April Fool’s Collection 2009

I’ll be updating the post throughout the day, and please add others you find in the comments or, if you’re a writer here, feel free to edit the post yourself.

Big Players

Google can always be relied on to come up with a good one. This year has a full running theme. Google created CADIE, the Cognitive Autoheuristic Distributed-Intelligence Entit, basically an AI that they let have access to the Internet. She very quickly created her own Blogger blog, Youtube Channel and Google Earth presence. In addition, she now enables Google to provide all kinds of AI-assisted services like GMail AutoPilot (including gChat), Google Docs making lazing your way through that dreaded project all the easier, see the Ocean Floor, and See your favorite websites in 3D (I’m astounded that the Real-Time Anaglyph actually works, and me without my 3D glasses – The ones I printed out seem to be defective). Very well done, Google. Well Done Indeed! I may have missed some of their other, smaller Lab tools. If I find more, I’ll update. UPDATE: I didn’t see this one because I’m not a code monkey: Cadie will help you write your code, although she has a startling predliction for INTERCAL. It’s worth your time to read through the source code and the INTERCAL style guide. Also, she has kindly added Auto-RedEye technology to Picasa. That CADIE sure is helpful! Nothing on Orkut though. Am I missing any more Google products?

UPDATE: CADIE has been updating various bits of Google all day. She got Google Books where she picked out some good ones, Google Knowledge which she took over and only allowed articles on AI and neural nets, and Google Images.  CADIE can also help you remember anything you’ve forgotten with a simple Google Mobile app. Sadly, it seems the world is just not ready for CADIE (numbers don’t lie). She said Goodbye tonight at about 7:00. Her brief but sweet blog tells her whole story. Goodbye CADIE we’ll miss you. (Full CADIEness can be found at Wikipedia, of course).

Fark, ever a leader in Web Snarkery, has a new interface called the New Fark Experience. It’s really a breathtaking sight to behold. Of course, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so nice of Reddit (Reddigg, rather?) to be one Bold, Web2.0 Iteration behind.

Every year, Thinkgeek comes out with new April 1 products that are at the very least funny, but there’s always at least one that I really want them to find a way to make. This year, it is the Tauntaun sleeping bag. Not only do I want it to be real, I want it in ADULT size! Of course, there would need to be a two-person version so you can dutch oven your mate and make the obligatory “I thought they smelled bad on the OUTSIDE!” joke. The Squeez Bacon, on the other hand, frankly frightens the pants off me! And panstless me probably will make you want a Unicorn Chaser.

I’m still not sure that the new Facebook isn’t some elaborate early-deployment April Fool’s Day gag.

I’m peeved that I missed out on woot.com‘s Random Bag of Crap today though. Ah, well, I’m sure I couldn’t have afforded the shipping.

I don’t know how I forgot to look at YouTube before I made the first post. They have a new layout! FYI, I picked the video from the main page because, even viewed normally it is freaky as hell and it is NOT improved by the new layout. Trippy man … Better than being RickRoll’d on every front page video.

Webcomics

Unfortunate news for all those fans who hoped to see Starslip‘s Kris Straub at Emerald City ComicCon this year. Damn that MarconiCon!

Jenn Dolari at Closetspace and A Wish for Wings gave her homepage of dolari.net a much-needed makeover.

David Willis has ended ShortPacked and is relaunching Roomies, his original strip.

Bloggers

After months of lambasting Glenn Beck for his histrionics, Moxie declares she’ll be appearing on his show tonight to make amends. The Snark is strong with this one.

The Bad Astronomer passes along a new series of pics from the Martian Rovers. I hope the line isn’t too long. The ride looks like it is worth it, though.

NASA‘s Astronomy Pic of the Day sort of qualifies, if only for the caption.

The Consumerist has a new reader-attraction scheme. Cats and Cake, baby!

LifeHacker finally solves the problem of short URLS.

I guess this now fits under the Blogger header. The London Guardian is switching to a Twitter-only format!

Others

Don’t forget to get your new copy of Nine Inch Nails‘ new album, Strobe Light (epileptics should not click this link).

Wizards of the Coast is usually pretty decent for 4/1. Today’s D&D gag seems a little too inside baseball. The MTG gag (amongst a few small ones on the main page) pales in comparison to last year’s Pirates Vs. Ninjas Announcement.

Tired of your dog always bugging you for his turn on the computer? Toshiba has come to your rescue!

Tor.com has the latest news on the saddest geek-happening in days. And he was JUST starting to hit his stride too. CURSE YOU FOX!

Finally, the moment we’ve all been waiting for is here: GROUNDHOG DAY THE MUSICAL!

BMW has a new innovation in energy efficiency. Be efficient while the other guy expends his energy!

That’s all I’ve got so far. Check your RSS feeds or this post for more as I find them.

I love April Fool’s Day. It’s just fun seeing clever people put forth a lot of effort for no other reason than my enjoyment. Eric Burns-White of Websnark has more to say.

Hope you all enjoyed April 1st as much as I did!