April Fools' Day Prank at Work

[Kirby]

Since it's April Fools' Day, I decided to play a prank at my work.

Background Info
To give some background, there are several email distribution lists that you can sign up for at my company. Since I'm interested in Go, I naturally searched for one. I found a group that had a number of members and joined. I was a member of the group for awhile, and realized that there was no email activity. I sent a message to the group, and someone else noted that, since they joined the group, nobody used it. That being the case, I decided that the only way for there to be activity on the distribution list was to create it myself. I started giving out go problems every Friday. It was popular at first, but started to die down. So, I created a go problem solving competition starting last July-ish, and ending next July-ish. I've been giving sets of problems every Friday.

Note that the problems I give typically have the standard "letter-number" coordinates. So to give an answer to a problem, you specify coordinates (E.g. C-4, D-2, etc.).

Prank
Which brings us to today, April Fools' Day.

After a little bit of thought, I constructed the following email, and sent it to the distribution list:

It is with mixed feelings that I’m writing to you to let you know that this Friday will be my last day at <redacted>.

I have decided to pursue a degree at Myongji University in South Korea to study the game of Go. You can read details of the program in [1], below. Myongji has one of the only Go-related degree programs in the world, and right now is a unique opportunity to enroll, since they are offering some nice scholarships to foreign students ([2], [3]).

Anyway, I’ve enjoyed my time here at <redacted>, but I cannot pass up this opportunity to pursue my dream of studying Go full-time. So it is with much regret that I present to you the last problem of the <redacted> Go Problem Solving Championship. I’ll be contacting the winners offline about their prizes.

As usual, black to play.



---

[1] http://www.mju.ac.kr/mbs/mjuen/subview. ... 0207040100
[2] http://www.niied.go.kr/eng/contents.do? ... menuNo=349
[3] http://www.mju.ac.kr/mbs/mjuen/subview. ... 0202010000

Note that the solution to the problem here makes more sense using purely numerical coordinates than using the standard letter/number coordinates.

One person immediately realized the joke, but several others took the email seriously. Perhaps I should have made it more clear that it was intended for humor.

[EdLee]

4-1, John Oliver

[DrStraw]

I did not even know it was April Fools Day until I got home and my wife asked if anyone had played a joke on me. If someone did, I missed the joke.

[Kirby]

4-1, John Oliver

I did not even know it was April Fools Day until I got home and my wife asked if anyone had played a joke on me. If someone did, I missed the joke.

Yes... I was so excited to come up with an April Fools' Day joke, especially since I've been holding this competition.

After the fact, though, it's somewhat less satisfying than I had anticipated

[DrStraw]

4-1, John Oliver

Okay, I get the 4-1, althought it won't work in Britain. But what is John Oliver?

[oren]

Okay, I get the 4-1, althought it won't work in Britain. But what is John Oliver?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Oliver_%28comedian%29

[Bonobo]

4-1, John Oliver

Okay, I get the 4-1, althought it won't work in Britain. [..]

Uhm, I don't get why “4-1” won’t work in Britain

[Boidhre]

4-1, John Oliver

Okay, I get the 4-1, althought it won't work in Britain. [..]

Uhm, I don't get why “4-1” won’t work in Britain

Because it means the 4th of January (not that you'd write a date with a "-" but anyway) not April 1st.

[DrStraw]

Okay, I get the 4-1, althought it won't work in Britain. But what is John Oliver?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Oliver_%28comedian%29

Okay, so he is a comedian. I still don't see the connection to April 1st.

[oren]

Okay, so he is a comedian. I still don't see the connection to April 1st.

Click on the link in EdLee's post.

[Bonobo]

Okay, I get the 4-1, althought it won't work in Britain. [..]

Uhm, I don't get why “4-1” won’t work in Britain

Because it means the 4th of January (not that you'd write a date with a "-" but anyway) not April 1st.

Dang, I had only connected it to the move … thanks

(But, BTW, I write dates mostly like this: 2015-04-02)

[Boidhre]

Dang, I had only connected it to the move … thanks

(But, BTW, I write dates mostly like this: 2015-04-02)

I don't know about the UK but here you'd write that 2/4/2015 or 02/04/2015 usually (I presume you mean April 2nd since that's today not February 4th). Or with 15 instead of 2015. Writing "2/4" doesn't look like a date to me though you might find it, I don't know.

[EdLee]

02/04/2015 usually

I also don't know what happens in the UK, or Europe, or in most other countries, actually.

[rant]
But here, it's very common to see things like 02/03/04
(on receipts, even legal documents, like tax forms) which drive me crazy. Is it:

• 2002 March 4th
• 2002 April 3rd (strange, yes)
• Feb 3rd, 2004
• March 2nd, 2004
• Feb 4th, 2003 (nobody does this)
• Apr 2nd, 2003 (nobody does this)

It's one of my pet peeves, not shared by most others here.
[/rant]

[tj86430]

Ed's pet peeve is one I share.

The most logical thing to do would be to write using order year-month-day (with some agreed on punctuation). In Finland (and most of Europe) write day-month-year, with varying punctuation (In Finland we use mostly '.', in other countries I've seen '-' or '/'), which is also fairly logical. Any other order is illogical to me (you dont write times hh:ss:mm or mm:ss:hh either, do you?)

The thing that really drives me crazy is people who put dates in filenames in any other order than year-month-day.

[EdLee]

Hi TJ,

[rant]
Ever since I discovered, as a teenager, that different countries have different formats for dates,
I've tried my best to write it so that there's as little ambiguity,
and as much redundancy, as possible. Thus: April 01, 2015.

I imagine an advanced alien civilization reading this a hundred thousand years in the future. (Or, hell, archeologists or historians merely 500 years from now.) And they see 02/03/04. Natural reaction: WTF?! Sorry for the language.
[/rant]