Batman easter egg (click the bat signal) | Hacker News Reader

Batman easter egg (click the bat signal)

google.com

175 pointssimonpure50 comments

If anyone is interested in more of these kinds of easter eggs, I run a subreddit for them at https://reddit.com/r/eastereggs

Batman, please save Google’s search quality!

It's not the search you need, but the search you deserve

What have I done to deserve this?

Robin? is that you?

Did you mean: What did I do to deserve Popeye's delicious chicken?

You used Google without pulling it through a meta-search engine (Searx [1] et al).

[1] https://github.com/searx/searx

[1] https://github.com/searxng/searxng

Google paid when you click on ads. Good search results are cost. Ads are profit.

This makes me miss the 00s, where these easter eggs and Google doodles still felt as something authentic and representing the true Google spirit.

Now I just see it as something that has been vetted in three different meetings by a dozen product owners who are only concerned by climbing a corporate ladder.

I don't know, maybe it's less authentic, but it's fun that at least it's still in the DNA of the place. Credit where it's due, even if it's not the same as in the past

Reading the comments on this easter egg not working for some makes me wonder if it's been A/B tested as every other feature nowadays. We are really approaching a Schrödinger's digital age.

For the Australians reading this, Gotham city is a brothel in Melbourne, ymmv on clicking this link at work or school.

Oh man, that's fantastic. I love it when companies can keep their sense of humor

There is a Google Doodle team [1], but I can’t seem to find anything about an Easter egg team. Does anyone have insight into if there is a team supporting this or if it’s something the search team does on their own?

[1] https://www.google.com/doodles/about

There is no specific team for easter eggs. They are implemented by random engineers.

Looks sharp on iOS Safari

I don't see anything special with Firefox on Android, not logged in to Google :(

Works on Brave. Takes a couple of seconds to start.

Same. Firefox on Android. It just takes me to the image preview page.

What you’re supposed to click on is an animated bat signal light that rotates and lights up yellow. It’s in the upper-right corner of the image carousel in the search results. If you click an image, it’ll take you to the image preview, but that’s not the Easter egg.

on my FF developer on mac it is in the bottom right corner of the image carousel.

I don't see any preview when I click the bat signal. Instead, page turns a reverse shade scheme, then a silhouette of The Batman ropes and swings across the page over the content. That's pretty much an Easter Egg.

lstamour is suspecting that chao- clicked on an image preview link above the infocard because they didn't / couldn't see the bat signal image.

enable "desktop site"; the signal appears in the box on the right.

It works on Firefox Android if you install the Google Search Fixer add-on.

https://addons.mozilla.org/android/addon/google-search-fixer

Noah get the boat...

"This add-on is not available on your platform".

Am I missing some way to install more add-ons on Firefox for Android?

If you open the kebab (three vertical dots) menu, select Add-ons then Add-ons Manager, you should see a list of add-ons you can install.

Edit: I've updated my previous comment with a better link.

Oh jeez, the only reason I had to keep Chrome on my phone (besides not being given a choice by Google) was to look up stocks as Firefox didn't display them with the full card/chart (even tho it was obviously a predatory measure by Google rather than a limitation of Firefox Mobile).

What a blessed day. I missed the general cards and synopsises Google made for some searches but couldn't be bothered to change browser (and watch ads) for them (aside from stock charts).

Psst...ignore the fact that Google (and companies like them) are practicing privacy abuse on a scale never before seen in human history.

Just focus on the bat signal and be distracted and entertained..

Nothing happens on Firefox Mobile on Android.

Seconding this - does it just not show up on firefox mobile or..?

It works with the "Google Search Fixer" extension for mobile FF

Does work on FF on iOS but of course that is not really FF.

Works on safari on iOS, for what it's worth.

Works for me. I'm using the nightly version though. Maybe that makes a difference? Icon appears at the top right below the search bar.

… but i always thought Robin laid an egg?

These kind of Easter eggs were way more endearing when Google wasn't the incumbent monopoly powering the surveillance economy.

And you could kid yourself that it might just be a labour of love from a single engineer, rather than the product of a marketing team responding to quarterly strategic product directives triggered by engagement metrics.

I feel like Google could be "easily" defeated (for a tech titan).

Step 1: get antitrust regulators to break up the search+advertising business from Chrome+Android products. Don't let Google favor Google products.

Step 2: build a better search engine. Can't be hard with all the crap results that Google returns now. If Chrome and Android no longer default to Google, a new engine could grow and thrive.

Even the EU taking action could begin to chip away at this monopoly.

Ok, but this is currently on the front page of HN https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32205535 "Why Writing Your Own Search Engine Is Hard (2004)"

OTOH, 2004 was a long time ago, and a lot has changed.

That article could be a college freshman in the fall.

>OTOH, 2004 was a long time ago, and a lot has changed.

evidently from discussion of the article not for the better.

>That article could be a college freshman in the fall.

evidently not https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Patterson - also do college freshmen get articles in the ACM?

on edit: misunderstood witticism regarding age of the article to mean that it could have been written by a college freshman - didn't understand why 'in the fall' but now I get it.

No one said anything about the article’s author. The parent commenter was remarking on the age of the article itself, which was published in 2004 and therefore turns 18 this year.

ok thanks.

on edit: have edited my comment to take this into account.

Step 2 is ripe for the right competitor. When Google entered the search engine market, it blew people away by providing incredibly relevant results, compared to the competition. You would be hard pressed to say the same today. However, the same quality of results can still be achieved, I am quite sure. It is "just" a matter of figuring out how, and executing on it. Given how Google found success, I think it is actually just a matter of time until a new challenger makes their entrance.

Agreed. I don't know what to make of this. Is it marketing, the result of developer creativity or the outcome of an A/B-test, and why do Google search result quality go downhill so quickly?

It could have been in support of one of the recent Batman reboot movies. Stealth marketing?

It’d be great if Google would fix all their broken crap instead of wasting their resources and my bandwidth with these useless stunts.

Whatcha mean useless? There's some serious SEM money behind that from AT&T/Warner/whatever. I am sure Google is enjoying the sales revenue.

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