Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Neil Gaiman April Fool's

Neil Gaiman is famous enough that he was featured in a few different April Fool's jokes. Famous enough in science fiction/literary circles. He highlighted the inappropriate and appropriate ones on twitter.
VATICAN CITY - Today the Roman Curia announced that the beatification of Neil Gaiman had been completed, putting the writer one step closer to the official recognition of his sainthood. These steps were carried out despite the fact that Gaiman himself has repeatedly denied being a saint, pointing out that he was not Catholic, not really religious and, most importantly, not dead.

"Really, I'm not dead," said Gaiman when reached at his home. "Not even the slightest little bit. This whole sainthood thing has become something of a bother, with little old women with rosaries joining the usual contingent of Goth girls holding vigils on the west lawn. If you happen to run into Pope Benedict XVI, please tell him that the whole thing is quite silly and somewhat inconvenient."

Really, he's not dead. Or if he is, he figured out how to twitter from beyond the grave -- how cool is that?

Gmail autopilot

As more and more everyday communication takes place over email, lots of people have complained about how hard it is to read and respond to every message. This is because they actually read and respond to all their messages.
I don't actually read and respond to all my messages, though I do maintain inbox zero, mostly by either replying right away or failing fast. I welcome Google Autopilot! -- an automatic system that can read and reply to my emails and gchats, leaving me free to bumble about in a non-electronic existence. This feature was created by CADIE, Google's new post-singularity intelligence.

From the FAQ:

What happens if a sender and recipient both have Autopilot on?

Two Gmail accounts can happily converse with each other for up to three messages each. Beyond that, our experiments have shown a significant decline in the quality ranking of Autopilot's responses and further messages may commit you to dinner parties or baby namings in which you have no interest.

The Onion: still funny

Obama Depressed, Distant Since 'Battlestar Galactica' Series Finale
Since the end of the series, Obama has reportedly brushed off key budgetary decisions, ignored his wife and children, and neglected his daily workouts, claiming that he no longer cares if he lets himself go "just like Lee did before the rescue on New Caprica."