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| 2003/6/24 [Computer/Companies/Google] UID:28819 Activity:very high |
6/23 What's a good strategy of landing an interview with Google?
\_ Graduate from Stanford with a PhD in CS
\_ My friend got an interview(and a job) with them through Taos few
months ago.
\_ Ask aaron@csua to recommend you.
\_ They highly value a Berkeley CS degree too. It helps if you
have worked in other search companies.
\_ tried many times and didn't get anywhere :o
\_ ACM programming contest participation helps.
\_ They got my resume from the net, called me, we did phone screen,
I talked to idiot child for 20 minutes, told their HR thanks but
no thanks if that was one of their superstars. They're also very
cultish. Best of luck getting their attention when they're getting
1000+ resumes a day. Anyway, I'm not sure why you'd want to work
there anyway. Their long term prospects are minimal in a business
sense and there won't ever be an IPO.
\_ yeah NO ONE uses google.
\_ hey genius, this isn't 1998. You're not paying google a penny
for your thousands of free searches. There isn't even a lame
ad banner there. The http://www.google.com page is a loss leader.
Their business model is not making nearly as much money as
their competitors. You're an idiot.
\_ Are you being deliberately obtuse, or can't you see the
ads presented on the results page?
\_ You think they can support their gigantic cluster and
bandwidth on those? You and me, we're going into
business together if you can sell ads like that at
prices high enough to run a business.
\_ How do you think google makes money? Do you think
they are lying when they say that they are profitable?
Targeted searches are worth a lot more than you think.
\_ Do I think they're lying? Until they go public
and I review their financials I can't know and
even then they still might be.
\_ To summarize google: it will be the next inktomi! Remember how
hot it was? Ask the former inktomi people here. Enjoy the spot
light while it lasts. Because it won't. Yahoo, on the other hand,
will always be there.
\_ google is most definitely not the next inktomi. They have
a decent product that's well packaged, well known (The verb, to
google), has been able to capitalize on marketing revenue without
pissing off a picky user base, and continues to generate interest
with new angles. Google made the web usable. It has critical
mass. To discount it is folly.
\_ Nice PR, no money in being google.
\_ inktomi was never hot, except in the minds of Berkeley geeks.
\_ Concur. I hadn't evenheard of inktomi until I got here, much
less used it. I've been using google every day for geek stuff,
academic research, professional research and just plain look
ups. I've tried all the other engines I've been told about and
nothing else comes close.
\_ And how much *money* have you paid google for all that
research and web searching? --not 1998
\_ I haven't paid any money to a lot of websites, but they
seem to be thriving
\_ Seemed that way in 98 too.
\_ Hello, do you have ABC/NBC/CBS/FOX/WB or any
proramming over the air anything for watching?
Not getting any money from you doesn't mean the
company won't be successful. - not a google employee
\_ Duh, maybe you didn't notice that almost 1/4th of
air time is commercials? Google has a big name, but
they're a tiny company next to their quieter, bigger
and more money making rivals. Hey, whatever, go to
google for a job, that just makes it one less person
I need to compete with for jobs at real companies. |
| 2003/6/24 [Reference/Tax] UID:28820 Activity:nil |
6/23 Here's one for the econuts - kyoto leads to a fart tax
in NZ: http://csua.org/u/3ch |
| 2003/6/24 [Uncategorized] UID:28821 Activity:nil |
6/23 is anyone on the motd brave enough to post a review of hp5?
\_ http://csua.org/u/3cf Time magazine says it's the best so far
\_ read it last night. Didn't enjoy it - too unfocused, just not
as interesting/fun as the others. Wouldn't recommend it.
\_ im looking for spoilers!
\_ yes, in this book, harry potter goes beserk and starts sodomizing
other young boys with his broom.
\_ curious this is the first thing that you thought of.
\_ and it was pretty damn funny -!op
\_ naw, then it would have been Harry Potter and the NYPD Zero
Tolerance Policy. |
| 2003/6/24 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:28822 Activity:very high |
6/23 What exactly is a refurbished hard drive? I've been running
my replacement Seagate refurb drive for a few weeks and
ActiveSMART already thinks its going to fail in a 2 weeks.
Do they just low-level format all the defective drives and
reship them out?
\_ Please tell me this is a troll.
\_ well, it's a chance you took, and be a man and live with it.
\_ well, if it is true, this is class action lawsuit material.
\_ So you scored in the bottom quartile on the LSATs huh?
\_ chance he took? many hard drive manufacturers replace returned
drives with refurbished ones. It's as if consumers generally
get to choose what kind of replacements they get. anyhow, it's
still under warranty, right?
\_ Yea. But remember you loose $$ for shipping the defective
\_ "lose"
drive back everytime and warranty time while doing the
swap. (It also wastes your valuable time and effort.)
So if I have to swap a drive a few times during its 3 year
warranty, the effective cost is incredibly higher than
the original purchase price. This is wrong.
The consumer shouldn't haveta pay for the manufacturer's
defects when a product is still under warranty.
\_ I personally had better luck with my IBM SCSI harddrive.
I mean, for some reason SCSI harddrive gets much better
treatment than the IDE counter part. Having said that,
if I have choice, i really don't want to go through that
again. A defective Harddrive is a pain in the butt.
\_ Yeah, and you pay for it. At least it use to be true
that each and every SCSI drive is tested, while IDE
drives are only batch tested.
\_ This is a case of getting what you paid for. Don't ever buy
refurb drives. Period. --Motd Storage Guru
\_ Hrm. I've had very good luck with all my refurb
drives. I haven't lost any. Then again, I'm talking
about 1995 SCSI drives that work even after they start
to lose their bearings. But yeah, I wouldn't touch a
refurb IDE drive.
\_ Do you use the refurbs as temp space or for real data? -MSG
\_ I don't use them any more, because of space limitations,
however, I used them for years as my only storage, without
backups. Drives *used* to be reliable, even if refurb.
\_ I second this. My failure rate on refurbed drives is probably
10X what it is on new ones.
\_ I never buy refurb drives. I buy retail drives that fail
in a few months and get refurb drives in exchange. Perhaps
the guru could enlighten us on the best storage strategy in
his/her opinion.
\_ Depends on how much cash you've got and how important your
data is. For home use, a simple IDE mirror is probably a
good choice. For work I do raid3,4,5, mirrors, or 3,4,5
plus mirror for some stuff. Which of 3,4,5 I use and whether
or not it gets mirrored as well depends on what data goes on
it. Nothing is refurb. Things like the database goes on
fiber channel with stripe and mirror. Customer owned data
is raid4 or raid5 on IDE. Only a little bit of scsi here and
there. I figure if I'm going to shell out scsi level prices
I might as well get fiber channel and be done with it. -MSG |
| 2003/6/24 [Consumer/Audio] UID:28823 Activity:very high |
6/24 I am buying one tomorrow. iPod vs Archos vs everything else.
I want to be able to listen to all these harddrives worth of
music. I would like to be able to record voice, but it's not
necessary. I would like to be able to record out of a DJ mixer
But that's not vital. I want to be able to put it in my pocket.
vote now:
iPod: ...
\_ http://www.epinions.com
\_ I have an iPod, and if I could do it all again, I wouldn't.
\_ I have an iPod, and I love the thing to death. I'm probably
the only person who uses it as backup and to store contacts/
calendar, though. -chialea
Archos (which):
neither: (please specify)
\_ I got the Archos Recorder 20. Happy with it. The UI it comes
with sucks, but there's an open source project with a much
cooler UI that you can throw in. If 20GB isn't enough, (or
you break it), you can just buy a larger HD and plug it in.
-bz
\_ HD-based mp3s all suck IMO
\_ http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2003-05-28
'nuff said.
\_ Cmon, we all know Penny Arcade is just not funny.
\_ To quote Homer: "It's funny because it's true."
\_ Lots of things are true. That doesn't make them funny.
\_ You're buying one tomorrow but haven't finished researching it?
\_ oh no! you might wind up with a sub-optimal mp3 player!
what a horrible tragedy that would be!
\_ Yes it would. Money down the drain. OP cared enough to ask
here. And yes, you're an asshole.
\_ I have an old Creative Nomad Jukebox that I'm very happy with
(except for the HD capacity, because it's so old). I can't vouch
for the newer models... the 'Zen' is their answer to the iPod.
One weird difference I noticed between my Jukebox and a friend's
iPod is that with the iPod you can't seem to queue up new songs
while it's playing, which I think is lame.
\_ if you don't want a hard drive player, look up CW200 / CW300
on http://amazon.com |
| 2003/6/24 [Computer/SW/Database, Computer/SW/Security, Reference/Law/Visa] UID:28824 Activity:high |
6/24 Oh god. I wish the EU (useless bunch of poltroons) would get at
least a semblance of a backbone.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/31380.html
Does anyone know more about new biometric passports the US is supposed
to be issuing? I'd frankly much rather deal with the hassle of a
visa with my Swiss passport than submit to this. -John
\_ Maybe it's just me, but John seems to talk about his Swiss passport
pretty frequently.
\_ Biometrics are such a huge mistake. No one seems to be addressing
the issue that if your biometrics are compromised, there is no way to
issue new ID--well, without replacing your eyes. -emarkp
\_ Hm? Perhaps I'm misunderstanding the process: you have an ID
or passport with your retinal scan/fingerprints on it. They
scan your ID, compare it to a db of such things, and then you
put your eye/hand to the scanner and verify that you are who
the system says you are. Are you saying that someone could
hack the db and sub their own particulars for yours and so take
your bank account? If so, you now have their fingerprints /
ret. scan on file-- should be fairly easy to find the duplicates
in the system and arrest the perp.
\_ No, if someone else can ID themself with your biometrics or
subvert the system somehow, you're screwed. You can't get
different biometrics. -emarkp
\_ What are we talking here? Fake fingerprint gloves?
False retinal scan contacts? Not saying it can't be done
but quite a stretch, no?
\_ Actually it's quite easy to fake out the fingerprint
thing. The retinal scans can be horribly difficult
obtain accurately at times. The real problem is identity
theft and proving that it wasn't you who shifted your
bank account/stock portfolio/real estate to party X.
VERY tough to dispute.
\_ I fail to see how biometrics makes this worse;
right now you're being authenticated on your
signature, which is way easier to forge than
even the simplest biometric. -tom
\_ It's not worse. It makes id theft much more
difficult. I'm more for dual source
authentication. Bio + PIN. However, businesses
might make it much harder to dispute id theft
and make corrections since it is technically so
difficult. I fear an overreliance on tech.
\_ I think this has less to do with tech, and
more to do with the nature of big business
and bureaucracy. Bureaucracy and silly
overhead happen just fine without any
technology at all. What you'd hope is that
intelligent policies will be put into place
to deal with situations that the tech makes
'unlikely'.
\_ You'll submit and you'll like it.
\_ Grey matter! Grey matter! |
| 2003/6/24 [Recreation/Pets] UID:28825 Activity:high |
6/24 I find that asian couples tend to call each other by a pet name
more often than caucasians. Is this true? Quick poll, what do you
call your SO most of the time?
first name:
honey:
darling:
'merv': .
other pet name: .
\_ You may have been watching too much anime
'merv': .
other pet name: .
\_ I have never heard asians call each other by petnames.
They are all too formal to do such things.
\_ Belladandy: . |
| 2003/6/24 [Science/Battery] UID:28826 Activity:nil |
6/24 I have a ThinkPad with a dead battery/charger. It only works when on
ac power. I want to take the Li ion out of the battery pack to cut
down on weight. Any recomendations on how to do this? I've read
that Li-ion batteries are dangerous. How so? what to look out for?
\_ how old is this laptop? The new thinkpad's have very easy-to-
access batteries. |
| 2003/6/24-25 [Health, Industry/Startup] UID:28827 Activity:high |
6/24 WRS CEO resigns.
\_ this is the equivalent of Apple canning Scully (former pepsi
executive). If only they had a Steve Jobs to rescue them. Oh,
the pain, the pain...
\_ WRS?
\_ Wind River Systems.
\_ A bigger bunch of assclowns never walked the earth.
\_ Just go to VA or RH and you can meet much bigger
assclowns.
\_ At least, RHAT seems like a company with a viable business
plan. VA indeed was a bunch of assclowns.
\_ They'll have some real competition when Green Hills goes IPO.
They'll be squeezed by M$, Green Hills, and Linux. |
| 2003/6/24-26 [Computer/SW/OS/OsX, Computer/SW/OS/Solaris] UID:28828 Activity:high |
6/24 About Apple's 64-bit claim. Does Apple ship a 64-bit OS or does it
support running 64-bit applications right now?
\_ when the G5 ships with 'Smeagol' 10.2.7, it will support
G5-optimized apps and presumably 64-bit apps.
\_ If you look at the commits for darwin, it doesn't
look like the kernel/libc/userland have been updated
for 64-bit support. A select few apps might get 64
bit support, most apps will still be 32bit for the
next year or more.
\_ god, i hate apple. i wish Tolkein were alive to sue them,
and hated them as much as i do.
\_ For a code-name that isn't supposed to be public?
Don't hate the player, hate the game!
\_ Why not Carl Sagan (aka BHA) did it.
\_ can anyone hate them as much as you do, my precious?
\_ They're based in Cupertino, CA. Good enough reason for
me to like 'em, they pay CA taxes. Maybe you'd rather
live in Texas? Don't let the door hit you on the way out.
\_ The 970 is a 64-bit proc. OS X 10.2.x isn't 64-bit clean.
It looks like 10.2.7 and 10.3.x will be able to run 64-bit
apps but the kernel/libc/userland will probably not be 64-bit
clean till 10.4.x.
\_ In short: no. It's all promises with unknown future performance.
\_ Of course, it probably wasn't unexpected. Take a look at Sun's
example. The UltraSPARC I (Sun's first 64-bit CPU) came out
first in 1995 or so while Solaris 7, the first 64-bit Solaris
release, came out only in 1998 or so. |