The reason for google's name

The Name

10^100 (a gigantic number) is a googol, but we liked the spelling "Google" better. We picked the name "Google" because our goal is to make huge quantities of information available to everyone. And it sounds cool and has only six letters.

 

This was as declared by Google itself.

A new look

Be it blog or anything, repetiion makes things monotonous. So I decided to bring in a little change. Now, you look into a new interface for the blog.

'PaZhyana kaZhidhalum
pudhiyana pugudhalum
vaZhuvala kaala vagayinaane'

- 'Kadalull maaindha' Ilamperuvazhudhi

Tug of War 2005

Recently there was Tug of War competition (inter-dept) in our office. 10 per side. All of our teammates registered for fun but soon we found ourselves very passionate. We used the ancient tamil war cry of 'Vetri vael! Veera vael!' to great effect. It also was a sure turn on for us. We ended as runners. These kind of competitions bring a sense of togetherness within the team. Great experience.

BTW, can you spot me here?

Opening my heart in Tamil New Year

Belated wishes to one and all in this new Tamil Year. May you find the light in you to radiate all around.

If you've already found the light, keep radiating, ofcourse :)

I am back home. Nice little breaks these are. Helps one to refocus on things that are really of priority. It reminds me of how privilleged I am to be in a job. I often find me passionate about doing something for my culture and heritage. I find this to be a hindrance to my professional growth. I have to sacrifice any one to excel in another. All my ranting, I am not courageous enough till now to give up my career. God permitting I would be doing a nose dive into my passions, in which I believe I can contribute something, years later may be after I evaluate my passions. Till the time comes, ye my mind, don't lose focus. But I can do some things without compromising my career. I would try my best to do such things.

One such in my mind is a native compiler/programming language. I am evaluating the prospects of it. I've read that Sankrit is the best equipped natural language to process. Since I don't know Sanskrit, which I am very willing to learn, I would be trying it later.

The only language at my disposal is good old Tamizh ('Thaen vandhu paayudhu kaadhinilae'). I could not find a solid refernce to any Tamil compilers. Even Tamil fonts and keyboards have not been standardized. There is a lot of work to be done. I'm thinking of reading Aho and Ullman. May be this time I can understand it better, than my college days, sinceI have a cause to live upon.

BTW, I wrote one introductory article in Tamil about operating systems 2 years back (used the word 'Iyangu thalam' for OS). It came on nicely before I halted at some point. I could not find any suitable word for explaining the concept 'Portable'. I hate to refer to external sources when I write articles. So, I didn't referred any online communities, websites. I've shelved the article since then. Perhaps this is my curse, I don't do what it takes. I can rectify it this time.

Coming to the compilers, I better do a ground work, a feasibility study, before leaping into this. Atleast I can translate 'C' commands into Tamil. This way a tamil program could be constructed by using Tamil 'C' commands. Then this program can be translated to the original 'C' program by a translator. Then use the 'C' compiler to generate object program.

Very welcome Mr.Branson

Founder of Virgin Atlantic, Richard Branson says that his company does not give up and keeps pushing until they see success in the end and in India, they will succeed in the end.

Q: How are you dealing with the Indian government?

A: Past Indian governments seen incredible frustration and you know you almost, so sometimes people will say well, you know, if you get that person a present or this person a present, you might get what you want, but we don't do that at Virgin. So we just had to do wait year after year to put our case across and finally there is a government that believes that open skies make sense and is willing to allow many more airlines to start to fly and I think soon the traveling the public will see the benefits of that.

Q: Do you have a vision for Virgin in India?

A: Virgin around the world, I one day would love people to say as the most respected brand in the world and in order for it be the most respected brand in the world we got to make it the most respected brand in India.

So once we got daily flights to Mumbai and to Delhi and hopefully to number of other cities in India, we then start building other businesses and things like the mobile phone business, maybe I will be able to invest in domestic airline and there is financial service industry, I think, you know, could do the little bit of shakeup in India and fun things like music and health that we can look at.

More at, Virgin Landing

So said Mark Twain

Mark Twain had visited and explored India during his world tour of 'Following the Equator'. Here are some of his observations.

source: The Mark Twain experience

"India had the start of the whole world in the beginning of things. She had the first civilization; she had the first accumulation of material wealth; she was populous with deep thinkers and subtle intellects; she had mines, and woods, and a fruitful soul."

In Banares he evinced an inner pleasure at the many men and women kneeling prayerfully for hours "while we in America are robbing and murdering."

The poverty nearly suffocated him. He blamed the white man who, in the name of civilization and "the white man's burden," impoverished many peoples in the world. Mark Twain angrily said, 'We are obliged to believe that a nation that could look on, unmoved, and see starving or freezing women hanged for stealing twenty-six cents' worth of food or rags, and boys snatched from their mothers and men from their families and sent to the other side of the world for long terms of years for similar trifling offenses, was a nation to whom the term "civilized" could not in any large way be applied.' The result of 'civilization' was the extermination of the savages: 'There are many humorous things in the world—among them the white man's notion that he is less savage than the savages.'"

Of India itself he eloquently summed up his three months of exploration: "Nothing has been left undone, either by man or nature, to make India the most extraordinary country that the Sun visits on his round. Nothing seems to have been forgotten, nothing overlooked."

Toward the end of his journey, tired and full, he wrote a friend, "I have been sick a good deal; the rest not so much. We have had a good time in India—we couldn't ask for better. There are lovely people here. They made us feel at home."

A good read

Info on Hinduism

It gives a good idea about Hinduism. To get the brief outline what is Hinduism. The explanation is quite good. The structure of Hinduism is explained concisely without confusing everything with the famed Hindu trinity or other manifestations like other average websites.