My Top 5 Google Doodles

Today's doodle celebrating the birthday of Robert Noyce founder of Intel

Every now and then , to celebrate some world event the brilliant guys at Google come up with a fun ( sometimes funny) doodle which they place on their homepage.
Recently these doodles have become even more creative and with HTML5 some of these animated doodles are truly awesome 


Here's my list of the top 5 Google doodles

Internet Censorship and why this is just the tip of the iceberg

Censorship has always been a sensitive issue and with good reason, for it can be perceived as a restraint on the basic freedoms every man is entitled to , in particular the freedom of speech and expression.
It's no wonder then , that when Indian Telecom minister Kapil Sibal wants sites like Facebook and Google to "pre screen" (he insists its not the same as censorship ) content , the world's largest democracy is sitting up and taking notice.
Like all censorship debates the  main question once again is this - who decides what we should watch,read or listen to? After all living in a free country entitles everyone to their opinions , no matter how skewed or politically incorrect they may be. So does the government have the right to mandate what we want to watch or read ?

Facebook spam and those who play along

Recently Facebook was hit by a wave of  spam in the form of image shares depicting porn , animal abuse and even photoshopped celebrities.The hacker group Anonymous was initially linked with this spam attack as they had previously made known their intention to hack into facebook. However , they are denying it , and as of now no link can be established that ties them to this spam attack.

That , however isn't why i decided to write about it. What irked me most was how many "concerned " netizens were actually passing some of these shares along in the name of "creating social awareness".

The Google Internet bus comes to Bengal

The Google Internet bus

The Google Internet bus project is an attempt by Google to educate the people of India about the internet and how it can change their lives.In a country where even today , outside of the largest cities internet awareness isn't as high as it should be , this endeavor aims at changing that.

The Best George Best Quotes

My Top 10 George Best quotes :

"If I'd been born ugly, you would have never heard of Pele " .This was what George Best had to say about Pele who had hailed him ( Best ) as the best footballer in the world.

George was almost as famous for his witty comments as he was for his football , and his off field antics.

Here are some of his best quotes, and a few about him.

10) "I spent 90% of my money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered."


9) "I was in for 10 hours and 40 pints - beating my previous record by 20 minutes." George Best, on the blood transfusion after his liver transplant

R.I.P. George Best , 22 May 1946 – 25 November 2005

Rock music and Manchester United Football Club are two of my favorite things in the world . Add to that an unhealthy fascination with all things Irish , and this article  almost wrote itself , on this 25th of November.

“Boss, I think I’ve found you a genius"

These words spoken by United scout Bob Bishop to then manager Matt Busby have since then become a part of legend.

George Best , arguably the best footballer to ever play the game , and without a doubt the most talented ever from the British Isles , passed away on this very day five years ago.

The Inevitable Dennis Ritchie v/s Steve Jobs Debate

ICON v/s iCON :

Dennis Ritchie

As November gives way to December and we step into my favorite season of the year - Winter, the social networks are awash with , what I'm calling , aptly ( or so I hope ) , the battle of the Turtleneck v/s the Cardigan .

Last month we lost two true icons of our (the IT ) industry .The first was, of course the unexpected death of Steve Jobs ,co-founder of Apple.

Steve Jobs , 56, was the mock black Turtleneck wearing rockstar of the tech world , the marketing genius who took Apple products to the position of practically monopolizing the American markets.

In India,until very recently , Apple ( or Mac) was a term techies would use from time to time to exhibit their superior knowledge of the world of computers. Most of us Indians haven't , even today ,used a Mackintosh PC and probably never will. What , then caused this overflow of “ Remembering Jobs “ status updates on the Facebook pages of techies ,students and laymen alike all across the country ?

Before answering that we come to the next icon , the TRUE icon in the opinion of a smaller but more insistent group of tech savvy netizens who swear by their bible, the humbly titled ,The C Programming language. 

Hello World , my first post

"Hello World !"

This is the title of the default WordPress blog post ( where i had first created this blog) and underneath is the helpful suggestion that one should edit or delete it and get on to more serious posting.

But like most of my writing , this post was influenced by what i like to call a ” thought connection"  – you’re thinking of something else and suddenly some event or , as in this case , some random text connects the thoughts .

It was because I was recently writing an article on Dennis M. Ritchie , who passed away last month, that I instantly made this connection.

“Hello World ” , the message that is so common place now that we don’t even notice it forms the basis of every beginner coding class.

Computer students the world over , no matter what language they are learning are made to display this message on their screens as their very first coding assignment.Programming language books , any and all of them start their coding examples ( or assignments ) with the “Hello World Program” as its Wikipedia entry terms it.