Top 10 April Fools Day Hoaxes of All Time

#1: The Swiss Spaghetti Harvest
In 1957 the respected BBC news show Panorama announced that thanks to a very mild winter and the virtual elimination of the dreaded spaghetti weevil, Swiss farmers were enjoying a bumper spaghetti crop. It accompanied this announcement with footage of Swiss peasants pulling strands of spaghetti down from trees. Huge numbers of viewers were taken in, and many called up wanting to know how they could grow their own spaghetti trees. To this question, the BBC diplomatically replied that they should "place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best."

#2: Sidd Finch
In its April 1985 edition, Sports Illustrated published a story about a new rookie pitcher who planned to play for the Mets. His name was Sidd Finch and he could reportedly throw a baseball with startling, pinpoint accuracy at 168 mph (65 mph faster than anyone else has ever been able to throw a ball). Surprisingly, Sidd Finch had never even played the game before. Instead, he had mastered the "art of the pitch" in a Tibetan monastery under the guidance of the "great poet-saint Lama Milaraspa." Mets fans everywhere celebrated at their teams's amazing luck at having found such a gifted player, and Sports Illustrated was flooded with requests for more information. But in reality this legendary player only existed in the imagination of the writer of the article, George Plimpton.

#3: Instant Color TV
In 1962 there was only one tv channel in Sweden, and it broadcast in black and white. The station's technical expert, Kjell Stensson, appeared on the news to announce that thanks to a newly developed technology, all viewers could now quickly and easily convert their existing sets to display color reception. All they had to do was pull a nylon stocking over their tv screen, and they would begin to see their favorite shows in color. Stensson then proceeded to demonstrate the process. Reportedly, hundreds of thousands of people, out of the population of seven million, were taken in. Actual color tv transmission only commenced in Sweden on April 1, 1970.

#4: The Taco Liberty Bell
In 1996 the Taco Bell Corporation announced that it had bought the Liberty Bell from the federal government and was renaming it the Taco Liberty Bell. Hundreds of outraged citizens called up the National Historic Park in Philadelphia where the bell is housed to express their anger. Their nerves were only calmed when Taco Bell revealed that it was all a practical joke a few hours later. The best line inspired by the affair came when White House press secretary Mike McCurry was asked about the sale, and he responded that the Lincoln Memorial had also been sold, though to a different corporation, and would now be known as the Ford Lincoln Mercury Memorial.

#5: San Serriffe
In 1977 the British newspaper The Guardian published a special seven-page supplement in honor of the tenth anniversary of San Serriffe, a small republic located in the Indian Ocean consisting of several semi-colon-shaped islands. A series of articles affectionately described the geography and culture of this obscure nation. Its two main islands were named Upper Caisse and Lower Caisse. Its capital was Bodoni, and its leader was General Pica. The Guardian's phones rang all day as readers sought more information about the idyllic holiday spot. Few noticed that everything about the island was named after printer's terminology. The success of this hoax is widely credited with launching the enthusiasm for April Foolery that then gripped the British tabloids in the following decades.

#6: Nixon for President
In 1992 National Public Radio's Talk of the Nation program announced that Richard Nixon, in a surprise move, was running for President again. His new campaign slogan was, "I didn't do anything wrong, and I won't do it again." Accompanying this announcement were audio clips of Nixon delivering his candidacy speech. Listeners responded viscerally to the announcement, flooding the show with calls expressing shock and outrage. Only during the second half of the show did the host John Hockenberry reveal that the announcement was a practical joke. Nixon's voice was impersonated by comedian Rich Little.

#7: Alabama Changes the Value of Pi
The April 1998 issue of the New Mexicans for Science and Reason newsletter contained an article claiming that the Alabama state legislature had voted to change the value of the mathematical constant pi from 3.14159 to the 'Biblical value' of 3.0. Before long the article had made its way onto the internet, and then it rapidly made its way around the world, forwarded by people in their email. It only became apparent how far the article had spread when the Alabama legislature began receiving hundreds of calls from people protesting the legislation. The original article, which was intended as a parody of legislative attempts to circumscribe the teaching of evolution, was written by a physicist named Mark Boslough.

#8: The Left-Handed Whopper
In 1998 Burger King published a full page advertisement in USA Today announcing the introduction of a new item to their menu: a "Left-Handed Whopper" specially designed for the 32 million left-handed Americans. According to the advertisement, the new whopper included the same ingredients as the original Whopper (lettuce, tomato, hamburger patty, etc.), but all the condiments were rotated 180 degrees for the benefit of their left-handed customers. The following day Burger King issued a follow-up release revealing that although the Left-Handed Whopper was a hoax, thousands of customers had gone into restaurants to request the new sandwich. Simultaneously, according to the press release, "many others requested their own 'right handed' version."

#9: Hotheaded Naked Ice Borers
In its April 1995 issue Discover Magazine announced that the highly respected wildlife biologist Dr. Aprile Pazzo had discovered a new species in Antarctica: the hotheaded naked ice borer. These fascinating creatures had bony plates on their heads that, fed by numerous blood vessels, could become burning hot, allowing the animals to bore through ice at high speeds. They used this ability to hunt penguins, melting the ice beneath the penguins and causing them to sink downwards into the resulting slush where the hotheads consumed them. After much research, Dr. Pazzo theorized that the hotheads might have been responsible for the mysterious disappearance of noted Antarctic explorer Philippe Poisson in 1837. "To the ice borers, he would have looked like a penguin," the article quoted her as saying. Discover received more mail in response to this article than they had received for any other article in their history.

#10: Planetary Alignment Decreases Gravity
In 1976 the British astronomer Patrick Moore announced on BBC Radio 2 that at 9:47 AM a once-in-a-lifetime astronomical event was going to occur that listeners could experience in their very own homes. The planet Pluto would pass behind Jupiter, temporarily causing a gravitational alignment that would counteract and lessen the Earth's own gravity. Moore told his listeners that if they jumped in the air at the exact moment that this planetary alignment occurred, they would experience a strange floating sensation. When 9:47 AM arrived, BBC2 began to receive hundreds of phone calls from listeners claiming to have felt the sensation. One woman even reported that she and her eleven friends had risen from their chairs and floated around the room.

* courtesy email Forward

Must See Movies (Part I)

Web 2.0 websites

Web 2.0

The buzz word "Web 2.0" is been arround in the internet from a long time now. Even i was surprized by the popularity it is attaining. Today i thought about finding out what is it ? and why does it generate this much hype ? And i found the answer which a newbie had to know.

Web 2.0 generally refers to a second generation of services available on the World Wide Web that let people collaborate, and share information online. Confusing ? Ok we go back to find the other old generation of World Wide Web : first came the static web page ya in the mid 90's build using HTML and other related technologies. Then came more vibrant(as i thought it was, before web 2.0) and dynamic pages with the help of CSS(cascaded style sheet) and DOM(document object model). And now the google map, gmail, flickr where among the first to introduce so called Web 2.0 technologies. The web 2.0 is more vibrant then its old counter part. Web 2.0 applications often use a combination of techniques devised in the late 1990s, including public web service APIs, Ajax, HTML, XML. Now the question is what is this AJAX ??

Asynchronous JavaScript And XML, or its acronym, AJAX, is a Web development technique for creating interactive web applications. The intent is to make web pages feel more responsive by exchanging small amounts of data with the server behind the scenes, so that the entire Web page does not have to be reloaded each time the user makes a change. Its a combination of technologies like :XHTML/HTML, CSS, DOM, XML. Some of the example of what AJAX can do are google map, flickr etc. If you want to know more about AJAX click here or click here.

Surely Web 2.0 and these technologies like AJAX is really good when it comes to the user prospective. The usage of internet sites get easier and really user friendly.
Some of the site which had implemented these web 2.0 are:
http://www.gmail.com
http://del.icio.us
http://www.maps.google.com
http://www.flickr.com
.... there are lots more. and lots more to come...

Remembering the Revolutionaries

Today is March 23rd, today is the 75th anniversary of Martyrdom of Bhagat Singh, Sukh Dev & Raj Guru. On this day in 1931 these young revolutionaries were hanged in the Lahore Central Jail. I salute these brave Revolutionaries who layed life for the freedom movement of india.
Log on to: http://www.shahidbhagatsingh.org.

Google Earth unearthened !!

My exploration with this vast internet continues... Happened to encounter google map. Spend lot of time roaming arround Bangalore city through this intractive map. Discovered my room, airport, MG road, Hebbal Flyover.. and lots more

My House at Bangalore (jeevan bhima Nagar):



iflex solutions office at Bangalore :

MCAatMIT on the Cover !!

Techno Melange '06

Visit : www.manipal.edu/technomelange for more Details.

My Childhood Memoirs (Part I)

"Mittai Achappan"

This memologue dates back to sometime arround 1985-86 period. Ya i was hardly around 4 to 5 years old then. We used to leave in my father's family house at chepanool, a small agricultural village in kannur, kerala. Our house was next to the green fields and was surrounded by green, green, and green.

There was a small passage in front of our house, through which most of the villagers pass by. They have to catch this passage to go to the local tea or grocery shop. There was this old man, somewhere of the age 70-75 years old. He had made a habit of going to the tea shop every evening. He used to have a stick which helped him in walking as his back was fully bend because of his old age. Every evening after having tea from the shop, he used to buy a toffee or two just to give me. I dont know what i was for this old man. But i just remember that i used to be really happy seeing him every evening. I used to wait for him to come near the passage. I used to call him "mittai achappan" which means sweet grandfather in malayalam. Till the day we shifted ourself to the new house near to the town in 1986, he maintained this habit. But after that i rarely saw him.

Last year augest i happened to meet him, he had turned pretty weak and was unable to walk properly, ya he was somewhere near to 95 years of age now. I even went to talk to him, but he coundn't rememeber me. How could he, i have grown, i am still not the same 4 years old kid who used to wait for him for a toffee. and even he have become old.

On 10th march, when i called home, mom gave me the sad news of mittai achappan's death. I have only one regret, that i could pay back the love he had showed to me. Surprizing fact is that I dont know his real name still. For me he is my old dear mittai achappan for ever.

My Childhood Memoirs

My main intention behind keeping this blog was to jolt down those fadding memories of my childhood days which i have preserved in my mind till now. But i am really worried that these beautiful memories may be lost in transistion sometime in the future. There are lots and lots of good, some weired, some sad memories which really i dont want to forget. Hope this blog help me in this venture.

Sainathkm Merchandises

Check this website out :
http://flagrantdisregard.com/flickr/
You can do some weired stuff like those which i have made :


My unofficial flickr id :


My Billboard at Times Square:


Oh, I am on the cover of Menz Mag!!


Now huge crowd puller !!


Sainath's official calenders :


( the whole range of "sainath" merchandise collection )

Perfect shot !

My Personalized google home..