Google.pl's crazy doodle | Hacker News Reader

Google.pl's crazy doodle

google.pl

492 pointsatmb4u69 comments

Stanislaw Lem is probably my most favorite sci-fi author. He's very popular in Europe, but not so much in the US it seems. His works are hilariously funny, philosophical and have a certain magic to them. When I saw the robot I was almost certain that it had to be about him.

I don't know about the quality of the English translations of his books, but in German, they are fabulous. There are a lot of word plays that are hard to translate.

By the way, many will recommend Solaris in here because there were two films based on it, one by Tarkovsky and one by Soderbergh. While it's not a bad book it's probably not his best and not entirely exemplary of his other books.

This is a good introduction to his work: http://world.std.com/~mmcirvin/vitrifaxintro.html

Lem is awesome, but avoid the ones that have come to english via a multihop route. Books translated by Kandel are fabulous.

Trurl invents an electronic bard. Klaupacius challenges it:

  "Have it compose a poem -- a poem about a haircut! But lofty, noble, tragic, timeless, full of love, treachery, retribution, quiet heroism in the face of certain doom! Six lines, cleverly rhymed, and every word beginning with the letter s!"

The electronic bard's response:

   Seduced, shaggy Samson snored.
   She scissored short. Sorely shorn,
   Soon shackled slave, Samson sighed,
   Silently scheming,
   Sightlessly seeking
   Some savage, spectacular suicide.

I can not agree emphatically enough.

If one wishes to see another excerpt indicating how amazing Lem was via Kandel, i posted one of my favorite poems of all time, also from the same short story here: http://blog.knowtheory.net/post/88490831/the-best-poem-ever-...

The poem has only one blemish, which is the assumption that "Euler" rhymes with "ruler".

Heh, the Tarkovsky film is actually the reason I read Solaris, but I rather liked it overall so would still recommend it.

A funny story - how I got my first Stanislaw Lem book from a Washington Square park bookseller..

Guy had a table with a wide range of second hand books mostly sci fi. I carefully picked over the pile and chose some of my favorite authors - some that were quite hard to get.

When I went to purchase about three books, the guy said "OK since you are obviously a man with taste in SF I'm gonna let you see my other 'special' stock" - and out came a small tray of books from under the table. Not previously on sale. Maybe it was just a clever marketing ploy - but this is how I found my first Stanislaw Lem book (which he recommended).

Since then I've always tried to buy Lem at SF second hand stores but actually very hard to come by (in English). I did buy a brand new copy of 'His Master's Voice' the other day and was not disappointed.

Don't think he actually wrote that many SF books - I think I have them all now but maybe I'm mistaken.

maybe there's a startup sales model in there somewhere ;-) the next groupon?

Up-selling based on making the customer feel he's special, selected or privileged is not exactly a new model.

Special price for you mister! Only 25 dollars!

But it is patentable in the United States.

Don't think he actually wrote that many SF books - I think I have them all now but maybe I'm mistaken.

In my opinion, he wrote quite a lot of them -- almost 30 fiction books, half of them being novels, and other half collections of stories. Apart of that, he published over 20 non-fiction books, but they were rarely translated to English.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanisław_Lem#Works

> Stanislaw Lem is probably my most favorite sci-fi author. He's very popular in Europe, but not so much in the US it seems. His works are hilariously funny, philosophical and have a certain magic to them.

I last read Lem 15 years ago, when I was in high-school, but it had such a huge effect on me that this doodle gave me goose-bumps when it first started, I cannot explain exactly why.

Only Solaris is available for Kindle. I hate when that happens.

Update: Actually Solaris is not available either. I was misled because there is a Solaris 'Study Guide' available for Kindle.

> I don't know about the quality of the English translations of his books

I don't know about the quality of the original Polish, but ... some of his heavier works are well, heavy in the English version. I'm thinking of "Solaris", "His Master's Voice", "Memoirs Found in a Bathtub". They are good books - but so are Dickens, Tolstoy etc. which require a bit of effort from the modern reader.

However the Cyberiad is an absolute pleasure to read. I read it when I was in my early teens and I ate it up - it challenged my mind, made me laugh and was very easy to read. Other lighter ones - "Tales of Pirx the Pilot", "The Futurological Congress", "A Perfect Vacuum" are easy to read too.

. some of his heavier works are well, heavy in the English version. I'm thinking of "Solaris", "His Master's Voice", "Memoirs Found in a Bathtub".

A case of bad translations. Those books are quite readable in the original language.

So are Dickens and Tolstoy.

Try "Star Diaries" and other stories with Ijon Tichy. I always liked those a lot - I read them first in Polish when I was 12.

I remember, years ago, reading him in German. A Polish medical student loaned/"foisted" Solaris on me. I rather enjoyed it.

Thanks about the "heads up" with regard to the issues with some of the English translations. I'd been thinking I should revisit it, but these days an English language text would be far more accessible.

Also reminded me of this game: http://machinarium.net/demo/

Machinarium is great. I'm happy it was included with the original Humble Bundle.

Which reminds me, everyone should go check out the recently released Humble Introversion Bundle. Pay what you want for 5+ great cross-platform games by independent developers, and choose who your money goes to.. charity or the developers.

http://www.humblebundle.com/

Some easter eggs (and spoilers) by the designer: https://plus.google.com/101765089097091765365/posts/1MaYwxJz...

For the curious: the doodle is for Stanislaw Lem, one of my favorite science fiction authors.

For those who haven't read any of his books, I personally recommend Solaris and Fiasco, although most of the other books I've read by him are also great.

Edit: Oh yeah, for something a little bit more funny, read Tales of Pirx the Pilot.

Just a warning: if you've made it almost all the way through, don't be a moron like me and bump a key on your keyboard, you'll get immediately bounced to an actual Google instant search, and you'll have to start over from the beginning...

Yeah, I hit the "N" key when the big robot had a speech bubble with N in it. Oops.

I did the same thing. I'm pretty bummed about it because I don't have time to go back and do it again. Anyone know what happens after that?

The robot drops down a thimble and some thread, then clears the screen and drops you into an instant search for Stanislaws Lem.

It is currently also the doodle at http://www.google.de/

I found myself forgetting what my original search desire was after playing through the animation. In my opinion, it was one of the best ones google has done.

My nickname (Tichy) is from Lem's books. Definitely one of my favorite authors ever.

I actually wanted to register as Tichy on here, only to find the nickname already taken :)

I suppose that Tichy Ijon (lastname firstname) is a pun on tachyon. Nicely fitting the current LHC head scratching ...

My first look at the doodle popped up "Trurl and Klapaucius" in my head - and it's been many years. Queue one Cyberiad for re-read ...

I was surprised The Star Diaries were not mentioned here. Definitely a recommended read.

I should mention that it is not only on google.pl, but should be on most (East?) European countries google.com .

Great tribute.

The JS script for the animations is here: http://www.google.pl/logos/2011/lem.2.js

Here are some original pictures by Mróz, whose style inspired the doodle: http://solaris.lem.pl/galeria/rysunki-mroza/category/23

Site already lags, be patient.

And here is the story to which the final scene in the Google doodles refers:

English: http://english.lem.pl/home/bookshelf/how-the-word-was-saved

Polish: http://www.wattpad.com/133117-stanislaw-lem-cyberiada

Well worth the 5 mins it takes to read!

I love Douglas Adams and it looks like the same kind of literature... I've never heard of Lem before so, gonna give it a try. Thanks for the info, it's really hard to find good Sci-fi with a hint of humor on it.

Actually, Lem is more like a XX century Jonathan Swift, but if you love Adams you will like Lem.

The constructor you control in the doodle is Trurl, the other at the end is Klapaucius. The ending is from the first story in the Cyberiad where Trurl build a machine that can create anything that begins with the letter 'N' the Klapaucius tells it to create nothing and the machine destroys half the universe before they get it to quit.

Here is the full text to that first story:

http://webspace.webring.com/people/fc/churud_geo/cyberiadn.h...

Here's the Guardian's take:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/nov/23/stanislaw-lem-go...

Its got a nice set of puzzles/games in it. Not sure what it is about. Any polish users to rescue?

Edit: After going through all of them, I got redirected to search term "Stanisław Lem"

Check out some of Lem's drawings here: http://english.lem.pl/gallery/lems-drawings

Brilliant doodle by Google! The drawings are exactly Lem's style, so I recognized them immediately, having grew up on Lem's book.

Truly amazing and timeless books. :)

Okay, redundant though this is, I should underline that this Doodle is very specifically about Stanislaw Lem's Cyberiad, which is great and I highly recommend it. As joshu says, English speakers should look for the Kandel translation, which is unbelievably good. Meanwhile, Polish speakers should count themselves fortunate that they can read the original!

What tools did they use to create this doodle?

That definitely drew me in, kinda fun too.

The owl reminds me of Bubo, the golden mechanical owl from the original Clash of the Titans.

I had no idea about Stainslaw Lem till now. Just because of that doodle , I'm gonna read his work :)

In case anyone was looking for the popup text info in english (hit the '?' on the right) http://www.google.pl/?hl=en

When you finish the game it takes you here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanis%C5%82aw_Lem

Doodle is awesome. So is the book these are from.

The baby cannon. Hehehehe ...

The Cyberiad is a great book for kids too. I must have read it when I was about 8 or 9 and it set me off on a life-long journey through Science Fiction...

If you want to read LEM, start with "The Star Diaries". It's concentrated. Each story is just 20 pages and is packed with futuristic ideas.

Same on google.ru and others European sites

What exactly is this based on?

The Cyberiad by Stanislaw Lem.

Great book, 60 years old today: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/nov/23/google-dood...

The graphic is inspired by Daniel Mróz, the author of the Cyberiad illustrations (Click the "?" at the beginning.) The puzzles contain some motives from the Cyberiad (2+2=7, the machine that can do everything that starts with "N".)

Lem is great, and this doodle is a great remembrance. Great job, Google.

This doodle appears on google.com at this point, not just google.pl.

8 minutes after you. I'm getting a turkey w/ changeable feathers on google.com.

Not for me (US), I see a thanksgiving turkey. Oh well...

I get the turkey too. If you click his wing he cycles feather colors and hates and shoes.

I'm getting it on google.co.uk too now

google.ru has it as well.

I'm getting it on google.de as well as on google.com (with country redirection turned off); the same was true last night. You never know what kind of localisation you get with google, and I'm not just talking about the doodle, but everything else.

It's only crazy if you haven't read Lem's stories.

Is that Klapaucius or Trurl? I think it's Trurl.

Yep, Trurl built the insane robot that gets cheesed off when you insist on the correct answers in arithmetic operations.

Edit: Yup, can confirm this - Klapaucius asks the robot that create anything beginning with "N" to create "nothing" causing it to implode.

AWESOME

Endut hoch hech!

LEM!

Awesome!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com