A list of weird tricks (or 'Easter eggs' as they’re known) from around the web.
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| Read on to discover 10 cool Easter Eggs from around the web. |
I got a bit of a surprise the other day when I typed my blog address and instead of arriving at this blog, it brought up some weird website about Armageddon and the end of the world and stuff. It turned out that I had transposed the ‘s’ and ‘p’ of blogspot and for some weird reason that takes you to a website all about Armageddon.
Anyway, it got me thinking about other weird stuff on the internet, and so I decided to write a post on weird little tricks (or Easter eggs as they’re known) that you can find on the internet.
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| Play the secret snake mode while your video plays in the background. |
1) YouTube Snake
The first Easter egg is a daft little trick found in youtube whereby if you press and hold the ‘left’ and ‘up’ arrow keys while a video is playing or paused, it opens up a game of snake which you can play on top of the video. Once you’ve opened up the secret ‘snake’ mode simply use the arrow keys to control the snake and eat the dots. Test it out on the following video:
Youtube Video: Panicky dude getting a bit tangled on the fire skipping rope.
Update: Sadly, YouTube have apparently disabled their snake game Easter egg, because it no longer works.
2) Quick, the boss is coming...
The next one is a cool trick that SkyBet have on their website for the benefit of anyone using their website who shouldn’t be, such as someone having a sneaky bet while they’re at work. Go to the SkyBet website and click the silhouette under the SkyBet logo in the top left hand corner of the screen and watch what happens:
Quick, the boss is coming... SkyBet.com
Update: Unfortunately, this is another Easter egg which is no longer active. Basically, what happened when you clicked the silhouette was that a financial spreadsheet appeared on the screen, so it looked like you were actually working, rather than wasting time (and money) on a betting website.
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| Don't touch the cup! |
3) Don't touch the cup!
Number three is an Easter egg found on a Dutch website, but don’t worry … you don’t need to speak Dutch to appreciate it. Click on the link below and then whatever you do, don’t touch the cup:
Whatever you do, don't touch the cup!
Update: You might be starting to notice a pattern by now, because this is another Easter egg which is no longer active. If I remember correctly, if you touched the cup an animation started whereby the cup tipped over and caused a chain of accidents on the screen. It was pretty cool if I remember correctly, but you'll just have to take my word for it, because as I say, this is yet another Easter egg which has since been removed. If you want to actually check out some Easter eggs for yourself, rather than just read about them, then I recommend getting here on time in future, rather than ten years too late!
4) Large Hadron Collider
Next up is a website created for the benefit of anyone who is worried that the LHC (large hadron collider) might be about to rupture the very fabric of the space-time continuum and cause the end of the world.
The website is called hasthelargehadroncolliderdestroyedtheworldyet.com and it’s constantly monitored and updated to ensure the status information it provides is accurate right up to the latest minute:
Update: Hurray! This one still works!
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| The Large Hadron Collider, pictured yesterday. |
5) Boring but practical
Number five is a shortcut which admittedly is quite boring and unremarkable, but it is quite practical, so I thought I would mention it anyway to provide a balanced article. It can save you a bit of time so it’s worth knowing.
Anyway, if you want to search for something on Google and you use Firefox as your internet browser, then there’s no need to go to google.com to perform the search. You can simply type your search term directly into the address box (or navigation toolbar as Firefox like to call it) on Firefox and it’ll take you directly to the Google search results page.
6) Weird Facebook languages
Next up is a cool feature on facebook which is pointless but fun. If you go into ‘Account Settings’ (on the drop down menu next to your name in the top right hand corner), then select ‘Language,’ some of the more unusual languages you can choose include English (Pirate), English (Upside Down) and Leet Speak.
ii)
aiii) For the benefit of the uninitiated, leetspeak originally began life as a tool for internet users to get around censorship filters on message boards and online games, so for example instead of typing ‘go away’ you might type ‘60 4w4y’. Obviously in reality people use it for stronger phrases than that, but anyway, it's a way of ensuring that the filtering software doesn’t block your comment as inappropriate.
‘Charles Fudgemuffin’ could be written in leetspeak as ‘©#@®|_€$ ƒ(_)[)63/\/\(_)ƒƒ!₪’ but there are many variations you can use.
As you can see leetspeak can be quite confusing, so if you do decide to change your facebook language to Leet Speak then make sure you make a mental note of where the Language setting is found so that you can change it back to normal English again without getting totally confused and not knowing which option to click.
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| Nyan, nyan nyan! |
7) The Nyan Cat
Next up is an Easter egg which works on most websites, but I’ll demonstrate it using the Charles Fudgemuffin blog.
If you type ‘nyanit.com/’ before any website address then the website will appear as usual, but you’ll also see a little rainbow cat (called Nyan Cat) flying around the screen, accompanied by an annoying tune. For example, the usual address for the Charles Fudgemuffin blog is:
charlesfudgemuffin.blogspot.com
charlesfudgemuffin.blogspot.com
…so to see the flying rainbow cat you would have to type:
Update: This is another one which no longer works. However, you can still see what the Nyan Cat looked like, and also listen to the annoying tune, at the Nyan Cat website:
8) Google Pacman
Here’s one which will appeal to any fans of old arcade games. For a few days in May 2010, Google replaced the google logo on their search engine with a playable Pacman game featuring a maze in the shape of the word ‘Google.’ Although the google Pacman game only ran for a few days from 21-23 May 2010, you can still play the game if you add ‘/pacman’ to the end of google.com, i.e. www.google.com/pacman.
Google Pacman game at www.google.com/pacman
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| Pac-Man. Still going strong at www.google.com/pacman. |
9) Find this next Easter egg for yourself...
The next website features quite a few cool and interesting Easter eggs, but sometimes the fun comes from exploring and finding things by yourself, so I I'll let you find this next Easter egg for yourself:
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| All links eventually lead to 'Geography.' |
10) Wiki: All links lead to 'Geography'
Finally, if you go to wikipedia and click the first hyperlink (blue highlighted text) in any wiki article repeatedly (ignoring any italicised text at the start of an article) then you’ll eventually arrive at the wiki entry for ‘Geography.’
There’s a complicated explanation as to why this happens but it’s basically the result of a piece of repetitive code found in the algorithms which wiki use when compiling their articles. You can test it out on the wikipedia entry for 'muffin', but it works on any wiki entry. You can find a more detailed explanation into the science behind it at the following link:
Cool trick on wikipedia and the explanation behind it
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If anyone else knows any other cool internet tricks or computer based Easter eggs then please leave a comment.
You can find some puzzle themed blog posts below:
A trick crossword for National Puzzle Day
A simple test to determine your ideal career
You can find some puzzle themed blog posts below:
A trick crossword for National Puzzle Day
A simple test to determine your ideal career
AHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAH LAUGHED SO HARD AT THE LAST ONE!! nice troll!!
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