Michael D sent this bit o’ folklore last year, but I think it’s worth a re-post…

Although the origin of playing practical jokes and pranks on this day is hazy, many folklorists believe that it may date back to 16th century France. At that time, New Year’s Day was March 25, with a full week of partying and exchanging gifts lasting until April 1. In 1582, the Gregorian calendar moved New Year’s Day back to January 1. Those who forgot or refused to honor the new calendar were the butts of jokes and ridicule.

And according to weather folklore, “If it thunders on All Fools’ Day, it brings good crops of corn and hay.”

It’s also my daughter-in-law’s birthday (No fooling!) Happy birthday, Kim!

I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s April Fools’ Day posts. I guess I can come clean now; all are jokes. I will admit that the Polar Bear Conservancy had me going for a few minutes until I read some of the ridiculous statements made within.

There are quite a few more pranks posted on the Web yesterday and today; I chose only a few that I thought were pretty good or are anticipated annual jokesters. I hope none of you actually bought real estate on Mars!

Happy April Fools’ Day!

Get your checkbooks ready! Here’s one more…

According to The Polar Bear Conservancy Media Center:

The program is expected to cost $30 million U.S., or approximately $10,000 U.S. per polar bear. The Polar Bear Conservancy has raised the first $15 million from corporate donors and is seeking additional funding through industry and government partnerships.

“This innovative private program will save taxpayers dollars billions of dollars that would otherwise be wasted on unnecessary habitat protection and economically ruinous strategies designed to combat so-called climate change,” said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform.”

The first batch of polar bears will be released on the edge of the Ross Sea near emperor penguin colonies trapped by the recent movement of giant icebergs C16 and B15A. “These penguins would starve to death anyway,” said Polar Bear Conservancy staff biologist Jon Heidenberg. “Now they can provide an initial source of food for the polar bears while they acclimate to their new environment.”

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. and LONDON, England (April 1st, 2008) – Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) and Virgin Group today announced the launch of Virgle Inc., a jointly owned and operated venture dedicated to the establishment of a human settlement on Mars. …

For thousands of years,
the human race has spread out across the Earth, scaling mountains and plying the oceans, planting crops and building highways, raising skyscrapers and atmospheric CO2 levels, and observing, with tremendous and unflagging enthusiasm, the Biblical injunction to be fruitful and multiply across our world’s every last nook, cranny and subdivision.

An invitation.
Earth has issues, and it’s time humanity got started on a Plan B. So, starting in 2014, Virgin founder Richard Branson and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin will be leading hundreds of users on one of the grandest adventures in human history: Project Virgle, the first permanent human colony on Mars.

The question is, do you want to join us?
Ever yearned to journey to the stars? You can learn how to become a Virgle Pioneer, test your Pioneering potential, or join the Mission Control community that will help develop the 100 Year Plan we’ve outlined here.

Interested? Complete the questionaire to see if you’re a suitable candidata. Questions? Check the FAQs. Read the hundred year plan. More

Aviary is a suite of web-based applications for people who create. From image editing to typography to music to 3D to video, there’s a tool for artists of all genres. It’s an image editor, similar to Photoshop, but different.

The latest addition to the already popular suite is Dodo, a web-based time machine. Still in Beta, it does some amazing things sure to impress creative professionals.

According to the Web site, the application will allow you to age and de-age people, places and things from any browser with Flash 9 enabled, and is incredibly simple to use: Just upload an input picture, choose between different settings that might affect the aging process (i.e. amounts of alcohol and tobacco consumed), set a year and hit “generate”.

Aviary sees a market opportunity across several mediums beyond graphic design, from tracking down long missing children, to determining if a girlfriend will end up looking like her mother.

To access Dodo, sign up for an Aviary account at http://a.viary.com. If you already have an account, log out and back in to see it appear in your tool list.

To see Dodo in action, watch the video demo below.

Aviary won’t disclose the technology that makes all this possible, but we believe it’s akin to magic considering the timing of the launch.

Google Australia has announced today the launch of gDay, a new search engine that allows users to search a day in advance of real time:

Google spiders crawl publicly available web information and our index of historic, cached web content. Using a mashup of numerous factors such as recurrence plots, fuzzy measure analysis, online betting odds and the weather forecast from the iGoogle weather gadget, we can create a sophisticated model of what the internet will look like 24 hours from now.

We can use this technique to predict almost anything on the web – tomorrow’s share price movements, sports results or news events. Plus, using language regression analysis, Google can even predict the actual wording of blogs and newspaper columns, 24 hours before they’re written!

To rank these future pages in order of relevance, gDay™ uses a statistical extrapolation of a page’s future PageRank, called SageRank.

The core technology that powers gDay™ is MATE™ (Machine Automated Temporal Extrapolation).

Well, another successful Earth Hour. For those of you that participated, I’m sure the glow from knowing you did your part to save the planet lasted all weekend. Today, you’ll have to restart your computers, reset clocks and get back to your real life. I’ll bet you can hardly wait to do it again next year!

For those of you in the dark about why the lights went out for an hour on the Golden Gate Bridge and many buildings Saturday night, it was the second annual grand gesture to raise awareness of global warming climate change. Our office building was one of those that went dark for an hour to demonstrate support, and we turned off everything in our office except the AS/400 which I suspect would have burned more power to restart than letting it idle for the hour. I’m sure you saw it on the news and wished you’d participated. You’ll have to wait until next year to get that “green all over” feeling.

Or will you? What if you turn everything off for an hour tonight? Oh, you won’t get any recognition from your peers for “caring” but you’ll know, deep in your heart of hearts, that you, too, helped save the world from global warming climate change.

What’s that? It only counts if your fellow greenies know you were on the front lines? Oh, yeah. Well, next year, right? See ya’ there.

Here are a few of the things that slipped through the proverbial cracks this week but are still worth mentioning:

TechCrunch has two separate reader reports of a phishing scam targeting Facebook users. The scam involves a notice appearing on the wall of user profiles as a message from a friend saying, “Hey, I got a new facebook account. I’m going to delete this one, so add my new profile…” with a link that appears to direct to the new profile but actually directs to a URL on view-facebookprofiles.com, a domain registered (and whois protected) on Namecheap and hosted at Softlayer that looks identical to the Facebook login page. Users fooled into resubmitting their Facebook details on this page then have their Facebook accounts hijacked and all of their contacts receive a similar message, propagating the phishing scam. It’s not yet clear what the phishing scammers are planning on using the compromised accounts for or how far it has spread, but beware…

Adobe has launched a basic version of Adobe Photoshop available for free online. Photoshop Express will be completely Web-based so consumers can use it with any type of computer, operating system and browser. According to Yahoo! News, Adobe says providing Photoshop Express for free is part marketing and part a strategy to create up-sell opportunities. It hopes some customers will move from it to boxed software like its $99 Photoshop Elements or to a subscription-based version of Express that’s in the works. More…

Remember Apple’s Newton? It brought handwriting recognition to hand held computing years ago but never quite found its niche market. Well, Apple’s kept its patents viable and now seems poised to reintroduce it for Mac OSX, other applications and the iPhone according to a report by Arnold Kim for Mac Rumors. “Apple has started hiring for a new Handwriting Recognition Engineer. The job description specifically seeks someone who would be responsible for ‘advancing Apple’s handwriting recognition technology for Mac OS X’ and ‘to other applications and the iPhone.’”…

There you have it. I’ve cleared my desk and I’m taking the rest of the week off.

Apparently, if we’re to believe a new study from Germany.

The study by Hamburg Sex Researcher Professor Dr Werner Habermehl looked at the sex lives of hundreds of German women and compared them with their hair color. “The sex lives of women with red hair were clearly more active than those with other hair color, with more partners and having sex more often than the average. The research shows that the fiery redhead certainly lives up to her reputation,” he says.

According to Habermehl, women who dyed their hair red from another color were signaling they were looking for a partner, and added, “Even women in a fixed relationship are letting their partners know they are unhappy if they dye their hair red. They are saying that they are looking for something better.”

Psychologist Christine Baumanns notes, however, that it may not [have been] the women who were to blame for the better sex lives of redheads. “Red stands for passion and when a man sees a redhead he will think he is dealing with a woman who won’t mess around, and gets straight to the point when it comes to sex.”

Don’t you just love studies like this? I often wonder what drives someone to embark on such a “study”. And what is the intended benefit to humanity? Perhaps the good doctor was trying to help German men narrow their hunt for “hot” German women. I’m still wondering.

Of all their long experience, National Geographic Explorers-in-Residence Dereck and Beverly Joubert consider their two years with the lions of Duba the most exciting, important research they have done. The internationally acclaimed naturalists and cinematographers produced Relentless Enemies: Lions and Buffalo, a companion volume to their National Geographic film, providing an unforgettable once-in-a-lifetime glimpse of the world’s most awe-inspiring hunters, the lethal and beautiful lions of Duba.

The rich surroundings and unique environment of the Okavango River Delta have morphed these lions into huge, thick-necked beasts. Far more aggressive and dangerous than their cousins on the Serengeti, they defy what we thought we knew about big cats. They are larger, more fearsome and more innovative than your typical lion, and of necessity they have learned to hunt places big cats normally avoid.

Trapped on an island only five years old with these giant killers are thousands of cape buffalo, forced to develop their own strategies for survival.

The book is illustrated with 100 amazing photographs of the lions in Botswana’s Duba Plains and their long, lethal relationship with the region’s buffalo. “The back-and-forth interplay between two of Africa’s giants is eternal, harsh, and at the same time quite beautiful and essential,” writes Dereck Joubert, who provided the text for the book. Beverly contributed the 100 vivid, gripping images.

A great read for wildlife photographers and enthusiasts. Truth be told, if I could have my “dream job,” this would be it.

In the wake of the pop psychology gabfest spawned by the ever-evolving sex scandals of the New York governor’s office, and with every other conversation having something to do with hookers or managing to incorporate cheesy innuendo about “Client 9,” Los Angeles Times columnist Meghan Daum writes that she’s “still not entirely clear as to what we’re supposed to take away from this.” She concludes in her well written March 22 article, “No wonder we keep searching for meaning in a story whose real meaning is something we don’t exactly want to know.”

I disagree. I think we not only want to know, we want to clean up the mess and elect a better, more morally grounded class of officials. Trouble is, we feel helpless to stem the polluted tide of politicians from which we are allowed to choose. In our frustration, we sooth our disappointment with humor. We lick our wounds and try to laugh about the elephant in the room we feel powerless to get to leave.

A follow-up photo album of 44 images taken during our getaway to Stinson Beach with friends Michael & Sisko and Candy & Rob. All were taken with the Nikon D2Xs and Canon Digital Elph pocket cameras. Although Dawn was a little under the weather, this was one of the most relaxing getaways we’ve enjoyed. Heartfelt thanks to Sisko and Michael for making it possible.    (See also Part 2 and Part 1).

Oil surged to a record near $112 a barrel last week. The net effect was a whopping $88 fill-up for my Range Rover! And I’m not alone; big SUVs are prevalent in our area and, although El Dorado Hills’ residents may have a little more pocket change than some in the region, pump prices are definitely affecting local dating habits. Dinner and a movie? I’ll pick you up at eight. But a day-trip to the Bay area? How ‘bout we take your Honda, honey…

I took an informal survey at the pump last week and found a mixed bag; about half the guys filling their SUVs admitted to driving their wives’ or girlfriends’ cars on longer trips. The rest either said they wouldn’t let the price of petrol dictate their driving habits, or that they would have to do “something” if prices didn’t drop soon.

I suspect the majority are in pain. Or denial.

I got this last year from Davey but misplaced it. I stumbled upon it again this morning so, before I lose it again…

Dear Walter:

I hope you can help me here. The other day I set off for work leaving my husband in the house watching the TV as usual. I hadn’t gone more than a few hundred yards down the road when my engine conked out and the car shuddered to a halt. I walked back home to get my husband’s help. When I arrived there, I couldn’t believe my eyes. He was parading in front of the wardrobe mirror dressed in my underwear and high-heel shoes, and wearing my make-up.

I am 32, my husband is 34, and we have been married for twelve years. When I confronted him, he tried to make out that he had dressed in my lingerie because he couldn’t find his own underwear, but when I asked him about the make-up, he broke down and admitted that he’d been wearing my clothes for six months. I told him to stop or I would leave him. He was let go from his job six months ago, and he says he has been feeling increasingly depressed and worthless. I love him very much, but ever since I gave him the ultimatum he has become increasingly distant. I don’t feel I can get through to him anymore. Can you please help?

Sheila

Dear Sheila:

A car stalling after being driven a short distance can be caused by a variety of faults with the engine. Start by checking that there is no debris in the fuel line. If it is clear, check the jubilee clips holding the vacuum pipes onto the inlet manifold. If none of these approaches solves the problem, it could be that the fuel pump itself is faulty, causing low delivery pressure to the carburetor float chamber.

I hope this helps.

Walter

My wonderful wife, Dawn, often challenges me with questions I usually try to answer off the top of my head. But if my answer fails to satisfy her, she assigns me the task of finding the “real” answer and getting back to her. Such was her question about the origins of the Easter Bunny and its colored eggs since, we all know, rabbits don’t lay eggs and the whole Easter Bunny thing isn’t even mentioned in the scriptures. Well, I’ve put it off for as long as I can. Easter is this Sunday and I was reminded that the question is still “out there.” So I did some cursory research and here’s what I learned.

The answer lies in the ingenious way that the Christian church absorbed pagan practices. After discovering that people were more reluctant to give up their holidays and festivals than their pagan gods, the church simply incorporated pagan practices into Christian celebrations. As recounted by the Venerable Bede, an early Benedictine monk, clever clerics copied pagan practices and by doing so, made Christianity more palatable to pagan folk reluctant to give up their festivals for somber Christian practices.

In second century Europe, the predominate spring festival was a raucous Saxon fertility celebration in honor of the goddess Eostre (Ostara), whose sacred animal (or consort, depending on which version you choose to believe) was a hare. One story holds that Eostre hurled the hare into the heavens after giving it the power, once a year, to lay colored eggs. Another popular piece of folklore is that Eostre once saved a bird whose wings had frozen during the winter by turning it into a hare. Because the hare had once been a bird, it could still lay eggs, and eventually became the modern Easter Bunny.

But the eggs associated with the hare also have another, even more ancient, origin — The eggs associated with this and other vernal festivals have been symbols of rebirth and fertility for so long, the precise roots of the tradition are unknown and may date to the beginning of human civilization. We know, for instance, that ancient Romans and Greeks used eggs as symbols of fertility, rebirth, and abundance.

And eggs were solar symbols that figured in the festivals of numerous resurrected gods. Pagan fertility festivals at the time of the spring equinox were common and it was believed that, when day and night were of equal length, male and female energies were also in balance, hence the connection to fertility. In this context, the hare was often associated with moon goddesses; the egg and hare together represented, respectively, the god and goddess.

Moving forward fifteen hundred or so years, German children awaited the arrival of Oschter Haws, a hare who laid colored eggs in nests made from children’s caps and bonnets to the delight of those who discovered them Easter morning. Abandoned plover nests found in the spring were said to have been those of Oschter Haws in which he laid his colored eggs. It was this German tradition that popularized the Easter Bunny and Easter basket in America when introduced into American culture by German settlers in Pennsylvania.

Many modern practitioners of neopagan and earth-based religions have embraced these symbols as part of their religious practices, identifying with the life-affirming aspects of the spring holiday. The neopagan holiday of Ostara, for example, is descended from the Saxon festival. Ironically, some Christian groups have used the presence of these symbols to denounce the celebration of the Easter holiday and many churches have abandoned the pagan moniker in favor of more Christian oriented titles like “Resurrection Sunday.”

So there you have it, Dawn. I hope this gets me off the hook on this one so I can move ahead with some of your more recent “questions.”

This was submitted by Cindy in Schaumburg…

Now, before you start telling me this is a product of photo manipulation, I checked it on snopes and it is, in fact, a breed of rabbit called a German Giant (how appropriate!). “Herman” weighs 22 pounds and stands a little over 3 feet on his hind legs! And look at those feet!

German breeder Hans Wagner, struggling to hold him for a New York Post article, says, “We don’t feed him an unusual diet. He goes through more than his brothers and sisters, but he eats the same food mix. His favorite food is actually lettuce. He can never get enough of it.”

And you thought the Easter Bunny was folklore!