April 1, 2002

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April 1, 2002 was an April Fool's Day falling on a Monday. Hoaxes for this year included:

• The Register: reported AOL buying up weblogs (AOL actually later bought Weblogs, Inc.)
• The Open Directory Project re-brands itself as the 'Microsoft Directory Project' (screen shot)
• Kuro5hin acquired MetaFilter, renaming it to met4filter.org
• Slashdot announced that it would start posting advertiser-sponsored news stories, and disable anonymous posting.
• Electronic Gaming Monthly said Sonic and Tails were playable characters in Super Smash Bros. Melee
• Google described its PigeonRank system.
• The Guardian profiled Harmony Cousins
• CPAN renamed itself the 'Comprehensive Java Archive Network'
• The annual spoof Linus Torvalds post on the Linux kernel mailing list announced his resignation from the Linux effort
• IETF published April 1st RFCs RFC3251 (Distribution of electricity over IP) and RFC3252 (Encapsulating IP in XML).
• MIT changed its home page to a spoof of the Google home page.
• a spoof Yahoo News story was circulated stating that PK Interactive had received funding from idealab! [1] (note: check the URL above closely)
• The TidBITS newsletter offered a spoof issue
• The Tom's Hardware website reported that AMD and nVIDIA were to merge.
• The BBC reported more April Fools' pranks including the announced 'floatation' of Harrods.
• CNN reported that two Montreal disk jockeys managed to phone Bill Gates on the pretext that one of them was Canadian prime minister Jean Chrétien wanting to set up a meeting with Gates. What CNN didn't mention is that these two have a reputation for their audacious prank calls. Previous recipients of their attention have included Queen Elizabeth II and Pope John Paul II.^{Confirmation needed}
• Blizzard Entertainment, the computer game company that produced Warcraft III, announced they would be adding a fifth playable race to the game: the Pandaren, a race of bamboo-eating, sword-wielding warriors (later, one Pandaren character was actually added).
• Anime Boston announced that Samuel Adams and Paul Revere would be guests at Anime Boston 2003.