[Sticks]

I have recently come across this announcement on the net.

Internet Cleaning
DO NOT CONNECT TO THE INTERNET FROM MARCH 31st 23:59 pm (GMT) UNTIL 12:01am (GMT) APRIL 1st.

*** 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 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.

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.

Has anyone else seen this one ?

[Boris]

Maybe their robots could be reprogramed to come and 'spring clean ' my house !

No I havn't seen it anywhere Sticks .

[LEE]

Of course 1ST APRIL would be exactly the time to do this wouldn't it Sticks

[Mairi]

Originally posted by LEE
Of course 1ST APRIL would be exactly the time to do this wouldn't it Sticks

I have my computer spring cleaned every April 1st. Doesn't everyone?

[BigSister]

I do too

[susieq]

I, of course, have my 'woman who does' and she takes care of everything darling - BUT, if their rates are reasonable (have to look after the pennies sweetie) I may give these Network Maintenance staff people a little go.

[Boris]

I, of course, have my 'woman who does'

I am GREEN with envy Susieq !

I am rapidly becoming a woman who 'doesn't'....in the house work sense of course and would love a woman who 'does' instead of living in squaler most of the time .

[susieq]

and would love a woman who 'does' instead of living in squaler most of the time

I wish I DID have said woman (it was just my rather feeble attempt at a little joke). I have a magnet on my fridge that says "I don't do housework" - sums up my attitude to the whole housework philosophy rather succinctly.

Life is far too short to worry about whether the carpet's been vacuumed or whether that really is dust on top of the bookshelf.

There are books to read, films to see, TV to watch, food to be eaten & forums to post on - all of which take prior claim!

Live your life as though today is your last day - one day it will be!

[James]

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,4-2003150293,00.html



Nice one.

[LEE]

Nice one James.

I'm really going to rush out and buy this. LOL

[Amy]

I like this one from The Mirror online....

STAR Trek-style teleportation may be years away but scientists have made a breakthrough in teleporting dead objects.

Advanced digital compression techniques and replicating molecular clusters have led to scientists at BTexact, BT's research arm, coming up with an unexpected future use for teleporting... the transportation of takeaway food.

A microwave-like device scans the meal (and in this case they're working with a curry shop) and sends the quantum information about it across the network to recreate it at the far end. More details of this are on www.btexact.com/curry

[cc100]

veh veh clever sticks!!!

[BusyBee]

I love the April 1 spoof articles in the papers and especially when people start taking them really seriously that's often funnier than the original.

[kaphc]

There's a program on ITV tonight that should be worth a watch as it's all about April Fools that have appeared in the media over the years.

[kaphc]

Originally posted by James

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,4-2003150293,00.html

I heard this today on Virgin on Pete & Jeff's show. It was a truly awful single!! It took me a couple of minutes before I realised it had to be a spoof!

[Boris]

There's a program on ITV tonight that should be worth a watch as it's all about April Fools that have appeared in the media over the years.

I wonder if they will show the spaghetti 'harvest' in Italy from when I was a child. My parents - both educated people - had the encyclopedias out trying to find out more about it as they could not believe that Cliff Michelmore on Panorama could have got it wrong.What was more there were pictures of the spaghetti being collected in big baskets and laid out to dry so that it changed from soft strands to the stiff dry ones that were then packeted.

Anyone else remember seeing this in their formative years ?

[Mairi]

Originally posted by Boris
Anyone else remember seeing this in their formative years ?

I must admit, Boris, it does ring a faint bell.

[LEE]

I must admit Boris that I remember that one as well.

[Kaz]

Me too, Boris.

THIS STORY also from the Sun Online had me chuckling today!

Isn't Hamish cute.

[Maggie]

This is one from my mother when I was a child, it's not a April Fools Day one, but a New Years Eve.

If you go to the corner of the street today you will see a man with a many noses as days in the year, it puzzled me for a few years till I caught

[Boris]

Had to concentrate for that one Disco lady



And ...

come come Lee, you are Not old enough to remember the Spaghetti harvest I am sure. Perhaps you saw it 'remembered 'on another programme.

[James]

Here's the top 100 April Fool's Day Hoaxes of all time.

http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/top100.html

[Mairi]

Thanks, James. Some of them made me chuckle, like the Richard Branson one, but the Spaghetti Harvest is definitely the cream of the crop.

Was it really in 1957?

[Sticks]

Let's just say, I'm a sucker for the classics

[Sticks]

See this urgent link