Another day, another inordinately complicated Rickroll: This time, the pranksters at Zug.com launched a balloon into space playing Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” on loop, complete with a picture of Mr. Astley. And they caught the whole thing on film. Are you listening, intelligent life on other planets?

Zug:

Launching Rick Astley into space sounds simple, until you try to do it. Our plan was:

- Launch the balloon, which would travel to the upper reaches of Earth’s atmosphere, blaring the dreadful song to the inhabitants of Earth, while taking pictures and video.

- Eventually, the helium would expand so much that the balloon would burst, plummeting back to earth, like Rick Astley’s career.

- With luck, a GPS transmitter would relay where it landed, hopefully not in an ocean or prison yard. We expected winds and altitude to land the balloon many miles away from where it launched, which is why we needed to pick our launch site carefully: far away from major cities, highways, or classified military bases.

Full details at Zug.com.

(h/t BuzzFeed)

Rickrolling, generally a digital bait-and-switch, involves tricking someone into viewing or hearing the Rick Astley song, “Never Gonna Give You Up.” When redditor Mayniac182 was certain a computer class teacher didn’t actually read through students’ work, Mayniac182 decided to hide the lyrics to “Never Gonna Give You Up” within a paper. Check out the full essay Rickroll after the jump, as well as Mayniac182’s full explanation.

Earlier this year, 4chan founder Christopher Poole, a.k.a. moot, was called to testify in the trial of David Kernell, a 4chan user who was ultimately convicted of computer fraud and obstruction of justice for his role in “hacking” into Sarah Palin’s email account and leaking screenshots during the 2008 election. Note that this “hack” consisted of “reset[ting] Palin’s password using her birthdate, ZIP code and information about where she met her spouse — the security question on her Yahoo account, which was answered (Wasilla High) by a simple Google search”; not exactly the height of state security.

Anyway: During the trial, moot was asked by Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Krotoski to define some common online and 4chan lingo, including “troll,” “Rickroll,” “404,” “.jpg,” and even “/b/tard.” (Yes, this is a violation of rules 1 and 2, but hey, he was under oath.)

Some choice excerpts below:

What begins as an amusing video of Raptor Team operative Sergeant Michael “Psycho” Sykes dancing in the Crysis sandbox editor to Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” becomes a horrifying, full-length music video, complete with synchronized lip movements, lit up bartender scene, and glowing nanosuit. Well done, VeliPetter.

Just give thanks you weren’t Crysis Roll’D. We seriously considered doing it. See the video at your own peril after the break.