Google owes much to Lego
- January 28, 2008 12:49 PM |
- By Pete Nowak
By Peter Nowak, CBCNews.ca
Today's Google home page has the company's logo spelled out in Lego blocks, to celebrate the Danish toy maker's 50th anniversary. Is this just another case of Google changing its logo to mark a special occasion, as the search engine does with holidays? Nope – not only are many Googlers big Lego fanatics, but the building block toy is actually an important part of Google's history.
As these photos show, Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin used Lego to build storage for their various computers while they were experimenting back in their Stanford days. Not only were the building blocks handy for constructing low-cost cabinets for their hard drives, but Page and Brin also found Lego bricks to be pretty decent at resisting heat.
This probably explains why some Google offices look more like day-care centres than computer engineering facilities. It should also come as no surprise that Lego has proven to be the foundation of many science- and technology-inspired minds.
About the Authors
- Tara Kimura
is a multimedia producer for CBCNews.ca.
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Comments (5)
Well... Happy 50th! So now I know where to go steal Lego pieces when I attempt to create a CN tower replica...
I made a working machine gun out of Lego (fire rate: 10 rounds/minute), but it never saw any action before mummy made me dismantle it (so I smashed it instead).
I built a puzzle-box out of Lego when I was young... you put a marble in one end, rolled it through the hidden maze built between two rectangular baseplates (which involved having to slide plungers and pieces at various points to open up certain passageways) and eventually rolled it out the other end. Granted, since I was the only one who knew the internal structure, I don't think anybody else in my family ever solved it...
Oh man..Legos...one of the top toys I've ever played with when I was a kid. I remember going over next door where my best friend at the time lived, and playing with Legos for hours apon hours (from storylines of boatracing, to timemachines, to Castles, to Rock Bands...makes me wish I was a kid again with that strong imagination)...until Goldeneye came out for N64 that we then played for literally 7-8 hours playing constantly...but anyways, I'd say he still has all the same legos that him and I used to play with all the time...I might ask him later if he still does..
Legos will stick around for the end of time
Of course Lego's will stick around. It's the fundemental of an imagination. With out it, we would live such a boring life. I miss saving up from the couch that I would 'secretly' find and save it until I had enough to buy a specific series. Me and my brothers had like 3 or 4 tubs full ( I mean those heavy duty bulky tubs... I can't remember what they were... Rubber Maid! The huge heavy duty Rubber Maid tubs!) and like for 6 months we would either build cities, and act out people, or we would build ships and zoom around the house pretending that the alien warships were tailing us, and going to eliminate us from the face of the earth. Or sometimes we would build two castles, and rage a dispute amoung them as we had sword fights, aroow barrages and swordfighting ON horses! *sigh* Those were the good old days. *sniffle* I wish I still have the same imagination as I did when I was younger.
Lego, my freinds is definitly here to stay, no matter what gender, race ethnics, etc... and they're very much part of us.