 0:21:46.800 --> 0:21:50.600 the Iron, which was supposed to be an iron iPod doc. 0:21:51.320 --> 0:21:53.159 You would dock your iPod in the Iron and it 0:21:53.160 --> 0:21:56.600 would omit steam in uh in rhythm with the music 0:21:56.640 --> 0:22:00.680 you played. Then you had pop x Spress in two 0:22:00.720 --> 0:22:04.520 thousand six and they announced the ipop Bra, which was 0:22:04.560 --> 0:22:07.240 a bra that featured a pocket for your iPod and 0:22:07.280 --> 0:22:12.359 controls in the fabric. So imagine changing the volume on 0:22:12.440 --> 0:22:17.520 your iPod right, Okay, if only you could have seen 0:22:17.600 --> 0:22:20.080 what I just did. Unfortunately I did see what you 0:22:20.119 --> 0:22:22.520 just did. Way back in two thousand four, you had 0:22:22.560 --> 0:22:27.240 the I Shave Application Systems. Heidelberg announced it. It was 0:22:27.280 --> 0:22:31.360 an electric shaving attachment for iPods. You would uh slide 0:22:31.400 --> 0:22:32.959 this into the top of your iPod. It would turn 0:22:33.000 --> 0:22:37.160 into an electric razor. It sounds like a cut above. Yeah, 0:22:37.240 --> 0:22:40.960 awesome in it. Yeah, um, let's see you got a 0:22:40.960 --> 0:22:46.920 couple more. Uh. They came out with total home remote electricity, 0:22:46.920 --> 0:22:49.959 where Atmar Industries of Switzerland was going to let you 0:22:50.000 --> 0:22:53.320 beam electricity through your house. You didn't have to have 0:22:53.400 --> 0:22:57.439 your uh you know, appliance as electronics plugged in. You 0:22:57.440 --> 0:23:00.680 can even make toast on your roof some very tesla 0:23:00.840 --> 0:23:04.479 esque Yeah yeah, and then, uh, you know, this reminds 0:23:04.520 --> 0:23:08.040