CLASS ASSIGNMENT 1 - Google

Simvuyele Mageza 213005600

INTERNET 2 – NET200T
TERM 1: CLASS ASSIGNMENT 1
2/12/2014
MS SHOLAIN GOVENDER-BATEMAN


It has often been said that the greatest inventions in the history of the development of mankind come either from garages or dorm rooms at universities. Microsoft, Facebook, Google and other similar projects can all attest to the theory.
Google in particular is the largest web-based search engine of modern times. Today, Google is a common household brand, its usage being understood by the majority of society, from the tiniest toddlers to the frail and aged, provided they have basic understanding of and access to the internet.
The multi-billion dollar company began as a research assignment by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, PhD students at Stanford University in March 1996. Close friends Page and Brin created “BackRub” in search of a dissertation topic. They wanted to explore the mathematics involved in the World Wide Web. Page focused on the problem of finding out which web pages link to a given page, based on the consideration that the number and nature of such backlinks was valuable information for an analysis of that page while Brin got support from the National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship. Terry Winograd, supervisor and mentor, encouraged the idea which Page later recalled as “the best advice I ever got”.
BackRub operated on Stanford servers for more than a year before it started taking up too much bandwidth. It eventually became Google after the creators misspelt googol which is the scientific term for the number 1 followed by a hundred 0’s, reflecting how Page and Brin wanted to organize a seemingly infinite amount of information on the web. Google.com was registered as a domain on 15 September 1997.
Google soon took over the world by storm, providing a platform for people from all over the universe to search and share knowledge. Today finding information is a mouse-click away and research that would normally have taken days can be completed in minutes.
Although the early development of Google came with lawsuits of copyright infringement and investigations into its UK tax avoidance, the company rose from every scandal and provided to the world wide public a service that comes second to none.
Today the company employs millions of people yearly all around the globe and helps many others search for employment elsewhere. Research is made readily available by experts for general public consumption. Professionals everywhere use it daily, whether it is medicine, technology and even journalism. Google has grown from a dorm room project, a research dissertation to the number 1 web-based search engine in the world.
Finding information and compiling research on an infinite number of subjects can be done at a fraction of the time and possible money spent and in the comfort of ones own home. The advancement of technology allows for humans to save time and energy so that we can be able to do and achieve more. Google has proven to be an asset to almost all professions in the world and since its invention, life without it would be unimaginable.
Don’t believe me? Google it!


Sources used
www.google.co.za/about/company/history/
En.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Google
www.cozy-digital.co.uk/history-of-google/info_67.html
www.submittoday.com/history_of_google.htm
www.palio.com/google-history/

The Aftermath

The only time you realise how much you've grown and changed is during conversation with an old friend"

I read that somewhere and strange enough, I related perfectly to it.

As I ponder through my primary and early high school photos, I am forced to deal with the reality that that little girl has disappeared ages ago!

I know I will probably say the same about myself  in 10-20 years from now!

The memories created back then are just as much a part of my life now as those I am still creating as the new and perhaps improved me. I sometimes dig deep and use the innocent strength of the little girl I once was to fight the battles I do today. A little unfair? Perhaps. But she was faithful. A little blind and too trusting perhaps, but she had a faith and it is that faith that I use , that I need to slay the monsters of today. To be able to stand in the midst of it all and say "I was there. I made it!"

I don't have much of that little girl, except memories and a faith that it too shall come to pass. It was her, it was that little girl who taught me to laugh with abandonment, cry with emotion, touch with love and handle with care. I stand today in the rubble, the mess, the aftermath and I ask her to not only walk for me, but also teach me how.

The Aftermath!

How did I even get here? I made a list of all the things I thought could have led me here.; all the faulty decisions I perhaps made, all the times I lied, cheated and stole. Where did I go wrong? Where did I fail? This is not who I wanted to be.1 I never planned to pan out like this!

There really is no straight answer to some of life's questions. I had a map of all the roads I took that eventually possibly led me to this burning field of impurity and regret, and I realised it wasn't going to work. I had to find a different approach.

You see, as you grow older, your reasoning changes. What I shyed away from as a child, is now open for discussion at the dinner table. What was absolutely essential back then is now packed away in a little box I hardly ever open (that's if I still have it)

Growth is inevitable, change is crucial, and trust is essential.

This forces me to think though; is the aftermath then not the wake-up call we all so desperately desire but are too busy fooling ourselves with a fake layer of contentment to realise how absolutely unhappy our monotony is making us?

As children, we dream of our perfect lives and plan our perfect futures. When those dreams and plans become dulled with responsibility and bills to pay, we sneak into the nearest corner and tell ourselves that we are happy with what we have...until that old friend call you up and you both start to remember what it was supposed to have been like. Then, just like me, you stand in an open veld fire and make up little stories and lies explaining why your dreams are kept in boxes and hidden compartments, why you are where you are instead of where you are supposed to be.
"But I'll come back later", the most common excuse!

Then you stand in a pool of flashbacks and question how you got there. Did you build your empire, or just an empire? Are you who you promised yourself as a child, you were going to grow up to be?

As you stand in the rubble, the mess, the loss, fold your map. You took the road your maturity at the time told you was best. Forget the regret and time wasted. Who are you now? Where are you? Is that little child proud? (Please do not misunderstand me. I am not asking you to quit your job in the army to become a violin player like you dreamt, or something of that sort.)

Me? This is my aftermath. I am a little lost, and a little confused, but that is all right. Somewhere in the rubble I will find myself . The world has broken me into a million tiny pieces, but that is fine. I'll pick them up and together we will start again. Her faith will glue me together and hand-in-hand we shall walk.

Fail proof

Fail proof

Failure Proof? Really? Is there such a thing? I mean, can we bubble wrap ourselves and become resistant to failure? Isn't failure part of the "roller-coaster ride" that we are supposed to enjoy? I don't know. I guess it all depends who you are and how you look at situations.

I was once told you can "prevent" bad luck and failure, so let's try. Let's put our salt in magnetic canisters and perhaps they wont fall over. Shut your eyes if you suspect it was a black cat that you just saw. Perhaps you will get only three and a half years. Cement every crack in your home and pray the plumber survives. Please, go ahead, let's bubble wrap and box ourselves to prevent bad luck. This makes me wonder though; by becoming captives in our own world, by letting our superstitions and trivial fears bind us, are we not subjecting ourselves to the worst kind of luck? But then again, it all boils down to who you are and how you look at it.

I believe the same goes for failure. We fail to live because of the fear of failure. We dare not try that dance move because of the what-ifs. We fail to ask that question in class because of the fear of what people might say. We fail to try for the marathon in case we don't get the gold. "oh the sheer humiliation."
But of all that, the greatest fear that we should have is regret! Is it not better to try and fail than to fail to try? Easier said than done, you might think. Well, you see, I'm not one for motivational poetry and such outrun, outdated and overdone lifestyle quotes. Me? I'm practical. I know what I'm talking about. I've been there. For years I lived not only with the fear of failure, but failure itself!
Stepping away from my fails and bad luck wasn't due to some miraculous set of circumstances (unless you consider time and age as such.), it was a decision! My mistakes and fails aren't going to keep me confined to some dark corner. NO! Not anymore! In my fear I have found freedom.

You know what I say now? Leave the salt on the table. If it falls, I'll draw pictures. Leave the cracks on the ground, lets play hop-scotch. Invite the black cat over for a play date (if he doesn't want to, he doesn't want to. There are no excuses for deliberately hurting yourself or the animal while you were forcing it to roll over ad purr. I wont be held liable for such!)

Failure proof? I am! I'm human and I will fall. But I wont cry over skinned knees. I will appreciate how beautiful the world looks when one is on the ground.
If you think you are, then you are right. If you think you are not, you are still right. It all depends on you look at it!