# Yaaay! It's April first...



## ScottyDM (Apr 1, 2009)

...and the Internet will be rebooted at midnight, for the win!


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## Carenath (Apr 1, 2009)

Heh, I wonder what Google has to say on it..


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## TShaw (Apr 1, 2009)

I could just see Mister Scott in some random tube tweeking with our internet with lights flashing and sparks flying everywhere, shouting â€œItâ€™s all I can get out of her Captain.â€


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## ScottyDM (Apr 2, 2009)

The Internet is a giant series of tubes.


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## lowlow64 (Apr 2, 2009)

THE CAKE IS A LIE

in other words, I love stupid April fool "pranks"


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## ScottyDM (Apr 2, 2009)

There is a real art to telling a "tall tale". One successful technique is to hit the reader/listener with your whopper (the central lie); back off and surround your whopper with plausibility; then about the time the reader/listener is thinking, "Yes... I can see that... maybe it's true," hit 'em with another smaller lie that reinforces your whopper. This smaller lie can serve as a sort of punchline, and it let's the reader/listener know your story is a tall tale.

Years ago in one of the PC magazines some staffer did a nuclear battery powered computer backup as an April 1st "new product announcement". The purported device fit in a single ISA slot (remember ISA cards?) and they even had a darkish photo of this unidentifiable _thing_ to go with the article. The article started well, then got more and more outrageous with increasingly wilder claims. The effect was that any hint of believability was lost about 1/3 of the way through the story and totally bent, stapled, and mutilated by the end. The article came across as stupid and I'm sure no one was fooled.

I heard a good story about these old codgers sitting on the porch of the country store and talking about the big storm that blew through the state earlier that week. I believe they were near the coast of Maine. Between the heavy rains and the heavier seas, some of the low-lying fields on the coast were not only flooded, but the waves had tossed a few interesting things up into some of the fields. Amongst codgers, telling tall tales is an art form. And the more subtle the lie, the more beautiful the result. Mostly that day's lies consisted of what was washed up by the storm: size, species, and quantities. But saying you saw a 3-foot-long hagfish, when what you actually saw was a 2-foot-long hagfish, just isn't all that interesting--until old Joe told his story....


> "I was a drivin' along six-mile road yesterday an' happened ta go past old man Craine's field. You know, the one right along the sea."
> 
> _-- nods and murmurs all around, Joe's listeners know the place --_
> 
> ...


Of course the idea of a sea serpent is ridiculous. Unless of course it's a _little_ sea serpent, which is quite reasonable. Heck, it might not have been an actual sea serpent, but what is a sea serpent anyway, and what did old Joe see?

Then after a dramatic pause old Joe lays that zinger on his listeners at the end.


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