I’ve never been a great fan of April Fools’, partly I think because a lot of April Fools’ pranks just involve making fun of other people rather than being funny in themselves. However as it’s April 1st today I figured that it was time to stop being so grumpy and list some classic April Fools’:
BBC Spaghetti Harvest
This has to be the grand daddy of them all, it’s even got its own Wikipedia page. What makes it even more amazing is the fact that is was done by the very long running and ultra-serious BBC Panorama current affairs programme with Richard Dimbleby narrating. Thanks to the YouTube, here it is:
It should be remembered that, at this time, most people in the UK only came across spaghetti in tomato sauce in tins and would have no idea where it actually came from.
Request for Comments
OK, some nerd humour is actually quite funny. “Request for Comments” or RFCs are publications on technical standards or protocols about all things internet related. Mostly they’re pretty dry technical documents but occasionally you get something a little different, especially around this time of year. Both of these are quite short and worth reading all the way through:
A Standard for the Transmission of IP Datagrams on Avian Carriers – RFC1149
This memo describes an experimental method for the encapsulation of IP datagrams in avian carriers. This specification is primarily useful in Metropolitan Area Networks. This is an experimental, not recommended standard. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
or internet by carrier pigeon. In an interesting “art imitiating life” moment a group of Linux users in Norway decided to implement this protocol. They report:
… we got four ping replys, with ping times varying from 3211 to 6389 seconds.
Not bad, I’ve used dial-up connections that were worse than that …
Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol (HTCPCP/1.0) – RFC 2324
This document specifies a Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol (HTCPCP), which permits the full request and responses necessary to control all devices capable of making the popular caffeinated hot beverages.
There is a natural affinity between engineers and coffee so it only makes sense that there’s a proper protocol for obtaining said beverage. Indeed the very first webcam was related to ensuring a steady supply of caffeine. One of the protocol error messages is amusing:
2.3.2 418 I'm a teapot Any attempt to brew coffee with a teapot should result in the error code "418 I'm a teapot". The resulting entity body MAY be short and stout.
Somehow this error message has made its way into the formal HTTP documentation and supported by various languages and frameworks.
Welding
Finally a video from Project Binky which is incidentally a cracking YouTube channel if you’re interested in car mods or general metal fabrication. This one nearly had me Googling for ceramic electrodes and earthenware composite filler rods until I realised the date 🙂
The Retired Engineer 