14 ms·
Foobar
- tiefenb 12y ago"To login, you have to have logged in before"
- hodgesmr 12y agoHave you not heard the stories? Captain Barbossa and his crew of miscreants sail from the dreaded Isla de Muerta. It's an island that cannot be found except by those who already know where it is. http://pirates.wikia.com/wiki/Isla_de_Muerta http://pirates.wikia.com/wiki/Isla_de_Muerta
- swombat 12y agoExcept that's easily solved, by going there with someone who's been there before...
- d_k_f 12y agoHow did your guide get there the first time?
- Jailbird 12y agoIt's guides, all the way down.
- woof 12y agoHe was born there?
- snorkel 12y agoHe was hatched by the first chicken.
- TeMPOraL 12y agoHow did his parents get to the island? Were they born there as well? If so, how did the first settler found it? Or is this island the origin of life on Earth?
- chipgap98 12y agoIt doesn't say the the island was always findable only by those who already know where it is. This could have changed at some point.
- rational-future 12y agoTrue. Also most islands are younger then life on Earth, so the island could just appear under the first guide.
- otikik 12y agoIsla Muerta is a piece of continental earth which has been slowly drifting away from the continent for generations. The guide's ancestry has lived there since before the island was an island.
- basicallydan 12y agoIf you've successfully logged in somehow, please share.
- danielweber 12y agoI don't want to share my google information with this app.
- kylebrown 12y agoI got an invitation a couple days ago when I searched "mutex lock". Not sure whether search history makes a difference, but it worked for the gf too a couple minutes later: http://i.imgur.com/l4rGps5.png http://i.imgur.com/l4rGps5.png
- habosa 12y agoJust google "python lambda" and wait.
- domas 12y agoLooks like it's Google's recruiting for Python devs: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8588080 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8588080
- fizixer 12y agoMore like javascript/web-developer recruiting. The page-source doesn't contain anything other than html/css/js.
- fniephaus 12y agoBut it also contains .terminal and .console class definitions which suggests that there is an interactive shell
- Nickoladze 12y agoRead that post, the person searching for Python had a different page than the rest of us. Something with a console. Seems like you need to be "invited".
- jcfrei 12y agoVery interesting but I wonder what the legal implications are. Some companies might file a lawsuit claiming that Google gains an unfair advantage if they continue to seek potential employees this way. I'm not saying I agree with this view but Google does have a HUGE potential in matching employees with their potential employers and might just turn the recruitment services industry on its head.
- Reef 12y agoIs there a law which specifies which advantage is fair and what is not? Why should any company be forbidden from utilizing assets their employees legally developed, especially when they want to use that asset in pursuit of a key objective ("hire more smart people")? Should a large newspaper be forbidden from advertising their openings in the printed newspaper itself just because other newspapers failed to acquire comparable audience?
- k-mcgrady 12y agoIf you are as confused as I was this old HN thread might help: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8588080 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8588080
- quarterto 12y ago> old HN thread > 11 hours ago
- mragh 12y ago<- Author of that thread. The site is an interactive shell with progressively harder (but fun) coding challenges to complete. It's made to look like a *nix shell and has the basic commands built-in. Also, there are a lot of rabbits.
- dontreact 12y agoThere are many in this thread who would greatly appreciate tips on how to access the challenges. Any ideas?
- mragh 12y agoIf I remember, I was blanking on the exact Python lambda syntax, so I Google'd "python lambda". I bet it had something to do with other searches I'd done in that session as well though, and I don't remember what they are.
- dontreact 12y agoIf you wanted to you could check: https://history.google.com/history https://history.google.com/history Also, it is possible that the url once you actually enter is different and that may be sufficient to get in. Thanks!
- nevir 12y agohttps://www.dropbox.com/s/lotn6u0koxwevcc/foobar.mp4?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/lotn6u0koxwevcc/foobar.mp4?dl=0
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- sp332 12y agoHuh, this is a really weird mix of subdomains. https://www.google.com/search?q=withgoogle.com https://www.google.com/search?q=withgoogle.com
- Globz 12y agolol http://santadive.withgoogle.com/ http://santadive.withgoogle.com/
- kushagra_ 12y agointerstellar.withgoogle.com
- dsl 12y ago.withgoogle.com is used for mini-sites that are developed externally or do not meet the security requirements to be on a proper Google domain.
- 13throwaway 12y agoDo you know why the new interstellar movie is on that domain? https://interstellar.withgoogle.com https://interstellar.withgoogle.com
- gerbal 12y agoThere is a tie-in game on the Play Store. Looks pretty mediocre. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.paramount.interstellar https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.paramount....
- codecondo 12y agoI'm guessing in order to successfully log-in, you've to trigger yourself as someone who's eligible? Otherwise, it looks like everyone else is wondering how to make it work.
- NamTaf 12y agoThat sounds right, which implies that you have to be logged in to a google account and searching interesting terms to them. They'll redirect you to that and you can carry on.
- rudolf0 12y agoI Google Python-related things all the time from work, including yesterday and today, but I prefer not to login to any of my Google accounts when doing so. I've not yet received any kind of popup or redirection to foobar.
- Ironchefpython 12y ago> I Google Python-related things all the time from work, including yesterday and today, but I prefer not to login to any of my Google accounts when doing so. Same thing here... I'm guessing that Google figures anyone cynical enough not to trust Google implicitly is a less desirable potential hire.
- ionwake 12y agohmmm well I have a Python app running on GAE and I dont think I have been allowed access. With all the languages I work in they must be seeking something very specific.
- DanielBMarkham 12y agoFor those who are confused, the local papers say Google is looking to hire 30K people? I believe this app/page is part of that push. Bunch of problems to complete.
- izolate 12y agoSurely not all programmers? Because if so, I may just be able to slip through the cracks!
- rational-future 12y agoHow is this going to help you? Would you be happy with a job you're not good enough to do properly?
- izolate 12y agoMy comment was in jest. I have no desire to join Google, or any other large tech company.
- 1945795 12y agohttp://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_26903436/google-could-hire-30-000-bay-area-based http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_26903436/google-could... """But those buildings aren't ready for Google to occupy yet, and the first of the Sunnyvale buildings won't be completed until sometime in 2015."""
- Igglyboo 12y agoCould this have to do with Googles ARG Endgame[1]? It seems just cryptic enough to fit the bill. [1] http://www.theverge.com/2014/10/7/6927605/welcome-to-endgame-google-worldwide-augmented-reality-game http://www.theverge.com/2014/10/7/6927605/welcome-to-endgame...
- mholmes680 12y agoI'll go with this theory as well. Anyone have google glass and an augmented reality app from google? That login logo seems like an AR trigger waiting for someone to look at it the right way. also found the rhgame reference in css...
- MrBuddyCasino 12y agoYeah, that image looks like it was designed for easy recognition. Picture search via Google Goggles doesn't return any results, though.
- agumonkey 12y agoSVG sources gave nothing obvious. Unless they encoded data into path coordinates and/or colours.
- kushagra_ 12y agoit very well could the name of the css file is rhgame.e6cf5ce7.css <-- "RH GAME"
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- Qwuke 12y agoThey have a fleet of private jets, and they've used the airstrip for landing their jets in the past.
- bshimmin 12y agoI think this is very clever. Assuming this is something to do with recruitment (as the other comments suggest), then of course I find it intensely irritating and it confirms my pre-existing notion that I would never want to work for a company like Google. But, on the other hand, the people who devised this puzzle are clearly people who would be enticed by a puzzle like it, and would therefore think it was a good way to find like-minded people - and they are probably correct in that assumption.
- watty 12y agoWhy do you find it intensely irritating? Google's a massive company that employees all sorts of different professions and types of people. This puzzle isn't targeting you, seems successful to me.
- bshimmin 12y agoWell, that's rather my point - the kind of people who would find it irritating are almost certainly not the kind of people they would be targeting with such a puzzle anyway. Why do I find it irritating? Because it seems both elitist and adolescent, in a child-like "secret society" sort of way.
- rdrey 12y agoI would agree, if this was the only method of getting job offers from Google. But since the "traditional" methods via the Careers page, recruiters, etc, are all still perfectly available, this doesn't bother me at all.
- JustinGarrison 12y ago"elitist, adolescent, and "secret society"" That pretty much sums up the people I have met that work in Google engineering. I have only met a few at conferences, but thanks for putting words to the initial feelings I got from them all.
- jpfr 12y agoNo puzzle here. You can only log in if Google has flagged your search topics. On google search, you have the variable window.location.search = "?gfe_rd=cr&ei=XXXGyZiVNHoFcuF8Qe7wYHACw&gws_rd=ssl" That string is appended to the url of the iframe: src="https://foobar.withgoogle.com/"+window.location.search https://foobar.withgoogle.com/"+window.location.search
- pranavpr 12y agoIt seems if you have searched something which Google has interest in, you would be allowed to login. Below code on page points towards this: var g=document.getElementById("g");g.src="https://foobar.withgoogle.com/"+window.location.search
- jordanpg 12y agoMy guess is that they have set up some pattern matching or keyword matching against search queries for some particular programming questions related to whatever they are hiring for. NLP, maybe?
- dangrossman 12y agowindow.location.search returns the query string part of the current URL. All that bit of code is doing is ensuring the frame on the page gets passed the query string the outer page had. E.g. https://www.google.com/foobar/?hello https://www.google.com/foobar/?hello -> https://foobar.withgoogle.com/?hello https://foobar.withgoogle.com/?hello
- fractalb 12y agoI searched for "foobar login" in the search box and the first result was login to Hackerrank.com for Foobar contest. But it says the contest has ended.
- clviper 12y agoIn the name of the file /staticfiles/css/rhgame.e6cf5ce7.css, that RH is probably HR (Human Resources Game).
- felipebueno 12y agohmm nice catch :) It would make sense in portuguese as RH stand for Recursos Humanos (literaly Human Resouces).
- UUMMUU 12y agoI would imagine, if this came out today, it's something related to the military. foo.bar == FUBAR? Maybe?
- pilsetnieks 12y agofoo, bar, and baz are commonly used placeholders for function and variable names in programming examples.
- kushagra_ 12y agobut foobar or FUBAR abbreviated form of fu*d up beyond all recognition this could be related to hangar one as some one pointed out edit: here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8590018 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8590018
- wuliwong 12y agoAt least according to Wikipedia, this connection of foo bar and FUBAR is plausible but not proven. You forgot the 4th basic one, "qux" btw.
- ninjaplease 12y agoah hell, why not list them all: foo, bar, baz, qux, quux, corge, grault, garply, waldo, fred, plugh, xyzzy, thud
- jpgvm 12y agoI am not sure that it's the normal kind of web puzzle. The logins are being handled by an endpoint on AppEngine called 'ah'. Also this mysterious url: https://appengine.google.com/_ah/ https://appengine.google.com/_ah/ Though there is definitely some semblance of it being a game, the iframe contains a reference to CSS file called rhgame.css. There doesn't seem to be any avenue to log yourself in, by the looks of it they first send people to a registration URL of some description (probably a redirect from a specific set of search terms or something similar). I am not really one for doing the kinds of puzzles where you just shoot in the dark for a while.. if there were actually clues/riddles hidden in the HTML/JS/CSS or similar then I would have alot more fun with it.
- matchu 12y ago/_ah/ contains internal App Engine routes, like authentication, for all App Engine apps; not just Google's. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4408042/what-does-ah-mean-in-google-app-engine http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4408042/what-does-ah-mean...
- kylebrown 12y agoThe puzzle is not figuring out how to log in. You get an invite, then you get the challenges: http://i.imgur.com/xtCdf94.png http://i.imgur.com/xtCdf94.png They are story problems. The first one is cycle detection for a singly-linked list. After solving that, you can request another (time remaining is reset). In the math category, its a subset sum problem: http://pastebin.com/SEZXhKHY http://pastebin.com/SEZXhKHY
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- jbranchaud 12y agoIf it is, then it isn't a very well designed experiment because Google is a reputable and trusted (?) entity, so it isn't much of a leap to give access (especially when one already has gmai, gcal, etc. running in other tabs).
- shernshiou 12y agoanyone not curious on why is the logo a pink square?
- dchichkov 12y agoSeems to be broken "message: '<span class="term-red">Error(6): Login unavailable. Try again later.</span>'," Stay away. They would just waste your time.
- jweir 12y agoExamining the CSS class names there are: 'questions' 'terminal', 'console' 'editor', 'ace_editor' 'count_down_timer', 'prompter' and 'resizer' and the media rules for mobile, laptops, desktops
- jellekralt 12y agoThe terminal/console references seem to match this plugin: http://terminal.jcubic.pl/ http://terminal.jcubic.pl/
- slang800 12y ago`ace_editor` is almost certainly referring to http://ace.c9.io/ http://ace.c9.io/ ... but the JS component isn't loaded on the page.
- winterbe 12y agoSeems to be some kind of text adventure game? https://foobar.withgoogle.com/staticfiles/css/rhgame.e6cf5ce7.css https://foobar.withgoogle.com/staticfiles/css/rhgame.e6cf5ce... .console {} .prompt {} .terminal {} .cmd .cursor.blink { -webkit-animation: blink 1s infinite steps(1,start); animation: blink 1s infinite steps(1,start) } But it seems I've already failed before even clicking on the Login link: <div class="error">...</div>
- jellekralt 12y agoIt looks like those css classes match this plugin: http://terminal.jcubic.pl/ http://terminal.jcubic.pl/
- nanoscopic 12y agoTaking a look at the CSS code included on the page I see things related to "terminal-output" and "editor". This corresponds with what the poster says the page does. There seem to be "question_options" also; likely some sort of quiz. Also see reference to a countdown timer of some sort. Note also that the application bounces you to /_ah/logout on deny. That is an admin URL within Google App Engine applications. I figure everything on "withgoogle.com" is hosted by GAE? I checked waybackmachine for mirrors of older versions of the site, perhaps when it had more clues. Nothing. I did direct it to archive foobar.withgoogle.com though, since they did not yet have it cached.
- derblub 12y agohttps://foobar.withgoogle.com/staticfiles/img/sprite@2x.4d81b058.png https://foobar.withgoogle.com/staticfiles/img/sprite@2x.4d81...
- ssw1n 12y agoGiven that it's Veteran day, and the term "foobar" is thought to be borrowed from military term "FUBAR," I am guessing that it is Google's attempt to recruit Tech-savvy Veterans.
- marche101 12y agoFoobar is a fairly common term in programming as well. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foobar#Usage_in_code http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foobar#Usage_in_code
- wuliwong 12y agoIn the article you linked to, there is even a short discussion of the possible connection between "foo bar" and FUBAR. If your comment was meant as a rebuttal, it failed.
- barbudorojo 12y agoIn one of the js files there is window.opener.handleAuth(..), perhaps changin allow from false to true can result. This seem to be a js related essue.
- jengamaster 12y agoThat was my thought too, although I'm not sure how it would be done.
- barbudorojo 12y agoI was thinking about a = document.getElementbyId("login"); a.addEvenListener("click",function(a){a.preventDefault()...} Perhaps if one can avoid preventDefault the object login may has some href to the real login. Just guessing.
- dontreact 12y agoWhen you click the login button, the following function is called: launchPopup=function(){ window.open("/login/","AppLogin","resizable,scrollbars,status,width=600,height=400")} Which opens https://foobar.withgoogle.com/login https://foobar.withgoogle.com/login There, an object a: a = { message: '<span class="term-red">Error(6): Login unavailable. Try again later.</span>', logoutUrl: 'https://foobar.withgoogle.com/_ah/logout?continue=https://www.google.com/accounts/Logout%3Fcontinue%3Dhttps://appengine.google.com/_ah/logout%253Fcontinue%253Dhttps://foobar.withgoogle.com/denied/%26service%3Dah', redirectUrl: '/denied/', allow: false } Is passed to the original window's handleAuth function: window.handleAuth=function(a){ a.logoutUrl?window.location.href=a.redirectUrl:window.location.reload()} It seems that the allow property of the object passed is never checked :(
- dontreact 12y agoPut more simply, you can redefine the handleAuth function to automatically set the allow property to true window.handleAuth=function(a){ a.allow = true; a.logoutUrl?window.location.href=a.redirectUrl:window.location.reload()} and then click the button. But it won't help for the reasons explained above.
- tshadwell 12y agoIt mystifies me especially that the logout URL for the login call is chained a number of times. logoutUrl: 'https://foobar.withgoogle.com/_ah/logout?continue=https://www.google.com/accounts/Logout%3Fcontinue%3Dhttps://appengine.google.com/_ah/logout%253Fcontinue%253Dhttps://foobar.withgoogle.com/denied/%26service%3Dah' https://foobar.withgoogle.com/_ah/logout?continue=https://ww...
- 1945795 12y agoIt's just logging out for every domain/service, use RequestPolicy and you'll see the redirects for normal logouts.
- wanda 12y agoReminds me of HackThisSite & notpron. I have many happy memories of my peers sweating at the thought of not solving those puzzles. +1 to Google HR department, they know what they're doing. It'd be amusing if it was a social experiment to see how many devs/wannabe devs frantically searched for Python topics after this foobar site was discovered. Like a contrast MRI to illuminate the people who wanted a job at Google.
- josu 12y agoInterestingly https://www.google.com/foobar/ https://www.google.com/foobar/ and https://foobar.withgoogle.com/ https://foobar.withgoogle.com/ seem to be the same page, but they have different source codes.
- abdullahdiaa 12y agoActually https://www.google.com/foobar https://www.google.com/foobar wraps https://foobar.withgoogle.com https://foobar.withgoogle.com in an iframe with [absolute/top:0/left:0] positioning.
- jengamaster 12y agoAlso https://www.google.com/foobar https://www.google.com/foobar uses JS to set the src of the iframe holding https://foobar.withgoogle.com https://foobar.withgoogle.com and appends window.location.search to it.
- toblender 12y agoI got a little further. If you append /login to the url, you get another script: Points to: https://foobar.withgoogle.com/_ah/logout?continue=https://www.google.com/accounts/Logout%3Fcontinue%3Dhttps://appengine.google.com/_ah/logout%253Fcontinue%253Dhttps://foobar.withgoogle.com/denied/%26service%3Dah https://foobar.withgoogle.com/_ah/logout?continue=https://ww... I've tried some ways to login to appengine etc but didn't work. https://appengine.google.com/_ah/logout?continue=https://foobar.withgoogle.com/denied/%26service%3Dah https://appengine.google.com/_ah/logout?continue=https://foo... I've managed to get it to log me out of my google account. Not sure what's up.
- toblender 12y agoAlso I get: <span class="term-red">Error(6): Login unavailable. Try again later.</span>
- Donzo 12y agoI got one like this. https://appengine.google.com/_ah/conflogin?continue=https://foobar.withgoogle.com/login/ https://appengine.google.com/_ah/conflogin?continue=https://... Throws a 500 error.
- hiou 12y agoSame thing. Got 500 error by messing with that url. Seems like the idea is to chain that together in a way to login before you login.
- ilovefood 12y agoI believe they track our search results and they check if some keywords are there.. I just made a crawler (again) to get some Python related sentences from the web and automatically append them to the search query with the ei=XKZAJDKLJ code... Let's see if that makes sense....
- dorkrawk 12y agoI had the "You speak our language..." message pop up while searching for some Python info and send me to Foobar a few days ago. So far I've just done one of the challenges. I'm sure it's a recruiting thing, but they seem like fun puzzles and it's obviously not the only way to get a job with Google, so good for them for building something fun.
- theVirginian 12y agoI search for python stuff all the time and have never come across this link, I want to do some puzzles too!
- tormeh 12y agoMaybe it depends where you search from? If you're not in the US while searching you might not be that interesting.
- wuliwong 12y agoi searched "python lambda" and it gave me the challenge. :) I was also randomly searching things like "NLP Python" and stuff earlier, to try and trigger it. I'm not a python programmer, so I don't have much related to this in my overall search history.
- shaaaaawn 12y agowithgoogle.com subdomain list www.fvm.withgoogle.com interstellar.withgoogle.com edudirectory.withgoogle.com atmosphere.withgoogle.com accelerate.withgoogle.com insgruene.withgoogle.com atmospheretokyo.withgoogle.com connectedclassrooms.withgoogle.com think.withgoogle.com smartypins.withgoogle.com streetart.withgoogle.com cardboard.withgoogle.com nikhelp.withgoogle.com docchinogame.withgoogle.com kickwithchrome.withgoogle.com yourtour.withgoogle.com candidatos.withgoogle.com trendstw.withgoogle.com spellup.withgoogle.com impactchallenge.withgoogle.com
- adzeds 12y agoAnyone have any idea what this is all about yet?
- hallman76 12y agoa ploy to get developers to disable their ad-blockers in hopes of getting a foobar invite? :)
- troy1987 12y agoThis seems really dumb! https://foobar.withgoogle.com/staticfiles/js/landing.5252068f.js https://foobar.withgoogle.com/staticfiles/js/landing.5252068... : !function(){ "use strict"; function a(){ var a=document.getElementById("login"); a.addEventListener("click",function(a){a.preventDefault(),window.launchPopup()},!1)} window.handleAuth=function(a){ a.logoutUrl ? window.location.href=a.redirectUrl : window.location.reload() }, window.launchPopup=function(){ window.open("/login/","AppLogin","resizable,scrollbars,status,width=600,height=400") }, a() } (); This script handles the login. a object looks something like this : Object { message: "<span class="term-red">Error(6): Login unavailable. Try again later.</span>", logoutUrl: "https://foobar.withgoogle.com/_ah/logout?continue=…ps://foobar.withgoogle.com/denied/%26service%3Dah" https://foobar.withgoogle.com/_ah/logout?continue=…ps://foob..., redirectUrl: "/denied/", allow: false}allow: falselogoutUrl: "https://foobar.withgoogle.com/_ah/logout?continue=https://www.google.com/accounts/Logout%3Fcontinue%3Dhttps://appengine.google.com/_ah/logout%253Fcontinue%253Dhttps://foobar.withgoogle.com/denied/%26service%3Dah"message https://foobar.withgoogle.com/_ah/logout?continue=https://ww...: "<span class="term-red">Error(6): Login unavailable. Try again later.</span>" redirectUrl: "/denied/" } handleAuth() function will either take you tohttps://foobar.withgoogle.com/denied/ https://foobar.withgoogle.com/denied/ or just reload the page. Google is just getting a tonne of analytics data.
- jengamaster 12y agoIt's strange that the <span> in the login object is never used. Also that the handleAuth function uses the existence of 'logoutUrl' to decide wether it should refresh or redirect, but uses it for nothing else.
- bastawhiz 12y agoYou're assuming that's the only thing it will ever do. Just because you saw that particular code doesn't mean that's the same code served for every possible user.
- curveship 12y agoMy suspicion is that the HN traffic has overloaded their backend.
- bl4ckm0r3 12y agoIt's interesting to see how people are just focused on solving the puzzle and see what's "behind" more than actually work for google :)
- brserc 12y agoI haven't been able to solve the puzzle - if there's any, however there is some interesting pattern in filenames. /staticfiles/svg/error.33ab1eb5.svg -> 33ab1eb5 hexadecimal is 866852533, which seems to be a prime number. I believe the probability is very low if unintended. Also other file names, can be factored more or less to 1 big prime number and few small primes.
- axg 12y agoThe pattern is they're all hex, we need a cryptographer. The three numbers are e6cf5ce7 67a53a45 5252068f
- robryk 12y agoThese hex strings are beginnings of md5 checksums of these files: sh-4.3$ md5sum error.33ab1eb5.svg 33ab1eb5129ee5085793166d2f691dae error.33ab1eb5.svg I believe the point of appending them to the name is a kind of versioning: one'd want to be able to change these files and cause everyone to drop their cached version. This way when one changes a file, the filename changes too (most likely), so the cached old version will not be used.
- brserc 12y agoThanks for the explanation!
- slig 12y agoYou're correct. It looks like they're using Django. You can configure it to add the md5 of static files to each name. [1] [1] https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.7/ref/contrib/staticfiles/#django.contrib.staticfiles.storage.ManifestStaticFilesStorage https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.7/ref/contrib/staticfile...
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- imacomputer2 12y agoHave you ever seen the movie PI? You sound like Max, the main character.
- teddyh 12y agoGoogle is self-selecting to employ those people who are fine with the idea of Google recording everything they do. This does not bode well for the rest of us.
- rational-future 12y agoOnly the very stupid are fine with Google recording everything they do.
- teddyh 12y agoYou’d be amazed by the amount of doublethink that even very smart people are capable of, and the extreme and convoluted arguments they give for their position.
- hueving 12y agoYeah, just look at everyone who works for Google. The company is fundamentally about centralizing all of the information in the world. By working for them you support that goal and everything it implies.
- AceJohnny2 12y agoI submit that this is only one small tributary to their huge hiring flow, don't overstate the impact this small thing has on their overall culture.
- longlivegnu 12y agounfortunately I do all my searching through DDG :(
- _lce0 12y agoYou meant.. luckily!!
- dhimes 12y agoUncaught SecurityError: Failed to read the 'localStorage' property from 'Window': Access is denied for this document.
- deathanatos 12y agoHeh, I see that all the time! Oddly, this time not so much, but I permit cookies from *.google.com (perhaps you don't). But the "withgoogle.com" domain causes a redirect loop in the login popup…
- infojam 12y agogoogle image search the logo....gives some strange results. I doubt its related.
- rmsaksida 12y agoI have search history disabled in my Google account settings. I guess that probably disables the login for me as well. I search for Python related stuff dozens of times a day.
- lazzlazzlazz 12y agoFunny. Two years ago I had an on-site interview with Google. My recruiter understood that I was looking for a "data science" type position, and although I have Java and C experience, I preferred Python. He told me to expect interviewing in Python. When I arrived, not a single one of the 5 technical interviewers I dealt with used Python and seemed to think I was crazy to be interviewing with Python. Needless to say, I did not receive an offer.
- toblender 12y agoSame story for me, went for a front-end developer position, but didn't get any front-end developer questions.
- teja1990 12y agoHave any of you, who had disabled their search history and still got an invite ?
- drewthomas 12y agoI got the invite a couple days ago but didn't "play" because I don't have the time or inclination, but I have to say the transition revealing the invite was pretty cool. Although I'm an app developer, based on my search history, I would say getting the invite is not based on how much or how often you search coding-related terms or your history of searching, but how nerdy your terms are, which alone is enough to overcome the barrier of entry (like the people here who triggered the invite searching for "python lambda" and "mutex lock"). So, after you get the invite and accept it, then you can log in on Foobar. The reason the HN link is so confusing is because the it goes to the Foobar login page, which assumes you already got the invite.
- mangeletti 12y agoI'm not trolling when I say this, nor am I some sort of hater... But, isn't Google the same company that we're always reading about, the one shaping up to be one of the most evil entities humanity has ever seen? After all, they pretend to protect net neutrality until it's their turn to play ball. They pretend to be pro-freedom, anti-big-brother (maybe you should read a bit about what Julian Assange has to say about Larry Page and Google in general, in case you missed all that), and anything else that will help them gain traction in the minds of the public, especially the techy youth. They always just want to help, don't they. They're so thoughtful... Now, Google wants to put tiny electronics in our blood... what's next? My point is, why would anyone want to support such a company? I suppose humanity had supported many bad things. Maybe my convictions don't match up well with the rest of the US anymore.
- skj 12y ago> the one shaping up to be one of the most evil entities humanity has ever seen? quite an assertion.
- mangeletti 12y agoI meant Eric Schmidt, by the way, not Larry Page.
- nanoscopic 12y agoI think google should make a system where you can play these puzzles by simply asking to and then agreeing not to share your solutions with anyone. That way, any hacker news people who would like to do so can. Sure people could enable google search history and google random python stuff, but any privacy minded hackers will have that disabled permanently ( as I do ). I'd like to note that I actually googled python lambda's myself recently, attempting to ascertain whether "lambda:0" is really the shortest way to make an empty object in python... The fact that google themselves hasn't commented on this hacker news thread itself is somewhat disappointing to me.
- sltkr 12y ago> attempting to ascertain whether "lambda:0" is really the shortest way to make an empty object in python... In what sense does "lambda:0" create an empty object? And how is it better than "object()"?
- nanoscopic 12y agoSpecifically I was in need of making an "object" that could have attributes set on it. You can either use lambda:anything_syntax_ok or an empty class. The empty class is much bigger. Lambda is an ugly hack but it works...
- plumeria 12y agoI wonder if it works only for people in the US...
- yojo 12y agoBased on comments above, I: 1) Turned on google search history 2) searched for 'python lambda syntax' and 'mutex lock' 3) got the invite that opened the foo.bar UI You get a terminal, from the terminal you request coding challenges. They have a minimal IDE to code in. Choice of language is Java or python. Only tried one challenge. YMMV
- kbart 12y agoA strange strategy to hire only developers that aren't privacy and security conscious? Way to go, google.
- msth 12y agoWhat does this Code means : <p class="profile-name"></p> <form novalidate method="post" action="https://accounts.google.com/ServiceLoginAuth" https://accounts.google.com/ServiceLoginAuth" id="gaia_loginform"> <input name="GALX" type="hidden" value="5tczTdlnWNs"> <input name="continue" type="hidden" value="https://appengine.google.com/_ah/conflogin?continue=https://foobar.withgoogle.com/login/"> https://appengine.google.com/_ah/conflogin?continue=https://... <input name="service" type="hidden" value="ah">
- casebash 12y agoIs there any reason to complete these puzzles if your resume/contacts are strong enough to get you an interview anyway? Apart from fun, that is?
- impassebreaker 12y agoWith a little help from, umm, Dr. Google, seems that a song called "Been Here Before" by Jeremy Engik was included as an MP3 in winamp. Random coincidence? Evil plot? Artful noodling? You decide. Here's the song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQQydvAjVYI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQQydvAjVYI.
- tkrupicka 12y agoI got in to foobar a few days ago off of a search where the invitation window came up. It's a terminal interface were you can solve some challenges in python or java. I solved the first one right away, but then didn't have time to keep going until today. I can still log in, but it says my invitation has expired and I need to continue searching.