ThinkGeek ThinkGeek ThinkGEEK!

ThinkGeek writes "ThinkGeek ThinkGeek ThinkgEEk ThinkGeek! ThinkGeek ThinkGeek THINK geek think GeEk thinkgEek. ThinkGeek. (TG is owned by OSTG, the parent company of Slashdot, so activate all conspiracy theories now). You can also look into the new iPod accessory iCopulate which allows intimacy between mp3 players never before fantasized. And for the suit that has everything, Executve Pong. "

Move

[mboverload]

For the 3rd time, Nothing to see here, move along.

Re:Move

[Destoo]

*SWOOSH*

(sound of humour flying over your head).

It was informative. Taco linked us to all pages he could find that were modified for april first, or had funnies for the april fool.

So it was an incoherent informative post.

Hmmm...

[mog007]

This must be some odd way of getting first posts... I'm amused.

Join the cause!

[Anonymous Coward]

In protest of the April Fools insanity, I am replying to all news items with the following... Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.

Phew

[Nifrith]

[Posted at]11:59pm

YES.

Re:Phew

[interiot]

It's 9 hours into April 2nd here... meh. As the Wikipedia page mentions [wikipedia.org], April Fools actually lasts for 47 hours, if you count all of the time zones around the world. Just don't tell Taco this, or he'll pretend he's Japanese on March 31st and Alaskan on April 2nd [wikipedia.org].

Smokey the bear says...

[GillBates0]

hen using your iCopulate at the campgrounds, always practice safety. Surround your iCopulate (bought at ThinkGeek (TG is owned by OSTG, the parent company of Slashdot, so activate all conspiracy theories now)) with rocks to keep the fire from spreading. Be sure when you're done with your iCopulateto put it out with a bucket of water and make sure it has stopped smoking before you leave the area. Remember what Smokey the Bear says. Only you can prevent your iCopulate from starting a forest fire.

What the hell?

[c0ldfusi0n]

It's the 3rd story promoting ThinkGeek today. April Fools is one thing, but drop the propaganda.

Re:What the hell?

[m50d]

At least they're being open about it this time.

Re:What the hell?

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

The only thing missing is a Roland by-line...

I AM awake, right?

[Council]

This kind of thing makes me think of this part of The Eyes of Kid Midas

Josh shook his head. "I don't think that's how the world's going to end." Josh leaned in closer as he spoke. "I think it's going to be a quieter thing. It's going to happen so that no one even notices anything is wrong. I think things are going to sort of... stop making sense... bit by bit. Things won't work right, people won't think right, everything's going to get all mixed up, until nothing in the universe works the way it's suppos

Re:What the hell?

[Shippy]

I don't see why everyone has to turn into whiny little pricks for a day. Go elsewhere for your news today if you don't like the (continued) humor. I, for one, have enjoyed the ThinkGeek (and other) jokes. And you know what? It'll be gone tomorrow so no big deal.

ThinkGeek?

[suso]

ThinkGeek

ThinkGeek? ThinkGeek

Just like Malcovich

Re:ThinkGeek?

[xstonedogx]

+1, ThinkGeek

Okay, you need to stop.

[filterchild]

Seriously, stop. It's not funny anymore. I want my news back.

Re:Okay, you need to stop.

[Durindana]

Oh shut up!

You folks don't pay for this (at least you, parent poster, don't). So stop complaining about the April Fool's absurdity!

Re:Okay, you need to stop.

[OverlordQ]

Yup, the subscribers didn't pay for this . . .

Re:Okay, you need to stop.

[cbreaker]

Yea, you see a * next to their names. You can change the modifier for people that pay, too. I give them an automatic -1.

Re:Okay, you need to stop.

[Coneasfast]

Seriously, stop. It's not funny anymore. I want my news back.

if you want your news, why are you reading slashdot? ;)

Re:Okay, you need to stop.

[kindbud]

I want my news back.

Yeah! Bring back the Slashdot of 1997!

THE SYSTEM IS DOWN, YO

[PMJ2kx]

THE SYSTEM IS DOWN, YO! [homestarrunner.com]

HEY!

[artifex2004]

This was supposed to be a ThinkSECRET [thinksecret.com]!

Midnight UT just passed, numskulls.

[DrunkenTerror]

April 1 is now over. No mas merde postage por la editadores!

What language is that supposed to be?

[Augusto]

Spangrish?

Re:Midnight UT just passed, numskulls.

[DrunkenTerror]

You leave my grandmother out of this, you sick fuck!

Stop the Madness

[linuxrunner]

Oh the floods.... please make it stop. So many posts, so little time for me to make up witty comments.

Brain tired. Damn you April 1st

Slashdot is starting to suck now.

[Tony Hoyle]

Stop taking the piss, Taco.

Re:Slashdot is starting to suck now.

[GNUALMAFUERTE]

I must respectfully disagree with you, dear sir. Slashdot started sucking years ago. :-)

Re:Slashdot is starting to suck now.

[ashot]

you must be new here..

Re:Slashdot is starting to suck now.

[antic]

My jaw dropped when I read this story. All the other 4/1 jokes were weak, but this one was literally shocking.

PONGMECHANIK

[dhart]

Okay, the Executive Pong is pretty cool, but I'd rather have a PONGMECHANIK [cyberniklas.de]!

Re:Odd Pong

[imsabbel]

come on. Never heard of dark energy? Here it is finally in use :)

iPod pedophilia

[calibanDNS]

The two iPods in the iCopulate image are from different generations! That 3rd gen iPod could be the 4th gen iPod's father!

Re:iPod pedophilia

[EnronHaliburton2004]

And it really bothers me when they show two iPod Shuffles or MiniMac's copulating.

I mean, isn't there an age limit or something?

Re:iPod pedophilia

[Feanturi]

It's the new iPed.

Re:iPod pedophilia

[calibanDNS]

I'm just saying that the 3rd gen is old enough to be the 4th gen's father, not that it necessarily is the 4th gen's father.

ENOUGH! STOP ALREADY!

[furry_wookie]

From the Wikipedia "April Fool's Day" entry:
Traditionally, pranks are supposed to end by noon. Those done afterwards are supposed to bring bad luck to the perpetrator.


Curse the /. editors. for not having enought sense to stop the 4/1 torture at the appointed hour.

Re:ENOUGH! STOP ALREADY!

[Arathrael]

I've never understood that tradition. I mean, things with 'day' in the title usually are actually a day long. I'd be pretty annoyed if someone told me to stop celebrating my birthday at noon. That'd only give me an hour in the pub. Anyway, I think there are two possibilities here.

I think the 'stopping at noon' thing was intended to be an April Fool's joke in itself that people fell for.

Or. more likely, it was a desperate attempt to get people to stop playing stupid stupid jokes without resorting to viol

Re:ENOUGH! STOP ALREADY!

[kjamez]

perhaps they will be cursed with another year of dupes and incorrect spelling...

Re:ENOUGH! STOP ALREADY!

[TiggsPanther]

Yeah, but it's complicated. Especially with a site based in a country that spans several timezones and read by people internationally.

Even if the last gag was posted at the stroke of midday on the west coast of the US, that still means it's about 8pm over here in the UK.

Basically, on the Internet the entire day is a dead loss if you want to try to avoid any gags.

Slashdot hacked?

[northcat]

I think slashdot has been hacked. Watch out, it might try to install something on your hard disk through some browser hole.

Geek Think

[ajs]

The CIA suffered from "group-think" (that strange affliction that makes them mislead the president into doing exactly what he was going to do anyway), and now Slashdot's suffering from "geek think".

Just think.

Hmmm...

[Twisted Grind]

I do believe all the "waaah it's april 2nd i need my slashdot or my leprosy kicks in!" posts just goes to show how little a sense of humor the non-NorthAm /. community really has. Quit browsing /. and get back to work if it offends you so much. Or hell, go OUTSIDE! Let us with a sense of humor laugh our asses off at crude humor for another 8 hours!

This is the first story today

[soupdevil]

that made me laugh out loud. Yeah, the April Fools and Think Geek thing is over the top, way over the top. Come on guys, this is performance art here. Andy Kaufman would be proud.

Re:This is the first story today

[DarkMantle]

Actually, Even Andy kaufman would be ashamed of this. He at least had a couple things he would not do like this.

• He would not sell out this much. He was reluctant to take the role of Latka in Taxi because it's cheap laughs.
• He even knew when an act was getting old.

There was a tremour felt as Andy Kaufman spun in his grave when you wrote that.

Make it stop!

[i41Overlord]

Please, MAKE IT STOP!

Slashturbation

[winkydink]

They were funny for a while, but anything gets stale over time. Especially humor.

The Dream Time

[Council]

From The Eyes of Kid Midas

Josh shook his head. "I don't think that's how the world's going to end." Josh leaned in closer as he spoke. "I think it's going to be a quieter thing. It's going to happen so that no one even notices anything is wrong. I think things are going to sort of... stop making sense... bit by bit. Things won't work right, people won't think right, everything's going to get all mixed up, until nothing in the universe works the way it's supposed to... And then, everything will just...sto

Taco's revenge

[hankaholic]

I honestly wouldn't be surprised if this is CmdrTaco's way of annoying the collective Slashdot readership in response to people nagging him about the natural-language parsing story posted a few days back being a dupe.

If that's the case, I'm amused that he'd spend the time giving a collective "Fuck you, it's my site" to the readers. If that's not the case, I'm honestly curious. Taco and associates can't be so clueless as to think that the majority of the readership is pleased with the day's stories.

Re:Taco's revenge

[grioghar]

That was laugh-out-loud funny.

All I see is Taco in front of a screen with a big fat middle finger lifted. Given this is a dupe, bad spelling, bad grammar, and proof that the URL/title checker would break, I had to laugh.

Have fun, Taco. This is amusing, to see the masses awash in anger over a day that has been a tradition for YEARS now.

Re:Taco's revenge

[Soko]

I think teh wife gave Taco a fifth of Tequilla and a straw for April Fools.

I imagine Taco thinks of hisself as a BOFH - and we're the lusers. BOFH+Tequilla = make_mincemeat_of($any_luser).

I for one am jealous of having such a powerful LART as the Slashdot Effect is in dealing with my brainless lusers (REDUNDANT!)...

Soko

Re:Taco's revenge

[TheSpoom]

I would be someone hacked his account.

Re:Taco's revenge

[SamSim]

All I ask is a special "April Fools" section which we can choose to ignore on this most special of days.

Re:Taco's revenge

[swv3752]

Ha ha, you've been given the finger. All you winy lusers, get over yourself, you don't like it on 4/1? Then go elsewhere. /. collect several pranks on 4/1 and the site admins use some stories to troll the readership.

Re:Taco's revenge

[Trogre]

I'm pleased with the day's stories. I appreciate a good laugh, and more so a (half)day dedicated to it without being overcommercialised.

So in the words of Marty McFly:
"Hey, lighten up, jerk!" :)

Re:Taco's revenge

[Eil]

If that's the case, I'm amused that he'd spend the time giving a collective "Fuck you, it's my site" to the readers.

In an interview that Malda gave a few years back, he openly admitted that the worst part of running Slashdot was all the incessant complaints, questions, and suggestions from people who were under the delusion he actually cares what they thought. Someone once asked why readers shouldn't be able to moderate stories the same way they moderate comments and his response was simply that the editors picked the stories they liked and that the site would never change from that while he was in charge.

I'm honestly curious. Taco and associates can't be so clueless as to think that the majority of the readership is pleased with the day's stories.

People continue to read and comment in them, don't they? Most webmasters dream all day long about owning a site like Slashdot where you have this large captive user base (some with paid subscriptions) and all you have to do is hire a couple of desk jockeys to post moderately interesting stories every hour or so. Marketing? None. Improvements? Hahahah. Managing? There's nothing to manage, it's a damn blog.

Admittedly, Slashdot April Fool's days have gone downhill every year. Next year, as an April Fool's gag, they should simply not post any April Fool's stories at all. Or even take the whole site down, not even under any humorous pretense or anything, just have a single page that says something like, "Sorry, we've all taken the day off. Why don't you update your software or flip through a newspaper if you've got extra time to kill?"

Re:Taco's revenge

[TiggsPanther]

Next year, as an April Fool's gag, they should simply not post any April Fool's stories at all. Or even take the whole site down, not even under any humorous pretense or anything, just have a single page that says something like, "Sorry, we've all taken the day off. Why don't you update your software or flip through a newspaper if you've got extra time to kill?"

Actually that'd be amusing in itself. Plus lessen the task of trying to sift through stories trying to find out which, if any, were valid.

It'd

Re:Taco's revenge

[glwtta]

Admittedly, Slashdot April Fool's days have gone downhill every year.

I just looked through yesterdays articles (I usually don't bother on April 1st) and it looks like every single goddamn last one of them was a "hillarious" April Fools joke. So, nowhere to go next year really, I think we've made it to the bottom of the hill.

do you read slash lists, install slash?

[goon]

Improvements? Hahahah.

ill-informed. Do you read any of the slashcode lists? ([e-mail])

• 
  
  From: Rob Malda
  To: [e-mail]
  Cc: Wes Moran
  Subject: [Slashcode-general] CSS Slashdot/Slashcode mockups
  Date: Mon, 14 Mar 2005 17:09:13 -0500 (Tue, 09:09 EST)
  Mailer: Apple Mail (2.619.2)
  
  ... OSTGs resident HTML uber geek has finally been freed up to
  spend some time working on bringing Slashdot's HTML into this century.
  He gave me permis

Re:Taco's revenge

[FidelCatsro]

I hope it is , as if it is then the whole day to me becomes rather funny again .
On the other hand , this story actualy made me laugh in a Advertastical((c) word) fashion

Re:Taco's revenge

[bruthasj]

...if this is CmdrTaco's way of annoying the collective Slashdot readership...

You mean Roland Pick-a-pail? I mean Piquepaille.

Pique=to backstitch, prick
Paille=straw

A taco made of pricked straw....

Re:Taco's revenge

[jdavidb]

Did some research today on previous April Fools' Days here at Slashdot. Slashdot has been deliberately posting dupes on April 1st in order to make fun of their tendency to post dupes since at least 1998 or 1999.

And people were griping and missing the jokes back then, too. :)

It's a conspiracy

[krgallagher]

"TG is owned by OSTG, the parent company of Slashdot, so activate all conspiracy theories now"

Cmdr Taco is just a shill for Think Geek [thinkgeek.com]. He has obviously been paid off to post as many Think Geek [thinkgeek.com] related articles. In fact most of the links in his other posts actually link to Think Geek [thinkgeek.com].

Think Geek [thinkgeek.com], Think Geek [thinkgeek.com], Think Geek [thinkgeek.com]

Though seriously you should click on some of the links in the original article. There is some funny stuff there.

I just tried to order

[crabpeople]

I just tried to order that free shirt from thinkgeek. aparently, i have to order another item more than 10 dollars as well. Ok i said, and i picked out a nice Network Security shirt. Then it came to select my shipping options and put in a credit card.

Thats all good too, but when i put in my address, it tells me that because im in Canada, it will be 18 USD to ship!!! (that btw is the CHEAPEST shipping method)

This is an order of two shirts with the first shirt costing 14.99. So basically, if im understanding this, I would have to pay more for shipping a light cloth shirt, than the actual shirt is worth. Obviously i would be a fool to do that as it just doesnt sit right in my head.

So in conclusion, to fix think geek and get people to buy from there, LOWER YOUR INTERNANTIONAL SHIPPING

Re:I just tried to order

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

Obviously i would be a fool to do that as it just doesnt sit right in my head.

"Fools shop at ThinkGeek."

What did you think you were ordering?

Re:I just tried to order

[PReDiToR]

This is one reason why I buy off Ebay.

I posted yesterday in the watch poll about how I got the 128MB USB watch off Ebay instead of supporting OSDN by buying from ThinkGeek.
I wanted to buy it from ThinkGeek, but the shipping is hell to the UK.

Not Work Safe Links???

[marshac]

Thanks for the not work-safe links slashdot. Even on april fools, I expected better. It's not funny anymore.

WTF?

[Andy Dodd]

Reverse Googlebombing???

Fake ghostlike photons....

[porter235]

http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/41/05shirt.shtml [thinkgeek.com]

FOOLS SHOP AT THINKGEEK

OH My

[Lullabye_Muse]

has the april fool's day madness ended we havent had a new topic in like 20 minutes hooray

HYAX THE GIBSON

[ColonelFubster]

ax the lpaent hax the plabnet haxk the plenter hax trhe plane t and teh gibson ahcx the planet ehac eht ekabet agsd okeba eplanet hasx teh ahpklebnt if you mod this i will hack your face kthxbye

Wow.

[cliffy2000]

Taco's grammar and diction have improved ten-fold.

In Other News

[Master of Transhuman]

Cmd Taco has posted the fifteenth dupe of the day...

It's April Fool's Day, moron, not DUPE DAY!

The words do NOT mean the same thing!

Okay, now it's just stupid.

[nsayer]

NT

Let this be a lesson....

[GweeDo]

If you want computer news, and it is April 1st, please, for the love of Pete (or Patricia if you don't like guys) please stay away from /. on this day. They have been doing this for a long time now and I don't see it stopping just because you say:
Enough, Enough already!
One year from now it will happen again. My only request is that you leave for this one day. Go get your news else where...or just disregard the news this day. Crap...go outside. If you leave April 1st, I promise to not visit /. on som

Re:Let this be a lesson....

[TiggsPanther]

If you want computer news, and it is April 1st, please, for the love of Pete (or Patricia if you don't like guys) please stay away from /. on this day.

Exactly. Hell, yesterday was the one days when I wasn't too fussed that the internet's broke at work.

Usually I kill time between fixing stuff at Slashdot and other sites. But on April 1st? Hell no. You can't trust a single thing you see anywhere until it's confirmed or denied the next day.

Now *this* is funny

[Epsillon]

Rob, you should have screwed all the links up in the first place. I mean ALL the links. That would have had us in uproar. Well, some of us, anyway ;-)

Anagram Shirt

[freakho]

== Shop at ThinkGeek, Fools
|| Fools Shop at ThinkGeek

Taco slashdot suicides!

[GISGEOLOGYGEEK]

wohooo!

Cmdtaco slashdotted himself!

Go fuck yourself

[Donny Smith]

What is this bullshit?
For a moment I thought that was a story submitted by Roland Piquepaille.

The editor, go fuck yourself.

iCopulate

[Frodo Crockett]

iCopulate

This is slashdot. Nobody believes you.

Stupid sTupId StUPid

[shadowbearer]

April Fools is supposed to be funny. This deluge is like the random output of a crack addict.

Come on, previous April Fools at least had some *subtle* joke/stories rather than this random output of poorly written blurbs gleaned from google news.

Lay off the coffee already Taco...

SB

Brilliant!

[Obiwan Kenobi]

Hahahaha, awesome Taco. I agree with what someone else noted: You should've gotten the links wrong too ;)

"this shit never gets old" haha, nice!

iCopulate

[neckdeepinspecialsau]

I would get an iCopulate but can't stand the idea of my iPod getting more action than me.

The Anagram Shirt

[querencia]

Well, the anagram solution is:

Zm9vbHMgc2hvcCBhdCB0aGlua2dlZWs=

(I Base-64 encoded it, so I wouldn't spoil it for anyone else working on it. You can decode it here: http://www.opinionatedgeek.com/dotnet/tools/Base64 Decode/Default.aspx [opinionatedgeek.com])

Re:At Least This One Knows

[thebudgie]

This'll be the last April Fool's story then (12.59PM shown, please let it be true). Phew. I wonder if the Mods have a posting limit or is it just not possible for them to post them more frequently than every 3 minutes or so...

Re:At Least This One Knows

[Venner]

'fraid not. It was posted at 6:59pm EST. You poor Europeans get dredged into several more hours of terrible April Fools posts. C'est la vie.

You silly, unobservant fools...

[kureido]

Am I the only one who actually moused over the links?

ThinkGeek [thinkgeek.com] writes "ThinkGeek [cmdrtaco.net] ThinkGeek [fark.com] ThinkgEEk [randomdialogue.net] ThinkGeek [penny-arcade.com]! ThinkGeek [deansplanet.com] ThinkGeek [mccarthy.vg] THINK geek [cowboyneal.org] think GeEk [homestarrunner.com] thinkgEek [sarcasta.net].

(If you don't have the linky-checky-in-brackets thing on, the links are actually to cmdrtaco.net, fark.com, randomdialogue.net, penny-arcade.com, deansplanet.com, mccarthy.vg, cowboyneal.org, homestarrunner.com, and sarcasta.net)

Re:Fuck off

[b00stA]

You DO know that /. and Thinkgeek are both related through OSTG [ostg.com]?

Re:THINK GEEK

[Arathrael]

This has no effect on me.

I always find myself thinking 'geek' when I'm reading /. anyway.

Mind you, I also find myself thinking 'geek' when I'm at work. Or at home. Or looking in a mirror. I really need to get out more. :-)

Re:Insensitive Clods

[CokeBear]

You paid money for this crap?!

<nelson>HA HA!</nelson>

Re:not only is this old news

[RichardX]

Ha! So you think.
The REAL April Fools gag is that we get them all back again tomorrow as dupes.

New Gmail features

[lavaface]

Gmail addded another GB to their storage and included the ability to import contacts, among other things. I'm particularly excited about the contact import feature. it's not much, but it's more worty than all the tripe that's been posted do far today.

Re:New poll?

[KarMann]

I guess I should have included the relevant links for those stories, since they're falling below the fold so fast:

• Tokyo Zoo Adds Giant Penguin [slashdot.org]
• NASA Builds Worlds Largest Paper Airplane [slashdot.org]
  • Nothing about any volcanoes, it was just a passing fancy of mine.
• Apple Japan Announces/Pulls iPotty Dock [slashdot.org]
• Apollo Bacteria Destroying the Moon [slashdot.org]

Re:New poll?

[mrchaotica]

• iCopulate with Cowboy Neal?

Re:New poll?

[Dirtside]

iCopulate with Cowboy Neal?

iHope not.

Re:New poll?

[mrchaotica]

I wouldn't vote for that option, that's for sure!

Re:from the this-shit-never-gets-old dept.

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

Not for him. Let him have his fun.

It's his site (and ad revenue), after all. ;-)

Re:ARRRRRGH

[rayde]

then GO AWAY and read the New York Times!!! Come back tomorrow. April fools is always celebrated by slashdot... take a step back and smile. geez

Re:My god the internet is full of bitch-n-moaners.

[Sheepdot]

I've been complaining about the Internet community's obession with April 1st since 1998. Of course, back then, the pranks were at least partially subtle.