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Ichthyology in April (3/30/99)
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Check it out-- it's a gold mine! The Mac Man has an exclusive peek into many of Apple's future plans, straight from the mouth of Fred Johnson, a soon-to-be ex-Apple employee with a better job offer trying to get fired for leaking news so that he can reap severance benefits before moving on to his new position. It's all there, folks-- details about Apple's new marketing campaign ("Do the Evolution"), specs of upcoming iMacs (300 MHz G3, 64 MB of RAM, a 16" screen, DVD-ROM, ATI RAGE 128 graphics, and on-board FireWire all for $1299), the skinny on the P1 (and its wireless clip-on modem option), hints about the cobranded MacMate handheld (OEM'ed from Palm), and great news about future professional-level offerings. What a windfall! Praise be to Fred Johnson for breaking the silence!
Except, of course, that it was posted just a few days before April, which should set off a few alarm bells. If you didn't go off half-cocked and took the time to read the "explanation article" linked to at the bottom of the page, you read that the whole thing was an early April Fool's joke. There is no Fred Johnson at Apple, and if that name rings a bell, it's because "Fred Johnson" was the name used in the fake email sent to Apple Recon a while back "confirming" hand-cranked P1's. The same guy wrote both hoaxes. And he also got Mac OS Rumors to post details on Mac OS X. What a busy little beaver he is. He claims he's not out to "mislead people," but he writes hoaxes that he wishes were true in the hope that it will somehow push Apple to make his dreams a reality.
The moral of the story, of course, is that keeping a watchful eye out for pranks and hoaxes on April 1st alone is never sufficient. We at AtAT recommend that a reasonable period to keep an eye peeled for April Fool's jokes begins around, say, late January and runs until about the middle of August. Chalk it all up to commercialism-- between the greeting card industry raking in millions on April Fool's cards and stores trying to maximize their revenue due to the rampant buying of April Fool's gifts, we're just seeing another sacred celebration inherit "holiday creep," that dread syndrome which is responsible for mall Christmas decorations going up in October. Sigh... Whatever happened to the true meaning of April Fool's Day? Do we need Linus to explain it all to us again after the April Fool's play?
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SceneLink (1431)
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And Now For A Word From Our Sponsors |
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 3/30/99 episode: March 30, 1999: Beware-- the April Fool's hoaxes are starting early this year. Meanwhile, a story surfaces about a possible shipment of 50,000 Grape iMacs, and BMUG closes its office, marking the end of an era...
Other scenes from that episode: 1432: An Image For The Ages (3/30/99) Prepare for a purple flood of biblical proportions. Earlier on Tuesday NoBeige had posted that "Apple reportedly just received a large shipment" of iMacs from the manufacturing plants. How large? Try 50,000 large... 1433: Evolve Or Perish (3/30/99) It's the end of an era: the Berkeley Mac Users Group (BMUG), one of the largest Mac users groups in existence, just closed their office. In a letter to members, they cite the reason to be falling membership renewals and their resulting inability to afford the office space...
Or view the entire episode as originally broadcast... | |  |
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