valleywag

As usual, my list of April Fools that I saw today:

Google’s Project Virgle the first permanent human colony on Mars.
Google’s Gmail Custom Time lets you choose when to send mail. Never be late again.
Google’s gDay™ with Mate™ lets you search content on the internet before it’s created.
Google Talk to convert conversations to IM speak on Earth Day. Bot available for practice.
Massive YouTube RickRoll via user “YTRickRollsYou“. Should note embeds are disabled on the real video for whatever reason. This one is still available.
Build your own Google Airplane.
CNET says everyone’s favorite public speaker Mark Zuckerberg will be on Saturday Night Live, TechCrunch acquires Tiger Beat, will rename it CrunchKids, Flying Spaghetti Monster statue at Tennessee courthouse.
Lenovo reveals ThinkPad Mr. Coffee Edition.
Gizmodo decided to put Mr. T on every post.
Mozilla about:mozilla newsletter for April 1. Featuring Toronto’s CN Tower office.
ThinkGeek has several products including the usb pregency test, Super Pii Pii Brothers and Defendius Labyrinth Security Lock.
XFire PWN3D their homepage. 1337! OMGZERGRUSH!!!KEKEKEKEKEKEKEKEKEKE
The BBC made penguins fly [Video].
ESPN Deathmatch coverage.
The Register: Comcast acquires BitTorrent for $53 billion.
macosxhints.com goes OS 9.
TechCrunch sues Facebook.
Amazon’s Dog Computer Interface.
Matt Cutts gets a Firefox tattoo on the back of his neck.

Does that title accurately describe open source? Via Valleywag I found this blog post from Psychology Today which I’d recommend reading. This is really the most interesting part:

First, there’s street cred: People want to garner approval from their peers and build their reputation. Second, there’s self-actualization: Working on these projects is enjoyable in and of itself, and it also provides the opportunities to practice your skills, collect feedback, and grow as a geek. Third, there’s pure altruism: Let’s save the world, one squashed bug or “[citation needed]” at a time.

Interesting stuff. I definitely fall in the “practice your skills, collect feedback, and grow as a geek” category.

Also noteworthy: 97.8 percent of open source programmers are male. Like there was any surprise that it’s somewhat of a sausage fest on #developers. Anyone ever check the ratio on about:credits? Come up with an automated way to do that’s licensed under MPL/GPL/LGPL and you’ll earn some serious street cred not to mention save the world and practice your text analysis skills.

I guess this is even more extreme than the Dave-to-Girl ratio.