google jobs on the moon

This is what is found on Google Jobs - GOOGLE COPERNICUS CENTER IS HIRING:

"Google is interviewing candidates for engineering positions at our lunar hosting and research center, opening late in the spring of 2007. This unique opportunity is available only to 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 as soy low-fat lattes, The Sopranos and a steady supply of oxygen."


"The Google Copernicus Hosting Environment and Experiment in Search Engineering (G.C.H.E.E.S.E.) is a fully integrated research, development and technology facility at which Google will be conducting experiments in entropized information filtering, high-density high-delivery hosting (HiDeHiDeHo) and de-oxygenated cubicle dwelling. This center will provide a unique platform from which Google will leapfrog current terrestrial-based technologies and bring information access to new heights of utility."

photographic vibes

Some really cool photos - doctored, all right, but full of expressions! Nice play with colours and objects.

the logo game

Concentrate - Sharpen your memory - command your visual power - choose the difference - guess the logo - take a break! Here.

the value of pi

π, whose approximate value to eight decimal places is 3.14159265, is actually the symbol, derived from Greek alphabet, for the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. It is a universal constant; meaning that its value is always the same for any circle. Pi is an irrational number whose decimal places go on infinitely without repeating or ending in zeros. Computers can estimate pi with great accuracy - the current known value of π having been figured to more than 1.24 trillion (1,200,000,000,000) decimal places.

When calculating the value of π, computers use equations; but how does a human calculate the value of π to 100,000 decimal places? Basic arithmetic? Sounds ridiculous. But recently a Japanese man named Akira Haraguchi, aged 60, showed up in Kisarazu public hall claiming to recite the value of π to one hundred thousand decimal places without any aid. In fact, he did succeed in reading aloud the value as he had claimed. Spectators were amazed, the hall cheered aloud! At the end of the function a local news reporter asked him the secret of this feat, for which Haraguchi replied, "I used a series of pictures to memorize the digits".

Impressive! Human memory is indeed wonderful. Sugoi, Haraguchisan - gambatte kudasai!

floppy gone sloppy

I was in grade 5 when I first touched a floppy disk - a flat 5.25" B drive disk. It was a new thing for my hands, the touch of which I liked very much. With great enthusiasm, I showed it and explained it (from what my dad had explained me) to my friends the next day in school; and for many days, I was the hero of my class. That was in 1992. Two years later we actually started studying computers in school, and it was then that we bought our first floppy-disk for 50R. Those 5.25" were gone and were replaced by the new 3.25" 2HD floppies.

All of us starting computers from mid-90's have had experiences somewhat similar to this. The floppy was the only thing which enabled us to carry around those wonderful MS-DOS games, like Dave, Digger, Baghchal, TT6, Hangman, Fallout, Brick, Dots, Sticks, and of course, Tetris. That was the age of dBase III+, WordPerfect 5.1, Lotus 1-2-3 and GW-BASIC - where floppies were the inevitably essential stuff to carry around programs and files.

And now, after the advent of heavy-duty USB drives, see what has happend to those harmless squares? Once reigning the entire world, today they either sit lousily under coffee mugs or else, are found in the junkyard - such a sad downfall of such a great thing!

However, if you enjoy DIY's, there's something to do with those sloppy floppies - why not open those dusty racks and take out some of those square pieces - red and black and blue and green and white and yellow and pink - and why not make a bag out of it? As shown here, that is.