Chinese New Year 2019 – The official CNY19 Google Doodle

 

 

This year marks the transition from the Year of the Dog to that of the Pig, the last animal in the cycle of 12 that represent each year in the shēngxiào, or Chinese zodiac. Pigs are considered a sign of prosperity in Asian culture, and those born in the year of the Pig are said to be sincere, good-natured, and honest.

Today’s Doodle also celebrates the ancient tradition of shadow puppetry, which also has a special place in the festivities. This year, people all over the world can Celebrate Lunar New Year and the ancient storytelling art of shadow puppetry with Shadow Art. Users can form one of the twelve zodiac animal hand gestures in front of their camera and the AI system, built with Tensorflow, will play a short clip matching the shadow puppet that’s been made.

Credits: Google, Google Doodles Archive

Percentage of male population dying before the age of 65 (1960 – 2015)

 

What war, poverty and bad healthcare can do to us guys.

Credits: vivid MAPS via Van_ae and reddit r/MapPorn

The Internet’s veins

 

 

The Internet today is only made possible by tens of thousands of kilometres of cabling at the bottom of the sea and buried underground. The above GIF from Vice’s Motherboard site shows the development of the submarine backbone from 1989 to 2017.

Credits: Builtvisible and TeleGeography via Meghan Neal and Vice Motherboard

New Year blastback

 

It’s the New Year (aka 2018), and it’s my first day back at work. Can you believe it’s been 18 years since the dawn of the millennium? Let that sink in a little.

Meanwhile here’s a GIF celebrating NYD in 2000, so this is a vintage GIF by all accounts.

Credits: cozycatcorner via GifCities and Internet Archive

One year with ClearScore

 

It has been one year since I joined the credit score agency ClearScore. It was these guys who showed me easily how well my score had improved and it still keeps getting better 😀

Credits: ClearScore via Outlook

2016 – what a year

 

It’s been a topsy-turvy year, 2016. Hordes of celebrities have passed on to the great Oscars in the sky, America elected a clown, another clown became British foreign secretary, Iraq and Syria are in a mess, and I still hate commuting. Don’t worry though, 2017 may just be better. Maybe.

Credits: LiveLeak and Animated GIFs via Simon Lavelle, Reaction Gifs and Google+