two-twenty

virtual shock and awe

Ha ha ha ha! There's like this really funny thing where, like, if you enter "French military victories" on Google, and then hit the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button, you get... uh, yeah, we all know where this is going.

The Times today has a feature on "google bombing", the internet search engine phenom that gave us such humorous gems as the above example. Craig Silverstein, Google's director of technology, is quoted as saying, "We're only seeing it with obscure queries where there's really not that much action on the Web about them... I don't think it's possible to do this sort of thing on queries with well-defined results..."

Uh, yeah Craig? You mean unimportant, ill-defined queries like "weapons of mass destruction", which returns the infamous error message? Oh, wait, maybe you're right, since last year's "weapons of mass destruction" are this year's "dozens of weapons of mass destruction-related program activities." Ill-defined indeed.

Engineering Google Results to Make a Political Point | NY Times