October 2004
Just in case proof were needed to show that Google's technical staff are, indeed, totally insane, here's an advanced search with the language preferences to 1337 speak (i.e. the incomprehinsible alphabet used by those who consider themselves to be wonderful 'hackers' - and also tend to use the word 'uber' a lot).
For the uninitiated, this basically involves butchering the English language by using '3' for 'e', '7' for 't', '1' for 'l' and so on. Managing to convey the impression of 'gangsta-speak' is (apparently) considered a bonus. For example:
"PH1ND P4G3Z 7H4T L1NK 70 d4 P4G3"
or alternatively . . .
"Find pages that link to da page"
. . . well, one at a time anyway.
On a regular tour of the interweb, I've come across this, a totally useless but incredibly interesting piece of java code that converts an image file into a HTML representation of it (thus increasing its size 60-fold, but who's counting?).
Ok - I lied. Technically they're the digit '8', but that didn't make for a snappy headline.
Nestling amongst today's Irish Independent's tips for avoiding spyware comes this gem:
"Always type in URLs yourself rather than clicking on links."
Now, just for practice, anyone who wants to see what the last book I bought was, can type the following URL into their browser - I've reduced the temptation to cheat by not making it a link - and no copying and pasting!
See how silly it is?