Google AutoComplete
Sunday, November 29, 2009 21:44:23
Everyone knows that Google controls a significant part of the web, but not a lot of people know that Google developers have a real sense of humor.
One example is that if you search for "recursion", Google asks "Did you mean: recursion". This link redirects you to itself, which is of course what recursion is.
Another example is when you search for "the answer to life the universe and everything", it tells you "the answer to life the universe and everything = 42" - a reference to the movie The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Recently, people have discovered another series of comedic responses from Google. Not long ago, Google added AutoComplete to their homepage, which gives you a dropdown of common search criteria based on what you are typing. Usually the results it gives you are pretty standard, but every once in a while, a ridiculous funny one comes up, such as:
or
There's a website, Autocomplete Me, where people can submit these funny screenshots as they find them. There's an RSS feed so you can keep an eye on them, since there are a few new good ones every day. Some of them are not family-friendly - there are several with adult language or content, but those typically are even funnier. This means that Google itself is providing inappropriate phrases to the general public, which seems pretty unethical to me, but that's a discussion for another time.
Here are a few more fun samples:
http://www.autocompleteme.com/
Tags: searchengine funny tech
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