70-Year-Old Prank Revealed 94
Saturday in the San Francisco Chronicle a story about a prank that the Clampers (E Clampus Vitus, man!) pulled on UC Berkeley was featured. In short the Clampers faked a brass plaque that intimated that Sir Francis Drake landed in Marin 462 years ago. The Clampers are an organization known for, well, drinking and horsing around, but this kind of prank, one that spans 70 years (or more than 400, depending on your point of view) is epic and inspiring.
67 more years.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:67 more years.... (Score:1, Interesting)
Wow! I read about this 70 year-old prank this morning before it was added to /., and I was actually going to
post it to my /. journal [slashdot.org] instead of the usual carefully selected geek porn.
That is a fascinating prank. What I liked the best is the psychology of what happened. The guys friends were going to tell him what they'd done, but they opted to let the public down rather than let their friend be humiliated.
I wonder how common this is?
--sex [slashdot.org]
Re:67 more years.... (Score:3, Interesting)
This post implies that it's only been three years. Just for the record, the earliest Usenet Post [google.com] referencing Duke Nukem Forever was June 7, *1996*. Yes, coming up on SEVEN YEARS. Heh.
Re:67 more years.... (Score:2)
Re:67 more years.... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:67 more years.... (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1, Funny)
Old-timey Fun (Score:2, Funny)
Weren't those easter eggs a kind of prank? (Score:1, Interesting)
Weren't those software easter eggs [eeggs.com] pranks too ? If you end up keying in some combinations of keystrokes, you might see totally unexpected funny/interesiting stuff on your screen.
Did you miss out on this post and all the replies? [slashdot.org]
Stick to the basics (Score:5, Funny)
Homer: "Hello Dean, you're a stupid head."
Dean: "Homer, is that you?" (Looks out the window and sees him a the pay phone right outside the office.)
Homer: "Aaaaah!" (Runs away)
Re:Stick to the basics (Score:1)
Re:Stick to the basics (Score:1)
Re:Stick to the basics (Score:2)
Where he was promptly met by. . . (Score:3, Funny)
Ah, those were the days, back when Bay Area real estate was still cheap.
KFG
intimated, ay? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:intimated, ay? (Score:2)
Re:intimated, ay? (Score:1)
I think he means 'Intimidated' - he was quite scared of them, as they kept threatening to beat him up and take his lunch money... not to mention his phobia of Sailors...
Re:intimated, ay? (Score:2)
v 1: give to understand; "I insinuated that I did not like his wife" [syn: {adumbrate}, {insinuate}]
2: imply as a possibility; "The evidence suggests a need for more clarification" [syn: {suggest}]
Well (Score:2)
Tim
Re:70 years that's nothing (Score:1)
You haven't been reading your Robert Anton Wilson lately, have you?
The psychology of the pranker... (Score:1, Redundant)
(sorry about repeating this, I accidentally replied in the wrong place last time, which made so sense).
Wow! I read about this 70 year-old prank this morning before it was added to /., and I was actually going to
post it to my /. journal [slashdot.org] instead of the usual carefully selected geek porn.
That is a fascinating prank. What I liked the best is the psychology of what happened. The guy's friends were going to tell him what they'd done, but they opted to let the public down rather than let their friend be humiliated.
I wonder how common this is?
--sex [slashdot.org]
It's called. . . (Score:1)
KFG
Smog control (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Smog control (Score:1)
To bad Walton Bean's dead (Score:1)
Is it all a hoax? (Score:4, Interesting)
Is there any limit to the recursion on this?
Re:Is it all a hoax? (Score:2)
Yes. The author, Carl Note did. Quoting him:
There always remains the possibility that the tale of the hoax may in itself be a hoax, like a riddle inside an enigma.
He went on to say that they had used several sources, and had confidence in the story, but it was possible.
Re:Is it all a hoax? (Score:5, Funny)
Yes. My attention span.
And . . . we just exceeded it.
-Peter
PS: Did anyone else take the "riddle inside an enigma" or whatever to be an allusion to the film "JFK"?
-P
Re:Is it all a hoax? (Score:2, Informative)
Sigh. [davidmrowell.com]
Re:Is it all a hoax? (Score:2)
Re:Is it all a hoax? (Score:1)
Emperor Norton Connection (Score:4, Interesting)
See here [zpub.com] (info on Norton) and here [sfgate.com] (more Clamper info in the second article as well).
-W-
News to me... (Score:5, Funny)
And what fraternitiy worth their salt isn't???
Re:News to me... (Score:3, Informative)
Drinking and horsing around are what they're best known for, and what they do most often, but another thing that they do and are known for is restoring historical sites, like buildings in abandoned Gold Rush towns and such.
Re:News to me... (Score:2)
Another retro review (Score:3, Informative)
Speaking of Hoaxes (Score:4, Interesting)
Wow. (Score:2, Funny)
Just like Nessie (Score:4, Insightful)
And of course, crop circles are practically a religion to some.
Re:Just like Nessie (Score:1)
Re:Just like Nessie (Score:2)
Well, the prank was on them. (Score:5, Informative)
Bruce
Re:Had to be professors? (Score:2)
Re:Is noone else disturbed by this? (Score:1)
Reminds me of another prank... (Score:5, Funny)
The ship was resurfaced in 1961 (it was discovered in 1956) . It took several days to accomplish. As it happens, there were some finnish techics-students (teekkarit) visiting Stockholm then. Teekkarit are famous for pulling pranks, and they though that this would be the perfect possibility for the ultimate prank. They went and bought a miniature copy of a statue of Paavo Nurmi [www.uku.fi] (a famous finnish runner), sneaked past the guards, went in to the ship (that was still in the bottom of the sea) and placed the statue in the captains quarters. I bet the people who studied the sip after it was resurfaced were quite puzzled when they found that statue
I don't believe it! (Score:2)
Hmmm, this got me thinking. (Score:1)
Can't be hoax (Score:1)