Google is awesome. Yes, there have been questions raised about its new privacy policy and creepy Safari tracking and frankly, it just knows way too much about everyone who has ever created a Google account. But let’s put that aside for a moment and focus on all its cool quirks, shall we?They’re built into practically every Google product — if you look hard enough, you’ll find that entering the right search term or typing a code can make Google collapse, spin or create fictional characters. Here are 15 easter eggs (hidden, entertaining things developers build into a website or program) for you to discover the next time you’re Googling.
1. Walking to Mordor:
If you have ever watched The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring you may never stop laughing at this Google Maps quirk . If you try to get walking directions from “The Shire” or “Rivendell” to “Mordor” (just type in the words and ignore all the auto-complete suggestions that pop up), Google will give you the route… and a warning. In other news, according to my Google Maps, Mordor is located just outside Cape Town, South Africa. Nice.
2. Barrel roll:
Endlessly entertaining, this one trended worldwide on Twitter . Simply search “do a barrel roll” — if you have Google’s instant results functions enabled, your results page will be spinning before you have completed the instruction.
3. 42:
What is 42, you ask? Geez, it’s only the answer to life, the universe and everything. Ok, so if you have never read or watched The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, you won’t get this one. But Google’s built-in calculator will.
4. Gravity:
If, by any chance, you feeling like searching “Google gravity” and hitting “I’m feeling lucky”, don’t be surprised if Google comes crashing down around you the second you move the mouse.
5. Recursion:
Google pokes fun at its own “did you mean” suggestions if you search recursion (repetition or returning) by questioning your spelling even though you didn’t make a mistake.
6. Klingon:
So “GoogleDaq ylnej” means “Google search”.There is a Klingon version of Google. There is also a pirate and Elmer Fudd version, if that’s more your thing.
7. Kerning:
Designers will love this one — kerning is the spacing between letters in a word. When you do a search for kerning, Google changes the spaces between letters in the word ‘kerning’ in all the results.
8. Nagging Rams:
Similar to the ‘recursion’ response, if you search for ‘anagram’ (rearranging the letters in a word to make a new word or phrase), Google rearranges the letters to suggest you were really searching for ‘nag a ram’.
9. Antarctic Penguins:
If you ever want to creep the Antarctic on Google Maps, you may be surprised to find the little orange peg man you drag and drop to change to Google Street View has transformed into a fat little penguin.
10. Doodles:
What do you get if you don’t actually search for anything, and just hit ‘I’m feeling lucky’? A catalogue of all the Google doodles — all the way back to 1998.
11. Street View team:
Ever wanted to see the people who work at Google doing cool things like Google Street View? Well, if you hop along to the back of the Google offices in Mountain View, you can see them all.
12. Laundry:
There are a lot of things Gmail can do for you — filter spam, flood you with ads, apply a plethora of pretty coloured labels to your messages — but, as yet, it can’t do your laundry. However, it is an option on the ‘suggest a feature’ page for Gmail.
13. Pacman:
It started out as a Google doodle to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Pacman in 2010, but the Google Pacman game was so popular, it was given a permanent home.
14. Zerg rush:
Google “zerg rush” and prepare to defend your browser against hordes of the letter ‘o’ in Google’s logo, which will start to destroy your search results. They’re apparently undefeatable, but you can try to fight them off by clicking on them and share your high score on Google +. For those who aren’t familiar with StarCraft, a ‘zerg rush’ is a tactic where swarms of aliens known as ‘zergs’ descend in multitudes in order to overwhelm their enemies.
(Courtesy to my friend Gautam)
15. You’ll never find Chuck Norris
Because Chuck Norris jokes never get old, there is a warning hidden in Google search results to ward off those who dare to attempt to find him. Just search ‘find Chuck Norris’ and hit ‘I’m feeling lucky’ and you’ll see what I mean.
16. Askew:
If you run a Google search for the word “askew”, you may think you’ve somehow broken your monitor or telepathically adjusted your display settings. But really, Google has just shifted a few degrees – the same thing happens if you search for “tilt”.
17. Goglogo:
Ever wanted your own personal version of Google, complete with a customised logo?For this, you can type “goglogo” into your Google search bar and hit “I’m feeling lucky” . If you enter your name into Goglogo’s box, you’ll be rewarded with a search page that has been customised with your name.
18. Heart:
Could you plot this equation on a graph: “(sqrt(cos(x))*cos(200x)+sqrt(abs(x))-0.7)*(4-x*x)^0.01, sqrt(9-x^2), -sqrt(9-x^2) from -4.5 to 4.5”? No? Well, Google’s built-in graph function can compute all of that mathematical notation and stick the results firmly on the x and y axis to produce a little blue heart. Lovely.
19. The Google translate beat box:
If you type a string of garbled words into Google Translate, and ask it to translate them from English to German, then click the ‘listen’ icon, Google will start beat boxing. The text is “pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk bschk pv bschk bschk kkkkkkkkkk”, but slightly different variations work too — and the beat box rhythm changes depending on how you combine the terms.
20. Google sphere:
Google sphere transforms your Google Image search page into an interactive spinning orb. To access it, search for “google sphere” and click “I’m feeling lucky”. Then click on the search bar, and chase the swirling links around the screen to your heart’s content. The ‘sphere’ will spin around in different directions depending on where your mouse pointer is positioned on the screen.
21. The loneliest number:
In case you weren’t aware of this, Google’s built-in calculator will confirm it for you: the loneliest number is one. It can also tell you how to calculate a blue moon.
22. Binary:
If you search for the word ‘binary’ in Google, you’ll get the results — but the exact number of results won’t be displayed in the form you’re accustomed to — instead, they’ll give it to you in binary code . Something similar happens for ‘octal’ and ‘hexadecimal’.
23. Snake:
Ever get bored while waiting for YouTube videos to buffer? Well, you won’t have that problem again. Just press the arrow keys and you can play a game of snake (it helps if you pause on a solid background, although it is much more entertaining when the blinking dot your snake has to ‘eat’ appears on someone’s face).
24. Dragons:
The spread sheets in Google Docs are plagued by dragons… and it’s up to you to defeat them! Ok, they’re really not, but you can slay a dragon in Google Docs with embarrassing ease. Just press ‘shift’ and ‘F12’ and you’ll be congratulated on your fine job.
25. Jet ski to China:
If you ask Google Maps for directions from Japan to China (I tried Tokyo to Shanghai), it will give you all the usual traffic routes… and an instruction to climb on board a jet ski to make it across the Pacific. If you try to go from Australia to America, Google will recommend taking a kayak. I’d rather walk to Mordor.
