The Doodle Story

The New Delhi Fog in its usual splendor did one good to me this time. Waiting for my delayed flight, I was forced to explore a little more than usual, and to my pleasant surprise found a good bookstore at the Bangalore (oops..... I better start preparing in advance), the benagaluru airport. So I finally picked up “The Google Story”, since “The Search” was costlier. But it turned out of all the confusion created by so many books on Google, the financial criteria did chance me upon exactly the right kind of account of the company I was looking for.

The crux of this blog is….’Pick up your copy today’.

So I picked up a part of the story to share with you, a part which is one of the most fascinating of them all. All of us must have more than once observed the surprising changes on the Google homepage, to the only object that is loaded besides simple text. This object is of course the Google Logo, which has evolved, refined and yet maintained its simplicity over the years. Some trivia I picked up from the book, and then by subsequent googling about Google.

Before Google, the founders termed the engine “Backrub”, based on the technology of analyzing back links to a site. And guess what the logo was then?? It was a scan of the palm of Larry Page, the “PageRank” guy. What followed with the new name was the precursor to the now omnipresent "Primary Colors" Google logo, which was an outcome of Page’s efforts to learn to use GIMP, which is the open source alternative to Adobe Photoshop. And the current logo evolved after many refinements and feedbacks and suggestions from the users.

The GIMP creation

The first 'Doodle', or Holiday Logo of google

With the Simplicity of Google Homepage, it is inevitable that even the smallest of the changes on the page fail to go unnoticed. So a decoration to the Logo would definitely amount to a big statement of change. So when in the infancy of the company, the guys decided to depart for “The Burning Man” festival, they wanted to somehow communicate to the then user’s of Google that if something goes wrong or we don’t respond to your queries during this week, its cos we are at the burning man. The answer lay in what became the first Google doodle. That’s what is officially called. The concept caught on, and then one thing led to another, and they started marking all small and big events of importance, within and beyond America’s by adding a bit of that event in the Google logo in a simple yet extremely creative fashion. To all Indians’ dismay, a doodle which was already designed and ready to be put up for the Diwali festival was pulled of during the last minutes cos they found out that it was a Hindu festival, and they wanted to keep away from any controversial religious sentiments.

What is most inspiring is the confidence with which these guys managed to incorporate the freshness and the youthfulness of almost a college culture into a company which would eventually go on to break all standards and benchmarks culturally, financially, technologically and otherwise. The doodle’s is just one example where they followed their hearts way, where others would have thought it to be a stupid idea. It’s an inspiration for most wannabe entrepreneurs, who are always discouraged by peers and the environment as such, even before they actually venture out to do something significant. For all of those kind, this book is a MUST READ if u haven’t done it already.

A life saving accident

Preface - A blog that was long saved as a draft. Someone reminded me of my first post, and I told myself I should carry on with my effort of blogging. And at least finish the pending blog.

So here it is.

How often u meet with an accident u feel saved your life?? Well for starters, I wish u don’t ever have to!! I did!!! And that was when my bike came face to face with a huge construction stone, which must've been left lying in the middle of the road by some f*%^Q@ truck wala, after repairing his puncture..!! When my headlight fell on the stone, it was too late, and in a flash I knew I was colliding head-on. Trying to skid around would have been more disastrous. So anyways, it did collide, and my bike at a point was at right angles with the ground, and that was when I consciously or unconsciously pulled myself off the seat, and though I can’t of course remember the bike overturned completely, and I fell, with all my body weight on the right part of it. Given that it was the outer ring road, middle of the lane, I really get a chill in my spine thinking what could have been the worst case scene. Again consciously or unconsciously, my reflexes were quick enough to drag me to the divider zone immediately. I don’t know if there was some four wheeler behind me which could have just run over me. But it dint, and my life was saved once..!! And then since I was fairly conscious, I could feel burning pain in my right abdomen, making me think all kind of things like internal bleeding, and stuff, and I had concluded a shoulder dislocation or fracture with all the crackling I could hear from that part.
I grabbed the phone out of my left pocket, and it was still functional courtesy its location. I called my friend. The most frustrating part was this gentleman from Dell, who was one of the people who stopped by, and proclaimed that he has been on this road for years now and such things keep happening. (If you read this sir... it hardly matters to a guy lying on the road trying to figure out how long is he gonna remain conscious, and it doesn’t help...) To the extent that he snatched the phone out of my hand, and told my friend that I am okay, and things are under control. All I wanted was for someone to pick me up and take me to the nearest hospital, and this guy keeps talking to my friend telling above crap (no offence sir, but in such a situation, first thing anyone wants is........any guesses....... to be carried to a hospital). I almost shouted that I don’t want to risk, or waste any moment, some one carry me. But then this angel from IFlex, Mr. Rohit (I mention his name because in all the haste I managed to loose his phone number after a few days, and could not meet him after I was back to being fit) put me in his car. I still remember how funny it was in all the pain, when I was pushed into the back of his car, and I was shouting...."oh f!@#" " oh f@#$”, and I realized there is a lady sitting in front of the car. And then I apologized for my abusive vocabulary, of course having the excuse of being in undiminishing pain.
To interrupt.....like I mentioned in my first blog...even I am beginning to start my personal story telling (guess it is a blogging hazard).
So I will cut it short. Went to the hospital. All scans revealed no internal injury; the right collar bone (fortunately the most insignificant of them all) had been broken. Which forced me home for a month, and that’s when I got hooked to Trading, and realized that the Harry potter fans are not crazy... cos I became one. I used to really get pissed when all my friends who with my academic and extra curricular records always thought I was an intellectual guy, suddenly started looking scornfully when I said, I don’t read books, and novels..!! I thought this will change things... :) but when I mentioned I read the complete Harry Potter, most thought that I was better off earlier. Anyways I stand by J.K.Rowling. Her imagination is something that is so endearing, and enthralling (Don’t mention the 5th book though), hats off to her.
I know that would not qualify as cutting short. With this accident I only realized the ephemeral nature of life. That it can be interrupted any moment. Not that I will be saved all the time. The time to do all the things that I want to do is now. Or as soon as possible. Hoping I manage few of them.

just for fun

well..

though i havent been into much work lately, thanks to my lifesaving accident...(hang on..had to make some remark to make u read my next blog...!!)..even the pablam of the last 3 days back in office has reminded me of that empty feeling...full of webclicks, across any and every crap page and mail which translates to "Training" wen it comes to filling time sheets;). So i thought i do some better training...and then i keep getting messages from wannabe bloggers, who in a similar pursuit ended up creating a long list of blogs which reflect more of a daily diary, and public forum for announcements of every big and small thing that happens to them... hardly few of them titillating your mind(Redefining few - an occurence as rare as that of a useful mail among the scores of forwards and junk mails in your mailbox). Imagine people sending mails to college groups asking them to checkout there blogs. I still have a laugh when i think about how a witty editor of our college magazine put the regularly featuring newpost@XYZ.blogspot.com line in our group mails send by an overzealous blogger, as the comment of the month..!! But it only fumed him to strive to continue sending his mail to the group, now without fail..! Dont know if his purpose was more to get across the blogs to the community or just to frustrate all of those who had laughs on the college magazine joke..!!

So anyways... i thought, why leave that territory unchartered for myself. Anyways, i am forced to exclusively sedentary work over the next few months in order to recuperate from my broken bone..!! So why not try and titillate my senses writing few(definition as above) of my own blogs. CRASH...!!

So beware the literary world..!! As they say ...'The Stylus is more potent than the rapier'.....and i have now taken the stylus in my hands...or rather the keyboard..!! Anyways, going by the name of the blog, it is meant to be anything but stuff related to office or work. It is going to be a place where i will try to chill out, and hopefully others do too. Atleast few more than few...!! So much for the preamble. ill conclude here. Hoping that my i dont need to send and resend on groups the links to my blogs