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Trying to procrastinate? Google ‘fun facts’ right now

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The end of the summer work week is never a great time for productivity anyway, so why not capitalize on procrastination prime time while simultaneously becoming a walking version of Trivial Pursuit? Intrigued? Read on. Thanks to Google’s latest fun facts feature, which you can access by — you guessed it — googling “fun facts,” you’ll find that time moves at super sonic speed as you’re fed answer after answer to life’s most pressing questions, like “How much is the most expensive coffee in the world?” or “How many cups is 200 grams of flour?” Seriously, don’t you want to know?

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Despite its bevy of legal woes, Google certainly knows how to keep its users entertained, providing an endless source of information to its ever curious audience. With a riff off of Facebook’s emotional status updates, you can also pull up these fun facts by typing in, “I’m feeling curious” into the Google search bar. Of course, there’s no guarantee that the information you’re receiving is 100 percent reputable. Each answer comes with a link to the related source, some of which are Wikipedia articles, while others link to government or university sites (arguably more accurate than your average Wiki entry).

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The breadth of questions asked (and answered) is really quite fascinating, and certainly serves as a stark reminder of the wealth of information available on the Internet. Each time you click the “ask another question” button, yet another fun fact appears ready to dazzle you with newfound knowledge, and the random question generator provides you with curiosities you never even knew you had.

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My favorite thus far, for example, is “What sentence uses the whole alphabet?” As it turns out, according to Fun With Words, “Everybody knows one or two pangrams (sentences that use every letter of the alphabet). You’ve probably seen some of these before: The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog. Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs.” Who knew, right!?

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So, Internet community, step on into the wacky world of Google’s knowledge. But enter at your own risk — you may never emerge the same again.

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Lulu Chang
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