7.1 Hacks #86-92
The culture of the Internet has its own
sense of humor—a Monty Python, Tom Lehrer, Terry
Pratchett-esque sense of humor. It should come as no surprise,
therefore, that Google and the Google API have been used for a
variety of silly, weird, and just plain strange search applications.
Having fun with search engines isn't a new thing.
See http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~andrewm/misc/segames/
for a whole page of search engine games—including a
search engine drinking game, believe it or not. Search engine users
have also discovered that searching for certain phrases in Google can
lead to interesting results. And earlier this year, the idea of
"Google
bombing"—groups linking to sites using
pre-agreed upon descriptions to boost that site in
Google's search results—became so prevalent
that rumor has it that Google took steps to prevent the practice
affecting the listings in its index.
If you've got a sense of humor but no sense of
programming, don't worry; you can pull some decent
pranks and have a little fun without writing a line of code. Of
course, if you're using the Google API,
you've the programming power to add punch and
complexity to your pranks and pratfalls.
Let's have a little fun!
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