The Search Engine Belt Buckle 244
ptorrone writes "Engadget shows how they made "The Search Engine Belt Buckle" a PDA-based device which shows 24 hours of all the bizarre and banal things people are looking for on the web. Art project or pointless hack? That's for you to decide, people are searching for some pretty freaky stuff out there, so why not put in a belt buckle and get on the scene like a sex machine?"
Both? (Score:5, Interesting)
Seen something liek this before... (Score:5, Interesting)
I see the attraction (Score:5, Interesting)
And who wouldn't want to listen in on a confessional booth every now and then? Sure you'll never know who made what search, but it's a peek inside someone's psyche that you would never get the chance to see otherwise. Mental voyeurism.
Plus you may (~may~) find out that everyone else really is as weird as you in private. But why you'd need this on a belt buckle is anyone's guess.
Be nifty (Score:2, Interesting)
But an interesting project nonetheless....
-thewldisntenuff
A similar effect... (Score:4, Interesting)
You can always tell how many are using the system for the first time by the number of times there's a search for the word 'porn' by itself. I'm tempted to try it out myself, but I'm afraid that with only 256Mb of ram, my computer will blow up.
Re:I see the attraction (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:That's a belt?? (Score:0, Interesting)
what the hell is up with your web page? man you are the new starwars kid for me.. what a dork..
Who is Robert
I am a 21 year old male, born and raised in Rhode Island, USA.elite mr dude
I was born on December 24, 1982.
I have always liked science, technology, and computers.
My first computer was a TI-99/4A back in 1985 or 1986.
My first modern x86 computer was a 486DX2/66 that I built in March of 1993.
At around the same time, I began writing small MS-DOS Batch utilities.
In 1994 I created my first web site, a simple search engine/link list.
I started programming applications in late 1995.
I released my first shareware application in 1996, "Go To AOL", an add-on for American Online.
At this same time, I created a screen name called "MrProgrmmr", everyone called me MrP for short, that is how I got this name. In February, 2000 I created this site, elite because I'm so elite
Common Searches (Score:5, Interesting)
http://searchenginewatch.com/facts/article.php/21
is a site which aggregates a lot of the searches.
On occasion, I find it quite relaxing watching the queries scroll up the screen like some wierdly twisted ascii lava lamp, and the content of some of those queries makes me feel reasuringly normal by comparison.
A new slashdot effect.. (Score:4, Interesting)
"Why are you watching?"
scrolls past. A new symptom of the slashdot effect I guess
Ahhh the referrals log... (Score:4, Interesting)
sexy salesperson girl gallery
possum probe
Try it! What sort of sickos are surfing your website? Post em here!
Re:I see the attraction (Score:5, Interesting)
Afraid not - the closest Google have is the Google zeitgeist
However - some of the other (crappier) search sites do.
The only one I can find at the moment is Metacrawler's Metaspy [metaspy.com]. God - just been watching it for a few seconds - it includes the gems:
* how to measure body fat percentage with a tape measure and scale
* thongs for 7 year olds
* ubaid alien
* uncensored olympic gymnastic photos
I also found The Disturbing Search Requests Page [weblogger.com] - gleaned from some guy's referrer logs...It includes such goodies as 'clitoris size scale' and 'vampire "breasts grow"'
Re:Seen something liek this before... (Score:5, Interesting)
paris hilton (no less than seven times)
UTOPIA (you're not gonna find it if you can't fix your capslock)
www.google.com (found it!)
net (I can only wonder what they were searching for)
BIG BROTHER (no, no we're not watching you)
. . . and at least two or three phone numbers, which I was very tempted to call.
"Hi! Who is this? Did you know someone's searching for you on Google?"
Let me check the good ol' log files...... (Score:1, Interesting)
Entered for parameters lightning+strike+window
Entered for parameters plink+coke+hole+window
Entered for parameters lightning+car+group:sci.geo.meteorology
Entered for parameters waiders+flesh+welded
Entered for parameters lightning+plastic+body
Entered for parameters lightning+out+of+the+blue
Entered for parameters lightning+rear+window
Entered for parameters lightning+soft+top
Entered for parameters lightning+strike+stories
Entered for parameters zing+lightning+sparked
Entered for parameters alt.dreams+notes+playing
Entered for parameters alt.dreams+musical+notes+playing
Entered for parameters weeping+noises
Entered for parameters lightning+weeping+hit
Entered for parameters lightning+singing+glow
Entered for parameters lightning+singing+static
Entered for parameters singing+rocks+lightning
(note: most of this is obviously from lightning research, but you can see how you can come up
with a rather looking funny list of things
through the course of using a search engine to zero in on specific events.