
Spinner - hakanito
https://www.google.com/search?q=spinner&hl=en
======
busted
Similarly,

[https://www.google.com/search?q=roll%20dice](https://www.google.com/search?q=roll%20dice)

[https://www.google.com/search?q=random%20number%20between%20...](https://www.google.com/search?q=random%20number%20between%205%20and%2055)

Probably fairly easy for engineers to add these

~~~
jhalstead
I like 'solitaire' personally.

[https://www.google.com/search?q=solitaire](https://www.google.com/search?q=solitaire)

~~~
bartread
Hmm, when did this appear? That's got to be pretty irritating if you run a
solitaire site to earn a living from the ad revenue. (I have a friend who does
this - not the World of Solitaire guy, although fair play to him because he
has almost every variant known to humankind on there.)

~~~
jgalt212
Like Windows subsuming all useful third party utilities into Windows itself?
If Google really went all in on these sort of search based functions, it could
provide an angle of attack for DOJ/EU.

~~~
bartread
Well, yeah, that's sort of the line I'm thinking along.

90% it's engineers doing something they think is cool/kooky/funky without
thinking about the consequences. As in, you know those top two sites have
taken a hit on revenue because someone on a fat salary at Google wanted to do
something cool with their 20% time, or some similar story.

But there's always this 10% suspicion, which is perhaps amplified by the
controversy around AMP - and maybe it's a little bit unfair - that they
ultimately never want you to leave the Google site.

That may be the case but, even if it's not, they do this stuff that they think
is cool, but they do it without any sense of responsibility or empathy.

That solitaire game is a fairly limited implementation - admittedly rather a
nice one - and it lacks a lot of the variants, and other bells and whistles of
the top solitaire sites. Nevertheless it's going to be up there for all time,
stealing traffic from and reducing the revenue to those other sites, and it
won't make a jot of difference either way to Google.

I don't really think that's OK.

~~~
Sembiance
I run World of Solitaire, currently #1 Google result for the solitaire search
term. I haven't noticed any measurable change in traffic to my site since they
put this up. Probably because folks can get a much better experience on my
site compared to the mini version they created. Maybe simpler website with
tools such as spinners, randomizers, etc may see more of an impact.

~~~
bartread
Well that's good to know at any rate, and I imagine people who've already used
your site will go back to it rather than play Google's simple version, but I
wonder if longer-term it'll mean a drop in organic traffic? Time will tell, I
suppose.

------
khazhou
Lemme get this straight: they're already collecting all my personal data and
browsing history, and now they want my RANDOM NUMBERS too?? No way. #myrandint

~~~
themodelplumber
Just add a 1 to the end of any number you generate with their servers. That
should delay the government long enough that you can escape with the Zip disk.
(You know the one)

------
syphilis2
I like these things. DuckDuckGo has them as "instant answers" and you're
encouraged to add new ones:

[https://duck.co/ia](https://duck.co/ia)

[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=roll+seven+dice](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=roll+seven+dice)

[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=random+person](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=random+person)

~~~
edgeorge92
[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=roll+nine+hundred+thousand+dice](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=roll+nine+hundred+thousand+dice)

Still waiting on my answer :(

~~~
JonnieCache
Really? I got 3148825 back within about two seconds.

------
motoboi
What am I supposed to see? It just shows a dictionary entry for spinner and
normal results.

~~~
rfugger
It seems to only work in Chrome. Firefox mobile shows nothing unusual.

~~~
JonnieCache
Works fine on firefox desktop for me. Its some kind of locale issue I think,
as others have suggested.

------
carsongross
The urban dictionary result (#1 for me, I hope this doesn't say anything about
me) provides an excellent counter-point to the charm of this tool.

Ah, the internet.

------
qeternity
I am so curious about how these relatively simple easter eggs work behind the
scenes. How are they incorporated into the core search repo? Surely the guys
in charge of that beast aren't allowing these things anywhere near the core
code of the GOOG empire.

~~~
petters
Everything is one repo at Google. So yes, it shares repo with search. :-)

There are many, many servers involved to display a results page. These things
probably are an RPC to a dedicated server. Haven't checked though.

------
bodiam
Slightly more impressive:
[https://www.google.com/search?q=play+dreidel](https://www.google.com/search?q=play+dreidel)

~~~
maverick_iceman
[https://www.google.com/search?q=play+tic+tac+toe](https://www.google.com/search?q=play+tic+tac+toe)

~~~
phillc73
Sadly this doesn't work:

[https://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=play+noughts+and+cr...](https://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=play+noughts+and+crosses)

------
fredkingham
I'm not in general a bing fan, but this is super useful

[http://www.bing.com/search?q=speed+test&qs=n&form=QBLH&sp=-1...](http://www.bing.com/search?q=speed+test&qs=n&form=QBLH&sp=-1&pq=speed+test&sc=8-6&sk=&cvid=5DF22B0882A9419BA0D3F3E28E0B08D9)

~~~
baddox
It works on Google as well.

~~~
gutnor
note: only on google.com ! Not on google.co.uk

------
lillesvin
I usually go for:
[https://www.google.com/search?q=askew](https://www.google.com/search?q=askew)

------
sengork
Google should figure out a way to better expose the features of their web
services. Most often we seem to find out about a Google feature by chance
alone.

~~~
wybiral
For little gags like this I'd say that's part of the charm. But for actual
functionality, I agree that discoverability is limited.

~~~
tritosomal
Hey man, c'mon. Your supposed to _search_ for things with Google.

That's like, what their specialty is.

------
maverick_iceman
[https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-
instant&ion=1&e...](https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-
instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=sin\(x%2By\))

------
edgarvm
Quick fix for the link
[https://www.google.com/search?q=spinner&hl=en](https://www.google.com/search?q=spinner&hl=en)

------
jrosenbluth
Shameless plug:
[http://jeffreyrosenbluth.github.io/lottery/](http://jeffreyrosenbluth.github.io/lottery/)

------
Semiapies
The links people have dropped here are a hoot...but the first thing I thought
of from the headline was the old Spinner music service that got bought out by
Netscape, ages ago.

------
impish19
Anyone else bothered by how the wheel doesn't stop when you tap on it when
it's spinning?

~~~
mbreese
No, because that would be cheating. Once you start the spin (you can pull it
back to get a good start!), you can't just stop it where ever you'd like.
"Wheel of fortune" rules apply here.

------
buckbova
Origin story?

~~~
greglindahl
Once upon a time, marketing realized that free publicity would happen if
Easter eggs were added to the product.

~~~
Tempest1981
Including posting the findings on YouTube:

    
    
      https://www.google.com/search?q=google+easter+eggs&tbm=vid
    
      "about 1,700,000 results"

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csours
is there a google search that finds a list of search terms that show special
pages?

------
pawelmi
There should be some switch for proper zero-based numbering :)

------
donmb
Is this open source? I'd like to add this to a project :)

------
bitmapbrother
This is cool. There's also:

Flip a coin

Roll a dice

Play Pacman

~~~
notatoad
Do a barrel roll

