Googlified

“The #1 Googler excuse for legitimately slacking off. - My mapreduce is running ___ .” I think “slow” goes into the blank, but it could be something else though. In case you wonder, MapReduce is a programming model Google used to processe and generate large data sets that are often over 100+ terabytes.

UPDATE: The excuse is actually just “My mapreduce is running”, in reference to this xkcd comic. Ahh, very clever… [thanks Googler Rory]

[photo by Googler Ellen Spertus, used under a CC-license]

This t-shirt was spotted in a market in Amsterdam.

“Okay, okay, Mr. Know-it-all. Now put on your coat and let’s continue our snow fight.”

[photo by Alfredo Rodríguez Brondo, used under a CC-license]

It took me a while to find out what this thing is called: dicycle (with only about 4,100 results on Google).

A dicycle is a vehicle with two wheels parallel to each other, unlike the usual motorbikes and bicycles, which have a wheel followed by another, called tandem placed wheels. [Wikipedia]

It should be the exact same one (Unwheedly Two) built by Dave Hershberger and Matthew Blain over at Unwheeldy. There’s a video showing some people riding the dicycle, looks like a lot of fun. :)

Google probably bought it. They do that all the time.

UPDATE: Matt (the creator of this dicycle) said that “Google didn’t buy it.” in the comment.

[photo by NineFingers, used under a CC-license]

Google held their annual holiday party last Friday at the Googleplex, where friends of Googlers were invited to have some fun. I suppose this year’s theme has something to do with Space: all the “planets” and “stars” hanging on the ceiling and a “Google Space Station” sign somewhere.

If you are interested, there are a couple hundred more photos from the party you can find on Flickr. There’s another holiday party in the upcoming Wednesday, if you are close to the area, don’t forget to crash it! :P

[photo by Gregory Smith, used under a CC-license]

Randall Munroe, the guy behind the wonderful webcomic xkcd, paid a visit to Google today and drew a “xkcdesque” version of the Google logo shown above (a bit blurry).

They also baked a cake for him, based on a xkcd comic that made reference of the “Google HQ”.

UPDATE: Updated post with a higher resolution photo from Googler Jeff Fisher’s Flickr stream.

[photos by Googler Michelle L., used under a CC-license]

Every year this time, Google sends gifts to some of its selected AdSense and AdWords users. Last year they sent digital photo frames and iPod shuffles, and the gift this year is a 2GB USB memory card, inside a “pretty envelop”.

The memory card is so small that blogger Amit Agarwal already lost it (read: stolen). Perhaps next year they will send something bigger, like phones loaded with Android?

[photo by Barry Schwartz]

Looks like Google is handing out posters like the one above to (small) business in India that are listed in Google Local. Similar to the ones that Google been giving out the business in the U.K., the Indian version of the poster encourage people to find the business on Google Maps/Local with the “We are on the Internet. Find us on Google” message.

[photo by shivku, used under a CC-license]

Google Master Plan’s latest focus is user happiness. The latest additions on the board are [go to Flickr for larger version]:

• Google biotech
• Clone army
• Steal hardware engineers from nVidia
• Reality Google
• Buy New Zealand/Mars/NASA
• Mind controls chips
• Control the stock market, and last but not least,
• Defect Micro$oft

UPDATE: Oops, it’s not created by Google, but the things I mentioned above are/were on the Plan. [thanks Ionut and Bill E.]

[photo by Bill Erickson, used under a CC-license]

Googler Matt Pagel received this Google-brand chocolate box for Thanksgiving this year.

The chocolate came in the form of an edible box with caramel chocolates inside. I got the chocolate box as a thank-you from work.

From experience, I think the box (which is edible as described above) is more delicious than the chocolates inside. (I look at the picture, and have a bite on my Hershey’s.)

[photo by Matt Pagel, used under a CC-license]

“Money is the root of all evil.” (although it’s a misquote) Don’t be Evil. No?

[photo taken in Google India, by SplasH]

People can easily find me on Google (and what kind of person I am), but the problem is that a lot of people have difficulty spelling my name (Hoachi is the most common, occasionally Hochi, and all kind of weird combination of letters).

[chart by Jessica Hagy]

Google University does exist! Too bad it’s only opened to Googlers. Upcoming courses are “The Bicycle Wheel” with D. Pardo and Piaw Na, “Open Source: A Comprehensive History, With Gossip” with Chris DiBona, “Theory and Practice of Cryptography” with Stephen Weis, and “You and Your Voice” with Alexander Newman.

[photo by Juan Felipe Castaño, used under a CC-license]