OK, so let’s forget all the serious stuff and have a bit of fun instead today.
Years ago I well remember that if you entered exactly the correct keystrokes into Excel97 (yes that long ago), then it would start up a flight simulator that the authors had buried in the code, ah but alas it is gone and no longer a part of the current version.
However, techies will be techies and so often some unofficial goodies end up being buried inside the more official. Did you know that the google home page contains quite a collection of these and so without any further ado, here are my favourite 10.
1. Star Wars Scrolling
Go to Google Search and type in “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away”. What comes back are the google search results for that query rendered into the traditional scrolling Star Wars movie text.
2. Breakout game
Go to Google Image search and then type in “atari breakout”, and you will find yourself in the game.
3. Super mario bros
Type into search the term “super mario bros” and you get what you might expect – the results (as illustrated below), but click that Question Mark Icon on the right hand side and you get 200 points and a ding as if you were in the game itself.
4.Recursion
Enter the word, “recursion” and you get the result below. It asks “Did you mean: recursion”, so you click that link and it takes you to exactly the same page.
5. Flip a Coin & More
If you need make a decision, then simply type into google search “flip a coin”, and it will then quite randomly give you either heads or tails.
This also works for “Stopwatch”, “Timer”, and “Roll a Die”, each gives you a virtual version.
6.Bork Bork Bork & More
Now this is one that can get you into a bit of a pickle, you can change the google language settings, and then have to change it back and that can be tricky. So if you try this, they try to remember where the various options are so that you can then change the settings back.
It works like this …
- Go to “Settings” (bottom right on my screen) and select “Search Settings”
- Next click “Languages” (left hand side), then click “Show More” under the list
You will find a huge choice, and apart from the obvious that you would expect, you can also select …
- Elmer Fudd (as in the cartoon character with the lisp)
- Klingon (Beam me up Scottie)
- Pirate (Ohh Arr)
- Bork Bork Bork (Swedish Chef)
- Hacker (It is encrypted, you have to decrypt it)
… and good luck undoing it if you give any of them a go.
7. Zerg Rush
Type “zerg rush” and you will faced with an army of Google O’s that will proceed to slowly obliterate your search results. The idea is that you can stop them by clicking on them.
If you have no idea where “Zerg Rush” comes from, then you can simply google it and … oh wait a tic, that might be a problem :-)
8.<blink>
If you type “<blink>” into search, then every instance of the word “blink” within the results will … (Oh come on now, you can guess).
Side note: not the word in the URLs, just the text underneath them, so you might need to scroll down a bit to see it.
9. answer to life, the universe and everything
Type “answer to life, the universe and everything”, and if you know who Douglas Adams is then you will not be surprised by the number 1 hit in the search results.
10. Barrel Roll
Finally, it is time to simply roll the entire screen by typing “do a barrel roll”. This does not work in all browsers, and while it should work in Crome and also Firefox, other browsers might not work.
There is lots more out there
It is not just google, many often setup stuff like this just for the heck of it, and so if curious to see what else is out there, then go check out the easter eggs archive and see what you find. There you will discover that the scope is a lot wider and includes books, movies, games, and lots more as well.
Enjoy.