Press Release 2021
April 1st to be Postponed and Replaced with May 1st
Middletown, NJ, April 1, 2021/PN Newswire — “This continues to be a tough time for many people, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) along with the US Naval Observatory (USNO) wants to continue to do everything possible to help citizens navigate the unusual circumstances related to the pandemic,” said NIST Spokesperson, Judah Lovin of the NIST Time, Frequency and Holiday Division. To that end, The joint administrators of the National Time and Calendar services announced today that the federal calendar will reflect the postponement of April Fool's Day by one month, to May 1, 2021, and the exchange of April 1 with May 1 effective at midnight March 31, applicable local time.
The American Rescue Bill, passed March 11 includes provisions for compensation for businesses hurt by the postponement of April first. One recipient of this supplemental funding, Stephen Wilkus of Spectrum Financial LLC, explained, “Since 2011, while at Bell Labs and now at Spectrum Financial Partners, I’ve sent out an April Fool’s day fake ‘press release’ for the enjoyment of friends and coworkers as well as an advertisement of our company, much like Holiday cards in November. But the delays in manufacturing and development due to the Pandemic, and now the shipping delays due to the recent blocking of the Suez Canal, has postponed our celebration of April Fool's day. Postponing April first has cost us a fortune in April Fools’ Day cards and mailings. But thankfully, this compensation fund should return much of that investment and allow us to reprint our cards and repurchase paraphernalia for the May First April Fool's Day celebrations. Thanks go to the wise politicians in Washington,” he added with a chuckle.
This postponement aligns with the extension of Tax Day for individuals to May 17, an annual event for which April Fools day has long been associated. Lovin of NIST, explained, “For many years we’ve understood the need for a good joke while preparing tax forms, so the first director of the IRS, Thomas Foolery scheduled Tax Day to coincide with then little-used April Fools day which has since become much more important as a national holiday.”
Stephen’s first posting was inspired while working on a 2007 project to reduce the power consumption of cellular base stations. He wrote a cheeky email on April 1, in which he supposed that the usual energy per bit requirements of wireless systems would involved negative energy per bit when transmitting negative information or other misinformation, so instead of consuming energy, wireless networks could produce and sell electrical energy given the boundless supply of misinformation on the web.
In 2014 he announced the switching of his company's electronics to use recycled electrons, and in 2015 about the FCC auctioning 115 THz of spectrum bandwidth in the visible part of the visible spectrum to pay off the federal debt 4000 times over, at current spectrum prices. And in 2018 how 5G would be used in autonomous shoes for avoiding road accidents from autonomous cars.
Stephen complained, “What am I to write during this pandemic, when nothing is funny any more and when the news is so full of improbable things that sarcasm is as dead as mm-wave 5G?”
About Spectrum Financial Partners,(www.SpectrumFinancialPartners.com)
Spectrum Financial Partners, LLC manages private equity funds investing in radio spectrum licenses, particularly in 23 licenses in the 600 MHz band. We provide consultations and valuation services for maximizing the utility of radio licenses. Spectrum Financial Partners celebrates the progress and utility of wireless technology and hopes that you enjoy our April Fools’ Day humor highlighting (and comically extrapolating) that progress. The CoVid-19 Pandemic is disastrous and dark. We extend our sympathies and apologies to any who find our humor untimely or inappropriate.
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