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Presiding over(1) a company with a market value of $143 billion apparently gives Silicon Valley's most famous billionaires a good sense of humor — and a case of corporate potty mouth(2).
Senior executives at Google Inc. launched their annual April Fools' Day prank(3) Sunday, posting a link on the company's home page to a site offering consumers free high-speed wireless Internet through their home plumbing systems(4).
Code-named "Dark Porcelain(5)," Google said its "Toilet Internet Service Provider" (TiSP) works with Microsoft Corp.'s new Windows Vista operating system. But sorry — septic tanks(6) are incompatible(7) with the system's requirements.
The gag(8) included a mock press release quoting Google co-founder and president Larry Page, a step-by-step online installation manual, and a scatological(9) selection of Frequently Asked Questions.
"There's actually a thriving little underground community that's been studying this exact solution for a long time," Page said in the facetious(10) statement. "And today our Toilet ISP team is pleased to be leading the way through the sewers, up out of your toilet and — splat(11) — right onto your PC."
Marissa Mayer, a Google vice president, called TiSP a "breakthrough product, particularly for those users who, like Larry himself, do much of their best thinking in the bathroom."
TiSP is the latest April Fools joke at the Calif.-based company, where hijinks(12) pervade cubicles all year long. In blogs, Google employees joke about the recent injection of green dye into milk in the cafeteria, while another talks about zany(13) underlings filling the vice president of engineering's office with sand.
Eric Raymond, a software developer in Pa., and author of the New Hacker's Dictionary, said TiSP nailed several important tenets(14) of hacker humor.
As part of the spoof, Google said TiSP would be offered in three speeds: Trickle, The No. 2, and Royal Flush.
"The leitmotif(15) of hacker humor is precise reasoning from utterly bizarre premises, and once you're in that groove(16), you're absolutely fearless about going deeper," Raymond said. "We also have a tendency to deliberately(17) zigzag(18) between highly intellectual humor and utter slapstick(19). The more zigzags you can manage in a single spoof, the funnier it is."
1. preside over：负责、主持
2. potty mouth：满口脏话的，这里为配合“厕所”故意歪曲了原意
3. prank：恶作剧
4. plumbing system：水管道系统
5. porcelain：瓷、瓷器
6. septic tank：化粪池
7. incompatible：矛盾的、不调和的
8. gag：欺骗、插科打诨
9. scatological：粪便的、污秽的
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