Who? Me??

The good folks at Google have a great sense of humor. Ever since the launch of GMail on the 1st of April, and the subsequent April Fool jokes, we are always guessing what hidden joke lurks in each of the Google products. Here are some of them that I have found, you can check them out too!

I am also including some of the outputs, which you can try by yourself as well!

Do a Barrel Roll

Search this term in Google search, and watch the fun as the search queries take a tumble, and literally does a barrel roll!

Askew

Search this term in Google search, and see the screen go askew!!

Ascii Art

Search for this, and the Google logo shows you what Ascii Art is all about!

Recursion

Have you noticed that when search on Google, if you do typographical mistakes, Google corrects you by asking you “Did you mean <corrected spelling>”. Try searching recursion on Google!

There are more such easter eggs in Google, but they are time bound (for example searching football during the Soccer World Cup would give you an interested Pagination navigation on Google).

As a bonus, try this out in your Google Reader – up up down down left right left right b a b a (and beware of the ninja!).

While the Twitter world went abuzz with the Mumbai Rains, I was not seeing the big deal with rains. So what?

Then I went to my car on my drive back to home.

1. Potholes are not visible, you have to look for them and differentiate the pot holes from shallow puddles
2. The car is slow to react
3. You come to know nuances of your car when driving in rains, it makes noises that you never knew it could!!
4. Vipers + Drizzle makes for an irritating screensaver while driving
5. WIndows and windshield fogs up
6. Mumbaikars run to their home like madmen when it rains, in cars. So more traffic

All this in one drive back home. Eagerly waiting the monsoons

We are hiring, and are screening resumes of different candidates for interviews. Some of the resumes that we came across are hilarious and I thought I might take the liberty of sharing it here (I am not disclosing the identity of the people, but if your CV does contain a line or two from these selected gems, then consider rewriting your resume!)

• Seeking an environment to relish the constructive attitude and fulfill my appetite of success by facilitating the organization with my skills and abilities.
• To use and enhance my educational as well as professional skills with dedications and commitment in the best possible way do as to acquire symmetric height for me and my organization.
• To be an efficient part of a reputed organization and enhance my abilities while working to attain objectives of organization. I would like to work amongst Network of Skilled Professionals in a dynamic and highly demanding atmosphere.
• Looking forward for a dynamic career in today’s challenging business environment Achieving organization objective as well as professional growth in an environment of co-operation of team spirit. Reach the top positioning my career and to attain the goal of life.
• I want to have challenging career in growing organization, which gives opportunities to utilize the skills and contribute to rise up in the learning curve and which values professionalism, by demonstrating high energy levels, ethics and integrity.
• To Pursue growth Oriented Career with a Progressive Company that provides scope to apply my knowledge & Skill which would also help me to Contribute my best to best Organization
• To establish myself as a successful professional known for emerging victorious from challenging situations and completing given task thus helping company to new heights and fulfilling my dreams.

I do not understand why people keep career objectives in their resumes. Not only is it a waste of space, but also the recruiter does not glean anything (except maybe a chuckle or two) from it. Most of the objectives I have seen are bloated and filled with hot air – save the recruiter some trouble and directly cut to the chase.

In a discussion with a friend (and an ex-colleague), we were joking about work life in general (euphemism for mutual bitching). It seems that a lot of us are destined to work on Microsoft Office Powerpoint and Microsoft Office Excel almost all the time; be it a job in the sales team, the financial analyst team, the business analyst team … Microsoft Office never leaves us.

A shared fantasy was, what would happen to the world if Microsoft Office suddenly ceased to exist … the following are some pearls from that discussion … of course I have added some of my own, and welcome all of you to keep on adding to this list through the comments -

1. MBAs would not have anything to do apart from sitting in meetings
2. Corporations would realize how overly paid we all are
3. The consulting industry would come to a virtual stand still
4. People will actually work instead of creating documents
5. Colleagues and teams will start talking to each other instead of exchanging documents and Track Change (Ctrl+Shift+E) reviews and Comments (Alt+R+C)
6. Wikis and other collaborative groupware would be put to use … heck even Google Buzz might be exhumed
7. B-schools will be forced to change their pedagogy or they will be virtually assignment-free … wheeee!!

… to be continued

Scratch that picture of a feline with cheap make-up and gaudy mane!!

I mean the new style of declaring yourself as a LION (Largest Internet Open Networker) on LinkedIn to say that you are open to connect with one and all. In other words, you are connecting promiscuously – a connection whore.

I am not taking a disparaging view of this, since I have on several occasions done this (for building a strong gaming network on Facebook, for checking the limit of friends you could add on Yahoo Messenger, for adding folks on Orkut left right and center, etc).

It’s just funny to note that when you say LION, it sounds like self-aggrandizing.

I am a LION!! 

Instead of just saying (and people don’t do this btw) …

I am a connection whore!

Interesting to see that by a simple change in analogy (whore to LION), people are suddenly willing to declare it on their profiles. Well, for me they are still the same … LIONs are whores!

I was on Google Suggest, and it’s wonderful what little insights you can get on how and what are people searching for – go figure!

Last week, I had a massive muscle pull. So much so that I could not get up off the floor. From the floor, I managed to crawl my way to the bed in 90 minutes. The doctor said that I was not supposed to get off the bed for at least a week. Bye bye moving around, bye bye blogging and gaming.

It’s been a week, and let me tell you the week was extremely boring. Not doing anything and lying in your bed sucks. Big time. I managed to read a lot and think a lot more. But that’s about it.

Come Monday and I am aching to go back to work … for entertainment!! If that is not transformation, what is

Every year Google releases their Zeitgeist (“spirit of the times”). I was going through their 2009 release when I came across this list for India.

The top 10 How-To’s that were searched in India are listed below

How to

1. how to kiss
2. how to hack
3. how to meditate
4. how to study
5. how to swim
6. how to draw
7. how to flirt
8. how to chat
9. how to concentrate
10. how to download

Does that tell you something about the average Indian web-user?

A romantic student who fantasizes about being a cyber superhero but in reality is failing in studies.