Google Gags

Googling around for fun.

Heard of something called “BackRub”? It was the original name given to Google by its inventors, two Stanford University graduate students, Sergey Brin and Larry Page. And like many other wonderful things in this world, Google was not the crafted by corporate honchos in a sterile boardroom; it had very humble beginnings. It was born as a univ research project by Sergey (age 23) and Larry (age 24) in January 1996.

Today, Google is unarguably the most popular search engine in the world, with search access to well over two billion million Web documents, even in 35 non-English languages. While half its daily search requests come from the US, the rest originate from places poles apart—from Antarctica and sometimes even the Arctic icecap. During peak traffic hours, Google processes over 2,500 user searches per second for billions of pages.

By the way, have you ever wondered why Google’s main page is so nanga? To make it load fast? Perhaps. But according to legend, this is because its creators didn’t know HTML too well when they created it. They wanted a fast interface so they didn’t fool around.

Speaking of fooling around, the name Google materialised due to some fooling around with “googol”, a term that deals with a very large number, something like 1 followed by 100 zeroes (10 to the 100th power)! At the time, this was an inference to the large number of Web pages that the search engine could indexed. Little known to most of us, the Google phenomenon also has engendered a wacky side—a fun fringe that has either been invented or inspired by the Google walas. Here's a peek at some of these amusing asides.

Google Gulp
Pepsi and Coke will find this hard to glug. Seems Google’s getting into the bottling business. Google Gulp with “Auto-Drink” is a line of "smart drinks" designed to maximise your surfing efficiency by making you more intelligent, and less thirsty. Flavours include Beta Carroty, Glutamate Grape, Sugar-Free Radical, and Sero-Tonic Water. Take sip…
www.google.com/googlegulp

Google Jobs Opportunities
This one’s about job opportunities at Google. On the moon! Its Copernicus Center is hiring and interviewing people for engineering positions at it lunar hosting and research center which opens in 2007. Highly-qualified individuals who are “willing to relocate for an extended period of time, are in top physical condition and are capable of surviving with limited access to such modern conveniences… and a steady supply of oxygen” should apply. Utter “lunarcy”!
www.google.com/jobs/lunar_job.html

Much in the same hilarious and witty genre, are the following Google pages:

Google Technology
www.google.com/technology/pigeonrank.html

Google MentalPlex
www.google.com/mentalplex/MP_results.html

Google Romance
www.google.com/romance

Google Holiday Logos and Events
One for the trivia man. A compendium of Google logos done for those special days of the years. For example, the Google logo in Braille to commemorate Louis Braille's birthday. Or others for Sherlock Homes, Mozart, Mother's Day etc. etc. etc. And then take a peek at the person behind these Google doodles.
www.google.com/holidaylogos.html

Google Easter Eggs
A simple, entertaining Google home page, specially crafted by the some fun loving bunny at Google Labs. It’s a Google home page with an in-built game where you have to help an Easter bunny catch eggs in a little basket. Above the game you will find the de facto Google search field box and can use it as a normal search engine page.
www.google.com/Easter/feature_easter.html

Want more fun? Go to:

Montage-a-Google
http://grant.robinson.name/projects/montage-a-google/

Guess-the-Google
http://grant.robinson.name/projects/guess-the-google/

“elgooG” Google Mirror
I’ve mentioned this site earlier. It's a Google mirror that makes you read everything backwards. This 4,000-line custom CGI script written in PERL, even survived the Great Firewall of China because the Chinki government security experts thought that “elgooG” was a joke, not a fully functional version of Google. So they blocked Google not this, much to the delight of hundreds of Chinese surfers.
http://elgoog.rb-hosting.de/index.cgi