Originally Posted by kanundrum

It all starts with an initial carrier-some individual who knows “the magic trick” to the computer prank. It works like a magic trick, and he (or she) who knows the prank gets all the power and attention-almost as if they are suddenly able to perform David Blaine Magic. Once they know the magic, all this David Blaine impersonator needs to do is simply hop on a computer, zip to the Internet and go to peteranswers.com .

Once at the site he or she draws attention to the idea that there’s an entity within the Internet that can answer all of your questions. Kind of like a Ouiga board but with dead on accuracy.What happens next, is what reminds me of a David Blaine trick. It’s pure magic.
Pure genius.
In the first box, the keyboardist types in the petition:
“Peter, please answer the following:”
In the second box the typist enters whatever question they’d like-usually from the growing crowd.
“What is Jesse’s middle name?”
Upon hitting the return button, Peter, from his comfortable couch at peteranswers.com, instantly answers the question. Correctly.
(GASP!)
Peter Answers My Question: How does peteranswers.com work? Magic.
Like I said, I’d already lost over half the room. Even if I’d ordered all computers shut down, they’d still be thinking about how to do the magic trick for the rest of the day. I’m not kidding. Peteranswers.com had a firm hold of these kid’s minds, and it wasn’t letting go any time soon. So I figured I might as well do a little research.
With Google’s help, it didn’t take me long to figure it out. And once I did, I knew peteranswers.com had met it’s match. As with any infectious illusion, the best way to vaccinate is to simply reveal the magic trick.
There’s really nothing like a quick injection of the truth. Sure, the David Blaine impostors will be furious at having their trick exposed. But any short term disruption they may cause is nothing compared to the long term, manic-obsessive behavior that are symptoms of the Peter Answers Computer Prank virus itself.
Peteranswers.com: The Magic Tricks Revealed
First, instead of typing in the petition box, “Peter, please answer the . . .” begin by instead typing:
“.”
That’s right. Simply type a period. What happens next is pure magical genius.
Instead of seeing what you’d expect (a “.”) you see a “P”. Then type whatever the heck you want and the rest of the phrase “Peter, please answer the following” appears.
As long as nobody pays any attention to where your fingers are actually landing the prank works slick.
The trick to the prank is to here type in the answer to whatever question you are going to ask next. When you’re done just keep typing until the phrase is complete. Whenever you hit the “:” your cursor will jump to the next box-where you’ll type in the actual question.

Hit return and bingo! Whatever you really typed into the petition box appears.
peteranswers.com and peter answers for advanced users
Once you get the hang of how peteranswers.com works, it won’t be long before you run into a little snag. The problem is, sometimes your answer is much shorter (has fewer characters to type) than the 41 keystrokes it takes to type “peter please answer the following question”:
There are actually three ways to solve this problem:
Type another “.” When you do this, the program opens back up and shows exactly what you are typing again. For example, if your “answer” was “Lisa.” That’s only 4 keystrokes, which would take you to “Pete” in the petition. Just type another “.” after the last letter of your answer. Now you’ll have “Peter” and from now on you can continue typing the rest of the petition, “please answer the following question:”
Another option is to fake it until you get to “Peter, please answer.” You don’t have to keep punching keys until the entire long petition is filled out. Just remember to type the “:” when you’re done.
The final way to make this work is to simply play dumb. Pretend you lost control of your fingers and type a “:” when you’re done. As soon as you type the “:” you’ll skip to the next box. Just say “oops” or something and keep going.
So there, my dear friends. The truth has set you free. Once the mystery of peteranswers.com is solved, the novelty wears off pretty quickly doesn’t it?
And if you’re a school teacher, it’s really fun to watch two things:
1) The air escaping from the Peter Answers carriers as they lose their power, and
2) The enlightenment of one who only recently had been losing their minds in a state of confused awe.

Originally Posted by xdorkx

Damn, you ruined it! LOL, but yeah the "." and the ":" are they key :-)