Google Hacks

Creating Google Art

Save a Usenet news post for later searching and viewing as a work of art.

Google’s a poet, a chef, an oracle, not to mention a great artist. Who knew? With a little help from you, Google can be the next Picasso.

Okay, Whistler.

Okay, Billy from Mrs. Miller’s third grade class.

When you search for something on Google Groups, the words for which you searched are highlighted in glorious primary colors within any posts you peruse. The main Google web search does this as well but only on the cached version of a web page. Some people far more artistically inclined with far more time on their hands than I ran with this idea, manipulating the highlights to create works of art. For example, there’s a portrait of Lincoln at http://groups.google.com/groups?q=aa+ae+ao+ea+ee+eo+oa+oe&selm=3e0d404c.0207241043.539ae9f7%40posting.google.com and Bart Simpson at http://groups.google.com/groups?q=aa+ae+ao+ea+ee+eo&selm=3e0d404c.0207261202.a0246c1%40posting.google.com.

But it’s not simply a matter of pushing a picture into Google Groups. What’s involved is creating a text-based image on a grid, populating each square with a two-letter code signifying a color from the Google syntax highlighting palette. You need to post that “image” to a Usenet newsgroup, wait until it shows up in Google Groups, and then search for it using some fancy URL footwork.

At least that’s how it was done...

Making Your Own Art

Creating your own Google Groups art is as simple as drawing a picture, ...