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Internet Spring Cleaning 169

Posted by Hemos from the i-love-april-fool's dept.
We've had an important notice, that simply had to be passed on; for those who've seen it before, revel in your old-sk00l style: It's that time again! As many of you know, each year the Internet must be shut down for 24 hours in order to allow us to clean it. The cleaning process, which eliminates dead e-mail and inactive ftp, www and gopher sites, allows for a better-working and faster Internet. This year, the cleaning process will take place from 23:59 pm (GMT) on March 31st until 00:01 a.m. (GMT) on April 2nd. During that 24-hour period, five powerful Internet-crawling robots situated around the world will search the Internet and delete any data that they find. In order to protect your valuable data from deletion we ask that you do the following: 1. Disconnect all terminals and local area networks from their Internet connections. 2. Shut down all Internet servers, or disconnect them from the Internet. 3. Disconnect all disks and hard drives from any connections to the Internet. 4. Refrain from connecting any computer to the Internet in any way. We understand the inconvenience that this may cause some Internet users, and we apologize. However, we are certain that any inconveniences will be more than made up for by the increased speed and efficiency of the Internet, once it has been cleared of electronic flotsam and jetsam. We thank you for your cooperation.
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Internet Spring Cleaning More

Internet Spring Cleaning

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  • Re:WTF are you all talking about? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The article has changed. It is now correct English, but it *was* gibberish before. Do you think he did it on purpose? (to make everyone who complains look foolish?)

  • Re:Also - (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    In Addition, add appromxiately two cups of epson salts into the cold, soapy water. As well all know, salt is a conductor of electricity, and increases the efficiency of the system bus well over 30%.

  • huh? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    whutchu talkin' bout hemos?

  • ME TOO!!11!! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    HOW LONG DO I HAVE TO LEAVE IT UNPLUGGED FOR AGAIN? 2HOT4U2@AOL.COM

  • BABELSCHEISER by MouseShadow (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Vorsicht Vorsicht Vorsicht

    Dumkopher, dieser ist einer
    Amerikanisertaglisherwortspiel. Eine
    grosser einmaenner ist nach su hauser
    mit *BRILLO* waschen deiner PC tastatur.
    Der orangensaft auf dein frustuecke ist
    farht im internet.
    Das ist mir wuerst... Es tut mir leid.

  • Re:Encheferizer! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    DO NOT CONNECT TO THE INTERNET FROM MERCH 31st 23:59 pm (GMT)
    UNTIL 12:01
    em (GMT) EPRIL 2nd.

    *** Ettenshun ***

    It's thet teeme-a egeeen! Es muny ooff yuoo knoo, iech yeer zee
    Internet moost be-a shoot doon fur 24 huoors in oorder tu elloo us tu
    cleun it. Zee cleuneeng prucess, vheech ileeminetes deed imeeel und
    inecteefe-a ftp, vvv und gupher seetes, elloos fur a better-vurkeeng
    und fester Internet.

    Thees yeer, zee cleuneeng prucess veell teke-a plece-a frum 23:59 pm
    (GMT) oon Merch 31st unteel 00:01 em (GMT) oon Epreel 2nd. Dooreeng
    thet 24-huoor pereeud, feefe-a pooerffool Internet-crevleeng rubuts
    seetooeted eruoond zee vurld veell seerch zee Internet und delete-a
    uny deta thet zeey feend.

    In oorder tu prutect yuoor felooeble-a deta frum deleshun ve-a esk
    thet yuoo du zee fullooeeng:

    1. Deescunnect ell termeenels und lucel erea netvurks frum zeeur
    Internet cunnecshuns.

    2. Shoot doon ell Internet serfers, oor deescunnect zeem frum zee Internet.

    3. Deescunnect ell deesks und herdreefes frum uny cunnecshuns tu zee
    Internet.

    4. Reffreeen frum cunnecteeng uny cumpooter tu zee Internet in uny vy.

    Ve-a understund zee incunfeneeence-a thet thees mey coose-a sume-a
    Internet users, und ve-a epulugeeze-a. Hooefer, ve-a ere-a certeeen
    thet uny incunfeneeences veell be-a mure-a thun mede-a up fur by zee
    increesed speed und iffffeeciency ooff zee Internet, oonce-a it hes
    beee cleered ooff ilectruneec flutsem und jetsem. Ve-a thunk yuoo fur
    yuoor cuupereshun.

    Foo Leeng Yoo
    Intercunnected Netvurk Meeentenunce-a Steffff Meeen
    Brunch, Messechoosetts Insteetoote-a ooff Technulugy

    Sysups und oozeers: Seence-a zee lest Internet cleuneeng, zee noomber
    ooff Internet users hes groon dremeteecelly. Pleese-a esseest us in
    elerteeng zee poobleec ooff zee upcumeeng Internet cleuneeng by
    pusteeng thees messege-a vhere-a yuoor users veell be-a eble-a tu reed
    it. Pleese-a pess thees messege-a oon tu oozeer sysups und Internet
    userthees messege-a oon tu oozeer sysups und Internet users es
    vell. Thunk yuoo.
  • Sure you can. Start at midnight GMT, but wherever it is 2am. Go from north to south cleaning that timezone for one hour, then move to the next. Since this process takes 24 hours, might as well go timezone-by-timezone (roughly). This could easily be accomplished with PHP or Python.
  • Nah, this www.petsbymail.com thing was pretty cute, and it got some animal-lovers mailling lists. It was made legitimate by alleged radio commercials, and today we see it was brought to us by KDWB (wherever that is). Ah radio, the infallable medium. Makes me wonder how many people want to go to Spatula City during Rush's broadcasts.

    I don't see any links to the old page, but it said something like, "Nearly all of our animals survive the shipping process. If yours arrives dead or injured, simply return the carcass and receive a full refund." And the usual, "opening April 1."

  • freshmeat (Score:1)

    by rafa ( 491 )
    Freshmeat.net's got an interesting entry today. Seems Windows 2000's made it into the appindex ;)

    -----

  • Well, no, if you've ever seen an NT box recover from a crash, you should know how false that is.

    1) It isn't all journaled, just the metadata.

    2) If it doesn't need much "Fscking", then... Mommy, what's that blue chkdsk-lookin' thing on boot-up?

    I don't know what you could do to clean up an NT machine, but I'd like to see it. Maybe Windows 2000 will be the big answer to your problems. ("Wait for the upgrade"...)
    ---
    pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [152.7.41.11].
  • Fuck! Shit! FUCK!!!

  • Re:huh? (Score:1)

    by Enahs ( 1606 )
    NO. It's NOT a joke. It's REALLY gonna happen. And it's not going to take just a day. It'll take a whole frickin' decade. So, just shut down your machine for the next machine, or the badass uberbots will fry yo' ass!
  • Why did Slashdot change the article description? This happens all the time it appears. Is it that DIFFICULT to leave a note saying the description was changed??????

  • google (Score:1)

    by jjoyce ( 4103 )
    go to google. it's pretty funny.

    Mankind has always dreamed of destroying the sun.

  • For a rather alarming conspiracy story involving
    linux and the sex industry, see salon.com.

    The title is:

    How Bill Gates and Richard Mellon
    Scaife used large, firm breasts to
    destroy Linux!

    The threat is alarming, to say the least.
  • No, we can't have submitter karma, because we wouldn't hear from JonKatz ever
    again... whether or not we had the box checked to do so. :)

    --Ben


  • Sorry, I don't do no spring cleaning on April Fools' Day.

  • "so all the people in here...don't look like they're crazy."
    Maybe *that* was the joke.
  • A few years ago, Taco Bell took out a full page ad in the Washington Post. In this ad they announced that they had just bought the rights to the Liberty Bell on display in Philadelphia. For the non-US ppl reading this, the Liberty Bell is a relatively important cultural icon of America. The response was typical. A bunch of clueless Americans bemoaning the buying out of America.

    There should be an international contest to determine which country has the most clueless bunch of ppl. Sorry, but I can't help myself: USA! USA! USA! Ahh, sir do you know what you are cheering for? Answer: Yeah! USA is number one! (Note: I'm an American).

    Your user info indicates an Aussie. I would have to think that any hoax there would be a takeover of one of your sacred icons by either us Yanks or by the Brits. BTW, do you have any available Olympic tickets for sale? I'm rich and a corporate leader in your country. (Sorry for this troll :-)). Thank god you won the America's Cup. Once again, I couldn't resist.:-)

  • So you understand that Australians and New Zealanders are from different nations, do you? You're obviously not really American then . . . :)
  • C'mon guys!! Why slate Hemos for havin' a sense of humour?? I'd not seen this jest before, and it gave me a damn good laugh...
    If you think it's lame, that's your choice.. A sense of humour isn't the same thing for everyone.. Welcome to the big wide world of human diversity!!!
    I liked it, and I'm damn sure a load of others did too...
    The day you all prove you've got a better sense of humour, rather than trying to bust up someone who's just trying to bring a smile to someone else's face, I'll listen. Now, just quit griping, and think of something funnier to add...

    Malk.

    I invoked the garbage disposal routines, now I can't find my windows directory.. Anyone got any clues on this one??

  • Because that's when all the programmers pump out their best work. Since programmers are the most important group of people currently inhabiting this desolate rock, all others should be punished for their ignorance. Therefore it will happen during the day.

    --

  • if you find Hemo's spewing up an old joke with a hick accent funny.

    I guess it is the disappointment talking--I was hoping for something a little more exciting. So far, nobody has done anything big. :(-+
  • I guess April Fools just now means making yourself look like a fool, and not trying to fool *other* people anymore.

    Personaly, I was kind of expecting some kind of proposed radical change in /. about a week ago, culminating in one big "just kidding" tomorrow. Oh well, I guess we get Hemos sounding like a fool instead.
  • Is your .sig about programmers or Hemos?

  • IFTU (Score:1)

    by Skeezix ( 14602 )
    IFTU
    ----
  • How about this for an "Ask Slashdot":

    Skeezix writes, "What in the name of all that is holy are you blathering about, Hemos? And why did you change the story back to English?"
    ----

  • What you may not realize is that Hemos (presumably) changed the story from its original format. I cannot even begin to describe in words what the original story was. It was like the current one but in a really lame cross between Japanese, German, and Redneck.
    ----
  • I think we should have a Slashdot option to view all comments encheferized. That would really improve readability in some cases.
  • Come on people what's this flaming Hemos thing today? April 1st is supposed to be fun!! Not to be about flaming people for whatever reasons...
  • What if the purpose of this text (which I actually thought funny) was not as much to make people believe in (which I guess Hemos would not have done using the "that's funny" category of article) as much as to provide some entertainement on this April 1st?

    Have we become so bored with april fool jokes that we can't even enjoy a simple text of humor withouth saying "pfff I could have done a better, subtler, funnier thing myself" ??
  • Well, as much as the old one sucked, if they were going to change it they should have left the old one up somewhere so all the people in here complaining about the dumb grammar, etc. don't look like they're crazy.

    Anybody have a cached copy of the old one?

    _________________

  • I don't get this. I recognize the "Internet Cleaning" hoax (which was also mentioned in the internet hoax article a few days ago), but that writing is just confusing me. I figured this was some sort of inside joke, or it was supposed to be Cartman or something, but now I see that nobody else seems to know what this is, so I am just left at a loss. I think this could have been funny if not for that stupid writing style... or maybe if a different, more recognizable stupid writing style had been used. I can't figure out what that dialect is supposed to be. Maybe it's "bash the keyboard"-ese. I don't know.

    But honestly, Hemos, you really did ruin the joke. First of all, you told us it was an april fools joke, which ruined any chance it had. Second, you put the foot icon up there, which had the same effect. Maybe if you had used the "announcement" icon and taken a more serious approach it would have been funnier. But then again, if that happened we would all just sit around going "that is so lame," so maybe you should just ignore April Fool's Day. Even something clever like "CmdrTaco died" would be so obviously a joke that it wouldn't even be worth it. But I really think this was one of the sorriest jokes I've ever seen.

    _________________

  • Re:Huh? (Score:1)

    by emc ( 19333 )
    That is definatly the worst attempt at an April Fools joke yet.
  • It is exactly what the company I work for did to celebrate new years this year.

    And, yes, I do know how to spell ferrite. I think.
  • I changed the DHCP server in the office to point the DNS of all the workstations a linux box running DNS and Apache.

    Then I created records for all the TLDs.

    I then copied Networksolutions home page and added a notice that the net was down for Y2K testing.

    Any DNS lookup returned a spoofed networksolutions.com and a notice that the net was down for Y2K testing.

  • I don't know about you, but the fact that the CNet story yesterday here [slashdot.org] had that mentioned wasn't very nice... Oh well.

  • Thank you! Here I am reading all the bitches and trying to find the bad grammar. I read and re-read the article and just didn't get it.

  • This has been around years... it's in the same category as the Modem Tax. It looks as if it was copied exactly from the old article.

    In any case, it's nowhere as lame as last year's "M$ shut down user friendly" idiocy that built up for MONTHS before April 1.
  • They said the same thing about Andy Kaufman before he died. Maybe it's just that the cancer gene and the psycho comedian gene are related.
  • Well, maybe if you have a "relevant, well-written or thoughtful post", you should log in when you post it rather than being YAAC.
  • Someone at /. just changed the article to one that had better English. Don't know where the old one went.
  • The beauty of this whole message
    (and the above addendum :)
    is that if enough people did this,
    the internet _would_ actually clean up
    for 1 day. Of course, how many million
    suckers^H^H^H^Hpeople would that require?
    Then, I look around me...
    I think we've got enough.

    -Slackergod

    (wishing I had something more insightful to say)
  • April 1st is the start of the new fiscal year for the Government of Canada.

    (No, I don't work for them... directly.)
  • It's an April Fools Joke! Look at the department it came from! Ha! Can you believe it? Hemos just cracks me up sometimes. I haven't laughed this hard since the summer of 1905.

    Shoot, now my dentures are coming loose

  • Huh? (Score:1)

    by m3000 ( 46427 )
    What the hell? Is it supposed to be that badly written, or is Hemos drunk? Can someone provide a translation?
  • Yea, Hemos updated it. It used to be really really really bad gramatically, unreadable almost (hence why I asked for a translastion). To picture what it used to look like, just think "AOL Chatroom".
  • Nice try guys, but heard that one before a couple o years ago. (And ICQ get it ebery year?) Mind you there's always someone who falls for it
  • Alright, I'll bite. Moderation is not there to "assign ratings". It's there to add or subtract points. I know I'm going to get grits dumped down my pants for this, but oh well, I'll tell you guys who are too lazy to read about moderation. AC posts start with a value of 0. User posts can start with a value of 0, 1, or 2 (i think 0, not sure...) depending on how much karma the user has. Moderators add or subtract points, they don't set a value for a story.

    --
    linuxisgood:~$ man woman
  • I have Google [google.com] set as my start page. I came back from a lecture and went to check something on the 'net. Well, I have not laughed that hard in quite a while. Suppose I need to get out more but I still think it is funny.

    I think, therefore, ken_i_m

  • Oddly enough, I haven't heard the word "gay" used that way much since, uh, middle school.
    --
    No more e-mail address game - see my user info. Time for revenge.
  • All your users should be instructed to tape over any holes on their computers that could cause the computers to be susceptable to password lossage.

  • Anonymous Cowards get a score of zero by default. People who log in get scores of 1 by default. Moderation goes from there... So if an anonymous coward has a score of zero, it just means it has not been moderated. Either nobody thought it was worthy of moderation, no moderators have seen it, or it was moderated up and someone else moderated it down.

    I have seen anonymous posts with scores of 2 or 3, and logged in posts with scores of zero, so the moderation does work...

  • Hmmm, did you run this through the dialectizer [rinkworks.com]?

    It's a pretty neat thing to play with. Looks like he either set it to redneck or to idiot!
    Happy playing!
  • Speech, music, pictures, video, and even smells can be represented digitally.

    Is <schwing!>Kathy Ireland</schwing!> not attractive because you only have a digital representation of her and not a Real Live Clone?

    Is 'I love you' devoid of meaning if said over a telephone?

    Is 'Fuck you, I'm going to kill your dog' not menacing because you got it via ICQ?

    No. I must say his post was gay. The poster was as well, but only in the sense that the 'gay' as used in the phrase '<something> is gay' implies nothing about sexual orientation and everything about the user's lack of intelligence.

  • I remember seeing a User Friendly link of the day that pointed to the grammerizer about a year or so ago. Looks like someone too this piece of venerable spam and grameerized it. My particular favorite way to grammerize was the french chef (de Bork Bork)
  • The chkdsk lookin thing on bootup checks FAT drives.
  • yep

    agreed to both of you.

    hemos is a moron

  • hey (Score:1)

    by Velox ( 79657 )
    did anyone think this was funny?

    did anyone even read past half of it?

    i know i sure didn't, especially not to number one.

    dork.
  • The text of the joke itself looks like perfectly correct English to me (being a foreigner has its advantages -- it doesn't allow to mix "you're" and "your", "their" and "there", "it's" and "its" and do thousands of other stupid things that people do to their native language). Big freaking deal, Hemos wrote his "announcement" in some mockery of "hick" and "lamerspeak" styles, and didn't try to pass obvious joke for a real thing :-\

  • What's a gopher site?

    An indication, how old this joke really is. It looks like The Original Gopher Server is dead, but it's still in use in some places -- like here [utexas.edu].

  • Jesus. Can anyone take a fucking joke anymore? This was supposed to be fun. Who cares if Hemos changed it up and it lost some of the humor (which I don't believe)!?! IT WAS A FUCKING JOKE!

    For once, I would like to read /. and not have sift through crap like this. You must have Hemos envy (or CmdrTaco envy, Cliff envy, etc.)! Thats it. All you folks who constantly dog the good poeple who "run" /. must be jealous. FUCKING JEALOUS!!! Yeah. That's it. Just like penis envy! You losers wish you were as big as them!!


    Word!

    --
    Kir
  • I know this is offtopic, but Slashdot readers have a right to know, and they're sure as hell not going to post it on the front page.

    Maybe some of you have heard about the legal battle brewing between Andover.net (slashdot's corporate parent) and Advogato [advogato.org]. Well, today the shit hit the fan - Andover filed an injunction to shut the site down. The full story is on PRNewswire [63.196.208.222]. I'm pissed and I'm going to fight this, but I don't have the resources for a protracted legal battle.

    Thanks to everybody who's sent me letters of support.

    [ hot grits [slashdot.org] | hot news [advogato.org] ]
  • I swear, that's right out of the Bastard Operator from Hell [virgin.net].


    --
  • Can't do it during that time. That is when the High Voltage Line Test is done on the phone lines. Be carefull, this test has been known to cause a time warp. You might have to adjust your clocks when the test is over.
  • Well, the original goes back decades to when phone system administrators sent out memos explaining that the accumulation of dust in the phone wires had to be dealt with. Telephone users were asked to seal their phones with plastic bags so that, when the phone company blew high pressure air through the wires to clear out the dust, it wouldn't go all over their desk and office. And, yes, a large number of people fell for that one too, including quite a few technically unsophisticated executives.

    Of course the real fun part is coming in early to sprinkle dust on the desk of everyone who didn't cover their phones.
  • If it is, it's an amazing coincidence, because I didn't take it from there. I took it from the dark recesses of my... um... what was I saying?

    _________________

  • ...has anyone noticed Google [google.com] this evening?

  • More importantly, did you see that Helix shipped their mailer program exactly on schedule? (Down the bottom of the same press release)

    This is a classic!

    P;-0

  • I bet some people fall for that. You know that dtory will probably take off now and be circulating for days.

    You should see if you can get in on any news websites headlines.

    Maybe Zdnet would be a tempting target?


  • Since you brought it up, NT servers don't need much "Fscking" since the NT file system is journalled.

    --
    .:.
    :tedd
  • go check it out.

    I also got this from one of their pages. [reporting.net]


    --
  • Geee... Babelfish doesn't have Hemo-ese listed amongst its translators. Damnit. And, Hemos, you've still got a few hours (on CST, at least) before it's April 1. How many other April Fools babies are out there? :-)

    ----
  • How come they can't do this at a more convenient time? Like between 2 and 3 am Sunday morning?

    There's no such time. You can only have "between 2 and 3 am Sunday morning in a certain place". Besides, unwanted data can survive for several hours without power, so they need to make sure there's enough time to starve it out into the open.
  • We sent a message like this out at work. Our message basically said that because we forgot to upgrade our Win95 machines for Y2k, we were going to replace them with Etch-a-Sketch's. Life would be easier if it were true :). -Kris If you hate Bill, wait until you meet Larry.
  • Another version [qnx.com] of this joke says that each February 29 is an internet cleaning day.

    I submitted it a few days before the 29th but it wasn't posted, but I won't whine because the joke really does fit better with April Fool's Day.

    --

  • MKLinux is available if you need it...

  • Has anyone run this through the Babelfish?

  • See, this is why we should be allowed to moderate articles as well as individual posts. But should we have article submitter karma?
  • Logged in users post at one by default, and can go up to two points or down to zero points, depending on how moderators judge their posts.

    The purpose of moderation is to increase the signal to noise ratio, without resorting to censorship

    That is only my opinion and it may not be shared by all users or the owners of Slashdot. Moderation is needed because Slashdot has become very popular. People act differently here at Slashdot than they used to. When I lurked here (before I had a user account), I was intimidated to post because there were some very well thought out and informed posts here. The readership was smaller and the dynamics were different. IMO, there was an effect almost similar to peer pressure that made slashdot self-moderating without any kind of moderation system in place.

    I wonder if all (or most of) the people who troll Slashdot are really just old-timers who don't like the fact that Slashdot is mainstream now.
  • You are absolutely on target with this.

    I remember some comedy wisdom dispensed by the
    guys who did "Airplane", "Naked Gun" and others...
    they said "Never try to do two jokes at once".

    And they were right, as we all can see...
  • And thus we have the REAL purpose of internet cleaning day.

  • <p><i>"If he had pretended that there was a _real_ "internet cleaning day", many gullible sysadmins would have fallen for it and they would have gotten very angry."</i>

    <p>Speaking as a sysadmin...

    <p>If there are any so-called 'sysadmins' out there who fall for this, they deserve what they get. :-)

  • The routing between my DSL modem and my ISP's gateway went down an hour ago, and the SWB guys say it's not just me... I guess they decided to get their part of the spring cleaning started early! 6:30PM on a Friday, too. Go figure. (They don't care, they don't have to, they're the Phone Company!)

    Took me half an hour to hook a modem back up and work out the routing changes to use PPP again. Sigh. At least I hadn't cancelled my old dial-up account.
  • A quick e-mail, and my mom was walking around the house telling everyone to turn their computers off... Guess it can't have been that bad!

    PS No jokes about my mom please.
  • If Slashdot would do A LITTLE reasearch once and a while, and didn't just pass of a copy of some one's incorrect work as a news story, they would know the following:

    1 This year there are 8 crawlers, not 5 due to increased internet usership

    2 The time will be going for an extra hour in California because all the extra computers in silicon vally

    3 You must remove the batterys from, and in no way use a "Web Phone" or PDA with wireless modem.

    When you get the facts, We might believe you.

  • Re:Also - (Score:3)

    by Evro ( 18923 ) <evandhoffman@@@gmail...com> on Friday March 31, 2000 @03:48PM (#1158053) Homepage Journal
    It would be irresponsible of us not to mention the most important measure we can take to prevent accidents with computers: after wrapping them in blankets to prevent serious burns, it is best to store them in a bathtub filled with cold, soapy water. This serves several purposes, including preventing the computer from overheating and exploding, and cleaning out the internal components of dustballs, mites, and rodents that have taken up residence inside the chassis (mice often use the 800 MHz Pentium III processor as a hotplate to make their grilled cheese sandwiches). While some people are apprehensive about removing the rodents from their systems, rest assured that the mice are left unharmed, and swim safely to the shore... er... the edge of the tub, and are on their merry way. Come April 2, you will notice a drastic change in the performance of your computer!

    Your computer will thank you for it!

    _________________

  • Re:Huh? (Score:3)

    by Chao ( 45000 ) on Friday March 31, 2000 @04:54PM (#1158054)
    the german altavista & back translation:

    "We had an important comment, this, simply, which we had to to ueberschreitenes that; seen for that who've it forwards, insolvent in its type of old-sk00l: Another time amounts to this times! So much starting from you white, each year Internet must be long closed for low 24 hours the end for admitting that we clean it it. The process of the immaculateness, eliminates the nonfunctioning email and local of the unaktiviertes ftp, the WWW and the Gopher, leaves melhor good melhor better working and a faster the Internet. This year, steps the process of the immaculateness of 23:59 P.M. (GMT) March in 31o up, until 00:01 in the morning (GMT) April set up to suppress five efficient in ò during these 24stuendigen period, Internet Internet more crawlingroboter around the world to the procurararem Internet and all data, which find. We ask the end for protecting its valuable data of the omission that you form it the following: 1. It separates all terminals and networks... etc".

    am i the only one who had no problem reading it?
    everyone seems to make hemos' statement sound worse than the above section.

  • grammar (Score:3)

    by achan ( 69519 ) on Friday March 31, 2000 @03:14PM (#1158055) Homepage
    From the illiterate sys-admins department...

  • Check out Google today.... (Score:3)

    by Jish ( 80046 ) on Friday March 31, 2000 @08:49PM (#1158056)
    I think that Google [google.com] has one of the most amusing April Fool's jokes I have seen in a while...

  • Speaking of Hoaxes (Score:3)

    by MrEfficient ( 82395 ) on Friday March 31, 2000 @04:50PM (#1158057)
    Is anyone else suspicious of the recent news of Tom Green's testicular cancer? Everything I've seen looks legit but being that it's Tom Green and being so close to April Fools day, I can't help but be suspicious.

    I don't know, maybe I should be more trusting :^)

  • Some truth behind this (Score:3)

    by gargle ( 97883 ) on Friday March 31, 2000 @03:26PM (#1158058) Homepage
    April 1st is the new fiscal year for many companies, and many companies routinely power-cycle their machines on April 1st.

  • Internet Spring cleaning (Score:4)

    by Mark Edwards ( 48 ) on Friday March 31, 2000 @03:19PM (#1158059) Homepage
    How come they can't do this at a more convenient time? Like between 2 and 3 am Sunday morning?

    Mark Edwards [mailto]
    Proof of Sanity forged upon request

  • the original (Score:4)

    by Barbarian ( 9467 ) on Friday March 31, 2000 @03:31PM (#1158060)
    FROM: sysop@internic.org

    Internet Cleaning
    DO NOT CONNECT TO THE INTERNET FROM MARCH 31st 23:59 pm (GMT) UNTIL 12:01
    am (GMT) APRIL 2nd.

    *** Attention ***

    It's that time again! As many of you know, each year the Internet must be
    shut down for 24 hours in order to allow us to clean it. The cleaning
    process, which eliminates dead email and inactive ftp, www and gopher
    sites, allows for a better-working and faster Internet.

    This year, the cleaning process will take place from 23:59 pm (GMT) on
    March 31st until 00:01 am (GMT) on April 2nd. During that 24-hour period,
    five powerful Internet-crawling robots situated around the world will
    search the Internet and delete any data that they find.

    In order to protect your valuable data from deletion we ask that you do
    the following:
    1. Disconnect all terminals and local area networks from their Internet
    connections.
    2. Shut down all Internet servers, or disconnect them from the Internet.
    3. Disconnect all disks and hardrives from any connections to the
    Internet.
    4. Refrain from connecting any computer to the Internet in any wy.

    We understand the inconvenience that this may cause some Internet users,
    and we apologize. However, we are certain that any inconveniences will be
    more than made up for by the increased speed and efficiency of the
    Internet, once it has been cleared of electronic flotsam and jetsam. We
    thank you for your cooperation.

    Fu Ling Yu
    Interconnected Network Maintenance Staff
    Main Branch, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

    Sysops and others: Since the last Internet cleaning, the number of
    Internet users has grown dramatically. Please assist us in alerting the
    public of the upcoming Internet cleaning by posting this message where
    your users will be able to read it. Please pass this message on to other
    sysops and Internet users as well. Thank you.


    --

  • I just cleared out an IRC channel with this... (Score:4)

    by richj ( 85270 ) on Friday March 31, 2000 @07:46PM (#1158061)
    I remember when I first saw this one in the early nineties, and it's a gem even to this day.

    I dug up an old copy and sent it along to the mailing list of an IRC channel I go to, making it clear in the email that it was a joke.

    I just popped into the channel, and got a "Hey, how come you're not offline for the Internet cleaning?", so I replied "Um, I have a packet filter set up, I'm not affected".

    Needless to say, the channel cleared out, they are leaving in droves.
  • Compaq Australia has taken out full-page advertisments in the broadsheet papers proclaiming their brilliant new "Echrg" software, that allows your computer to run off power downloaded from the Internet if mains power or the battery goes flat. Simple, effective, and sure to suck in those morons who discuss how their Internet-time business strategy will actively synergise their customer relationship management . . .

  • Also - (Score:5)

    by zunger ( 17731 ) on Friday March 31, 2000 @03:18PM (#1158063)
    Remember to physically unplug your computers from the network, since we are doing line maintenance that could cause your computer to explode. In fact, it's best if you wrap your computer in blankets so that if the worst should happen you won't be injured.

  • Don't be so harsh (Score:5)

    by Broccolist ( 52333 ) on Friday March 31, 2000 @04:47PM (#1158064)
    I find all the comments flaming Hemos very annoying. What would you have done in his place? It is practically impossible to write an april's fools story and not get flamed.

    If he had pretended that there was a _real_ "internet cleaning day", many gullible sysadmins would have fallen for it and they would have gotten very angry. Already, a few people will fall for it just because written in english, and he will get flamed for that too.

    Remember last year when User Friendly and Segfault pretended to have been threatened by Microsoft? That was a very well orchestrated joke and I thought it was hilarious ... but many people didn't and they got a lot of angry e-mail as a result. The same thing would have happened here if Hemos had not made it clear that it's a joke.

    And the other alternative? No jokes at all. Hurrah, more flame.

    As always, it's a good idea to calm down and take some deep breaths before posting something insulting. I'm sure receiving hundreds of flames is not at all pleasant; and in this case, I don't think there is good reason.

  • Hey -- no joke (Score:5)

    by kcarnold ( 99900 ) on Friday March 31, 2000 @03:37PM (#1158065)
    We need cleaning!

    • Gives all the servers a chance to fsck their disks (oh, they don't know how to do that in NT -- well let the disk just stay [un-]fscked -- no; the fsck that the NT installer did when it first installed will last for a long time :-)
    • Gives people an opportunity to break the smallest uptime record (power on, 12:00AM, power down 12:00AM + 1 nanosecond)!
    • Hardware upgrades, anybody?
    • The routers will have to rebuild their routing caches. Maybe they'll rebuild them more efficiently.
    • There will be fewer idiots online for at least a few days.
    • Slashdot will not get trolled.
    • Slashdot will have a good excuse to delete all existing trolls.
    • Hemos said so.
    • We can find all the servers still up, and hack them because they'll be more vulnerable! Never mind -- that would require our servers being up :-).
    • There's nothing like a little downtime to complete your day.
    • While you're rebooting, x86 people, go in your BIOS and set your date to GMT if it isn't already. Cuz here I see 8:35 PM, Fri Mar 31.
    • Sysadmins, if your server is down, how can you be expected to administrate it? Go party! Let the hardware techs have your babies for a [insert what used to be a short amount of time here].
    • Let's have an open-source worldwide joke!


    sorry people -- I couldn't resist.

  • Americas For Banning Source Code (Score:5)

    by CFN ( 114345 ) on Friday March 31, 2000 @06:35PM (#1158066)
    I found the following at the web site of Americans For Banning Source Code. This is some pretty scary stuff.

    If you are an honest, hard-working, tax-paying, God-fearing American you should be very afraid - a new plague is threatening our children, threatening ourselves, and threatening the moral foundations on which our great nation has been built. Far more dangerous than atheism, communism, or even liberalism, this plague threatens to destroy all that is holy and sacred in this great land. It threatens to tear America apart at the seams, to cause widespread chaos and panic, and to leave America firmly in the grasp of Sodomites and Satanists. This gruesome plague is none other than the benignly named "Source Code". Americans For Banning Source Code (AFBSC) is attempting to stop the spread of this plague, and we desperately need your help before all is lost.

    Source Code was originally developed by University "Ivory Tower" intellectuals in the 1950s as a secret language for communication between Communists, Free Masons, and Homosexuals. It has been used since as a tool of the Zionist Media Elite to control the general Christian, patriotic, population of this great nation. With the use of Source Code, good Americans have fallen victim to the nefarious plans of the Satan-worshiping Illuminati and the anti-American New World Order.

    Source Code has appeared in and produced both homosexual and bestiality pornography. Source Code has lead to the disappearance of the factory job, the decline of real wages, and the destruction of the family. Source Code has been accused of leaking nuclear secrets to the Chinese, spying on American businesses for the French, and causing the fire at the Branch Davidians compound in Waco, Texas.

    Source Code is a known pedophile and has lured innocent children away from the safety of their God-fearing homes and into its evil clutches. Source Code is a key component of the liberal Jewish media, and helps the dissemination of their leftist propaganda - promoting Zionist, pro United Nations, pro Welfare State views. Source Code has caused both the increase in gasoline prices and laws requiring mandatory use of seat belts. Source code is responsible for the volcano eruption in Japan, the earthquakes in Turkey, and the increased popularity of soccer.

    Source Code is a know atheist, pacifist, and anarchist, and has been an outspoken critic of the NRA.

    Source Code has been shown to cause cancer, and even worse, painful hemorrhoids. Source Code supports the tree-hugging, granola eating freaks at Green Peace, and the sick animal lovers at PETA, in their pathetic attempt to keep us from paving over parks and eating meat. Source Code is the reason your wife no longer loves you. Source Code is the reason your daughter is a promiscuous whore and your son is a drug-addicted queer.

    Source Code has performed over 80% of the annual abortions in America, and is responsible for 75% of police officers killed in the line of duty. Source Code increased the amount of immigration to the United States, filling our streets with dirty, smelly foreigners scheming to take your job and rape your wife. Source Code promoted the black guy at work to a position above yours. Source Code defended Bill Clinton, and secretly ensured his acquittal during the impeachment trial. Source Code wants to put mandatory trigger locks on your guns, and is the reason you can no longer carry your AK-47 to the supermarket.

    Source Code causes 9 out of 10 fatal automobile accidents, and 95% of airline disasters. Source Code is the leading cause of male pattern baldness, erectile difficulty, premature ejaculation, and impotence. Hopefully, by now, you agree with AFBSC that Source Code presents the greatest danger facing our society today, and that we must do whatever it takes to stop it. Proceed as follows:

    1:Call your Congressman, Senators, and Governor and insist that something be done about Source Code.
    2:Organize a bunch of your friends, get blindingly drunk, and form a militia - in anticipation of the day you will need to stand up to Source Code for the sake of us all.
    3:Print copies of this flyer, and distribute them at weddings, funerals, graduations, etc. to ensure that the general public is informed of this grave threat.
    4:Put on your white hood, stand at a busy intersection, and shout "down with Source Code" for hours on end. Then place a burning cross in Source Code's front yard.
    5:Finally, rent a Natalie Portman flick, cook up some hit grits, and poor them down your pants.

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