55 Ways to Have Fun With Google

55 Ways to Have
Fun With Google

A cabinet of search
engine curiosities,
riddles, games, and a
little bit of usefulness

You can order the book at
www.55fun.com

Philipp Lenssen
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55 Ways to Have Fun With Google



55 Ways to Have fun With Google by Philipp Lenssen.
First edition 2006.
Released under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 License
(see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/ for more).

You are free:
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to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work
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to make derivative works
Under the following conditions:
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For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this
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Any of these conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright
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Your fair use and other rights are in no way affected by the above.
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On a spring day you can find your way
to a little flower garden where the Googleheads play
You know they’re there by the clothes they wear
And their Googlehead faces and their Googlehead hair.

‘Cause they’re the Googleheads
They shake their doodleheads
They’re the goo-ga-goo-ga-goo-gah Googleheads.
– Laurie Berkner
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55 Ways to Have Fun With Google

Contents
Introduction .....................................................................................8
1. Egogoogling: Susan Is…..............................................................9
2. The Google Snake Game............................................................ 15
3. Memecodes: Survival of the Fittest Web Pages ......................... 16
4. The Google Irritation Game, and the Google Image Quiz........ 19
5. Googling Proverbs......................................................................20
6. Browsing Images of a Site..........................................................24
7. A Brief History of Googlesport...................................................25
8. What is Google, and what do people consider fun about it?......32
9. How Much Time Google Saves Us ............................................37
10. Google Cookin’ a Lemon Chicken............................................40
11. Douglas Adams and the Google Calculator.............................. 41
12. Oops, I Googled Again .............................................................42
13. The Disappearing Google Logo, a Magic Trick ......................45
14. Fun With Google Maps, the Wiki Way .....................................46
15. Dave Gorman’s Googlewhack .................................................. 51
16. Google Q&A .............................................................................54
17. Celebrate Google Non-Weddings, and More ...........................56
18. Design Your SketchUp Dream House .....................................58
19. Kevin Bacon and the Google Network .....................................59
20. The Google Alphabet................................................................62
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21. Google Search Tips...................................................................63
22. Googlepark ...............................................................................66
23. Googleshare ..............................................................................76
24. The Shortest Google Search (and the One Returning the Most
Results) ....................................................................................79
25. Google Rotated and Mini Google.............................................80
26. The Google Quiz: How Much Do You Know About Google? .82
27. Recreate Google From Memory ...............................................86
28. The Strange World of Google News......................................... 91
29. Aliens Attack Google! ............................................................. 100
30. Top Ten Signs You Are Addicted to Google.......................... 102
31. Dig a Hole Through Earth ..................................................... 103
32. Googlebombing ...................................................................... 105
33. Google Ads Gone Wrong ........................................................ 109
34. Life in the Age of Google.........................................................114
35. Google Hacking.......................................................................118
36. Googlepolls: Ask the Crowd ....................................................121
37. Googlefights.............................................................................131
38. What If Google Was Evil? Plus: Five Inventions of the Google
Future..................................................................................... 133
39. The Google Adventure Game ................................................. 150
40. Egobot, Voice of the Web........................................................151
41. Fun Google Gadgets ............................................................... 154
42. Forty-Two, or: A Science-Fiction Interlude ........................... 160
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55 Ways to Have Fun With Google

43. The Google Book of World Records....................................... 175
44. Spelling Errors Galore ............................................................ 180
45. Google Groups, Time Machine .............................................. 182
46. Growing a Google Word ......................................................... 188
47. Most Popular Words, and PopSents....................................... 190
48. Create Google Poetry, Prose, and Collages ............................ 195
49. Funny Google Videos ............................................................. 203
50. The Realplayer Fish, or: Telling a Story in Synonyms ........... 207
51. Google Parodies...................................................................... 210
52. The Google Images Prediction Trick..................................... 217
53. Fun With Google Translations ............................................... 218
54. The Giant Google Painting..................................................... 219
55. Googledromes......................................................................... 224
Acknowledgments........................................................................ 225
Glossary........................................................................................ 226
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55 Ways to Have Fun With Google

Introduction
This book, in a way, is born out of my daily weblog “Google
Blogoscoped” (blog.outer-court.com) and those who read it. Since 2003
I’ve been writing there covering all things Google – not just the fun
stuff, but news, discussion, interviews, tutorials, and everything beyond
with a relation to search engines. Thanks to those reading along and
providing pointers or feedback, I’ve been able to discover more
interesting pages and get to know more interesting people around the
world than ever before.
When I think of Google, first and foremost I think of its role to
discover knowledge, people, and people’s thoughts. Search engines are
truly one of the first emergents of a global brain, and in good tradition
of Gutenberg’s inventions in the technology of printing, of the
invention of the internet, and later the invention of the World Wide
Web. All those bring us closer together by speeding up the rhythm in
which we communicate.
So there we have it, for the first time in history: search, the key to
instant knowledge. And what do we do with it? Silly things. OK, not
exclusively. But silliness is a part of it. People googlewhack,
googlebomb, or egogoogle. People create parodies of Google. They
create search engine contests. Magic tricks, riddles and art based on
Google. They have a lot of fun with Google, and get together to play
games on top of Google services. Even Google Inc themselves send
out April Fool’s jokes every year, and celebration logos many times a
year. Oh, humanity!
But behind many of the playful creations surrounding that giant
Google toy, there are serious lessons to be learned. Of the 55 ways to
have fun with Google presented here, some ways indeed teach us
something; about life, Google, and how to become a better searcher.
And the rest of the ways? Well, seriously, they’re really just there to
have fun. And I hope you enjoy!

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1. Egogoogling: Susan Is…
1. Egogoogling: Susan Is…
Have you ever searched for your own name on Google, curious what
the world has to say about you? Almost everyone of us did, one time
or another. In fact, you should – maybe others search for you all the
same, and you want to know what they will find.
The act of searching for yourself is also known as “egogoogling.”
Here’s a variant of it which can be a fun game. Enter your first name
followed by the word “is” into Google, and put the search in quotes.
For example, if your name is Susan, the search would look like this:
“susan is”
Now in the search result snippets, you will learn a lot of things about
you that you didn’t even know! For the name “Susan,” we get the
following:
Susan is an amazing person to work with!
Susan is an ethical woman and is refusing to cooperate
Susan is a very attractive young lady (with a boyfriend) who for
some reason is always late.
Susan is a top Florida residential real estate agent.
Susan is a top producer specializing in the ski resort town of
Breckenridge, as well as the surrounding area.
Not only can you apply this approach to find out more about yourself
(or just have a good laugh, actually, as the results are likely to be about
another person), you can also use this to find out about celebrities. To
do so, enter the full celebrity name followed by the word “is” into
Google, and put it in quotes again:
“arnold schwarzenegger is”
For action movie star Arnie, we get these results:
Arnold Schwarzenegger is a very talented man who would
make an excellent governor.
Arnold Schwarzenegger is falling into a similar spiral.
Arnold Schwarzenegger is looking out for voters’ best
interests.
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55 Ways to Have Fun With Google

Arnold Schwarzenegger is a man more familiar with the red
carpets of a movie premiere than a white collar business seminar.
Arnold Schwarzenegger is terrifying as the “killer cyborg” who
“looks like Death rendered in steel.”
Arnold Schwarzenegger is The Terminator (T-800).
Arnold Schwarzenegger is quickly discovering that life in
politics doesn’t always produce the happy endings so common in
many of his Hollywood blockbusters.
Note that you can use “stars in,” “was born in” and similar glue words
instead of “is” to find out almost anything about a celebrity. You can
even expand the idea to include things, not people… try searching for
“Nikon cameras are” and similar queries.
If you don’t have Google near you, here are some popular male and
female names with their “egogoogled” results.
Male Names
Aaron is a monotonic anchor.
Adam is a deeply disturbing and depressing film.
Alan is AI’s pattern-matching chatbot.
Albert is so cute!
Andrew is the Patron Saint of Scotland.
Anthony is probably the best male vocal out there.
Arthur is kind of in a category by itself.
Brandon is for the birds.
Brian is embarrassed that he needs the extra help in school.
Carl is just sitting there in Nashville!
Charles is also a coach of AYSO youth soccer, an officer in the PTA of the
local elementary school.
Christopher is of mixed heritage (Asian-American).
Daniel is a natural talent .
David is not allowed computer access.
Dennis is one of Britain’s best known entrepreneurs.
Donald is rarely easy to understand, and people have supposedly heard him say
all sorts of risque things. Donald is a Professor in the Department of
Psychology.
Douglas is “King of California.”
Edward is a biological human (not a robot).
Edward is coming BACK to television.
Eric is featured on guitar and mandolin on the songs Viargra and Gypsy
woman.
Frank is hilariously funny on what makes us red-staters different from blue-
staters (not).
Fred is leading the Franklin Templeton Shootout after 2 rounds!
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