We shall all belong to Google sooner or later, unless Google, like Microsoft, clings to outdated technology once it is clear the world is headed somewhere else. So we might as well know what it is like to live in the Google world. Since he manages Father Pitt’s little corner of the Web, Dr. Boli has been privileged to observe firsthand what Google can do with several thousand pictures and a few clever algorithms. We have already seen the dancing mushroom and the nodding statue. But there’s more! So much more.

By continuing to read, you agree that you accept the risk of animated GIFs, and take full responsibility for whatever they may do to your computer or your soul.

First of all, how about a motion picture of a completely stationary toad (with bonus orbiting potato bug)?

Yes, that’s probably just what you wanted.

Well, if not, maybe you wanted this, which (Dr. Boli admits) is actually a very good use of animated GIF as a medium:

Here is the very interesting thing that happens when you take multiple exposures in an attempt to find a good balance between land and sky:

And here is a picture Father Pitt calls “A Windy Day on Polish Hill”:

In this picture, we are privileged to observe a small insect wandering through a head of Prunella vulgaris flowers:

Here’s a young stag browsing in Allegheny Cemetery:

But what’s that you say? You came for the dancing mushrooms? Oh, all right. Here you go.

And finally, here’s one that the young folks would call “very meta”:

Dr. Boli has found no way to ask Google to do any of these things with Father Pitt’s pictures. It can be done with a smartphone or a tablet, apparently, but not with one of those old-fashioned computer things. So old Pa Pitt simply has to take multiple pictures of the same thing, as he always does, and then sit back and see what Google will do with them. It may be clever. It may be horrifying. But it’s always a surprise.