Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

The Search Engine Belt Buckle

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the how-some-people-get-their-kicks dept.

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?"

4 of 244 comments (clear)

  1. Both? by kjones692 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Art project or pointless hack? Why can't it be both?

    --

    Love the Third Amendment?
  2. Seen something liek this before... by thegoogler · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I remember hearing that there is a monitor at google headquaters(i think it was in wired magazine) that scrolls random searches that are currently being done, cool idea.... but not new

    1. Re:Seen something liek this before... by ZorbaTHut · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Yes, there is. It's equally mesmerizing - I've sat there and watched it for a few hours. Funny searches:

      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?"

      --
      Breaking Into the Industry - A development log about starting a game studio.
  3. Common Searches by ozmanjusri · · Score: 5, Interesting

    There are a few places where you can check on live searches, and there are a lot of advertisers who are very interested in the results.

    http://searchenginewatch.com/facts/article.php/215 6041
    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.

    --
    "I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."