Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Cool Factoid of the Day: Googling "mre uptl"

I just saw this in this Making Light thread, and I thought it was really cool.

What do you get when you Google 'mre uptl'?

(Check it out if you don't want to be spoiled....)

You get responses for New York City.

Why? I'll let David Goldfarb explain it: "Because if you type "new york" with your hands shifted over one letter on the keyboard, "mre uptl" is what comes out." -- So when people type that, "New York" is what they mean.

Which, as Goldfarb goes on to say, is pretty damn impressive.

It does occur to me that, sadly, this is a phenomenon that will only work while a smallish number of people know about it. Because if enough people know about it, and talk about it, as Making Light and (now) I have done... then Google will start to turn up *that* in its searches, and it won't be true any more.

This is a slowly self-refuting fact. Enjoy it while it lasts.


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