Not a bar, but plays one on TV

12:34 AM

@Ash 11/22/63 starts in modern-day Maine, where a professor of writing (I think) has befriended the local diner/dive's owner/chef.

Claims they make the worlds best $3 hamburgers.

Turns out (chapter 2 spoilers ahead) that the diner is built over a wormhole and if the owner crawls through the hatch in the bottom of his walk-in he pops out in some other town in 1963.

So the owner does all his meat shopping back then, getting all the high-quality stuff he can carry at 1963 prices.

Your pantry-wormhole reminded me of it.

(Works out much better for the diner owner than the professor, who decides he should go back and prevent Kennedy's assassination.)

user15026

12:46 AM

giggles Maybe that's how a local diner makes such good burgers too....it would explain so much

trogdor

2:00 AM

That is admittedly a pretty cool idea

Derpy

8:30 AM

@BESW .....you may want to have a look at these questions:

49

Q: What testing is done on 'April Fool' pranks?

So, we have just had an 'April Fools' jape that activated on 31st March for many people wan't capable of being disabled site-wide (although this has been fixed) isn't capable of being disabled network-wide (or even better account-wide) presented a design (colours, moving marquee, random sparkle...

8

Q: Why was the decision made to make the 2019 April Fool's joke immediately activate?

As far as I recall, every April Fool's prank that SE has made in recent years prior to this year has been non-intrusive, only showing up as a minor sidebar while not affecting the site's design much. However, this year, the Time Travel Mode prank made drastic, intrusive changes to a site's desig...

support april-fools time-travel-mode

24

Q: Please don't repeat such an intrusive "full design" April's Fools in the years to come

TL,DR: this year's April's fools could be a source of confusion, or worse, in certain workplaces. Please stick to less intrusive stuff. Very related: Why was the decision made to make the 2019 April Fool's joke immediately activate?, but this asks about the "why", and is not a feature request ...

feature-request design april-fools

as you foresaw, seems the robot was forgotten once again

BESW

And I have to de-activate it per-site.

Because I opened three background tabs and then clicked into them, I had to de-activate the "prank" on meta and then refresh both the other tabs too.

> Our safety value was the ability to turn the feature off with a button click. Not only does that mitigate the performance and usability concerns, it also give April Fools grouches an option to avoid the whole thing.

Yuuup that is everything in a nutshell.

trogdor

lol

yes we are "april fools grouches"

BESW

That's Not Very Nice.

Derpy

@BESW may be better. I suspect the thing uses a cookie. Since I block all cookies and have exceptions just for the ones used by SE to log me in....

BESW

@Derpy ...brilliant.

Derpy

8:45 AM

every time I switch to a new page the thing keeps returning.

BESW

trogdor

for some reason that right there is reminding me of baba is you

BESW

The "Back to the future!" message that's sometimes displayed regarding this prank says "If you want to switch to the current site, you'll find the option here", however I can't find where "here" is to turn the formatting off. Does anyone know how/where to do this, as I find it very annoying. — martineau 15 hours ago

TURNING OFF AN OPTION REQUIRES SYSTEM MASTERY NO MATTER HOW MINOR.

trogdor

yep

I almost didn't find it myself

Derpy

and I have the weird idea that they are still tweaking the thing

BESW

8:48 AM

They've been told straight-up how to fix it.

It's basic ethical programming design and consent culture that shouldn't need to be explained, but it's been explained.

Derpy

been doing some testing, seems it can now activate only on question pages?!?

@BESW I meant that they are still adding to the mess by moving thing around and keeping changing how the "joke" works

now apparently it stays closed even for me.

BESW

Yeah, despite being handed a straightforward solution on a platter.

So much for the welcoming Stack.

Derpy

Welcoming?

trogdor

they released a post about being more welcoming in the future

BESW

"Stack Overflow Isn’t Very Welcoming. It’s Time for That to Change."

trogdor

8:52 AM

yep

that

BESW

On reflection, they should've published that article 25 days earlier.

Derpy

sorry, that message was incomplete. Pressed "Return" at the wrong time

I meant they don't seem to try to be very welcoming with the joke.

BESW

Yes, exactly.

Derpy

We have crossed the line from "we love unicorns because we know fairy tales aren't just for kids" and moved into "look! unicorns lovers! losers! So 90'! "

BESW

...That's a good point, actually. It's also a mean prank because it's making fun of people doing an amateur hobby with passion.

"Hahahah remember when people made websites about stuff they liked without being roped into using ad-driven professional templates?"

This robot doesn't even have legs.

Fools joke from a design magazine I follow: "Adobe Launches All-in-One Creative App, InDillushop/XD, Replacing Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign." It's not funny if you're just trying to predict the next quarter's business announcement.

Derpy

9:06 AM

@BESW I kinda liked the FedEx Express package Mimic I already linked in the other room (if you missed it, link here on think geek )

Derpy

9:40 AM

@BESW so.... I found this in a reply:

> This particular prank is intended to look like a monstrosity from the late 90s built by someone with just enough knowledge of DHTML to be dangerous.

BESW

Yup, that's what I was referring to.

Derpy

I am thinking I could sacrifice some rep (because I already know this is a recipe for downvotes) and post a question on meta with a title like "Is the April Fool joke welcoming?"

just to see how people react.

BESW

But more damning than their motives is their apparent refusal to listen to reasonable criticism, and instead just double down.

@Derpy I would upvote that.

(Did you notice that the same post says "I want to address the concern that this prank will cause permanent harm," but nobody else on the whole page has said "permanent harm"?)

Harm doesn't have to Eternal, UnEnding, and Immutable to be worth trying to avoid, mitigate, and rectify.

Derpy

@BESW ... let's just say that I have seen "reductio ad ridiculum" been used a lot on Meta

@BESW that wasn't even a point. That line is there just to make people who protest look bad because "they are protesting for something that isn't permanent and is just a joke for today"

and.....

@ChristianRau: We can live with a day (or rather 2) of meta complaints, but I do think we need to formalize toggling April Fools and Hats since we do this every year. — Jon Ericson ♦ 11 hours ago

at least someone seems to realize.

BESW

I mean... if a day or two of complaints is your metric for success and not a sign that you need to re-examine your priorities...

"We're gonna do a totally unnecessary thing because we think it's fun, despite knowing it's gonna make a lot of people unhappy."

BESW

10:07 AM

Urrgh there's "But it furthers the Discourse" now.

"Oh, I did the bad thing to make you think." [eyeroll] That's no less condescending and paternal as an April Fool defense than when it's used to justify Doing A Racism or playing the devil's advocate.

Okay, I need to walk away from that Fragility Cluster.

dopp3Lgr33n3r

10:34 AM

Yes, I think so. They did make mistakes, but picking things apart like this isn't going anywhere pleasant for anybody.

Derpy

10:57 AM

@BESW see above, sadly I have seen the condescending practice of making fun of users for actually arguing over something been used a lot lately.

Also, in a somehow funny twist of coincidence, Honda April Fool day prank also involves a "back to the '90s" theme.

Introducing the Honda Pastport: The '90s Inspired Trim for the new 2019 Passport

►

and know what... it's actually pretty decent (at least because it doesn't seem to be making fun of anyone - just making fun of "ancient" tech)

Derpy

12:24 PM

@BESW I am going to post that question. Will probably end up losing a lot of rep I fear... but it doesn't matter. Anyway, can I ask you a favor?

This is the core of the message.

> The problem is that right now the design doesn't look a parody of the '90s. It seems more like a very close mind stereotypical mockery of a "little girl who loves cupcakes, glitter and unicorns blog". Someone who probably even today lacks the experience to see why that design could be considered bad (at least when accessibility is involved). Someone that maybe even likes it. Seems almost an embodiment of the "girls have cooties" mindset.

So, suddenly, we are no longer making fun of a time period. We are making fun of people *that aren't as good as us , who can't see their errors, are "da…

do you think it sounds too harsh? I have tried to avoid making it sound like an attack at anybody, but since I know it will be very controversial, I could use some advice.

BESW

I'd pull back on the speculation about the "someone."

Stick with the obvious facts and stated context, it's damning enough without spinning inferences.

Derpy

which speculation you mean? The "Someone who probably even today lacks the experience to see why that design could be considered bad"?

BESW

Is "little girl who loves cupcakes, glitter and unicorns blog" a quote from something?

Derpy

@BESW nope.

BESW

I don't see any cupcakes or unicorns.

Derpy

12:31 PM

there is an unicorn

you only get to notice it if your resolution is high enough

the site at least is still responsive so the unicorn is hidden at lower screen sizes

but it is there

BESW

Ah. I keep my resolution lower so I don't have to change all the fonts in every program to remain readable at a comfortable distance.

But yeah, let's avoid the "little girl" "cupcakes" stuff.

Derpy

I meant that the layout does seem a mockery of a "girl blog" instead of a mockery of a '90s site.

pink, glittering mouse cursor, unicorns etc.

BESW

It's plenty to point out that it's "intended to look like a monstrosity from the late 90s built by someone with just enough knowledge of DHTML to be dangerous" and that is not a victimless prank because those are real people who still exist. You can mention that it seems to have a specifically anti-female-programmer undertone but don't hinge your thesis on it.

Personally I think it's more concerning that they think opt-out is an appropriate level of accessibility accommodation.

(I'm willing to bet that a lot of Stack users my age got their start fiddling with Geocities code, too, but that's also tangential.)

Because honestly that's what they've depicted: an enthusiastic amateur first discovering the joy of web design. And apparently that's monstrous.

(If I were going to depict a late-90s personal website, it'd be dark grey with drippy red fonts and badly-edged gifs of torches. But that's probably too close to home for the target demographic.)

Derpy

12:59 PM

something like this?

> The problem is that right now the design doesn't look a parody of the '90s, not just an innocent parody of a time period. To my eyes it come out more of a joke at "someone with just enough knowledge of DHTML to be dangerous": so, instead of joking about the past, we are now apparently making fun of real people who still exist today. The "monster" as it was called does not appear like a anachronistic out-of-place reminder from a forgotten past - instead it just look like an enthusiastic amateur first discovering the joy of web design. And apparently that's something to be ashamed of (and …

BESW

Much better, I think. The "why is this funny and is it at someone's expense" comes through more clearly.

Urgh, it's just a nesting doll of smugness.

Derpy

Thanks.

here goes nothing... Should probably say a final goodbye to my rep points I guess ^_^'

BESW

1:14 PM

Ahahah. Good luck!

Derpy

1:28 PM

@BESW I will just keep pretending this year April Fool "toy" was the knitting game on the winter bash site (which still works by the way, did a Lum out of it)

BESW

Thank you for making the post.

Derpy

@BESW Thank you for reviewing it. :P

and indirectly, thank you for posting that card.

It made me google for Isaac's Fool card and I just noticed something I never realized before.

BESW

Aurelio Voltaire - This Ship's Going Down (OFFICIAL)

►

Derpy

The card "The Fool" is actually Isaac closing himself in a box while his mother looks for him.

Another confirmation that BoI is about closing yourself in an imaginary world.

@BESW And now I need to listen to "The beast of Pirate's Bay" again

BESW

I have no idea what that's referring to. Some video game thing, I assume.

Why is Steven Universe holding a cleaver?

Derpy

1:36 PM

@BESW Yep. It is a pretty odd videogame to be fair. On the surface, the tale of a kid that was going to be sacrificed by his mother "because God said so". In reality it is a kinda of metaphor of the damage fanaticism can do on the mind of a child.

If you look at some hint spread thru the game it is pretty clear that all the story is being made up by the titolar Isaac who probably only thinks his mother is mad at him because of some problems his family must have faced (a dead sister? a missing father? it is pretty unclear)

so in the end Isaac closes in a box, both physically and mentally...

and it is implied he probably dies there.

the game has a lot of multiple ending, but in a way all of them portrait a progressing losing of grasp on reality.

BESW

How nice.

Derpy

It is odd - I already noticed that the tarot card "The Suicide King" is a sad reference to that.

Both because it is suicide, and it is somehow implied that was what Isaac was trying to do in the box, both because it kills you and ends the game while displaying the line "The only real ending"

If you accept the metaphor that the game is indeed Isaac refusing reality and escaping to a world where he is a sinner that has to be sacrificed, it does indeed reads as "the only way to save Isaac is to exit the box and not playing his game"

user15026

Yep, it's one of those games I can't play because I watched the intro bits and literally had to go throw up because the implications were too much.

user15026

I understand a lot of people like it, but it's...a very odd choice.

Derpy

@Ash I know, it is pretty hard to digest. The original developer even stated he choose the "toon" art style because I knew it was heavy enough that way and having realistic graphics would have been too much.

user15026

1:49 PM

Yeah, it doesn't need realism on top of it all.

Derpy

on an unrelated notice, finally the downvotes are starting to come in. I was kinda worried I wouldn't get any with that first @BESW upvote and all :P

user15026

I liked the post, it was making good points.

BESW

[rolls eyes at defensive posts]

It was presented as monstrous and dangerous. That's not trivial, and the concern is not exaggerated.

They made the mountain, they don't get to claim it's a molehill.

user15026

I am tired of the "oh you hate fun" responses. No, you happened to use colours that are literally painful to me. So much so that I missed the notification of where to turn it off the first time I saw it and was so stressed until I figured it out.

BESW

Right up until people start pointing out its problems, all the language of the joke was otherising rather than "this is about us."

@Ash And yeah, this is the most important part.

user15026

2:00 PM

But I don't know how to explain that in a way anyone will listen because other people are also saying the thing and getting shot down and argued with and ignored

BESW

Consent. Opt-in rather than opt-out.

user15026

But it's just a joke for one daaaaaaaay sigh

BESW

Two days. Of literal pain for you.

Jokes should not hurt.

user15026

But they do (I realized much too late that my lingering headache was due to the site)

BESW

Welp, I downvoted my meta rep below 100 and now my downvotes aren't registering anymore.

user15026

2:05 PM

So...i will use Arqade (got it turned off there at least) today as I moderate it and kinda need to and the rest of the network can just...not exist.

Derpy

@BESW not conforming enough, sorry, your voice privilege has been retracted.

user15026

I just made a series of grumpy tweets instead, because maybe that will be heard.

BESW

I have rebelled myself into irr🐘🐘!

user15026

@BESW took me a second to figure out why two elephants

BESW

@Ash Apparently "people on Twitter like it" is a popular defense, so...

user15026

2:07 PM

Well this people does not. This people is quite mad.

user15026

(mind you today is a very low spoon day apparently so I have that going for me too)

Derpy

@BESW at least until April notices... then the Twitter folks become and angry mob that "should mind their own business since they don't even use the site"

Yuuki

The good thing is that the opt-out appears to be account-based and not some machine-based cookie.

I opted-out at home and the theme did not reappear on my work machine.

user15026

@Yuuki okay so they changed that from yesterday?

user15026

Because yesterday it was not that.

Derpy

2:09 PM

@Yuuki it is? Weird, I didn't test that, but people were claiming the opposite. Must be another change/fix

user15026

And I couldn't let myself test to find out if that changed.

user15026

Yesterday it was a per site per device turn off.

Yuuki

They might have changed it but until there's an official announcement, that's just my account.

user15026

I hopw it's not just you.

Yuuki

I disabled it on RPG.SE while I was at home this morning and it did not follow me to work nor did it appear when I refreshed Gaming.SE.

Opening Gaming.SE in another tab also does not show the April Fool's CSS theme.

Neither does it appear when I go to Meta.SE.

Of course when I click the post for April Fools on Meta.SE, it reappears.

16

A: Announcing the Stack Exchange Time Machine

Can you please make it work on profile and homepage as well? It only works when I'm on an actual question, and that makes me sad

hmmm

This might be why.

Yep.

Going to a question on Gaming.SE shows the theme.

BESW

2:14 PM

You know, the responses to the AF posts on meta will be constrained by the fact that the people it effects the most can't go on meta.

[sigh]

I need sleep.

user15026

@BESW sleep is good! Do the sleep.

Derpy

@Yuuki the prank design seems to only activate on question pages. I could swear this wasn't the case this morning but probably I am mistaken.

@BESW so sleepy = cute and tired = grouchy? :P

anyway, since BESW posted a song before, and since now thanks to that I am listening to this (yep, weird playlist, I know...)

【Radix】Undertale Ost- 098 - Battle Against a True Hero Lyrical Adaptation

►

even if you don't happen to like Undertale (which you should :P) it is worth listening just for the (fanmade) words.

Yuuki

2:41 PM

@BESW Really well-done hair for someone who is sleepy. You'd expect at least a few hairs out of place.

Derpy

@Yuuki the tired version has one :P

As I said:

Sleepy == Cute
Tired == Grouchy

Also, why the sleepy version is blushing? :P

Yuuki

A rush of blood to the head?

Which is incidentally one of the Coldplay songs that I like.

Derpy

3:09 PM

@BESW as I feared, the post was useless in the end. I hope someone read it and questioned what was done, but I wouldn't raise my hopes. So sad.

Derpy

3:21 PM

also....

isn't this comment a tad condescending?

Yuuki

Yeah, unfortunately that kind of passive-aggressive tone is par for the course in SE comments.

Derpy

I kinda hope there was something that has been deleted just before that last message.

Otherwise what we have here is a message from something explaining why this feature "hurt" him...

Followed by a "Have a nice day you are a great person" reply that sound just... out of place at best

Xirema

3:36 PM

@Derpy I've seen a few people do stuff like that, I think it's a "please don't get into an argument with me, I'm not that invested" response attempting to diffuse the situation.

How well that actually works is..... contextually contingent.

> "I hope you die in a fire!"
"My daughter started crying when she read that on my screen."
"Hope your family is doing well!"

Derpy

not so well when you started an argument to convince someone they are wrong

Xirema

Yeah.... You've definitely made amends there, buddy. -_-

Derpy

@Xirema and this doesn't make it any less horrible, too...

Yuuki

I am getting increasingly annoyed that this "feature" needs to be disabled on a per-site basis.

Xirema

TBH, I didn't mind the April Fools joke the first time I saw it, but when I have to manually turn it off on every stack I visit (which includes the fact that the Meta sites are considered distinct from their respective main sites) it started to grate on me.

@Yuuki Jinx.

It probably helped, incidentally, that the first time I saw it was when I was home, yesterday, browsing leisurely.

Though I was also very confused that apparently April Fools day starts at Midnight UTC. Which I get: the world is [metaphorically, not literally] flat. But still.

Derpy

3:41 PM

@Yuuki it will be gone soon. If they accepted criticism I could live with "we didn't plan it thru". But as BESW stated, what gets me is that apparently the ones hurted by this are the ones getting it wrong.

Yuuki

YEAH, MAYBE YOU SHOULD CHECK TO SEE IF YOUR SAFETIES WORK AT MINIMUM

Given the general terribleness of SE's April Fools jokes, maybe just stick to funny blog posts about upcoming "features" instead of actually doing things like this or StackEgg.

Derpy

8

A: Why was the decision made to make the 2019 April Fool's joke immediately activate?

Because no one would turn it on, it loses the element of surprise and bugs aside it would be pointless as an April fool's day joke. It's a little on the nose, sure but having it off by default kinda defeats the point.

so, I can't help but awake my inner Pinkie here.

If it is fun, it is nice, won't make me mad and such... why wouldn't I want to play with it?

And if I won't want to see it because it will annoy me, why you made it to hurt me?

I wonder... who refuses a good laugh with friends when given the opportunity? And what about a laugh by friends? — SPArchaeologist 2 mins ago

have to go now, will gladly continue discussing this later when my mind has cleared up a little.

Xirema

> What can I say but yikes.

Yuuki

I choose to believe that that is a statement on how April Fool's should've been opt-in not opt-out.

Xirema

4:15 PM

My April Fools prank this year is that over the weekend, when I made Pizza Sauce, I replaced the Tomatoes in the recipe with Strawberries. Gonna make a pizza when I get home using this sauce.

dopp3Lgr33n3r

5:15 PM

Better late than never but FYI:

11

A: How to disable "time travel" entirely?

I've built a userscript to disable Time Travel mode on all sites, which you can install from here. The updated version (0.3) does not interfere with the fix rolled out by the developers. Thanks to @Makyen, @SonictheWizardWerehog and indirectly to @Bergi for your contributions. // ==UserScript== ...

Yuuki

6:14 PM

@Xirema My April Fools prank this year is that I'm going to home and have a good night's rest.

BESW

8:42 PM

@Spudlyman After getting feedback from the community, we went ahead and reverted the April Fools' joke. Making the experience worse for our users is never our intention, so we're sorry if it did, even temporarily. You can go back to Light Mode now if you restart/refresh the app.

Tweeted by discordapp on April 1, 2019 at 9:01 AM in reply to Spudlyman

Miniman

10:08 PM

@BESW I'm legitimately disappointed - I run dark, so I assumed that the prank told you whichever scheme you weren't using was removed, which would have been really clever (not to mention actually harmless).

BESW

That would've been a lot better, yeah!

Like... victimless jokes are a thing, people. If your defense is "It's just for one day" or "It's not that bad," you're still defending a joke with a victim.

Yuuki

Or replace the start-up message with the relevant Force creed based on your selected theme.

BESW

That'd be even better!

The Stack could've gone with a popup saying "We've discovered a portal to 90s web design! Click here for nostalgia."

The idea the necessary part of a joke is that it's inflicted on the unsuspecting is... sad.

Unless it's this kind of unsuspecting:

This is acceptable.

Yuuki

10:26 PM

I liked Blizzard's April Fools jokes precisely because they were just announcements of silly things like playable Murlocs or the Archivist class.

BESW

The best April Fools joke I've ever seen was Katanas & Trenchcoats.

It was an actually playable joke game announcement, with proceeds going to a good charity.

So there wasn't even the "Ooh I want that! oh it doesn't exist" problem.

BESW

11:49 PM

@GHMansfield @rogerjohansson Don’t know who said it, but on stuff like this I always hark back to the saying “edge cases are just people you _choose_ to not care about.” Accessibility is the same way. Inclusion is the best practice. Anything less is a choice.

Tweeted by natetharp on April 1, 2019 at 6:47 PM in reply to GHMansfield

Transcript for

Not a bar, but plays one on TV