CELEBRITY FRIDAY: Octavia Butler, Black female sci-fi icon, honored by Google

Today would have been Octavia Butler's 71st birthday. Butler is one of the rare non-white, non-male individuals to have a successful and influential career in science fiction. She is best known for her dystopian novels (many of which won her chosen genre's highest awards) such as Wild Seed, Parable of the Sower, fledgling and (of course) Kindred. She was the first sci-fi author to win the prestigious MacArthur (genius) grant.

Google honors butler with today's Google Doodle!

Happy 241st Birthday, Carl Friedrich Gauss!

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Carl Friedrich Gauss is one of the most important mathematicians of all time. Today, April 30th, is the 241st anniversary of his birth, and Google's Doodle is recognizing that fact. Some of the reasons why Gauss is known as the "Prince of Mathematicians" (in Latin princeps mathematicorum);

• Proved the fundamental theorem of algebra (in his Phd thesis!)
• Proved that a 17-sided polygon (the heptadecagon) coudl be created with compass and straigh-edge.
• Invented the Diiscrete Fourier Transform (160 years before Cooley and Tukey)
• Proved Fermat's Last Theorem (for n=3 and n=5)
• Computed the sum of the 100 positive integers (at age 5!)
• The normal distribution is also known as the Gaussian distribution

And many, many more...

As Sochi Olympics Start Google Doodle Supports LGBT Equality

The controversial Sochi Olympics have started and Google has taken a stand in support of LGBT equality in Russia with today's Doodle.

Hat/tip to TowleRoad