By now you've probably been charmed for a couple seconds by Google's latest coding stunt, which you can see by typing "do a barrel roll" in Google's search box.
You can also perform the same spinning motion when you do a Google search for "ZZ" or "RR"—a reference to Nintendo's classic video game Star Fox 64. As Mashable notes, Peppy, the game's veteran space pilot rabbit, tells hero Fox McCloud to "do a barrel roll" which the player does by pressing "Z" or "R" twice.
In a statement, Google said the barrel roll query was created by a Google software engineer whose primary goal was to entertain users "while showcasing the power of CSS3, a presentation feature of modern browsers."
The stunt also works in mobile versions of Google search.
"Do a barrel roll" is what programmers call an "Easter egg." As we reported last year, there's a hidden world of harmless pranks coded just beneath the surface of many popular Web sites like YouTube, Facebook, and Google; undocumented tricks to entertain and amuse. Click on the slideshow below for eleven Easter Eggs and share more in the comments below.
You can also enjoy other Google Search Easter eggs by typing in "anagram" (which shows "Did you mean: nag a ram"); searching "ascii art" turns the Google logo into ASCII art; searching for "recursion" shows "Did you mean: recursion" which recursively runs searches for "recursion"; searching "tilt" or "askew" literally tilts your browser.