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It's funny. Laugh. Technology

Playing with Google 137

Posted by Hemos from the fun-things-for-the-weekend dept.
Chromatic sent over the links to Tara Calishain's Happy Google Hacks page. It's basically a collection of interesting ways to do searching - something fun for the weekend. I'm thinking of preparing dinner Sunday based on the recipe tool.
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Playing with Google More

Playing with Google

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  • Google 1000 quota (Score:5, Funny)

    by sydneyfong ( 410107 ) on Sunday March 09, 2003 @02:33AM (#5470397) Homepage Journal
    Note: If you get a "no search results" message for a search that you'd expect results, this may be because the key has been used up for the day. Sigh. 1000 queries at ten results each isn't a whole lot, is it?

    You gotta love slashdot and it's slashdotting....

  • Sanctioned (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Romancer ( 19668 ) <romancer AT deathsdoor DOT com> on Sunday March 09, 2003 @02:35AM (#5470406) Journal
    Does google embraces this form of use?
    What about all the legal bs lately about altering the look of a website, does this apply to search results?

    If I wrote software that altered the google search results page to remove the paid listings would they have a legal standing to object, or would the simple fact that it's a search result page and I'm supposed to try and get the information I want, and only what I want(ie: +enhance +performance +car -porn)nullify this legal precedent?

    • Re:Sanctioned (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 09, 2003 @02:44AM (#5470431)
      If you look at the site, hes using Google API, using his google API key. Google opened their API to allow stuff like this. It's perfectly legal and he has their permission.

      If he was just parsing a google search result then yeah that would be bad.

      Also google has control over the API because they limit queries per day based on your key, as his site says "Note: If the Google API key has been used up for the day you'll get an error message."

      • Re:Sanctioned (Score:5, Insightful)

        by presroi ( 657709 ) <neubau@presroi.de> on Sunday March 09, 2003 @06:31AM (#5470770) Homepage
        If you look at the site, hes using Google API, using his google API key. Google opened their API to allow stuff like this. It's perfectly legal and he has their permission.


        When I went to this site (buzztools) the time I wasn't fully slashdotted, I was prompted for a Google API key.

        Am I just paranoid when mentioning the chance that such a funny tool might just be great for collecting other people's Google API access nummers/codes? Right now, google does not charge you but... Hmm, I am too paranoid.
        • if you don't like giving your key away you can always code your own googleapi funny search tools, it's not that hard even.

          googleapi is great for doing more complex searches, like wanting to grade a set of pages by rules set by you(lowering grade on pages with known bad words for example so that one banner doesnt filter the site but 20 get it's score so low you wont have to check it out.). also great to avoid those gddamn link farms..........

    • Re:Sanctioned (Score:5, Informative)

      by trotski ( 592530 ) on Sunday March 09, 2003 @04:11AM (#5470573)
      Does google embraces this form of use? What about all the legal bs lately about altering the look of a website, does this apply to search results?

      Actually, since google is this free and open company, they do embrace it. Just check out their terms of service [google.com].

      Pffff, Google's code is so secure that you wouldn't be able to get rid of Google's ads anyways. Besides, why would you want to hack such a free and open company?

      • Re:Sanctioned (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        free and open company? google is practically the electricity of the internet. if you believe they are "free and open" you are more misguided than the americans that are calling for war in iraq.

  • One of my favorite google easter eggs... (Score:5, Funny)

    by $$$$$exyGal ( 638164 ) on Sunday March 09, 2003 @02:37AM (#5470410) Homepage Journal
    Do a search for "goatsex [google.com]", with the 'x' at the end, and look at what google recommends ;-).

  • Slashdotted already... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 09, 2003 @02:37AM (#5470411)
    So...who's got the google cache?

  • beatnik poetry about quantum physics, anyone? (Score:4, Funny)

    by DataPath ( 1111 ) on Sunday March 09, 2003 @02:43AM (#5470427)
    Physics cool hepcat words
    daddy-o jazzman Concepts What the
    Quantum Niels Quantum hip cool
    Physics long gone is the Quantum Crossroads
    Physics What Physics? What In
    Online In daddy-o Physics Physics
    Quantum is Concepts hepcat physics words of of
    is Physics daddy-o Quantum Concepts Physics In jazzy
    the jazzy words is

    man... that's some GooPoetry
    • Dammit, I used to make random poetry by grepping through the /usr/share/games/fortune/fortunes file. Got this by doing a serach for 'double' then 'blind': (read it through without pausing at the end of lines, and it's circular so when you reach the end, go straight back to the beginning...)

      They suck, and like the double-breasted suit
      I pray the double lock will keep;
      double cheese, or the occasional Mai-Tai? (Remember, living
      and his speed doubles every 3.2 seconds, how long will it be before
      other animals only by certain double-edged manifestations which in
      the two had the following record: the Vietnam War, Watergate, double-
      eyes we cannot bear to look out of, we blind them as quickly as
      It looks like blind screaming hedonism won out.
      be liable to a fine of one pound. Any animal leading a blind person
      can wait. Unless it's blind screaming paroxysmally hedonistic ...
      lenses, essentially blind -- could result in the kind of injury where

      Ted Hughes eat your heart out ;)

      Oliver.

  • Needed option (Score:4, Funny)

    by TWX_the_Linux_Zealot ( 227666 ) on Sunday March 09, 2003 @02:43AM (#5470428) Journal
    I won't be happy until "images.google.com/porn" (or pr0n, for all you l33t h4xx0rs out there) works properly...

  • Google Poetry - Slashdot (Score:4, Funny)

    by Derg ( 557233 ) <alex.nunley@gmail.com> on Sunday March 09, 2003 @02:44AM (#5470430) Journal
    I thought this was particularly charming:

    [poem]

    BSD Server that (?) Slashdot ...
    Day nerds, News
    ! Wreaking Slashdot: Havoc ! Worm
    ... that Apple ... ... Slashdot.org matters
    ! Slashdot stuff Wreaking for (?) Quit
    BSD Apple Meetup Slashdot: Slashdot: Day
    Slashdot BSD nerds,
    Wreaking nerds, (?) News Slashdot.org
    www.slashdot.net nerds, Worm SQL Wreaking

    [/poem]

    And who says BSD is dead? thats like what, 3 mentions?

  • Personal Google Score (Score:5, Interesting)

    by presroi ( 657709 ) <neubau@presroi.de> on Sunday March 09, 2003 @02:44AM (#5470432) Homepage
    Long time ago, I began to think about graphing someones "impact" in this world by letting google hunt for his/her name.

    The pre-result can be watched at my homepage [presroi.de].

    It's important not just to look at the real number but to watch the number growing and declining.

    Anna Lührmann (age 19) was elected as member of Parliament 09/23/2002 and her google score just doubled within some days.

    Maybe I'm going to reimplement this thing by using the google API and some funny php/lib_gd tools.

    • old (Score:1)

      by dsanfte ( 443781 )
      the concept of ranking someone's "fame" by search engine results dates back to the debut of Altavista. Not new by a long shot...
      • I haven't seen this on altavista yet. Besides google, I had some fun with the other usual suspects and altavista, search.msn and alltheweb.com performed very strange (note: this is not a 'proof' but rather a personal experience) The fluctuation in the total number of search results over time was far greater than compared to google.

        I'd love to see this altavista feature (does this include some kind of 'history'?).

        Mathias Schindler

    • Re:Personal Google Score (Score:5, Funny)

      by arvindn ( 542080 ) on Sunday March 09, 2003 @03:30AM (#5470521) Homepage Journal
      Long time ago, I began to think about graphing someones "impact" in this world by letting google hunt for his/her name.

      Anna Lührmann (age 19) was elected as member of Parliament 09/23/2002 and her google score just doubled within some days.

      Well, I put my homepage in my URL field here and its pagerank shot up within a week.

      Don't tell me I'm making an impact on the world by posting on slashdot :)

      • Re:Personal Google Score (Score:5, Interesting)

        by presroi ( 657709 ) <neubau@presroi.de> on Sunday March 09, 2003 @03:44AM (#5470540) Homepage
        The URL is very different to a human name. The Human Name System is crappy. It's not unique, it has not a defined charset and it is subject to chances all the time (Guess what happens when Mary marries Martin). Searching for "Jim Miller" or another popular name will not give you satisfing results. Arabic names for example are very hard to find (thats a phenomenon even the Feds have discovered by now). Does it say AlQuaida, El Kaida, Al Quaeda, ...Al Kiruna?

        The technical approach of PageRank cannot be compared to count the number of results to a given Human Name.

        My name "Mathias Schindler" is not unique and it's often misspelled "Matthias". Since the ordinary human population dislikes the idea of a unique naming system for people. (Another example might be Iceland, where the Surname results from the first name of your father (I heard so, it does not have to be correct)).

        Posting your URL does not help your real name to boost directly. Putting your name under every message might.

        Version 2.0 *could* make use of that by using the google pageRank as an indicator (for what, btw?). for the importance of a search result. This is the future....
        • Searching for "Jim Miller" or another popular name will not give you satisfing results

          I think if you searched for "Jim Miller" you wouldn't find an arm... ;o)

          C'mon... there's gotta be a Bears fan on Slashdot who will mod that up!

        • Icelandic naming convention (short summary):
          male child: father's first name + possessive 's' + son
          female child: father's first name + possessive 's' + dottir

          If dad's a deadbeat/unknown, use mother's first name instead of father's.

          There are also subtle mutations of names involved. You want great detail on that, learn Icelandic. For an example of how it all works, Tryggvi and his wife Brunhild have a son that they name Thorvald. The child is named Thorvald Tryggvasson. Thorvald gets Gudrun knocked up and skips town on the nearest trawler, leaving no forwarding address. When the child is born (let's say it's a girl), she will have the last name Gudrunsdottir. 18 years later, young Ms. Gudrunsdottir (let's call her Rannveig) is grown up. She finds out she's pregnant after partying an entire weekend with a bunch of sailors on shore leave from NAS Keflavik, and can't remember who specifically is in the daddy candidate pool. Her child would have the last name of either Rannveigsson or Rannveigsdottir.

          As an interesting and somewhat related side note, Icelandic phone books list name, address, phone number, and occupation. They also have kept concise records of descent since the Age of the Saga Writers (c. 1200ad).

          yes, it's a little offtopic, but what the hell...

        • > Arabic names for example are very hard to find

          I don't think it'd be very easy to find "Mathias Shindler" if all your search tools used Arabic orthography, so why do you expect the converse to be true?
          Install the Arabic language pack; write your search in Arabic. Google will find it. Google is sexy.

          >The Human Name System is crappy..
          > it has not a defined charset

          I don't see how that's true at all, unless you're (American ex-pop-star) Prince. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think there's a single commonly used naming scheme which you can't map to Unicode. I mean _Ancient Egyptians_ used the same characters for names as words..
    • I just tried searching for my name,
      and got 3540 matches!

      But that could be because my name is the same as
      a locality in Australia..

      • I just tried searching for my name,
        and got 3540 matches!

        But that could be because my name is the same as
        a locality in Australia..


        Well, you're still lucky. Guess what happens to 5 year old George Washington when he does what you did.

        (The first name "Gerhard" as well as the last name "Schröder" ist very common in Germany. Even in politics (Minister of Defense Gerhard Schröder (around 1968) is not the same as Chancellor Gerhard Schröder (1998 - now))

        Stuart, do you results become more accurate when you exclude the town of this park for example?
      • 1830 with quotes, 350 for my full name, 271000 without quotes. My name is shared with a movie character (played by Kevin Kline)...

        Don't worry, one of my friends' name is "Michael Jones", he has 74k hits with quotes. :-)
    • Yeah, I felt a small victory when my picture was the first to come up on a Google Image Search on my name (Nicholas Hansen).

      A few months ago I stopped working for the company that hosted that particular picture, so it doesn't come up anymore, but it was a good few months :)
    • You can also check out what google knows (or think it knows) about you at Googlism [googlism.com]. Gets pretty hilarious.
    • Pfft. Hardly a reliable method :) If I search for my name, I find out that I'm a women's volleyball coach from California.

      Damn, I wish I were me.

  • Ah, it's a Google of a problem, damn Google it! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by krray ( 605395 ) on Sunday March 09, 2003 @02:45AM (#5470434)
    Well, I guess I first have to question if the use of "Google" (tm, copyright, patented, etc) in the subject line is legal?

    How DO you look up the Google'd cache on Google for Hacking the Happy Google? I'm sure it's probably an answer in the Google hack, but since /. Google'd them I can't Google them to see other interesting Google tid bits.

    • Re:Ah, it's a Google of a problem, damn Google it! (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 09, 2003 @03:44AM (#5470539)

      Well here's giving away the secret of karma-whores everywhere... To find the Google cache of a webpage, you simply search for the URL of the page. For example, this [google.com] for Slashdot. Unfortunately the Hacking Google site isn't cached [google.com]. There's no ROBOTS.TXT on the server, but it's probably an expiry-date header in HTTP (can't check because the site is Slashdotted :-)

      Here's something interesting, though... Google's robots.txt [google.com].

      • If you ran a search engine, wouldn't you want to block other search engines (and indeed your own search engine) from indexing your results? Search engine results pages probably shouldn't appear as hits on search engine results pages, after all :-)

        (Google haven't blocked /services/ and so on, so all their static content is indexable - it's just the results that aren't)

  • What the... (Score:5, Funny)

    by arvindn ( 542080 ) on Sunday March 09, 2003 @02:47AM (#5470437) Homepage Journal
    I understand its fun to think up words for all kinds of things, but "GooCooking"? Couldn't she come up with something in better er.. taste than that?

  • Talking of google hacks... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by arvindn ( 542080 ) on Sunday March 09, 2003 @02:52AM (#5470442) Homepage Journal
    Have you seen http://www.google.com/intl/xx-hacker/ [google.com]?
  • Oh honey! Google me again and there's no telling what I'll do... no wait, keep googling, yeah, yeah, even find my old high school pictures. Damn, you google better than anyone I know, how did you turn THAT up? ...Oh wow... I promise, I'll google you next... oooh baby, oooh your results are amazing...I think I'm gonna google...phew... Damn, that was the *best* google I ever had. Promise.

  • Paranews has covered this (Score:3, Interesting)

    by presroi ( 657709 ) <neubau@presroi.de> on Sunday March 09, 2003 @02:55AM (#5470449) Homepage
    Paranews [paranews.org] (German page, English links) is playing with google for a long time.

    You might want to enjoy ideas like Googlefight [googlefight.com]

    (Beginners' points to start:
    George W. Bush vs. Saddam Hussein [googlefight.com]

    Have fun...

  • Front page (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ResearchBuzz Toolbox

    With Google's new API ( http://www.google.com/apis/ ) using search engines is now even more fun and flexible. Since I first started playing with the API in April 2002, I've had several different ideas for ways to make the best use of it. Some of the ideas are little "sketches", while some are more thought-out programs.

    This toolbox is a workbench for me to play with different ideas online, and make the interfaces publicly available so you can take a look at them too. So poke around, try the tools, and if you've got any ideas let me know what you think. Some of these tools, with codes and discussion about how they work, are available in the O'Reilly book Google Hacks [oreilly.com].

    If you want to use these tools, please please PLEASE consider getting a key from http:// www.google.com/apis/ . All you'll have to do is register. Programs will have key interfaces added to them over time. I only have one key, and it can be used only 1000 times a day, so with all these tools that key isn't going to go far. Some of the tools don't use the API key, thank goodness.

    This Web site is so not finished it's not even funny. Pardon any dead-ends or under- constructions.

    The latest tools:

  • Google hackers at work (Score:4, Funny)

    by arvindn ( 542080 ) on Sunday March 09, 2003 @03:03AM (#5470472) Homepage Journal
    Here [google.com] you can see the google hackers at work.
  • I originally believed the title ("Playing With Google") meant some fun things you can do with those various goo elements you can find in toy stores. ; )

  • 500 (Score:4, Funny)

    by dannyweb ( 321535 ) <danny@da n n y w e b . com> on Sunday March 09, 2003 @03:11AM (#5470488) Homepage
    All I'm getting is Internal Server Errors. Can it be slashdotted already? Darn, and I was looking forward to finding a recipe for "Peanut Butter, Jelly, and Bread", I just don't know what to do with them!
  • GooCookin' -- Throw some ingredients in the query form and see what Google spits back at you! For giggles, set the recipe type on general and search for "spam." (Coconut Beer Batter Spam with Raspberry Horse, anyone?)

    Eww... that sounds like some strange goo cooking all right! Better think twice before you cook Sunday dinner with this tool.

  • I dunno... (Score:3, Funny)

    by CoolVibe ( 11466 ) on Sunday March 09, 2003 @03:26AM (#5470514) Journal
    Internal Server Error... Is that the meaning of life or what?

    Guess us slashdot folk threw a wrench in the gears. Hmmm...

  • The objective of GoogleWhack is to find two words that when searched for only coincide on one page. The number of hits the individual words have are multipied together to get your score. Enjoy wasting some time =D

  • Google Fight (Score:3, Informative)

    by SystematicPsycho ( 456042 ) on Sunday March 09, 2003 @04:43AM (#5470624)
    I use google fight [googlefight.com] to solve disputes sometimes.

  • We've slashdotted this site, and... (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    We slashdotted this site already.. so I was going to post a link to the google cache of this page so i could karma whore, but somehow it isn't in the cache.

    Oh well..

    Well, i don't know if it's on the site's list, since i can't reach the site, but here's my favorite google toy [googlism.com]. I really hope i don't slashdot it by linking it :) By the way, if you ask this toy about slashdot, it says:

    slashdot is 5
    slashdot is giving away money
    slashdot is a plot by microsoft to destroy the productivity of linux users
    slashdot is 5 today
    slashdot is now running fry
    slashdot is owned by osdn
    slashdot is that the number of trolls
    slashdot is a technology oriented weblog
    slashdot is one of the largest tech sites on the web
    slashdot is one of the largest it news sites on the web
    slashdot is an open forum and we encourage free discussion and sharing of ideas
    slashdot is going to wall street and inviting the nerds along for the ride
    slashdot is now four years old
    slashdot is running a
    slashdot is running a poll asking people's favorite office suite
    slashdot is raking in the page views
    slashdot is many things to many people
    slashdot is among other things
    slashdot is not a democracy
    slashdot is a community with rules and customs
    slashdot is geen bedrijf
    slashdot is not relevant here
    • Yes and:

      anonymous coward is famous for first comment posts and annoying comments that make no sense and serve no purpose other than to anger other slashdot users
      anonymous coward is upset that nick has been arrested
      anonymous coward is atia
      anonymous coward is a genious
      anonymous coward is not a single individual
      anonymous coward is on crack
      anonymous coward is the user name for comments which are submitted anonymously
      anonymous coward is also supported
      anonymous coward is posting in reference to one
      anonymous coward is more like it
      anonymous coward is
      anonymous coward is a mask to hide behind
      anonymous coward is a gimp
      anonymous coward is to get out of jain list
      anonymous coward is revealed
      anonymous coward is known as joerg
      anonymous coward is a wit too
      anonymous coward is not a single person but all anonymous posters
      anonymous coward is tom morrisette
      anonymous coward is like a slap in the face from a tissue
      anonymous coward is due
      anonymous coward is such an apt phrase
      anonymous coward is enjoying the scene
      anonymous coward is not going to have ghostscript installed > on their
      anonymous coward is not going to have ghostscript installed > > on
      anonymous coward is the lowest
      anonymous coward is uid 0 or
      anonymous coward is right
      anonymous coward is not a representitive of a company
      anonymous coward is a 'nym used by people who either don't want to be known
      anonymous coward is another sheep
      anonymous coward is okay too
      anonymous coward is likely to be able to match
      anonymous coward is posting heinous and threatening comments on your blogs and/or through email
      anonymous coward is a good name for you
      anonymous coward is a well known
      anonymous coward is the slashdot term for anyone posting anonymously
      anonymous coward is not going to have ghostscript installed on their system
      anonymous coward is really red tall? posted by
      anonymous coward is a georger?
      anonymous coward is the great shaq
      anonymous coward is a liar
      anonymous coward is clear
      anonymous coward is a glaring example
      -----
      Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

  • el8 (Score:1, Funny)

    by initnull ( 512461 )
    im still hacking gopher search queries, why switch to google, is it another trick from apple?
  • could someone explain to me what exactly the smiley faces in the internet explorer google toolbar addon do? and is there any other interface to submit feedback to google?

    thnx,
    -strangeloop
  • when an article appeared on ZDNet (Belgium) about Filemaker Pro's being accessible through google with a simple search. So I searched for phpmyadmin... I downloaded like 10500 mails from other people from a webmail service once called "mailalien.com".. Got like 20000+ passwords off porn sites (with their mail addresses) and I believe I can just place an order for some new pentiums if I want. I don't call this hacking, I can screw up like 70+ sites in 5 seconds without having to pass ANY form of security. Just did a test, this db is STILL accessible, unbelievable... Try "db4allen"
  • The site also links to the O'Reilly Google Hacks [oreilly.com] book, where you not only find how to use google more effectively, but also have example hacks likes the one in that site whith source (some of them can be seen in the O'Reilly site). This hacks are good, but sometimes you want something a bit different (i.e. the recipes but in spanish), and is nice to see what kind of things you can do.

    For me, the site is good example of what else you can do with google if you go a bit under the plain interface it have, but, like in the World of Ends [worldofends.com] site say for internet, the main google interface and main use should be as "dumb" as it is now, and top of it anyone could do this kind of hacks (you can do even a directory of hacks, like Yahoo but pointing to google hacks for each category)

  • I was just getting ready to find the perfect Sunday dinner menu - and BOOM its slashdotted. Even says so in BIG letters highlighted in Yellow :)

    Hmmm... any one got any ideas for a can of peas, 2 frozen fish filets, a half a bag of cheeze doodles, and blueberry bagels??? :P

    Duke

    • Even google itself looks slashdotted, or was that what you meant ?
      I need a 'chicken wav sound' search result :)
  • Did we slashdot google? All I'm getting when I try to stalk people this morning ... I mean do research on legitimate queries ... is an error. Just tried again ... google's not even responding now.

    Is this us?
  • Oh my god, you killed Google!

  • Fagan Finder (Score:2, Insightful)

    by sepluv ( 641107 )
    The site in the article is quite cool. I haven't seen it before.

    Another useful site that uses an alternative interface for Google [faganfinder.com] is Fagan Finder [faganfinder.com]. It has all the difference google searches and related options on one page [faganfinder.com]. (There is also an MSIE-only JS version [faganfinder.com] which I have not used). Fagan Finder [faganfinder.com] is a guide to SE's and directories; probably quite a useful site for those new to the web (and its SE's and directories) for getting around (and if one cannot find info on something in particular easily).

  • the link in the article is new to me, but one of the more interesting ones i have found on my own is elgooG [alltooflat.com]. Not only is the whole page flipped, but to actually search for something, you have to type it backwards (or you get some even stranger results!)

    --paul

  • of a slashdot article being a few days behind memepool...

  • Google's API docs give as an example an application which would notify you of new documents that appear in a particular search. In order to truely successfully implement this, you'd need to be able to index much much more than the 1000 hits that google allows. Anyone done this using HTTP rather than Google's API?
  • So I do GooPoetry, and I want a Beat-type poetry, and I want something on Apache Web Servers, so I type Apache Web Servers... and this is what I get "Internal Server Error The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request. Please contact the server administrator, webmaster@buzztoolbox.com and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error. More information about this error may be available in the server error log. Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request." Is this some sort of... SICK JOKE. Heh. Googlized bastards! Mike

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