15-11-2012, 02:35 PM
55 Ways to Have Fun With Google
55 Ways to Have Fun.pdf (Size: 7.88 MB / Downloads: 71)
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!
The Google Snake Game
Here’s a party game which needs nothing but a working internet
connection (say, a notebook or cell phone), and Google.com’s web
search. The goal is to create the longest phrase that Google can find by
alternately adding one word to the end of the other player’s search
phrase. Say, the first person starts with “Feelings”. Now the second
person adds a word, “are”, so we get “Feelings are”... (Note the use of
quotation marks in the search query.)
Now every time a word is added, the phrase is searched for in Google,
and the resulting page count is announced to the group. The one
person who creates a sentence with zero results in Google loses and has
to do something silly (or if you want to play with points, he loses a
point, and the last person who created a sentence with results in Google
will win a point). To prevent cheating, the one whose turn is next is not
allowed to look at any search result snippet.
The Google Irritation Game, and the
Google Image Quiz
This is probably the weirdest game on Google you will find online.
“Bemmu’s Cure for Google Irritation” (www.55fun9.1) moves all
kinds of Google-related sentences through the screen. Like “I hate
Googleplex,” “Who needs Larry,” or “Google doesn’t frighten me.”
Now it’s your job to type these sentences into a small box below the
screen as fast as you can before they disappear. When you succeed, you
get as many points as the phrase contains letters. If you don’t succeed,
you lose one of your 10 lives.
If you are looking for a little more long-term fun, I suggest my
Google Image Quiz (blog.outer-courtquiz/). In it, you will be
presented with 15 images for every round. Then it’s your job to find
the correct search words that were used to find these images in Google
Images. Sounds easy? Give it a try, I’ve heard it’s addicting, too!
Googling Proverbs
In his book Was Wir Wissen1 (“what we know”), German author
Benjamin von Stuckrad-Barre tried to find the everyday life contexts in
which proverbs are used – and he used Google to do so. For example,
he searched for “Those who live in glass houses should not throw
stones” and then listed who was being referred to on the resulting web
pages (like discussion boards, or news articles). Let’s follow the same
approach for English proverbs here!