Google Apps Hacks

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  - ADD LIVE DATA TO YOUR SPREADSHEET

Google Q&A is good for more than just researching Matt Groening’s birthday—it can turn up a

variety of other information and trivia. These results are not provided by a human: instead, a

Google program automatically scours the Web to nd this information on sites like Wikipedia,

Brainyquote.com, and many more. Here are a couple of other queries that result in direct answers:

The search sylvester stallone birthplace results in “Sylvester Stallone—Place of Birth: New York,

New York, USA”

The search berlin population results in “Berlin—Population: 3,405,000 (11/2006)”

The search length of the amazon river results in “Amazon River

—Length: 6,400 KM (4,000 MI) approx.”

The search mass of betelgeuse results in “Betelgeuse—Mass: 14 [solar masses]”

The search barry lyndon director results in “Barry Lyndon—Director: Stanley Kubrick”

The search catch-22 author results in “Catch-22—Author: Joseph Heller”

Google used to provide a lot more “fun” queries, like “real name of Superman”; alas, many of them have been

removed by now. When you rely on the Google Q&A feature, know that sometimes queries return wrong

answers; that answers aren’t always structured alike (one answer for a birthplace question may be “San

Francisco,” while another may be “Sherman Oaks, CA, ...