Math is Hard, Lets Go to the Mall

August 12, 2003 7:30 PM

Look, up in the sky, it's a search engine, it's a phone book, it's....a calculator? Start/Programs/Accessories/awww screw it, I've got Google. Found this by searching for my phone number (with the parens in the wrong place) because a magazine article told my girlfriend to. By the way, my phone number is -7 662.
posted by m@ (53 comments total)

I'd call you to tell you this was cool, but my calling plan doesn't let me dial negative numbers. Too bad I no longer have a use for the physics wizardry it does. Looks better than a TI-85.
posted by Frank Grimes at 7:49 PM on August 12, 2003

Google--Is there anything it can't do?
posted by vraxoin at 7:50 PM on August 12, 2003

The unit conversion stuff is pretty cool, they even support Kelvins.

100 degrees F in K
posted by mmascolino at 7:52 PM on August 12, 2003

Heh, it can do "furlongs per fortnight".
posted by phatboy at 7:57 PM on August 12, 2003

It can even do hectares per degree. Whatever the hell that means.
posted by Jimbob at 7:59 PM on August 12, 2003

Still can't figure out how much 40 rods per hogshead is.
posted by spazzm at 8:19 PM on August 12, 2003

And what do you mean "even support Kelvins"?
Kelvin is the SI unit for temperature, and I should be very surprised if it wasn't supported. Nice of them to throw in Fahrenheit, tho'...
posted by spazzm at 8:21 PM on August 12, 2003

Actually, it seems that all the SI units, base AND derived, are included, e.g. Volts, Amperes and Ohm.
posted by spazzm at 8:30 PM on August 12, 2003

Great link, btw. Thanks m@
I'll shut up now.
posted by spazzm at 8:31 PM on August 12, 2003

maybe google is god.
posted by birdherder at 8:50 PM on August 12, 2003

[geek] Okay, so some people here are annoyed by posts about cool new Google tricks and some people here are annoyed by comments bragging about Mozilla, but let me just say that in Mozilla when I see an address, I can select it, right click and choose websearch. Then, thanks to the coolness of Google, when the web search page comes up, the top result links to a mapquest map of the address. No more copying & pasting the street & zip code fields, loading a new window, etc. And now I think I've annoyed a broad set of people here. [/geek]
posted by jonson at 9:02 PM on August 12, 2003

So, when are they going to add reverse phone number lookups for the rest of the world?

Also, what jonson said.
posted by dg at 9:27 PM on August 12, 2003

For a one-stop desktop shop for everything from simple calculations, a clock, a calendar, and immediate access to more than a hundred tools and information sources across the Net, check out Dave's QuickSearch Deskbar. And it's open-source, so anyone can create new tools and searches (anyone want to make a Metafilter search to help in the battle against double FPPing?)

It's Windows only, unfortunately. But since installing DQSD on my machine it's become an absolute requirement--I feel slightly hamstrung when I don't have it a mouseclick away.
posted by Inkslinger at 9:28 PM on August 12, 2003

kiky
posted by delmoi at 9:30 PM on August 12, 2003

I really hope Google never goes public. You know the day it does it'll become the kind of rotten-souled dungeon that charges for brilliantly useful features like this.

I sincerely didn't intend for that to be as sarcastic as it sounded.
posted by will at 9:42 PM on August 12, 2003

next step for Google: use Maple engine for symbolic calculation (same as Matlab does).
posted by MzB at 10:18 PM on August 12, 2003

wtf?! i just punched in my phone number and found 4 web sites listing it with my address. 4 non-phone book sites. grr.

thanks, m@!
posted by dobbs at 10:19 PM on August 12, 2003

Google is a great search engine. Life is in the details, and Google has it.
posted by Keyser Soze at 10:38 PM on August 12, 2003

I have had my phone number for just over a year, yet google lists (what I presume to be) a previous user.
posted by mischief at 10:55 PM on August 12, 2003

If you like this, this, this, (conversely for Mozilla/Netscape this) or this sort of thing...then you'd probably be interested in O'Reilly's Google Hacks book...I've had a lot of fun with this neat little resource.
posted by Dunvegan at 11:07 PM on August 12, 2003

it even knows pi.

wow.
posted by angry modem at 11:26 PM on August 12, 2003

Hmmm. My phone number (minus area code, of course) is a barber shop in Rochester, NY, a beauty salon in Canton, OH, and a roofing company in Goodlettsville, TN. Search-o-licious!
posted by arto at 11:55 PM on August 12, 2003

Here's a half baked idea:

What about a button on your mouse being assigned as a "google button"? All you have to do is hold the cursor over any word, or set of highlighted words (in a web browser, or, even better, in any number of text-documents), and clicking the google button would open up a new window with the search results for that word/word set.

I know that I can program my five button to have a button be associated with a program -- and it might work in conjunction with dave's task bar (an amazing tool) -- the problem is the text recognition.

I suppose an alternate (more practical and easier to actually implement) solution would be to somehow work it into the right click menu ala send to -> google

Yes I'm a big fat geek but these things interest me.
posted by pinto at 11:56 PM on August 12, 2003

I'm so disappointed that while "pi" returns the appropriate "3.1415..." answer from the calculator, "the meaning of life" doesn't return any answer.
posted by five fresh fish at 12:03 AM on August 13, 2003

Forget pi, it knows e^ip! Complex analysis!
posted by mr_roboto at 12:17 AM on August 13, 2003

I suppose one shouldn't be too surprised that when you search for "42" it turns up the top category as
"Arts > Literature > Authors > A > Adams, Douglas "
posted by George_Spiggott at 12:18 AM on August 13, 2003

hrmm. the p in that superscript should be a pi. it worked in preview... shows what I know about unicode, I guess.
posted by mr_roboto at 12:18 AM on August 13, 2003

GRR, HAIL SATAN
posted by angry modem at 12:30 AM on August 13, 2003

wow, it also handles irrational numbers.
posted by BigCalm at 1:11 AM on August 13, 2003

"the meaning of life" doesn't return any answer

That's so deep! ;-P
posted by mischief at 1:23 AM on August 13, 2003

Weird. My phone number (with area code) appears to be a bar :)

That certainly explains a lot of weird phonecalls.
posted by maggie at 1:26 AM on August 13, 2003

Pinto, GuruNet's reference application is trying to do something like that...I use a hotkey command [alt] while clicking on a word and get back a definition [dictionary, legal, technical] and thesaurus, audio pronunciation, acronyms, images, web search and news.

There's even a translation tab with written and spoken example of the word in 9 European, 3 Asian, and 2 Middle Eastern languages.

All for just an alt-click.

Now, if Google would just absorb GuruNet....
posted by Dunvegan at 1:38 AM on August 13, 2003

It can even do hectares per degree. Whatever the hell that means.

It looks like it means degrees of a circle, not degrees of temperature -- which is to say, you're asking it to find the area of a circle in which each pie slice of one degree circumference has an area of 100 hectares.

I think I should go to bed.
posted by Tlogmer at 2:41 AM on August 13, 2003

If I type "walrus" into google, my crap poetry website is in the top ten, above better-structured, more informative sites. This officially proves that google is evil. Pure evil. Soon I plan to take over the word "octopus". But first I have to lovingly craft more link farms for the final push into that coveted top pinniped spot.
posted by walrus at 2:53 AM on August 13, 2003

I suppose an alternate (more practical and easier to actually implement) solution would be to somehow work it into the right click menu ala send to -> google

Errr, my mozilla is doing that right now. I select some words and right click on 'em and web search for "foo" appears in the context menu.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 3:16 AM on August 13, 2003

pinto, my current copy of Mozilla (which has been tricked out with some extensions, so it might be one of those) has "Web Search for [whatever text is currently highlighted]" in the right-click context menu. Now if I could just force it into a new tab instead of a new window.
posted by yerfatma at 4:09 AM on August 13, 2003

I tried to search for one minus eight hundred minus two hundred fifty-five minus five thousand two hundred eighty-eight, but it didn't work.
posted by skryche at 4:11 AM on August 13, 2003

Inkslinger - Ask and you shall receive... Save this to the /searches directory, reload the toolbar (type "!" into the search box) and prefix a search with "mefi".

My work here is done...
posted by PeteTheHair at 4:36 AM on August 13, 2003

Here's a half baked idea:--pinto

Done! Opera v.7.11

Highlight text, right click, search with Google, or Amazon.com, eBay, Google News, Find in Page, Image search...the list goes on.
posted by jaronson at 5:26 AM on August 13, 2003

hehe, my phonenumber is the same as a yahoo.com IP number.
posted by dabitch at 6:02 AM on August 13, 2003

jaronson, that also works in Netscape 7. :)
posted by dabitch at 6:03 AM on August 13, 2003

I tried golden ratio. Way cool.
posted by MrMoonPie at 6:58 AM on August 13, 2003

It doesn't compute degrees Reaumur. I am so disapppointed.
posted by leapfrog at 7:15 AM on August 13, 2003

...All you have to do is hold the cursor over any word, or set of highlighted words... and clicking the google button would open up a new window with the search results for that word/word set.

In OS X you can select text in almost all applications and hit Shift+Mac+G, thanks to this service. Unbelievably handy, that.
posted by jack_mo at 7:16 AM on August 13, 2003

Oop. Seems I haven't mastered the niceties of cut and paste: meant this service.
posted by jack_mo at 7:18 AM on August 13, 2003

The Meaning of Life: You're Not Dead.

According to my (then) 8-year old child.
posted by davidmsc at 7:46 AM on August 13, 2003

...now if it did currency conversions, it'd be complete.
posted by teradome at 11:11 AM on August 13, 2003

I installed the Google Toolbar Beta for IE, and I too can right-click and send to Google. I think most browsers have this functionality, one way or another.
posted by Jairus at 11:20 AM on August 13, 2003

it handled tan(pi/2) and sqrt(-1) well (huge number and i respectively), but Google is mortal: it can't divide by zero. Try anything/0 and it defaults to a plain web search.
posted by kurumi at 11:53 AM on August 13, 2003

Neat feature, but this doesn't make a lick of sense to me.
posted by friedrice at 2:30 PM on August 13, 2003

Walrus: You think you've got problems? My weblog is the epicentre for listless people online. And fourth for people who are feeling something.
posted by feelinglistless at 3:25 PM on August 13, 2003

hey hey hey if you think this is cool, type "weapons of ass destruction" into it and press "I'm feeling lucky." Show it to your mom or boss or somebody. They'll love it, guaranteed.

[wipes jizz from throbbing mass of google-loving off self, walks on]
posted by scarabic at 4:55 PM on August 13, 2003

Google is here to make everything A'ight!
posted by Mayor Curley at 6:10 PM on August 13, 2003