Some little known Google Facts and Figures

• Google's name is a play on the word googol, which refers to the number 1 followed by one hundred zeroes. The term was coined by Milton Sirotta, nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasner, and was popularized in the book, "Mathematics and the Imagination" by Kasner and James Newman. Google's play on the term reflects the company's mission to organize the immense amount of information available on the web.
• Google started as a research project at Stanford University, created by Ph.D. candidates Larry Page and Sergey Brin when they were 24 years old and 23 years old respectively (a combined 47 years old).
• Google's index of web pages is the largest in the world, comprising of billions of web pages. Google searches this immense collection of web pages often in less than half a second.
• Google receives daily search requests from all over the world, including Antarctica.
• Users can restrict their searches for content in 35 non-English languages, including Chinese, Greek, Icelandic, Hebrew, Hungarian and Estonian. To date, no requests have been received from beyond the earth's orbit, but Google has a Klingon interface just in case.
• Google has a world-class staff of more than 2,668 employees known as Googlers. The company headquarters is called the Googleplex.
• Google translates billions of HTML web pages into a display format for WAP and i-mode phones and wireless handheld devices, and has made it possible to enter a search using only one phone pad keystroke per letter, instead of multiple keystrokes.
• Google Groups comprises more than 845 million Usenet messages, which is the world's largest collection of messages or the equivalent of more than a terabyte of human conversation.
• The basis of Google's search technology is called PageRank™, and assigns an "importance" value to each page on the web and gives it a rank to determine how useful it is. However, that's not why it's called PageRank. It's actually named after Google co-founder Larry Page.
• Googlers are multifaceted. One operations manager, who keeps the Google network in good health is a former neurosurgeon. One software engineer is a former rocket scientist. And the company's chef formerly prepared meals for members of The Grateful Dead and funkmeister George Clinton.

Ref:- http://www.google.com.au/press/funfacts.html

Strategy and tactics for SQUASH...

The fundamental strategy of the game is to hit the ball straight up the side walls to the back corners referred to as a straight drive, wall, or "length", then move to the centre of the court near the "T" to be well placed to retrieve the opponent's return. Attacking with soft or "short" shots to the front corners (referred to as 'drop shots') causes the opponent to cover more of the court and may result in an outright winner. 'Angle' shots (see above) are used for deception and again to cause the opponent to cover more of the court.

Highly skilled players often attempt to finish rallies by hitting the ball at an angle onto the front wall and into an area known as the 'nick' (the junction between the side wall and floor) which if done properly will cause the ball to roll out along the floor and be unreturnable. If the shot misses the nick, however, the ball may bounce out from the side wall and allow the opponent an easy attacking shot.

A key strategy in squash is known as "dominating the T" (the intersection of the red lines near the centre of the court where the player is in the best position to retrieve the opponent's next shot). Skilled players will return a shot, and then move back toward the 'T' before playing the next shot. From this position, the player can quickly access any part of the court to retrieve the opponent's next shot with a minimum of movement.

Rallies between experienced players may involve 30 or more shots and therefore there is a very high premium on fitness, both aerobic and anaerobic. As players become more skilled and, in particular, better able to retrieve shots, points often become a war of attrition. At higher levels of the game, the fitter player has a major advantage.

Almost all players (inexperienced or experienced) will fall into the following categories of style of play:

• "Retriever"- Usually a very fit player, plays patiently, can retrieve most shots hit by an opponent, but doesn't have a particularly strong attacking game.
• "Shooter", or "attacking player"- May be a patient player as well, but is more comfortable trying to hit winning shots or going for "nicks". Generally has very good shot accuracy and deception skills.
• "Power Player"- Tries to overpower their opponent by hitting the ball with extreme pace. Not known for their fitness, or patience.
• "All-Around Player"- Is comfortable playing all different styles and places, comfortable in all areas of the court.

Ability to change the direction of ball at the last instant is also important to off-balance the opponent. Expert players can anticipate the opponent's shot a few tenths of a second before the average player, giving them a chance to react sooner. Such skill is usually acquired by a lot of practice and game experience.

courtesy: www.wikipedia.org

Freedom: A global perspective

15th August 1947, India got freedom from British Raj. I pondered upon the fact for a while and thought is freedom for a country only means freedom from some other country ruling over it for past many decades? or it has other perspectives.

How can you call a country free, if still that country has not got freedom from poverty, inequality, unemployment and corruption. If we see freedom from this perspective, it has nothing to do with physiological boundaries or what we call different "countries" today. Don't you think that if country is free from all these hassles country is free no matter who is ruling it?

With the world getting flatter, there is a need to see freedom from this perspective because in coming decades the world will be an highly cohesive and interdependent entity. At this time what will matter is a Win-Win situation for all where all have equal opportunities to prosper, wealth is more or less evenly distributed, people have freedom to dream, freedom to act, fairness is at its best and all are working hard to make this world a better place.

I know many economist will think that a how can whole world get prosper at the same time, as the total wealth in the world is more or less constant and gain of one will be loss of others. But I feel that is the challenge to face, that is how we make sure that wealth is uniformly distributed across the globe. I know it is difficult but surely not impossible as the opportunities lying ahead are infinite. sky is the limit.

Comments are always welcome.