April 1, 2002

April fools hoaxes for this year:

• The Register: reported (http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/28/24652) AOL buying up weblogs
• The Open Directory re-branded (http://www.microsoft.com@dmoz.org/April-01-2002_GOD_PR) itself as the 'Microsoft Directory Project'
• Kuro5hin acquired (http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/4/1/05035/09001) MetaFilter[?], renaming it to met4filter.org
• Slashdot announced (http://slashdot.org/articles/02/04/01/1452256.shtml?tid=124) that is will start posting advertiser-sponsored news stories, and disable anonymous posting.
• Google described (http://www.google.com/technology/pigeonrank) its PigeonRank system.
• The Guardian profiled (http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4385266,00) Harmony Cousins
• CPAN renamed (http://www.cpan.org/) itself the 'Comprehensive Java Archive Network'
• The annual spoof Linus Torvalds post on the Linux kernel mailing list[?] announced (http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/linux/linux-kernel/2002-13/0063) his resignation from the Linux effort
• IETF published April 1st RFCs RFC3251 (Distribution of electricity over IP) and RFC3252 (Encapsulating IP in XML).
• MIT changed (http://www.mit.edu) its home page to a spoof of the Google home page.
• a spoof Yahoo News story was circulated (http://news.yahoo.com:PK%20Interactive%20Receives%20Funding%20from%20idealab@216.150.6.36/Yahoo!%20News%20-%20PK%20Interactive%20receives%20funding%20from%20idealab.htm) stating that PK Interactive had received funding from idealab[?] (note: check the URL below closely)
• The TidBITS newsletter offered (http://www.tidbits.com/tb-issues/TidBITS-623) a spoof issue
• The Tom's Hardware website reported (http://www.tomshardware.com/column/02q2/020401/index) that AMD and nVIDIA were to merge.
• The BBC reported (http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/business/newsid_1905000/1905790.stm) more April Fools' pranks including the announced 'flotation' of Harrods[?].
• CNN reported that two Montreal disk jockeys managed to phone Bill Gates on the pretext that one of them was Canadian prime minister Jean Chrétien wanting to set up a meeting with Gates. What CNN didn't mention is that these two have a reputation for their audacious prank calls. Previous recipients of their attention have included Queen Elizabeth II and Pope John Paul II.

Please add more 2002 April Fool hoaxes here, including any relevant external links