Slashdot is a fairly hands-off setup and it just ran with a link to the pranksters' site. Ananova, on the other hand, went to the trouble of contacting the people behind it and ended up looking even more foolish by including a quote from protagonist Steve Harris. "We considered using hamster wheels but we think that would probably be cruel to hamsters. They are probably unreliable too - you would need loads of hamsters to make sure you always had power." ("I was only joking about the hamsters, guys!" Steve has written on the spud server website.)

But the best was from the BBC which gave the story serious credence and went to the trouble of researching and explaining how it would work chemically.