Geeky April Fools' Day Prank Roundup

An anonymous reader writes "April 1st is the ultimate holiday for a geek — a little hands-on DIY, a little hacking and a lot of sub-par humor. Popular Mechanics and Instructables have teamed up for five pranks you can build in the office (including a stripped-down version of Gizmodo's CES TV blackout), while Wired has its top 10 practical jokes for nerds, Lifehacker is toning it down with 10 harmless geek pranks, and Slate gets you ready for the receiving end with an April Fools' defense kit. What's your best prank?" Be safe, head for the bunker on 4/1 and just assume everything you hear is a lie. Everything.

Everything?

Be safe, head for the bunker on 4/1 and just assume everything you hear is a lie. Everything.

Even the cake?

Re:Everything?

I can't believe we both hit the "submit" button at nearly the same time, on the same meme.

And that you beat me, you bastard.

Re:Everything?

Even the cake?

Especially the cake.

Re:Everything?

Speaking of cake, a favorite joke of mine is to put a delicious looking cake in the office break room with "Happy April Fools Day" written in large letters in the frosting. Of course, the cake is perfectly fine and 100% edible, but no one will trust it. Its amusing seing people staring it down, debating, and daring each other to take a bite all day long.

Re:Everything?

Hahaha, thats great. Perfect for a practical joke, none gets hurt, nothing gets damaged, no one feels bad. But I bet at the end of the day you get a lot of chuckles when you start to eat it.

My "best" prank (Read: Only prank I've really done) was taking a roll of shrink wrap from work and wrapping a coworkers car. Someone told him I was doing it, he comes out and says we should do another and leave the plastic on his so hes not blamed, lol.

I got Rick Rolled

I got Rick Rolled. You can too [smouch.net].

(speakers on, detach mouse for best effect).

10 harmless geek pranks

Feh.

I'm looking for "10 spectacularly fatal geek pranks".

Re:10 harmless geek pranks

I just replaced the offices easy listening CD's with 12 hours of polka. I also stole the key that goes to the closet where the cd player is. Tomorrow is going to be interesting. Good thing I have my own mp3 player.

Printers and Stats

I once announced to our department that because black toner was so expensive, we were switching our printers to black paper and white toner. I put a sign next to the printer saying to only put black paper in the printer. Someone actually bit, and asked me in all seriousness where in the store cupboard the black paper was.

On another occasion I sent an email to a stats software mailing list saying I'd written a package to implement not the Normal distribution, but the Paranormal distribution. Its mean value was the number you were just thinking of.

Re:Printers and Stats

I once sent round a (VAX) e-mail, as a "mail test" with a closing line "Please let me know if you don't get this". Sure enough, a few people asked me: "Wouldn't it make more sense for you to ask us to let you know if we got it...". So I could proudly reply: "See, you DIDN'T get it".

Best prank

This was way back in high school, but I'm fairly certain it will work well in any large, densely-populated building.

1) choose the victim building
2) get 3 pigs
3) paint very prominent digits -- '1', '2', and '4' -- on the pigs
4) release pigs in building selected in step 1

Watching folks round up the 3 pigs is fun enough. But it's hilarious to watch the long, futile search for pig #3.

Re:Best prank

And here I thought it was some really clever use of pigs to generate random binary numbers. Alas.

Ponies

I sneak in at night and paint my neighbor's cubicle pink, decorate with construction paper hearts, and tie a real pony to his desk. He always comes in the next morning and say "OMG PONIES!"

Never gets old.

my best prank...

What's your best prank?

Tricking the editors into posting really crappy april-fools stories each year on the 1st. I've been doing it for almost 10 years straight and they still haven't caught on.

What's your best prank?

Showed up for work on time, clean-shaven and in nice clothes.

Re:What's your best prank?

Showed up for work on time, clean-shaven and in nice clothes.

Dude, that could so backfire on you as established precedent. :-P

Cheers

ssh

I heard that April Fools Day was cancelled this year.

Re:ssh

What does ssh have to do with April Fools Day?

For you EE people

For people who have more electronics knowledge than I have:

Make a circuit that beeps every 30 seconds or so. Add a photoresistor that turns on and off the beeping, so it beeps when it's dark. Put in victim's bedroom.

Laugh at the though that when they go to bed, it will start beeping, frequently and quietly enough to be annoying, but infrequently enough that it's hard to find. But when they turn the lights back on... the beeping stops!

Rick Roll defence tips every geek needs for 4/1

These guys have a good summary of stuff to do to protect you & your network from 4/1 shenanigans.

http://www.itprotips.com/defence/NoPrankZone/ [itprotips.com]

Another fun keyboard prank...

This one is especially good if you have a roommate:

Pop the M and N keys off of their keyboard and switch them around. Then, download a keyboard remapper and remap the M and N keys so that they correspond with the new arrangement (ie, the M key gives you an M, and the N key gives you an N, but their positions are switched). Pop the M and N keys off of your keyboard and switch them as well, but don't remap them.

After repeatedly mistyping (nistypimg?) things, they'll take a good long look at their own keyboard and then have a look at yours, just to compare (and of course, you've anticipated this and switched your own keys around too). With any luck, they'll be convinced they're going crazy.

My best aprils fools

What's your best prank?

I've done a lot but I think my favorite one was when I was in 6th grade or so. My father usually got up at around 7:00 to take me to school at 8. I went into his room (very sneakily) and set his clock an hour forward wearing my backpack, spring jacket, etc. I then turned on the lights, woke him up and said, "Dad, you have to take me to school, I have a presentation!" and then quickly went downstairs as if I too was in a hurry. He looked at the clock (displaying 7:55) and promptly jumped out of bed frantically trying to get ready. I could have easily let it continue till we were actually at school by switching his car clock too and everything (it was a cloudy day so the sun wouldn't have been able to clue him), but I decided to let him know after he got dressed and was about to jump in the car:)

Moral of the story:
1) Get it in as early as possible: chances are by the end of the day they probably are more suspicious.
2) Know your victim: my father knew how much I hate getting up early in the morning, he would find it really hard to believe I would wake up before I had to.
3) Make it plausable: We all have at some point screwed up in setting our alarms, the scenario I created could have very well actually happened. Be mindful of details.
4) Don't be cruel: Let them in on it after it is apparent they fell for it before they start really acting on what you fooled them with. Don't make them afraid for their life or anything crazy like that.

My father is a smart man that isn't easily deceived, I have spent many years refining my technique.

CANNOT EMPHESIZE ENOUGH

Slashdot needs a "spam" moderation category. These posts are becoming more frequent and pretty soon "off-topic" won't do it -- there won't be enough moderators with mod points to kill these off.

still get mocked years after .....

Once when I was still a newbie to slashdot, back in 1998 if I'm not mistaken. I read a story of bill gates adopting gifted kids, and wiring probes directly to there brain in the hopes of finding a successor. I believed it hook line and sinker and forwarded it to every co-worker. Suffice it to say I still get mocked to this day about 'Cris's Cranial Clicker' I think they even made me one out of a bowl and some silly string. So thank you slashdot, I will nto be here tomorrow

Re:and if past experience tells me anything

Slashdot wont be worth coming to tomorrow...

That implies that it's worth coming to the other 364 days.