When you work at one of the world's most successful -- and occasionally silliest -- companies, it's hard to create wonderful April Fool's pranks.

After all, you're supposed to contribute your best ideas to the company, so that they might be selected as one of the 15 or so that are used to fool the world on April 1.

It's astonishing that any Googlies have time left over for personal japes. You know, like punking the boss, for example.

And yet, evidence has emerged that members of the Google(x) team -- which I believe … Read more

You may have been one of those who felt enthralled and delighted at Mark Zuckerberg's launch of Facebook Home yesterday.

You also may have felt appalled and slighted. Especially if you worked at Microsoft in 2011.

The morning after the morning before, Microsoft's forthright head of PR, Frank X. Shaw, offered words to suggest he'd have liked to X-out most of Zuckerberg's wide-eyed unveiling.

On the company's own blog, he wrote: "I tuned into the coverage of the Facebook Home event yesterday and actually had to check my calendar a few times. Not to … Read more

If you're 13 years old, live in Wilmington, Ind., and it's cold outside, it surely makes you wonder about this global warming thing.

How can there be global warming when your personal globe is freezing?

How can you find out whether all this scientific mumbo-jumbo is just a giant gumbo of mumbling nonsense?

You do it the old-fashioned way: You go to the library.

Once you've found the evidence, you call Rush Limbaugh and tell him. This is extreme wisdom, as Limbaugh has -- at least in the past -- been very skillful at raising issues and … Read more

North Korea appears currently to be banging the (conun)drum for world instability.

Its apparent enmity to all things American has recently been pierced by such luminaries as Google's Eric Schmidt and the slightly noodly Dennis Rodman.

You might be tickled or troubled by the fact that today, North Korea's Twitter and Flickr accounts were mercilessly invaded by Anonymous.

My emotions, on the other hand, have been moved by the fact that an NFL star is encouraging Kim Jong-un's missiles to be targeted at New England.

There is no known additional antipathy on behalf of North Korea'… Read more

It's in the nature of humanity to keep up with the Jones family.

It's in the nature of capitalist humanity to get ahead of the Jones family so that the Jones family looks askance and defeated.

With this in mind, I have accidentally landed upon a survey which purports to reveal which software engineers are the highest paid.

I thank Business Insider for poring over the figures collated by Glassdoor, figures that might surprise some.

I had imagined, along with most of the world, that Google's engineers were the very best and therefore the highest paid.

These … Read more

Some religions worship relics.

Bones of saints and artifacts of old emerge seemingly from nowhere, with no one ever truly knowing how real they might be.

I therefore bare my skepticism with moves not dissimilar to those in a Haka dance on hearing that Mark Zuckerberg's first ever Web site might have been unearthed.

My inconsistent reading of Motherboard today offered the startling information that Zuckerberg's first site might have included a blinking yellow dinosaur eye.

It seems that someone posted to Hacker News that the Facebook CEO's first masterwork was still available on Angelfire.

It's … Read more

If you want your browser to become astoundingly popular, one idea might be to employ the services of a 1-year-old who once rather liked the idea of killing his mother.

Please, I have the evidence.

For the latest, very fetching campaign for Google Chrome appears to be humongously popular among those who spend their days on the Web forwarding viruses.

Indeed, Ad Age reports that its little chart, prepared in conjunction with Visible Measures, shows that the Google Chrome campaign is the most popular viral entity of the last week.

The Stewie ad has proved, perhaps unsurprisingly, to be the … Read more

I am told that buying an engagement ring is even more stressful than mustering the gumption to propose.

Choosing the right ring is an expression of who you are and what you feel. It can leave you a wreck, feeling like you should check into a halfway house for spiritual guidance.

An enterprising online jewelry brand called Ocappi would like to give you a chance of survival, an opportunity to finally impress your lover beyond standing next to her at a party and grinning like a stuffed fish.

Ocappi will send six rings of your choice to your home, so … Read more

Steve Jobs was always a fine salesman.

The people at Funny Or Die involved in making "iSteve" -- a movie of his life -- are similarly inventive.

I was breathlessly sent a link this morning to the teaser trailer for this movie. It promised: "The trailer for iSteve, Funny or Die's Steve Jobs movie with Justin Long is finally here."

That, it is. But it's quite a minimalist trailer.

There are few real, well, pictures.

There are words, however.

"Genius left unchecked can lead to ruin," says someone.

"You gotta ride … Read more