Life In 19x19
http://www.lifein19x19.com/

April Fools' Day Prank at Work
http://www.lifein19x19.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=11662		 Page 1 of 2
Author:  Kirby [ Wed Apr 01, 2015 11:51 am ]
Post subject:  April Fools' Day Prank at Work
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:
Email wrote:
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.

Image

---

[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.
Author:  EdLee [ Wed Apr 01, 2015 1:05 pm ]
Post subject: 
4-1, John Oliver
Author:  DrStraw [ Wed Apr 01, 2015 2:40 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: April Fools' Day Prank at Work
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.
Author:  Kirby [ Wed Apr 01, 2015 3:39 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: April Fools' Day Prank at Work
EdLee wrote:
4-1, John Oliver
DrStraw wrote:
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 :-)
Author:  DrStraw [ Wed Apr 01, 2015 4:08 pm ]
Post subject:  Re:
EdLee wrote:
4-1, John Oliver


Okay, I get the 4-1, althought it won't work in Britain. But what is John Oliver?
Author:  oren [ Wed Apr 01, 2015 4:13 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Re:
DrStraw wrote:

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
Author:  Bonobo [ Wed Apr 01, 2015 4:37 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Re:
DrStraw wrote:
EdLee wrote:
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 :oops:
Author:  Boidhre [ Wed Apr 01, 2015 4:39 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Re:
Bonobo wrote:
DrStraw wrote:
EdLee wrote:
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 :oops:


Because it means the 4th of January (not that you'd write a date with a "-" but anyway) not April 1st. ;)
Author:  DrStraw [ Wed Apr 01, 2015 5:41 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Re:
oren wrote:
DrStraw wrote:

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.
Author:  oren [ Wed Apr 01, 2015 6:29 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Re:
DrStraw wrote:

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


Click on the link in EdLee's post.
Author:  Bonobo [ Wed Apr 01, 2015 7:13 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Re:
Boidhre wrote:
Bonobo wrote:
DrStraw wrote:
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 :oops:


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)
Author:  Boidhre [ Wed Apr 01, 2015 8:15 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Re:
Bonobo wrote:
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.
Author:  EdLee [ Wed Apr 01, 2015 9:45 pm ]
Post subject: 
Boidhre wrote:
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]
Author:  tj86430 [ Wed Apr 01, 2015 10:05 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: April Fools' Day Prank at Work
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.
Author:  EdLee [ Wed Apr 01, 2015 10:30 pm ]
Post subject: 
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]
Author:  Nyanjilla [ Thu Apr 02, 2015 2:31 am ]
Post subject:  Re: April Fools' Day Prank at Work
While I was living in Japan, where addresses and dates are big-endian, I started writing dates in YY/MM/DD format (but not with the Japanese year numbering).

It makes it easier to sort files on the computer too.

Otherwise I write the month, such as 2 Apr 2015
Author:  EdLee [ Thu Apr 02, 2015 2:57 am ]
Post subject: 
Nyanjilla wrote:
addresses and dates are big-endian
I haven't thought about or heard of the terms big- and little- endians for over 10 years. :) Thanks.

( From how data is stored in computer memory. :) )
Author:  Nyanjilla [ Thu Apr 02, 2015 3:07 am ]
Post subject:  Re:
EdLee wrote:
Nyanjilla wrote:
addresses and dates are big-endian
I haven't thought about or heard of the terms big- and little- endians for over 10 years. :) Thanks.

( From how data is stored in computer memory. :) )


The term is much older... I was brought up on the classics, which is why debates on how dates *should* be written seem so familiar, except that there was no "middle-endian" faction originally.
Author:  EdLee [ Thu Apr 02, 2015 3:37 am ]
Post subject: 
The wonderful things one can learn from Go venues. :)

Endianness
Author:  Boidhre [ Thu Apr 02, 2015 5:29 am ]
Post subject:  Re:
EdLee wrote:
Boidhre wrote:
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]


That would always be March 2nd 2004 here, unless given the context you suspected March 2nd 1904. ;)

Actually using the 4 digit format for the year became a lot, lot more common here after 1999. A lot of people felt 1/1/00 looked weird.
Page 1 of 2 All times are UTC - 8 hours [ DST ]
Powered by phpBB © 2000, 2002, 2005, 2007 phpBB Group
http://www.phpbb.com/