Ways to have fun with google phần 5

55 Ways to Have Fun With Google
By Joe
By Luka
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28. The Strange World of Google News
28. The Strange World of Google News
Google News is Google’s automated news polling machine. It will
display whatever it thinks is important today based on what other news
sources write. The fact that it’s automated may make it more objective
(even though the included sites are still picked manually, and in the case
of China, the local government has a word to say in it too), but at times,
the Google machines get it wrong. They put the false image next to a
news story, or the snippet doesn’t fit with the headline – or the story’s a
hoax, like when Google News in November 2003 announced that
Google Inc had been bought by food giant Nestlé (“Nestlé says Google
will be renamed NesGoogle and have a recipe section added to its main
page”). I’ve collected some of the examples of the past here – it’s good
the Google computers don’t have human feelings, because they sure
would feel guilty now.
The snippet1 says a Toronto tax accountant won the largest slot-machine jackpot in
Canadian history – $5!
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The Exorcist prequel from 2004 made $18 on the opening weekend.2 That’s even
better than winning a $5 lottery jackpot!
Who is Arnold Suarseneguer? (From Google News Spain in October 20033.)
This interesting headline4 is the top news for Google in July, 2005!
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28. The Strange World of Google News
“Did you mean: Samurai Ali?”2
The photo next to the headline “Floriday Keys to welcome tourists” shows a flooded
area. Kenny5 says, “I’d wait for the water to go down first...”
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Is it coincidence that Steve Jobs and the chimpanzee use similar gestures?6
A refreshingly personal view on today’s news2...
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28. The Strange World of Google News
This headline and snippet7 from Google News Germany suggest that a German has
been killed in Iraq. Formula 1 driver Michael Schumacher shown to the right is
German, but he’s also alive.
Bill Gates is part of the Google duo?
This was the actual Google top story on December 2004 when George Bush visited
Canada (Google incidentally picked up a satire piece).
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Google News picks up satire, once more8...
Grant Shellen, who posted this screenshot9, says, “The importance of our punctual
friend the colon is clearly evident here, when its absence makes it seem as though
ABC News is getting a bit too aggressive in its coverage.”
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28. The Strange World of Google News
Hmmm...the picture to the right reads “Hilton.”10
OK, this one is fake! It was created as part of the “Goodle” homepage11 showing
good news only.
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I admit it, this one’s fake too. It’s Paul’s completely personalized Google News circa
2031, covering nothing but... Paul himself.
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28. The Strange World of Google News
Sometimes, it’s just the way two stories are composed side-by-side13 which gives new
meaning not intended by either story.
End Notes
1. Via Stéfan Sinclair. (www.stefansinclair.name)
2. Via Craig S. Cottingham. (xcom2002.com/doh/)
3. Via Caspa.tv. (www.caspa.tv)
4. Via SecurityTribune. (securitytribune.com)
5. Via Kennry. (www.55fun.com/28.5)
6. Via Eric Lebeau. (zorgloob.com)
7. Via Dr. Web. (drweb.de)
8. Flickr. (www.55fun.com/28.8)
9. Via Grant Shellen. (www.55fun.com/28.9)
10. Via Jennifer. (jennifermonk.com/blog/)
11. Goodle. (www.55fun.com/28.11)
12. Aberson. (www.55fun.com/28.12)
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29. Aliens Attack Google!
Do you wish to see a full-scale alien attack take place on the Google
homepage? You can! In fact, not only does Netdisaster
(www.netdisaster.com) allow you to destroy Google.com, you can destroy
any other web page – in a multitude of ways, too. You can send
meteors, flood it, nuke it, shoot it, paintball or chainsaw it, send God
onto the page, cover it with flowers, or terrify it with a horde of flies,
wasps, snails, worms and dinosaurs. If you’re not the aggressive type,
you can also just spill some coffee on the page instead...
An alien laser burns semi-permanent holes into Google.com.
I asked creator Denis Rionnet from Lyon, France, how he got the idea
for this tool. Denis tells me, “A few years ago, I started programming
an online tool that allows users to turn any site into some African
witch-doctor advertisement. ... So, people have fun with this tool and
send the link to each other. But that’s only for French speaking
persons! So one year ago, I was wondering if I could find another idea
of a tool that would interact with any site in a more visual way.”
Denis goes on to say that, after making sure his idea of weapons and
plagues “destroying” any target site was technically possible, he worked
hard on the site hoping people would enjoy it. And it did have an effect
on people, but with some surprising results.
Not everybody understands how Netdisaster works; that basically, it’s
just a bunch of visual effects without actual consequences for the
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29. Aliens Attack Google!
target site. Some of the users wondered if they were staying
anonymous during the attack, and also asked if the attacked site was
harmed. Denis says, “Someone wrote to me once, because a site got
out of order right after he had targeted it with Netdisaster – the server
of this site was just down, coincidentally. He couldn’t believe that
Netdisaster was not to blame at all, and urged me to do something
about it!”
Google is currently being flooded... the fish at the bottom seem to enjoy it.
Meteors rain down on Google...
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30. Top Ten Signs You Are Addicted to
Google
10. Your kids still believe the Googlebot is bringing the Christmas
presents.
9. When someone asks “How are you?” you mouse-click in mid-air at
them and say “I'm feeling lucky.”
8. You shout at the librarian when she takes more than a tenth of a
second to find your book.
7. You just lost a case in court to name your newborn son “Google.”
6. Google is your second-best friend... and you're thinking maybe it
should be first.
5. Your Google shirt is losing color.
4. When people talk to you, you try to optimize their keywords.
3. Your last three Sunday family trips have been to the Googleplex.
2. You are convinced “What’s your PageRank?” is a good pick-up line.
And the number one sign you are addicted to Google:
1. You are completely clueless without a computer.
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31. Dig a Hole Through Earth
31. Dig a Hole Through Earth
“I wonder if I shall fall right through the earth! How funny it’ll seem to come
out among the people that walk with their heads downward! The antipathies,
I think—” (she was rather glad there was no one listening, this time, as it
didn’t sound at all the right word) “—but I shall have to ask them what the
name of the country is, you know. Please, Ma’am, is this New Zealand? Or
Australia?” (and she tried to curtsey as she spoke—fancy, curtseying as
you’re falling through the air! Do you think you could manage it?) "And
what an ignorant little girl she’ll think me for asking! No, it’ll never do to
ask: perhaps I shall see it written up somewhere.”
– Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
Have you ever wondered where you would end up if you dug a hole
right through earth? Wonder no more (at least if you got an internet
connection): Luís Felipe Cipriani from Brazil developed a website
(www.55fun.com/31.1) based on Google Maps which lets you click on any
starting point on the globe. A small info box pops up on which you can
click “Dig here.” Afterwards you discover the location you would come
out at the other end.
I’ve asked my friend Justin Pfister (blog.justinpfister.com) if he knew some
cool places to dig. Indeed, he did!
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The only place to dig through the center of the Earth and
land in China is the central west half of South America.
The Upper half of Chile would be a great place to start.
What if Darwin explored downward by digging a giant hole
in Galapagos? He’d end up off the coast of Sri Lanka in
the Indian Ocean.
Does Stonehenge have an important location on the other
side of the Earth? That depends how important you think
the coast of New Zealand is.
What if everyone in the United States started digging huge
holes? They would all end up in the Indian Ocean.
What if the people in Australia wanted to go “down under”
too? They would all find themselves in the Northern
Atlantic Ocean.
If the Lost City of Atlantis is still sinking through the
center of the Earth, where might it come out? It would
pop up in or around Australia. Could it be that Australia is
the Lost City of Atlantis?
If Japan really starts to run out of space and begins
building skyscrapers that go into the ground, they might
eventually poke out near Brazil.
During the Cold War, if some people in Russia built some
very deep bomb shelters, they would have ended up on the
Southern Ocean near Antarctica.
What if the people in Iraq dig too deep into the Earth in
search of oil? They will end up in the Pacific Ocean.
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32. Googlebombing
32. Googlebombing
A googlebomb is when a group of people get together trying to push a
site up the Google rankings… a site which seemingly doesn’t belong
there. To do that, they all use the same link text when linking to the
specific site – trying to make Google think the words in the link are
indeed relevant to the page.
Probably the most well-known “Googlebomb” was for the phrase
miserable failure. It would lead to the official biography of President
George W. Bush on the White House servers. The effect is particularly
convincing when you ask people to first enter miserable failure, and then
press the “I’m feeling lucky” button; they will be referred to the top
result directly, and some even thought Google expressed political
beliefs here. Of course that’s not true – Google only created the
algorithms that now run automatically, and from time to time, get
abused to discredit people or organizations. Google’s only editorial
decision in cases like these is to display small disclaimers close to
googlebombed search results, and educate people on what’s happening.
A reply posted to their official Google Blog1 was:
We don’t condone the practice of googlebombing, or any
other action that seeks to affect the integrity of our search
results, but we’re also reluctant to alter our results by hand
in order to prevent such items from showing up. Pranks
like this may be distracting to some, but they don’t affect
the overall quality of our search service, whose objectivity,
as always, remains the core of our mission.
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But the failure bomb against George Bush (which was quickly receiving
a counter-googlebomb targeting director Michael Moore) wasn’t the
first one to appear on the search scene. Adam Mathes of the Über blog
is credited with the invention of the Googlebomb. In his blog on April
6, 2001, he wrote:
Today, uber readers, you have a chance to make history.
Or at least legitimize some new jargon I’m about to make
up.
Today’s jargon of the day is:
GOOGLE BOMBING
Adam continued to explain the philosophy behind Googlebombs,
which was backriding on the philosophy of Google itself:
In a bizarre surreal bow to the power of perception on the
web, what you say about a page becomes just as important
as the actual content of the page. The page must be what
other people say it is. That Google adheres to this rule and
is by far the most effective search engine raises many
interesting issues, none of which I will attempt to discuss
or explicate.
Now Google is smart, simply having tons of the same links
with the same phrase on a single page will do nothing. It
requires a multitude of pages to have that link with specific
link text. But this power can be harnessed with a
concentrated group effort.
Adam was only interested in pulling off a prank – a political agenda
didn’t have anything to do with it. So, he urged his readers to
googlebomb his friend Andy Pressman with the words “talentless
hack.” And thus Googlebombs were born.
Of course, it didn’t stop there. Not only did Googlebombs work, they
were also becoming an effective tool in web propaganda.
“Weapons of mass destruction” was a Googlebomb criticizing the US
Iraq politics. Because when you searched for this phrase in Google and
hit the “I’m feeling lucky” button, the following page looked just like a
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