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.

April Fools' Day On The Web : 2008

[Urgo]

For the most complete list of jokes head over to this site: April Fools' Day On The Web : 2008 [aprilfools...theweb.com]

Re:For you EE people

[megaditto]

This needs to beep at random intervals (say between 30 and 300 seconds) or else it will be very easy to time the signal and use it to locate the circuit.

It would also help to increase the frequency to 6000 Hz or so, which will also make it harder for humans to locate the direction of sound.

Finally, tape a 100 dollar bill to the bug for when the person finally finds it... they are probably going to be mad as hell and this will give you an easy way out.

Re:For you EE people

[mr_spatula]

I love those things - I bought three of them, some of the bets money I've ever spent. The first two were simple pranks - One in my fathers car right before a 12 hour journey (he nearly killed me when he found it) and another an a co-workers backpack before we went to evening classes.

The third, though, was a masterpiece of evil, lasting several months. I snuck it in a VP's office, but I'd only leave it on for a day at most - and then turn it off. A week passes, I turned it back on for another day or so, then off again - but making sure there wasn't really a consistent pattern. After a few months of this, I found him in his office, with a pen and a notepad, and almost everything turned off... He was writing down the time of each beep, and turning off a device in his office each time until he was finally sitting there in the dark, with nothing left to make noise, and a notepad full of timestamps.

Re:For you EE people

[CommunistHamster]

No, most organisms have difficulty locating the source of high frequency noise. That's why the "emergency, hide" call of blackbirds (and lots of other songbirds) is a single high pitched note; their chicks and other blackbirds can hear it, but the attacker doesn't know where the blackbirds are.

April Fools RFCs

[spaceyhackerlady]

I always get a chuckle out of the April Fools RFCs, though there haven't been many the last few years.

Our standing joke around the office for a long time was RFC 3514 RFC 3514 [ietf.org], The Security Flag in the IPv4 Header. RFC 2324 [ietf.org] is probably my personal favourite. RFC 3252 [ietf.org] may have been too clever for its own good, and some people may not have gotten the joke.

...laura