BKAFDRFC.RVW   20070814

"The Complete April Fools' Day RFCs", Thomas A. Limoncelli/Peter H.
Salus, 2007, 978-1-57398-042-5
%A   Thomas A. Limoncelli funnybook@rfc-humor.com
%A   Peter H. Salus http://www.rfc-humor.com peter@usenix.org
%C   P.O. Box 640218, San Jose, CA 95164-0218
%D   2007
%G   978-1-57398-042-5
%I   Peer-to-Peer Communications, Inc.
%O   U$19.95 800-420-2677 fax: 408-435-0895 info@peer-to-peer.com
%O  http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1573980420/robsladesinterne
  http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1573980420/robsladesinte-21
%O   http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/1573980420/robsladesin03-20
%O   Audience a+ Tech 2 Writing 2 (see revfaq.htm for explanation)
%P   390 p.
%T   "The Complete April Fools' Day RFCs"

For those in the know, the designation "RFC" is a bit of a joke in
itself.  As a "Request For Comment," there is an implication of a
proposal, as opposed to a standard.  In fact, the RFCs are the
"official" documents of the Internet protocols, and are part of a
formal process.  Given the nature of the Internet, and the people
involved, it should come as no surprise that embedded in this library
are jokes, making fun of the process as much as anything else.

(Just to make things clear, this is far from a compendium of all of
the jokes flying around the net, or even all of the jokes about
network standards.  The April Fools' RFCs are a specific class of net
jokes, and are the material of this volume.)

The RFCs themselves present a kind of technical history of the
Internet.  In a similar way, the April Fools' RFCs are a history of
aspects of the Internet.  Some of them document technical concerns and
emphasis, such as the 1990s attempts to implement the Internet on any
base physical transport (RFC 1149, dealing with avian carriers) or
2002's efforts to run all utilities over the Internet (RFC 3251, for
providing electricity over Internet Protocol).  Others reflect more
general social concerns.

The RFCs are all freely available.  This book collects all the April
Fools' documents, and the authors have even made the collection
available on the Internet.  However, the print version contains
additional commentary, structure, and supplementary background
information about the RFC authors.

And it's handy to have the dead trees edition for those times when the
avian carriers aren't flying to your particular hotspot.

copyright Robert M. Slade, 2007   BKAFDRFC.RVW   20070814