I frequently pull pranks, this april first, I am doing nothing. Watching everyone trying to figure out what I’m planning and getting more and more paranoid as the day goes on is its own prank
A friend has posited that due to the generally depressing state of things, we should just consider this day March 32nd and politely ignore the usual custom of attempted hilarity. He says that the bar for something being genuinely funny is just too effing high right now. I;m not sure that he’s wrong.
For my prank I will post on the discussion of random Mehrathon deals today how I’ve previously bought such and what a WONDERFULproduct it is and such a great DEAL that they should consider buying at least three of each.
And then a week or two later when they come back to complain about the purchase, I can shout APRIL FOOL!
For years, I’ve wanted to create an AD GPO at work that would run a script upon login that prompts “Enter any 12 digit prime number to continue.” I’ve debated whether it should actually require the number to be prime, or to allow access after any 12 digit number is entered. Regardless, once the prompt is satisfied, the script displays “April Fools!” and maybe some other silliness.
However, today is the last April 1 for me at the college as I will retire at 63 in early January 2027 after 38 years and two months of full-time and about four years part-time employment. They already want to hire me part-time, which I’m totally open to given that my job is my hobby and I would not be retiring at all if CUNY’s 401a allowed in-service Roth conversions.
Well that’s been a nice long run! You’re lucky to be given the opportunity to stay on, you won’t have to experience that “what do I do with myself now” thing that I hear so many young retirees talking about.
I’m curious, maybe it’s just too early and my brain isn’t fully functioning yet but how is your job your hobby? Independently wealthy comes to mind but even that non functioning brain of mine knows THAT’S none my business.
@baqui63@Lynnerizer
I would take that to mean that he doesn’t work as a hobby, but that the type of work he does is akin to a hobby for him. IE he enjoys his work that much.
(Pronouns subject to revision…)
@Lynnerizer, @chienfou has hit the proverbial nail directly on its head and driven it home with a single blow.
I’ve been doing various system admin things since high school. That part of the job is very much fun for me, tho it can be a challenge at times.
Unfortunately, at the City University of New York (or CUNY, which is pronounced as queue-knee) it is pretty much a given that more money means having to manage people. While this aspect has not always been bad, it is way less fun for me.
Then I got COVID in early July and it was very mild… but the long-COVID that hit before the end of July made many things difficult. The worst things were the brain fog, severe depression and that certain body parts no longer functioned adequately.
The TL;DR: is that I pretty much was going to quit if I had to continue managing my team. I lucked out in that a person capable of being the team lead was already in the process of being hired. So my new title replaced “Senior” with “Lead Architect and” becoming “Lead Architect and System Engineer”
I eventually got over the brain fog and started dealing with the depression and things got a lot better, getting the hobby-to-work ratio back up to 80%+
Then in July 2025 an extremely capable woman who had been woefully under utilized for 13 years was moved to my team and I was tasked with mentoring her to replace the Senior Sysadmin who had retired in March 2025.
Thus, my dream job. I get to teach her how things work which got the job satisfaction up to about 95%. She’s not all that happy about me no longer having to work starting in July or August, but I’ve stated that I’m retiring, not stopping work. (I have almost eight months of leave with full pay and only 45 days of it can be taken as a lump sum upon full retirement. NY State retirees have some pretty decent perqs.)
Jeez, you’ve had sure had your share of ups and downs. That long Covid is NO JOKE and neither is depression! It’s ALWAYS nice to hear when someone lands on their feet after those kinds of challenges!
I was kinda waiting/wanting to hear that your trainee ended up being your wife or something of the sort. Guess THAT could get a little slippery though.
Thanks for taking the time for the clarification on “work is a hobby”, from what I’ve always understood THAT’S the ultimate goal! Everyone should be so lucky to feel like that!
Carrying on with the thon…
@baqui63@chienfou@Lynnerizer Yea long covid sucks. I got covid Dec 2023 and then long covid (as a blood cancer patient we have about a 60% chance of getting long covid and unfortunately it am in that group). I am finding though it is (finally) improving. Hopefully it will for you to. I was part of the Paxlovid clinical trial. Unfortunately it was a bust. 25 days of nasty taste (I was guessing 10 with the real and the final 10 with placebo where the nasty taste was added due to the other side effects and then lack there of - turns out I was right). I am glad to hear that you are one of the ones where it improved too.
@narfcake OK, I give. April Fool prank or for real?
I haven’t been paying attention to chips in a long time. Forgot x86 was still around in any form, bc I’ve been using Chromebooks for awhile.
@narfcakeAh! Argh!
I read that and immediately thought it was a peculiar thing to say, though didn’t connect “calendar date” to April Fools Day.
Nice to know learning 8086/8088 assembly language in the 70s still has some minor relevance to my life. (Though programming a recursive Towers of Hanoi solver in it might no longer have such.)
@werehatrack ugh. I just reposted that as a topic/it didn’t have those modes when I loaded it very early Wednesday. So I was good with just the ask for dark mode as a normal joke. Lol saw them when trying to post the link/the normal image didn’t work lol
Admittedly I Was not parsing anything as april fools this week because ya know. horrifying reality. Time card deadlines. Internet out till Wednesday and work to catch up on. Year end reviews. Bills/mortgage payments. Maintenance windows.
My brain completely flushed April fools day for once. I don’t think a single person at work made a joke
I see the problem now. You used to not be able to see the alt text easily. Someone pointed out if you use the mobile version. m.xkcd.com it gives you a link to the alt text
Which does work but only desktop mode gets you that menu. Which I prefer. Plus I can get the alt text off the image now
Cling wrap on the toilet bowl!
I am adamantly anti prank.
Nothing. I forgot. I guess I’m the fool.
I am seriously too old for this s***
reality is too much of a joke already
@TheGreatNico
Ain’t THAT the truth…
… 🫣
I cannot surpass what the masters of the Net achieve, so I will enjoy what they have concocted, and it will suffice.
I frequently pull pranks, this april first, I am doing nothing. Watching everyone trying to figure out what I’m planning and getting more and more paranoid as the day goes on is its own prank
@TimCamii Diabolical!
@TimCamii
Do tell… what are some of your best executed pranks?
Z
@Lynnerizer @TimCamii
Ahhh. The non-prank prank … love it!
I don’t like pranks.
Nothing. April Fools Day is for amateurs.
Pay at the drive thru window then speed away before they can hand me the food. Suckers!
@medz
Okay… that made me LOL.
/showme fast food drive thru workers reacting to the world’s greatest prank
@medz Here’s the image you requested for “fast food drive thru workers reacting to the world s greatest prank”
A friend has posited that due to the generally depressing state of things, we should just consider this day March 32nd and politely ignore the usual custom of attempted hilarity. He says that the bar for something being genuinely funny is just too effing high right now. I;m not sure that he’s wrong.
@werehatrack
So…upvote for:
https://meh.com/forum/topics/what-pranks-do-you-have-planned-for-today#69cc99ca33e6a8071088cf6e
No pranks but I do think it’s odd that Artemis II is going up tomorrow.
@tweezak
why?
@chienfou That’s his idea of a prank-I’ve been informed by the space flight obsessed teenager I live with that it’s launching today.
https://nextspaceflight.com/launches/details/116/
@algae1221 @chienfou I’m on the left coast so when I wrote that the launch was still happening “tomorrow”.
No pranks; March 32nd it shall be. Reality’s already enough of a bastard.
For my prank I will post on the discussion of random Mehrathon deals today how I’ve previously bought such and what a WONDERFULproduct it is and such a great DEAL that they should consider buying at least three of each.
And then a week or two later when they come back to complain about the purchase, I can shout APRIL FOOL!
@phendrick
Diabolical
I will spend the day hoping the plumber’s bill was a pre-April Fools joke.
@hchavers
Wondering if I was the ONLY ONE who read “plumbers butt crack” the first time through?
🫣
MMM Brussel Sprouts! Pass on April Fool’s Day…
For years, I’ve wanted to create an AD GPO at work that would run a script upon login that prompts “Enter any 12 digit prime number to continue.” I’ve debated whether it should actually require the number to be prime, or to allow access after any 12 digit number is entered. Regardless, once the prompt is satisfied, the script displays “April Fools!” and maybe some other silliness.
However, today is the last April 1 for me at the college as I will retire at 63 in early January 2027 after 38 years and two months of full-time and about four years part-time employment. They already want to hire me part-time, which I’m totally open to given that my job is my hobby and I would not be retiring at all if CUNY’s 401a allowed in-service Roth conversions.
@baqui63
Well that’s been a nice long run! You’re lucky to be given the opportunity to stay on, you won’t have to experience that “what do I do with myself now” thing that I hear so many young retirees talking about.
I’m curious, maybe it’s just too early and my brain isn’t fully functioning yet but how is your job your hobby?
Independently wealthy comes to mind but even that non functioning brain of mine knows THAT’S none my business. 
@baqui63 @Lynnerizer
I would take that to mean that he doesn’t work as a hobby, but that the type of work he does is akin to a hobby for him. IE he enjoys his work that much.
(Pronouns subject to revision…)
@Lynnerizer, @chienfou has hit the proverbial nail directly on its head and driven it home with a single blow.
I’ve been doing various system admin things since high school. That part of the job is very much fun for me, tho it can be a challenge at times.
Unfortunately, at the City University of New York (or CUNY, which is pronounced as queue-knee) it is pretty much a given that more money means having to manage people. While this aspect has not always been bad, it is way less fun for me.
Then I got COVID in early July and it was very mild… but the long-COVID that hit before the end of July made many things difficult. The worst things were the brain fog, severe depression and that certain body parts no longer functioned adequately.
The TL;DR: is that I pretty much was going to quit if I had to continue managing my team. I lucked out in that a person capable of being the team lead was already in the process of being hired. So my new title replaced “Senior” with “Lead Architect and” becoming “Lead Architect and System Engineer”
I eventually got over the brain fog and started dealing with the depression and things got a lot better, getting the hobby-to-work ratio back up to 80%+
Then in July 2025 an extremely capable woman who had been woefully under utilized for 13 years was moved to my team and I was tasked with mentoring her to replace the Senior Sysadmin who had retired in March 2025.
Thus, my dream job. I get to teach her how things work which got the job satisfaction up to about 95%. She’s not all that happy about me no longer having to work starting in July or August, but I’ve stated that I’m retiring, not stopping work. (I have almost eight months of leave with full pay and only 45 days of it can be taken as a lump sum upon full retirement. NY State retirees have some pretty decent perqs.)
Anyway… gotta get back to the grindstone.
@baqui63 @chienfou
Jeez, you’ve had sure had your share of ups and downs. That long Covid is NO JOKE and neither is depression!
It’s ALWAYS nice to hear when someone lands on their feet after those kinds of challenges! 
I was kinda waiting/wanting to hear that your trainee ended up being your wife or something of the sort. Guess THAT could get a little slippery though.
Thanks for taking the time for the clarification on “work is a hobby”, from what I’ve always understood THAT’S the ultimate goal! Everyone should be so lucky to feel like that!
Carrying on with the thon…
@baqui63 @chienfou @Lynnerizer Yea long covid sucks. I got covid Dec 2023 and then long covid (as a blood cancer patient we have about a 60% chance of getting long covid and unfortunately it am in that group). I am finding though it is (finally) improving. Hopefully it will for you to. I was part of the Paxlovid clinical trial. Unfortunately it was a bust. 25 days of nasty taste (I was guessing 10 with the real and the final 10 with placebo where the nasty taste was added due to the other side effects and then lack there of - turns out I was right). I am glad to hear that you are one of the ones where it improved too.
https://www.techspot.com/news/111906-amd-buy-intel-completing-strangest-reversal-chip-history.html
@narfcake OK, I give. April Fool prank or for real?
I haven’t been paying attention to chips in a long time. Forgot x86 was still around in any form, bc I’ve been using Chromebooks for awhile.
@phendrick The closing sentence is this:
It can also be noted that a number of Chromebooks use x86 processors too.
@narfcake
Ah!Argh!I read that and immediately thought it was a peculiar thing to say, though didn’t connect “calendar date” to April Fools Day.
Nice to know learning 8086/8088 assembly language in the 70s still has some minor relevance to my life. (Though programming a recursive Towers of Hanoi solver in it might no longer have such.)
@Chienfou We thought the pumpkin pie ramen was weird; would you try this?
I don’t think they actually produced this, though.
@Kyeh
Today’s xkcd prank was pretty good. Try the Space Opera mode and the Boat mode in particular.
https://xkcd.com/3227
@werehatrack ugh. I just reposted that as a topic/it didn’t have those modes when I loaded it very early Wednesday. So I was good with just the ask for dark mode as a normal joke. Lol saw them when trying to post the link/the normal image didn’t work lol
Admittedly I Was not parsing anything as april fools this week because ya know. horrifying reality. Time card deadlines. Internet out till Wednesday and work to catch up on. Year end reviews. Bills/mortgage payments. Maintenance windows.
My brain completely flushed April fools day for once. I don’t think a single person at work made a joke
Probably what freefall was
http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff4400/af2026.htm
I just… Parsed as abnormal for the comic but funny joke from a sci-fi comic
@werehatrack @narfcake
I see the problem now. You used to not be able to see the alt text easily. Someone pointed out if you use the mobile version.
m.xkcd.com it gives you a link to the alt text
Which does work but only desktop mode gets you that menu. Which I prefer. Plus I can get the alt text off the image now