I couldn’t think of what to write this week, so I turned to my good friend the Internet for inspiration. Except googling “inspiration” just got me a lot of quotes and pretty backgrounds, not ideas. With nothing better coming to mind, I scrolled through the results. Several pages in, I came up with the idea to google other random words and see what weird websites I could find. I know, it’s not that exciting, but I found some cool things. I’ve prepared a few of my completely random findings for your amusement.
Groundwork: On page 10 of my results I found “Flying Taxis may be years away, but the groundwork is accelerating”
Photo credit: https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/02/28/business/28FLYINGTAXI-2/28FLY…
Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/27/technology/flying-taxis.html
Now before you get too excited, this does not mean flying cars. Apparently, the people involved with this stuff really, really don’t like the term “flying cars.” The things they’re making are more like little helicopters or large drones. But it’s still pretty cool.
Roboto: On page 7 of my results, I found “Gmail is switching its default font to one that works better on mobile”
Link: https://qz.com/1252680/gmail-is-switching-its-default-font-to-one-that-w…
Apparently Roboto is a font. And this is quite a long article about a font change.
Watch: On page 16 of my results I found “Watch: This is How Ants Survive in a Flood”
This video was buried under many, many shopping websites, which I suppose makes sense. As for the ants, they link together and form rafts to float along in the water. Impressive.
Internet: On page 1 of my results I found “An Apology for the Internet—From the People Who Built It”
Link: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/04/an-apology-for-the-internet-from…
Not what I expected to find.
Teeth: On page 4 of my results I found “Human teeth found hidden inside wall of former dentist’s building”
Link: https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/wtf/human-teeth-found-hidden…
First, ew. Second, they found over 1000 of them! Third, this isn’t even the first time people have found teeth inside walls in Georgia alone!!
Mirror: On page 10 of my results I found “Magic Mirror Paint”
Link: http://www.abcya.com/mirror_paint.htm
This is a really awesome website that lets you make all kinds of reflecty drawings. You draw in one part of the screen, and it puts flipped versions of what you drew in the other parts. I may have spent a little while fiddling around with it myself, as you can tell from my lovely artwork above.
Round: On page 14 of my results I found “Merry-Go-Round Museum”
Photo credit: https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/02/0b/68/19/merry-go-rou…
Link: https://www.merrygoroundmuseum.org/
A museum for carousels in Ohio. With a restored, working merry-go-round inside, of course. So cool!
Time: On page 7 of my results I found “Times Square Cams – EarthCam”
Link: https://www.earthcam.com/cams/newyork/timessquare/?cam=tstwo_hd
This website has a bunch of camera footage of Times Square. There are a couple live streams as well as some still pictures. EarthCam seems to have similar setups in other places all over the world. It’s cool, but a little creepy.
When: On page 5 of my results I found “What are you actually smelling when it rains?”
Link: https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/what-are-you-actually-smelling-when-it-rains/70004465
If you’ve ever wondered.
Olive: On page 5 of my results I found “Olive Garden’s ‘Chocolate Brownie Lasagna’ isn’t really a Lasagna, But Why Quibble?”
Link: https://www.foodandwine.com/news/olive-garden-chocolate-brownie-lasagna
It’s not really surprising that Olive Garden came up in this search. What is interesting is this article: it may say it doesn’t want to quibble about what the dessert is called, but it spends over half of its four paragraphs proving that the name is wrong. It’s very passionate.
Conclusion: as one would expect, you find very random stuff when you google very random words.