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Playing with Google

Posted by Hemos on 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.

8 of 137 comments (clear)

  1. Personal Google Score by presroi · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    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.

    1. Re:Personal Google Score by presroi · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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....

  2. Ah, it's a Google of a problem, damn Google it! by krray · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  3. Talking of google hacks... by arvindn · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Have you seen http://www.google.com/intl/xx-hacker/?

  4. Re:One of my favorite google easter eggs... by sam_handelman · · Score: 5, Interesting

    What's really weird is that when you search for "goatse", you get a pointer to the anti-scientology subtree of google groups.

    The string goatse appears nowhere on the page; goatse.cx certainly isn't there. This was done with blogging, somehow? Does anyone know how that could possibly work? The closest thing I find is a .cx domain: http://lisatrust.freewinds.cx/

    Evidently this is a mirror of something defunct, but it won't server pages to explorer and I can't be bothered to start mozilla.

    --
    The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
  5. Paranews has covered this by presroi · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Paranews (German page, English links) is playing with google for a long time.

    You might want to enjoy ideas like Googlefight

    (Beginners' points to start:
    George W. Bush vs. Saddam Hussein

    Have fun...

  6. Front page by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting
    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.

    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:

  7. Well, I had my fun a few days ago by Bobke · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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"