Articles tagged “funny”
Learning about world cultures via Google Autocomplete
Out of curiosity, I was looking how a browser interacts with the Google Instant backend. While looking the HTTP exchanges via Firebug, I first asked myself why they’re encoding HTML and JS with \xYY
escape sequences, then why the very same JS functions are sent back and forth on every request, and later I stumbled upon the google.com/s?q=QUERY
JSONp service.
Give it a query, and it’ll return the suggested related phrases that are used to build the menu under the search input while using suggestions and/or instant (didn’t dig too much in all the other parameters).
Anyway, what’s interesting is that, of course, the suggestions are customized on a per-country basis. To show the differences explicitly let’s ask the service the simplest query possible, a
:
For Italy you’ll get:
$ curl http://www.google.it/s?q=a
window.google.ac.h(["a",[["ansa","","0"],
["alice","","1"],["alitalia","","2"],["alice mail","","3"],
["apple","","4"],["agenzia delle entrate","","5"],
["audi","","6"],["aci","","7"],["autoscout","","8"],
["atm","","9"]],"","","","","",{}])
hum, let’s scrap the JSONp and parameters out:
$ curl -s http://www.google.it/s?q=a | ruby -rjson -ne 'puts JSON($_[19..-2])[1].map(&:first).join(", ")'
ansa, alice, alitalia, alice mail, apple, agenzia delle entrate, audi, aci, autoscout, atm
For the US you’ll get:
amazon, aol, att, apple, american airlines, abc, ask.com, amtrak, addicting games, aim
UK:
argos, amazon, asda, asos, autotrader, aa route planner, aol, apple, amazon uk, aqa
Ireland:
aer lingus, aib, argos, amazon.co.uk, argos.ie, asos, aa route planner, amazon, aldi, aib internet banking
Lastly, because I’ve been there lately and it has been a profound experience, Cuba:
asus, antonio maceo, amor, amigos, ain, antivirus, avira, alba, aduana, as
I’m sure @nhaima is smiling while seeing these words, because hell yeah, over there they really google antivirus software (avira is one of them) a lot because it’s a world without the Internet, thus without free software: you’re condemned in using Windows stuff, and you take what you pay for. Antonio Maceo has been an hero of the 19th century revolution, and it’s in the heart of Cuban people. Amor, Amigos! :-)
Anyway, looks like that simple queries like this really give an insight on what a population thinks and/or needs, because they’re surely generated by the search trends, thus are the “most searched words”. Am I discovering hot water? Maybe, but it was funny to rediscover it. Just make sure not to hammer the /s
service with too many requests, because they’ll anyway be handled by the same cluster of machines, thus you’ll be banned early (I’ve been :-p).
Notice to all employees
( As read on full-disclosure )
Subject: Notice to all employees
Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 13:06:14 -0500
Dear employees,
Due to the current financial situation caused by the slowdown
of the economy, Management has decided to implement a scheme
to put workers of 40 years of age and above on early retirement.
This scheme will be known as RAPE (Retire Aged People Early).
Persons selected to be RAPED can apply to management to be eligible
for the SHAFT scheme (Special Help After Forced Termination).
Persons who have been RAPED and SHAFTED will be reviewed under the
SCREW programme (Scheme Covering Retired Early Workers). A person
may be RAPED once, SHAFTED twice and SCREWED as many times as
Management deems appropriate.
Persons who have been RAPED can only get AIDS (Additional Income
for Dependants & Spouse) or HERPES (Half Eamings for Retired
Personnel Early Severance).
Obviously persons who have AIDS or HERPES will not be SHAFTED or
SCREWED any further by Management.
Persons who are not RAPED and are staying on will receive as much
SHIT (Special High Intensity Training) as possible. Management
has always prided itself on the amount of SHIT it gives employees.
Should you feel that you do not receive enough SHIT, please bring
to the attention of your Supervisor. They have been trained to
give you all the SHIT you can handle.
Sincerely,
The Management
( I hope you enjoyed this :) There is also an USAF version from 1997 ).
Chuck Norris in Ruby
intinig ported Chuck’s roundhouse kick power to ruby! Have a look..
http://github.com/intinig/chuck_norris/tree/master/chuck_norris.rb
It’s a proof-of-concept, of course :).
Urinals in amsterdam
Via reddit
Google Maps (part I of "The Googling")
Ever had some concerns about Google Maps and how much that app can see about your house, your car, yout neighbours and … maybe … yourself?!? Well, maybe you are right! Have a look at this video from the vacationeers ...
;D
Ruby 1.9 has got the answer to life, universe and everything
22:33:24 vjt@voyager:~$ irb19 -f
irb(main):001:0> Symbol.all_symbols.grep /^the/
=> [:the_answer_to_life_the_universe_and_everything]
! :)
unluckily, the answer isn’t 42:
irb(main):002:0> _.first.object_id
=> 5048
:\
Thanks for this strange finding, nextie! :D