The Banality of Google

It's the Friday before a long weekend. The weather is gorgeous - unless you're living in Florida staring down the barrel of Hurricane Frances - and here I sit tickling my keys in anticipation of a lovely long weekend with my extended family (more on that later.)

In other words, time for a funny.

Everyone's been buzzing about Google's recent IPO. The company's "dont be evil" ethos has prompted much speculation about whether or not going public will erode its sense of organizational charity. This has, in turn, driven lots of buzz about why companies exist in the first place. Are they on this planet to enrich society? Pad the bank accounts of their porcine executives? Feed the unending demands of their vaunted shareholders? It's kind of hard to tell most days.

Wherever you stand on this issue, Paul Ford's The Banality of Google page contains enough hilarious graphic and word-based imagery to keep you smiling throughout the upcoming long weekend.

So the final question remains: does Google's ubiquity have dire implications for the rest of us? Don't answer that until after you do a vanity search on your own name. The results might surprise you.