
Do a Barrel Roll;
Barrel Roll, we all know what it is, but just for those of you who have no interest in “adventurous” stuff like rolling down the hill or even those who have never played a car racing game, let me do my best to make you understand. A barrel roll is a movement where an object rolls with a fixed longitudinal axis. Now that we are done with lessons, I am going to talk about the most basic secret or Easter egg related to barrel roll. Most of you may already know but some of you out there who use Google for what it should be used for, then I’m sorry you may not know about this one. To check out this Easter egg you need to do something really obvious… Yes, search for ‘do a barrel roll’ on the google search engine. Now, as a result, Google will also do something pretty obvious… Yes, of course! It will do what you just asked it to do. The whole google search result screen will do a barrel roll and get back into place. See, the thing is, Google is an obedient chap but, it won’t obey something like ‘do a front flip while holding a banana’ because at the end of the day it is a search engine not a roadside talent show. (please don’t experiment keywords like that….)
Flip a coin & Roll a die;
People like me may be lazy and procrastinators with nothing to do all day, but hey, that doesn’t mean we don’t get to make crucial and life-changing decisions. At a local store, you may see Cheetos lined right beside Doritos and you can buy only one. Who do you ask for help? Of course, Google! But hey, you don’t wanna watch a ten-minute YouTube video on a comparison between Doritos and Cheetos you want a quick decision. So go to the google search engine and type in ‘flip a coin’ and hit search, heads for Cheetos and tails for Doritos. On top of the search result you will see a coin flipping and in a second or two it will show whether it ended up being a heads or a tails. But to be honest, life doesn’t always give you only two choices. In those cases, go to the google search engine and type in ‘roll a die’ and on hitting search Google will roll a die for you and you could make decisions when you have more than one choices. Oh yeah, you could also use it for playing board games if you can’t find one (something that a die is originally used for).
Google Time Travel;
Google was founded in the year 1998 and since then, it has gone from being an ordinary search engine which very few people knew about at the starting to being worth more than a whopping $800 billion! On Google’s 15th birthday in the year 2013, Matt Cutts (an American software engineer) tweeted saying, “To celebrate Google’s 15th birthday, an easter egg shows how Google used to look: http://www.google.com/Blah blah blah”. To check out this Easter egg you have to search for ‘Google in 1998’. The search results will be shown in the same manner as they used to 20 years ago! You can’t use this layout for any other search though. You will notice the old Google logo on the top with an exclamation mark. On the top of the page you will see a link saying “take me back to the present” and of course it shows you the search results for your query ‘Google in 1998’ with the current search engine.
Google Gravity;
Nothing defies the laws of Physics, not even google. Just to see an example, search for ‘Google Gravity’ and click on the first result. Once the page is loaded you will see Google Start-Page. But in just a few seconds it will no longer be a normal web page. All the content on the page will fall down and get piled up at the bottom of the browser window. You can still search for some stuff if you manage to rummage through the boxes and find the search bar and hit the search button. The results will fall down too and stack up on the other boxes. Everything remains the same the only difference is that Google no longer defies gravity. You can still see the Google Doodle and links still work. The last thing you want is to run out of space and no longer be able to see more results. I still try to throw out unwanted boxes out from the sides of the browser window and most probably they make their way into another dimension.
Atari Breakout;
We all had already bought a GBA console by the late 1970s. As many people had bought this console, video-game companies were trying their best to make a game that everyone would love to play and rush to the store to buy that game. In 1976, Atari Inc. released a game called Breakout. The objective of this game was simple, you had to destroy all the block with a ball that bounces off all of them. You had to control a platform and prevent the ball from going down below. The game was a super hit and almost every Atari 2600 or GBA owner had this game. Google has given this game a tribute by dedicating an Easter egg to them. Go and search for Atari breakout in google and once the page is loaded, BOOM! Nothing will happen. However, if you go to the images tab, you will see all the result images turn into colourful blocks and a grey ball will start bouncing back and forth on the blocks and you have to control a blue platform on the bottom of the screen and preventing the ball from escaping the play area. Now, you can play Atari breakout and relive those nostalgic memories.
Meaning of life;
Let’s be honest, we all have had weird and philosophical thoughts at least once in our lifetime. Sitting on a couch and having thoughts like “What is
1; Another interesting number;
We have all read fairy tales in our childhood with magical lands and queer creatures. Turns out google held a research regarding one of the many fictitious characters in these tales; the unicorn. Google figured out something we humans could have never figured out. Go to google and search for ‘ the number of horns on a unicorn’. According to Google Calculator, unicorns have only one horn. Also, if you search for ‘the loneliest number’ the google calculator will show 1. This could be a reference to the song ‘One is the loneliest number’ by Three Dog Night or Google is just good at cracking punny jokes.
PacMan;
PacMan was an arcade game developed and published by Namco. The game sold more than 7.7 million copies. It was programmed by Shigeo Funaki and designed by Toru Iwatani. The game was first released in Japan in May 1980. On 21 May 2010 Google celebrated the 30th birth anniversary by making a special Google Doodle for the game. The doodle was special because we could play Pacman with a special ‘Google Arena’. The ‘Google PacMan’ can be played even today, years after the Google doodle has been released and is now referred to as an Easter egg. Search for ‘google Pacman’ in google and on the top of the results you will see the google doodle which says ‘Click to play!’ and voila, on clicking the doodle you can play Pacman on your device.
Askew;
Google has shown us a practical explanation of a barrel roll and as well as Zerg rush. Google has also explained to us the meaning of another word by a practical explanation. Search for the term ‘askew’ in Google, by doing this the definition of the term will come up but wait, Google has already explained the meaning by tilting the whole web page a few degrees to one side. According to the dictionary, askew means “in a crooked position; awry”. The same Easter egg used to appear when you would search for the term ’tilt’ in Google. However, the Easter egg now seems to work only if you search for ‘askew’ and nothing else.