Here's a question? Is April 1st a pagan holiday? Every holiday seems to have 'pagan roots'.
The 'pagan' term comes from Christians describing the Roman Empire who practiced polytheism. Equivalent terms were hellen, gentile, and heathen. So it is a label that Christianity applied to others. "Anyone not Christian" is how it started out. So was April Fool's Day a pagan tradition?
The first written reference to April 1st as a day of tricks comes from Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. This reference is disputed. What is confirmed is the French poet Eloy d'Amerval refer to a poisson d'avail in 1508, considered the first reference to the celebration in France.
Wikipedia says this: "Although no Biblical scholar or historian is known to have mentioned a relationship, some have expressed the belief that the origins of April Fool's Day may go back to the Genesis flood narrative."
Reader's Digest claims that the likely origins are the Roman Festival of Hilaria. It took place around March 25 in honour of the first day of the year longer than the night (equinox).
Because the origins are unknown, there are lots of articles and sites who weigh in on their version. And so it goes.
However, with this year's Covid-19 concerns, there is April Fools' news! Google has officially canceled its April Fools' joke.
Here's the list since year 2000. We'll have to revisit them instead of getting a new one. This turns out quite fun. Google's first April Fools' Day hoax, the MentalPlex hoax, invited users to project a mental image of what they wanted to find whilst staring at an animated GIF. Several humorous error messages were then displayed on the search results page, all listed below:
Error 005: KUT Weak or no signal detected. Upgrade transmitter and retry.
Error 466: Multiple transmitters detected. Silence voices in your head and try again.
Error 05: Brainwaves received in analog. Please re-think in digital.
Error 4P: Unclear on whether your search is about money or monkeys. Please try again.
Error 445: Searching on this topic is prohibited under international law.
Error CK8: That information is protected under the National Security Act.
Error 104: That information was lost with the Martian Lander. Please try again.
Error 007: Query is unclear. Try again after removing hat, glasses and shoes.
Error 008: Interference detected. Remove aluminum foil and remote control devices.
Error: Insufficient conviction. Please clap hands 3 times, while chanting "I believe" and try again.
Error: MentalPlex™ has determined that this is not your final answer. Please try again.
And our image today is the flower 'Statice' - this came from the greenhouse tour last year (on this weekend). This was the Prins greenhouse.
Boo was the social media sensation of a dog. He was considered the 'world's cutest dog'. He died yesterday at 12. He really is cute - he looks right at you with a smiley face. Boo belonged to a San Francisco-based Facebook employee. She created his Facebook page and posted 'cute' pictures which gathered more than 1.75 million Likes on Facebook. Boo got a big boost when Khloe Kardashian wrote about him on her blog.
Boo had his own book: Boo: The Life of the World's Cutest Dog. He became a celebrity for charities and the official pet liaison of Virgin America, featuring pictures of him and advice for people travelling with pets. This is his poster picture. Doesn't he look like a little teddy bear!
The Wikipedia entry on Boo identifies that in April 2012, Boo was the subject of a death hoax after #RIPBOO appeared on Twitter. This is interesting in retrospect, given all the investigations of influencing in national elections of various countries. And the increased use of social media to harass people with hoaxes and lies.
It took only one post by Gizmodo writer Sam Biddle for the rumour to spread wide and be treated as fact. Moreover, the Gizmodo writer pursued the hoax by continuing to post tweets of Boo's death in a duck pond - which the New York Times retweeted. And then Twitter followers played along with the hoax, including photoshopping a gruesome image of Boo's demise. In retrospect now, this type of distortion and manipulation would have broadcast social media's vulnerability far and wide. Is this different than in the past? A report by New Oxford says it is growing at a larger scale, despite efforts to combat it.
Our storm story of yesterday has come about as fact. It is to continue during Sunday with blowing snow. The Weather Network's chart is amusing. It has the row names out of sync with the data. So the hours of sun on Monday is 51, 23 on Tuesday, etc. That's supposed to be the wind gust. On the theme of white, here are some images from the Minneapolis Arboretum in September.
