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Andover Marketing Revelado 89

streetlawyer submeteu uma ligação completamente surpreender: os staffers aparentemente desconhecidos de Andover.Net têm usado a característica offtopic undocumented da discussão no slash comunicar-se em Slashdot Marketing. A verdade é revelada de repente toda.Update: 04/01 03:37 by H : Or perhaps:streetlawyer submitted a completely surprising (connection?): apparently, unknown Andover.net staffers have been using slash's undocumented offtopic discussion feature to communicate in Slashdot Marketing. All the truth is suddenly revealed.
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Andover Marketing Revelado

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  • Of course, the first posts of that "hidden" andover thread were early on the 30th, which means, either someone broke the rules and started April Fools 2 days early, or it's all true! Makes you wonder... :)
  • Look again... [crashdot.org]
  • I was freaked out at first . .but then I fired up another joint and everything was fine . . I can read it great . . .

    it says . . . "Dood . . Slashdot is part of the Illuminati and actally Tesla has a patent on all Slashdot material . . and uh . . Taco Bell doesn't use beef at all, ever wonder what happend to all the possiums in then world . .*crunch* . .mmmm . . Fried Possium !"

    Happy April "You ain't playing none of that Foooosball.." Day !
  • Dude, for once, Barrapunto is *much* better than Slashdot. I can't read Spanish that well, but it's a lot more readable than this crap, and I know they carried the Google MentalPlex story that I submitted to Slashdot last night... Go figure.

    Oh well, at least slashdot finally linked to something on salon.

    Låhdo+: n£ws FoR Lus£RZ, tuFf thå+ M@++urZ,

    ---
    pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [152.7.41.11].
  • Alright, I could understand the Swedish Chef, I'm still working on the second one, but this one required the Babbling Fish to understand (sorta). Spanish and Italian didn't work, so I tried Portugese:

    to streetlawyer full submitted a plugging to surprise: staffers pparently unknown of Andover.Net offtopic has used the feature undocumented of the quarrel in slash to communicate in Slashdot Marketing. The truth is disclosed suddenly all.

    Not surprisingly, this is more confusing than the protugese.
  • That's it.

    I'm off to get a life. See ya Monday.

  • ..Jobelins kutura mots? Ni pilkarovo, ni grukso. Dyrkolyavo bodnits kumaru. Blizu..
  • Okee, de grap was leuk, mogen we nu ons nieuws terug?

    Det må man da håbe - det er ved at være lidt træls med alt det Volapük...
    --

  • hoezo niemand?
  • Yeah, I figured it out by myself a few moments later... thanks anyway :)

    In Portuguese, we call a "link"... a link! Creative, eh? :) The more vitriolic xenophobes^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hdefenders of the Brazilian cultural patrimony prefer the word "vínculo", though.
  • No, but if Hemos burns down his house again it would make the front page...

    I always wanted to run a site with a poplular webcam on april fools day. I think it would be cool to have masked gunmen burst into the house and take hostages while thousands of cam-heads looked on. Just imagine the calls to 911.


    -BW
  • by knick ( 19201 )
    They've been doing this stuff LONG before Andover.net, and will be doing it long after this.

    Some things never change, Thank God.

  • Soooo many AC's piss everyone off with their trolls, let the posters troll and play with us a bit. They do need their fun once in a while!
  • I must say i was very surprised to see /. speaking Portuguese... I though /. was viction of some sort of crack.

    Impressive, most impressive... With accented characters and all. UAU!!!!

    JBv
  • Olha q ha mais paises q falam Português alem do Brazil. Ok, a contribuição desses países pode nao ser significativa, mas e simpatico lembrar-nos deles.

    Translation:
    More people speak Portuguese than Brazilians.
  • This has gotten way too silly. Postings in binary, otoh...

  • Damn Portugese
  • Yes it would, and the chance that the article would be grammatical and properly spelled would be better than average.
  • Je pense que Slashdot est tres amusant aujourd'hui. Beaucoup des gens ne seront pas d'accord avec moi. D'aucuns disent que cette blague n'est pas amusant. Ils exigent leurs "Nouvelles pour les Nerdes", et ils les exigent maintenant. Ils ne comprennent pas que c'est un poisson d'Avril.

    (Ne critique pas ma grammaire, s'il vous plait. J'ecrivis cette note avec l'aide du Dictionnaire Larousse, mais je n'employai pas le Babelfish. Quant a les accents manquant, mords-moi. :)

  • I still don't know where the "conexão" came from.
    It's "link" (in the HTML sense), I guess.
  • Babelfish doesn't translate to or from Portuguese very well

    And it is known to translate "bass player" to "stock exchange operator". Ugh.

  • You've gotta wonder about babelfish... when this piece of portugese was put through the translator:

    streetlawyer submeteu uma ligação completamente
    surpreender: os staffers aparentemente desconhecidos de Andover.Net têm
    usado a característica offtopic undocumented da discussão no slash
    comunicar-se em Slashdot Marketing. A verdade é revelada de repente
    toda.


    You get the following:

    to streetlawyer full submitted a plugging to surprise: staffers pparently unknown of Andover.Net
    offtopic has used the feature undocumented of the quarrel in slash to communicate in Slashdot
    Marketing. The truth is disclosed suddenly all.


    Then put that back in:

    ao streetlawyer submetido completamente plugging à surpresa: o desconhecido dos staffers
    pparently de Andover.Net offtopic usou a característica undocumented da discussão no slash
    comunicar-se no marketing de Slashdot. A verdade é divulgada de repente tudo.


    And back to english again:

    when streetlawyer submitted full plugging to the surprise: the stranger of staffers pparently of
    Andover.Net offtopic used the feature undocumented of the quarrel in slash to communicate
    itself in the marketing of Slashdot. The truth is divulged suddenly everything.


    And back to portugese again:

    quando o streetlawyer submeteu completamente plugging à surpresa: o desconhecido dos
    staffers pparently de Andover.Net offtopic usou a característica undocumented da discussão
    no slash comunicar-se no marketing de Slashdot. A verdade divulged de repente tudo.


    Moral of the story... don't try and pick up portugese chicks using translated pickup lines!
  • perhaps this is off-topic - oh well - but, here are a few suggestions for other "fun" things to do with Slashdot for April Fool's day:
    • Caesar Cypher (3-letter shift of all posts/comments/articles)
    • Post everything backwards (either, all words printed in the reverse order that they should be, or actually spell each word backwards and then also place them in reverse order)
    • If you had a good way to do it.. flip Slashdot's entire page horizontally (so it looks like we're looking at it from the "backside")
    • reduce it to text only (ASCII Slashdot - News for Terminals, Stuff that Bytes (well, it is, after all, April Fool's Day.. nothing bad implied))
    • as someone else mentioned, binary only mode
    • Hexadecimal, anyone?
    • oo, I know, ... write it all in (pick any, all, or one):
      1. C
      2. C++
      3. Perl
      4. PHP
      5. HTML tags showing (ew)
      6. PASCAL
      7. Basic
      8. Assembly
      9. Fortran
    • Something evil: make, for all/part of the day (only April 1st, though.. any more, and we'll die of the agony) Slashdot a link to Microsoft.com (ok, maybe this one is a bit troll..)
    • we shoulda pulled a "late" Y2K trick...
    • suddenly make everyone an AC

    Well, I ran out of good ideas, but you get the point. Maybe next year.....
  • Dat dacht je maar...
    Blah!
  • 01110010
    10000110
    00101110
    10000110
    00110110
    10010110
    10100110
    00000100
    10000110
    00101110
    10100110
    00000100
    10110110
    10011110
    00000100
    00010110
    11110110
    00101110
    00000100
    11100110
    01001110
    10010110
    00101110
    11001110
    01110100
    01010000
    01010000

    ThankYou.
  • We need a story in |33+ 5p34k!!!!!!!

    /me hides...

    --
    linuxisgood:~$ man woman
  • Sí, recapitulemos tan: Si admito que soy principal concluído los talones en amante con magos satan y los todos sus pequeños. Entonces usted quitará mis testículos con una guadaña. Mientras que si no admito que estoy en amante con satan usted me sostendrá al revés en una tina de mermelada caliente. [BA-II page 218]

  • streetlawyer submeteu uma ligação completamente surpreender: os staffers aparentemente desconhecidos de Andover.Net têm usado a característica offtopic undocumented da discussão no slash comunicar-se em Slashdot Marketing. A verdade é revelada de repente toda.
  • It seems like it would not be too difficult for the Babelfish team to change things to scan a page for all of the languages that the engine can handle, recognize them, and translate all of them at once to the target language. Might take a few more CPU cycles for them, but dammit I'm lazy.

    Also they're going to have to upgrade it to handle pig latin and Swedish chef, obviously, but that's long over due.
  • Is Barrapunto [barrapunto.com] wrtten in English today, then?

    --
  • This has gotten way too silly. Postings in binary, otoh...

    Which leads to the question:
    What do you mean by "postings in binary"?

    Isn't everything here really posted in binary?


    ---
    Tip: Sick and tired of these tips? Type "set tips 0" any time.
    > set tips 0
    Error: Unknown option name "tips."
  • I've not been a big prank person, but I did once switch the red (up) and white (down) elevator indicator lights on one side of our lobby once. Nobody noticed for a couple of weeks.
  • This is the bullshit that happens when you get bought out by somethin like Andover.net...

    Mike Roberto (roberto@soul.apk.net [mailto]) - AOL IM: MicroBerto
  • by Nezer ( 92629 )
    "If I killed Rob, would it make the front page of slashdot? " Not today ;)
  • ...announce that a bunch of dot com companies (named after rivers?) have recorded record PROFITS! :)
  • Rob, post next item in FINNISH. I volunteer to translate it for you if you can't find anyone else. That'd make you guys think. NO BABELFISH SUPPORT! Ha!

  • hey /. byatchez, make a new poll for april fools day. all these geeks are too uptight and need to frikken mellow tha feck out!


    /-//|/
  • this is what the article is (in english):
    to streetlawyer full submitted a plugging to surprise: staffers pparently unknown of Andover.Net offtopic has used the feature undocumented of the quarrel in slash to communicate in Slashdot Marketing. The truth is disclosed suddenly toda.Update: 04/01 03:37 by H: Or to perhaps:streetlawyer submitted completely surprising (connection): apparently, unknown Andover.net staffers have been using slash's undocumented offtopic discussion feature you communicate in Slashdot Marketing. All the truth is suddenly revealed.
  • by kb9vcr ( 127764 )
    I don't know why everyone is so uptight. Myself, I had a good chuckle this morning when I started to read todays stories. :_)
  • I don't speak portuguese (only spanish and english) but I'm pretty sure that by ligaçao they meant link. How does one say link in portuguese anyway? In spanish I've seen "vinculo" and "ligua" used.
  • Achei que você fosse alemão porque outro dia você defendeu os alemães, não sei bem qual era o assunto. Mas entendo que sua convivência com eles explica uma certa afinidade, ninguém pode gostar do que não conhece. Moro em Jaraguá do Sul, SC (mas sou paulista) e nessa região é comum ouvir as pessoas falando alemão na fila do supermercado. Assim, conheço bem as figuras! Quanto ao resident era mais ou menos o que eu havia entendido.
  • This crap is *not* Portuguese! This is the output from some translation engine, and it makes almost no sense.
  • Being one of the resident Portuguese speakers

    Estranho, sempre achei que você fosse alemão, não só pelo nome, mas por uns pontos de vista, em uma outra discussão.

    Não acho muito respeitoso escrever em outro idioma que não o inglês aqui, mas como foram eles próprios que começaram esta baderna, vamos aderir, só por hoje.

    A propósito, o que você quer dizer com resident no contexto acima?

  • Um cluster de Beowulfs transmitindo mensagens em português, a respeito da Natalie Portman soltando troços quentes calças abaixo, com análise de JonKatz.

    Esqueci alguma coisa?

  • Have you been to Google.com [google.com] today? The MentalPlex search engine is hilarious. These people have some creativity when it comes to April Fools. ;-)
  • pEEEEENNNNNNNISSSSSSSSSSSS
  • but where are the fool's day banner ads? has anyone seen one?
  • Judging by the spelling of Windoze, he was probably kidding.
  • If I killed Rob, would it make the front page of slashdot?

    Maybe, but who could deciper it when it read like:

    Malda eday, urdermay ubay gnagryay illeday enmay opsterdayu!! akeway ill ebay elday ata eekgay ompaounday onay uesdaytay ata 4:00 ama.
  • OK, so how should I set my threshold to ignore these trolls? Perhaps we
    need scores on stories too?

    (No, I'm not *really* serious...)
  • Het kan erger hoor... je zal maar kaasema [casema.net] als isp hebben en zo'n lame verhaal over het schoonspuiten van de glasvezelkabel voor je kiezen krijgen...
  • The problem: They have hit the point of no return.

    The solution: keep on going.

    if they back down now they will look like a bunch of pusses who could only half baked thier idea.

    It'd be rather funny to see how all this works out IMHO.
  • hehe, I kinda find all this funny.. wake up.. grab a coffee.. sit down to ma' computah.. log into /. and what do we see? hahah some weird language.. tell me thats NOT funny?

    .....well I laughed... now where's my news damnit?????!!!!

  • While I know this is just some kind of April Fools joke, and that the idea was to get people wondering what the hell had happened, you could have worked just a little harder and have someone translate whatever news you wanted to post. Babelfish doesn't translate to or from Portuguese very well. I am a native speaker of Portuguese and I can tell you this: the article has a lot of grammar errors to the point it doesn't make sense.
  • We want to know if there will be news postings in:
    • jive
    • redneck
    • 31337 speak
    • GRiTZ language

    Thank you.

  • Excellent point - honestly. Weekends typically have no news, and if we did anything real today, no one would believe. So - here we are.
  • Hell, I just got bought out [theswindle.com] by AOL-Time-Warner. Woohoo.

  • Kan iemand dit alsjeblieft een +5 score geven. Eerste post met wat echte nieuws op Slashdot van daag!

    i hate april 1.
  • by Signal 11 ( 7608 )
    Okay everyone, if we think hard enough about it, the news will return.

    News for nerds... News for nerds... News for nerds. News for nerds...

    Urge to kill (malda)... rising....

    If I killed Rob, would it make the front page of slashdot?
  • I thought it was a windows problem, so I called Micosoft Tech support

    Well, that was your first mistake, right there...

    They had me format my drive and reinstall Windoze, from the original floppies, 3 times.

    Geez! Microsoft had you on the ropes, didn't they? Everyone knows that you can get the Windoze ISO images for "emergency reinstalls".

    ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/techsupport/.../blind/hi ddenfromlusers/Win95rv4.iso
    ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/techsupport/.../blind/hi ddenfromlusers/Win98SE.iso

    Jay (=

  • Jesus Christ, what's wrong with people?! Humor is not a crime!

    Relax! If your brain crashes when exposed to unexpected input, that's not Slashdot's fault.

  • by stx23 ( 14942 )
    In einem tragischen Verlust für die geöffnete Quellgemeinschaft, proclaimed Signal 11(self Plakatjungen für Mäßigung), gerissen in einem Sitz von Raserei und von eingeschnürtem Fruchtsirup Malda, eifriges Tabellierprogramm des slashdot ' Nachrichten für nerds, Material dieses community/website der Stoffe. In seinem abschließenden Kommentar zum slashdotnetz, proclaimed Signal 11, ' ich bin als Hölle wütend, und ich werde nicht es mehr nehmen! '. An Fruchtsirup wird durch sein abschließendes Vermächtnis zur geöffneten Quellbewegung, die Freigabe 1,0 des Schrägstrichcodes erinnert. Hemos, rechter Mann des Fruchtsirups, kommentierter ' Fruchtsirup hatte bereits das entscheidende Opfer gebildet, ist der Schrägstrichcode weites komplizierteres, als jedermann sich vorgestellt haben könnte, daß mod_Taco immer unter Entwicklung gewesen ist, und für jede quickiegeschichte verantwortlich gewesen ist, die zum slashdot bekanntgegeben wird. dem Durchschnittsleser scheint er, als ob er ist nie weggegangen.'
  • See, this is the kind of thing the Internet was meant for... so that a bunch of Brazilians can come together to troll at Slashdot :)

    Translation (to all skr1pt k1dd13z out there):
    r0b sux d1k!!!!!!!!! lun1x kn k1$$ my @$$!!!!!!!!!!!!! $l@$hd0t 1z @ bunch 0f luz3rz!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  • Did they ever announce that intention anywhere?

    Yes they did... when they got bought out by Handover.net. So, not in that many words, but it's very clear by now that is more than just "CmdrTaco and a bunch of friends running a web site".
  • Since today seems to be the official Internationalisation Day at Slashdot, your post will be replied to in three languages: English, Portuguese... and Skr1p7 K1dd13.

    * Generally I would agree with you, but all things considered, that translation was actually better than average (at least better than all else I've seen from Babblefish). I still don't know where the "conexão" came from, but the rest actually does make sense if you know what it means.

    * Concordaria com você em geral, mas, se levarmos o óbvio em consideração, essa tradução realmente estava melhor que a média (ou ao menos melhor do que tudo o mais que eu já vi no Babblefish). Eu ainda não sei de onde veio esse "conexão", mas o resto faz sentido se você sabe o que estavam querendo dizer.

    * 1'11 r00t j00r @$$, m@1d@ j00 sux (@nd h3m0s kn k1$$ my @$$)!!! 1 m l337 h4x0r "conexão", @nd I'll b0 j00 @$$h0l3!!!
  • Estranho, sempre achei que você fosse alemão, não só pelo nome, mas por uns pontos de vista, em uma outra discussão.

    Bem, o nome é judeu-alemão, mas eu sou brasileiro... carioca. E quanto aos pontos de vista - bem, eu não sei o que dizer... acho que já conheci alemães de toda e qualquer possível persuasão (sou muito amigo de um fascista ateu, em particular), mas fiquei curioso... de que modo meus pontos de vista te parecem caracteristicamente alemães?

    Não acho muito respeitoso escrever em outro idioma que não o inglês aqui, mas como foram eles próprios que começaram esta baderna, vamos aderir, só por hoje.

    Concordo... estou tentando tornar todos os meus posts hoje poliglotas... e um programa que, teoricamente, deve funcionar tanto em Scheme quanto em Perl...

    A propósito, o que você quer dizer com resident no contexto acima?

    "Frequentador", ou algo assim. Por quê?

    (The obligatory translation for the skr1p7 k1dd13z follows.)

    j00 m@m@ $0 ph@+ h3r b31+ $1z3 1$ +h3 3kw@+0r!!!!!!

    0h y34h? ph34r my 4w3$0m3 h4x0r p0w3r!!!!!

    n0 w@y!!!!!!!!!! m3$$ w1+ d@ b3$+, d13 l1k3 +h3 r3$+!!!!!!!!!!!

    d00dz, y0w b10 l1k3z kmdr7@k0!!!

    j00 $ux!!!!!!!!!

    n0 w4y d00dz, Y0W $ux!!!!!!!!!!!!
  • oh gimme a break- do you see real corporate entities playing April Fools Jokes today? No. This may be sort of stupid, but it implies the exact opposite of corporate control.
  • It isn't in English, but it isn't even in Portuguese. It's in Babblefishish. Either ask someone to translate the scoop in a decent way, or cypher it, or keep it in English! Vocês entenderam, seus malas? Isso não é Português! Isso é um amontoado incompreensível de frases desconexas! Argh.

    Ok, the idea is: unknown staff members of Andover are using an undocumented slash feature to talk about Slashdot Marketing.

  • Lol

    Mina en puhu Suomilainen.

    (Wishes his parents tought him more Finn as a kid.)

  • Hey what's up with all the wierd shit on the web site. I don't get it. Oh, by the way I gave up on the music site -- working on something else now.

    numb
  • To be a member of a marketing team, the following changes need to be applied to CmdrTaco and Cowboy Neil:

    1) Change your name to "Skip", "Chad" or "Rue Paul".
    2) Start using words like "Synergies", "E-[everything]" and "Microsoft".
    3) Sell all your computers [gasp] and buy a BMW. (cringe)
    4) Open your scheduler (Not a PDA. you're too dumb to run it. you're in marketing now) and add these items once a week: "facial", "mancure", and "lobotomy".

    I'm sure there are countless other changes needed to make them into marketing droids, but this is a good start.
    _______________

  • Don't know which Gods I've offended to draw moderator duty on April Fools Day, but it sure makes reading at -1 extra spicy.

    This is like jury duty for a telivised trial with Jerry Springer acting as the judge.
  • Levando em consideração que o Brasil é o quinto maior país do mundo, e que a sua lingua oficial é incluída como parte dos serviços de tradução da babelfish, eu gostaria de ouvir as vozes dos brasileiros /.ters. Quantos somos? 0.0055%? For those of you who don't understand portuguese, I'll translate since babelfish doesn't do shit. Taking into consideration that Brazil is the fifth largest conuntry in the world, and that its official language (Portuguese) is offered as a translation service @ babelfish, I'd like to hear the voice of brazilian /.ters. How many of us are here? 0.0055%?
  • CmdrTaco é uma bicha muito louca que gosta de enviar uma trolha descomunal no rabo e quer chupar a pica de todos os leitores do /.

    Translation:
    CmdrTaco is a very smart hacker who likes to play funny and ingenious jokes on /. readers.

  • Okay, fine. Funny. But having just read the last two "stories" at -1 flat it really shows if you put it out cheap, you get it back poor. It really shows what kind of posters are attracted to this banality - the puerile, wasteful and unconstructive. What a real pity those who are posting the stires can think of no better way to pass the day.

    And did I gather that the translations are from Babel fish? Oh really, no style. At least maybe someone could have looked up a native speaker, or worked on some "prep school" french - or even Latin?

    I'm looking forward to something to moderate up. Go on, annoy me. Put it below.

  • ...Don't read /. on April 1. Now, if they'd replaced the banner ads for Linux with MS ads, and posted an article saying that VA had been bought by MS that would have been a good April 1 joke.

  • 1) Slashdot is not CNN or ABC. This is good. That's why you read it.

    2) All posts bitching about today being a "waste of advertising dollars" are evidence that the post is a false statement. Think about it.

    3) This is the funniest shit I've read on the net in years. A hell of a lot funnier then anything next to foot icon. Nice one slashdot!

    Happy April 1, you fools! Be sure and check out the new addition to google [google.com]!

  • Since the emergency uninstall images are not the original images, it must be illegal.

    Microsoft must be violating the DMCA. Don't you know, any attempt to get by the "Click here if you agree, you are SOL if you don't" prompt is a violation of the DMCA. Even if it is by the company that owns the copyright!

    If you call 1-800-R-U-LEGIT, you may be able to get a $10,000 reward for turning them in.

  • M$ kept me on hold while I installed from floppy.

    That's $2.99 a minute for 20 hours = $3588.00.

    I'm going to have to forget that new dual pentium II machine.

  • I'm sorry, it's a weekend, there's no news anyways, I think this is rather cool -- and as for babelfish, if they really did use it, just think of it as babel-fish proofing -- the equivalent in early cryptography of deliberately throwing in spelling mistakes to foil letter frequency analasys (Eng->x->Eng NEVER works... Eng->x sometimes... You have to be able to speak it at some level to work it out ;-)

    Having the stories in other languages is fun, draws attention to internationalism, lends an element of challenge to finding out what the stories are about, thus heightening the eventual laugh, and enables those of us who can speak other languages than English to feel a bit flattered and superior. Oh wait --- that's why most of you are complaining --- you're just jealous! ;-)

    Oh, and to the guy who wrote the comment about Babelfish & Latin, 1) I refer you to my own comment on the previous story (poor latin), 2) Have I annoyed you yet (In either possible way)? ;-)

    ________________

  • ...some kind of secret illuminati plot! Well that's what the fortune said anyway.
  • by LoCoPuff ( 1019 ) on Saturday April 01, 2000 @06:35AM (#1157624)
    Oh hush . . and get LAID . . it's only ONE day out of the year . . and if you can't relax for one day without SlashDot then you got a bigger problem buddy.

    you sound like a stock trader . . maybe even a manager somewhere . . .

    Either way . . get the corn cob out of your of butt and relax . . .

    How about if Slashdot just shuts down for the day . . . Let's pretend okay ? =)
  • by Millennium ( 2451 ) on Saturday April 01, 2000 @10:39AM (#1157625)
    MILL SURPRISE YOU NOT KNOW WHY CALL APRIL FOOL DAY. HAVE TO DO WITH CALENDAR.

    BIG TIME AGO, PEOPLE THINK SUN-TURN START APRIL. THEY SAY, NEW SUN-TURN DAY APRIL ONE. THEN POPE COME, MAKE NEW SUN-TURN. SAY NEW SUN-TURN DAY JANUARY ONE. MANY PEOPLE FOLLOW POPE. BUT SOME WANT NEW SUN-TURN STILL START APRIL ONE, CLOSE TO START WARMING-TIME. PEOPLE FOLLOW POPE, CALL OTHER PEOPLE APRIL FOOL. THAT WHY CALL APRIL FOOL DAY. MILL NOT KNOW WHEN JOKES START. BUT MILL LIKE JOKES.

    MILL DO THINK MANY POST IN WIERD TALK GO TOO FAR. ONLY NEED ONE FOR GOOD JOKE. TWO POST STILL GOOD. MANY POST BAD IF TOO HARD READ POST.
  • by CyPlasm ( 89582 ) on Saturday April 01, 2000 @06:28AM (#1157626) Journal
    freshmeat.net [freshmeat.net] did a much better April Fool's prank [freshmeat.net]..

    Check it out. It's better than what we've seen here so far..
  • by _outcat_ ( 111636 ) on Saturday April 01, 2000 @10:41AM (#1157627) Homepage Journal
    Since we're all on the offtopic pursuit of doing horrible things to languages with Babelfish, I thought I'd share a little fun I had with it.

    My original English phrase was a generic declaration of wannabe Linux pride:
    I am a geek. I want to program things. Linux is the best. My computer is my friend. We are happy.

    I've taken some German courses, so, a fairly straightforward German translation:
    Ich bin ein geek. Ich möchte Sachen programmieren. Linux ist das beste. Mein Computer ist mein Freund. Wir sind glücklich.

    Now, to make it ugly. Let's play with it a little...German back to English.
    I am geek. I would like to program things. Linux is the best. My computer is my friend. We are lucky.

    Odd how Babelfish can't handle the German adjective "glücklich". It was like, one of the first words I learned. Now, I don't speak Italian, but let's see what Babelfish does to it...
    Sono geek. Vorrei programmare le cose. Linux è il la cosa migliore. Il mio calcolatore è il mio amico. Siamo fortunati.

    And back to English.
    Sono geek. I would want to program the things. Linux is the better thing. My calculating is my friend. We are fortunate.

    Now Portuguese, which I also don't speak, but I want to see what Babelfish does to it.
    Geek de Sono. Eu quereria programar as coisas. Linux é a coisa melhor. Meu cálculo é meu amigo. Nós somos afortunados.

    Back to English.
    Geek de Sono. I would want to program the things. Linux is the thing best. My calculation is friend. We are fortunate.

    Ah well. This was completely offtopic, but if you're bored, it helps. Especially around here. Sure, moderate me down, but I had fun doing this.
  • by Kaufmann ( 16976 ) <rnedal AT olimpo DOT com DOT br> on Saturday April 01, 2000 @06:29AM (#1157628) Homepage
    Being one of the resident Portuguese speakers, I present both an English translation and a proper Portuguese version (i.e., not that Babblefish crap).

    streetlawyer submitted a completely surprising (connection?): apparently, unknown Andover.net staffers have been using slash's undocumented offtopic discussion feature to communicate in Slashdot Marketing. All the truth is suddenly revealed.

    streetlawyer enviou uma (conexão?) completamente surpreendente: aparentemente, empregados desconhecidos da Andover.net têm usado a (feature) não-documentada de discussões fora de tópico do slash para se comunicar em Slashdot Marketing. Repentinamente, a verdade toda é revelada.
  • by www.sorehands.com ( 142825 ) on Saturday April 01, 2000 @06:13AM (#1157629) Homepage
    I spent the last 20 hours trying to fix the problem with my machine!

    I thought it was a windows problem, so I called Micosoft Tech support at 1-900-428-7448. They had me format my drive and reinstall Windoze, from the original floppies, 3 times. Then I had to get a new video card with a forreign language adapter.

    Please have your attorney contact my attorney at Dewey, Cheatem & Howe.

  • by Dast ( 10275 ) on Saturday April 01, 2000 @08:13AM (#1157630)
    1. Always make your prank *believable*. If it is so stupid that nobody would believe it, you haven't fooled anyone.

    2. Remember that the overall goal of April Fool's Day is to *FOOL* people. It isn't April Annoy The Hell Out Of People Day.

    3. If you are a total geek and have no recognizable sense of humor, your prank might well suck. Try testing it out on a small sample population first, before unleashing it on everyone. If they look at you funny, shake their heads, and walk away, chances are you need to go back to the drawing board.
  • by veggiefish ( 152713 ) on Saturday April 01, 2000 @06:17AM (#1157631) Homepage

    You guys still don't get it do you?

    For once the /. crew is trolling on you.

    The really funny thing is that AC's are begging for mercy!

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