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Google April Fool's Joke Centers on Mars, Links to Mars Society
Just in time for April Fool's Day, Google has rolled out a supposed collaboration between Virgin founder Sir Richard Branson and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin designed to "lead hundreds of users on one of the grandest adventures in human history: Project Virgle, the first permanent human colony on Mars."
The "Virgle" Logo
The Virgle site
features a 100-year plan for the colony, a hilarious application for
joining the colony, a corresponding YouTube page, and many
other excellent details that create the sort of well-executed gag many
users have come to expect from a company such as Google. Their FAQ even
gives credit and links to the Mars Society: "Q: How'd you learn all
this stuff? A: Reading. Surfing. Studying. Cramming. Arguing.
Improvising. Special thanks to the brilliant minds at the invaluable
Mars Society."
Perhaps the most interesting piece of the Virgle site, however, is its error page:
"Sorry, but the page you're looking for doesn't actually exist. Why? Well, because...we didn't have time to build it. Because we didn't think that particular page was all that important. Because this is just an early version of the Virgle site and lots more pages will be coming down the pike as the project --
-- oh, all right. Fine. April Fool's. Ha, ha, ha. It isn't real. There. Are you happy? Does it please you to drag us out of our lovely little fantasy world, to crush all our hopes and dreams? Is that really what you need to hear? Fine, you've heard it. Virgle isn't real.
Yet."
Not yet, indeed. Given Google's willingness to recognize us, The Mars Society will be contacting Virgle soon with an expression of support for the idea...just in case they have more than a joke in mind. We'll keep you posted on any response we receive from Google.
Perhaps the most interesting piece of the Virgle site, however, is its error page:
"Sorry, but the page you're looking for doesn't actually exist. Why? Well, because...we didn't have time to build it. Because we didn't think that particular page was all that important. Because this is just an early version of the Virgle site and lots more pages will be coming down the pike as the project --
-- oh, all right. Fine. April Fool's. Ha, ha, ha. It isn't real. There. Are you happy? Does it please you to drag us out of our lovely little fantasy world, to crush all our hopes and dreams? Is that really what you need to hear? Fine, you've heard it. Virgle isn't real.
Yet."
Not yet, indeed. Given Google's willingness to recognize us, The Mars Society will be contacting Virgle soon with an expression of support for the idea...just in case they have more than a joke in mind. We'll keep you posted on any response we receive from Google.
