Pogue’s Basics: Discover Google's Easter eggs

Easter eggs are not dead!!

In the early days of Macs and PCs, programmers took pride in burying little surprises and animations in their work. They still do, in video games. Like if you hold down certain buttons in Batman: Arkam City, you turn on Big Head mode. Or in Crysis 2, if you hit this unmarked button and then go down the hall, the elevator opens to reveal these guys having their own little rave party.

But there are lots of great Easter Eggs in software that everybody uses. Google is especially generous with its Easter eggs. Like, try Googling the word “askew.”

Or Google “Do a barrel roll.”

Or Google “Google in 1998.”

Oh—and next time you have no Internet connection, don’t just stare at the little dinosaur. Start hitting your arrow keys. Google has given you a game to cheer you up!

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