No, I still don't want to work for Google • Hacker News Board

Re: No, I still don't want to work for Google

#161

Post by jjwiseman » Mon, Oct 29, 2012, 5:41 PM UTC

varelse wrote: post #143

jjwiseman wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blind allocation got me too. They told me how allocation worked before I joined, but I was hopeful that they would put me on a project that had some overlap with what I was interested in and what I had worked on for the past 15 years (computer vision, robotics, natural language processing). No. I found out on the last day of orientation I would be doing YouTube ads. I knew there was no way I could do that for 18 mont…

Pretty much my naivete and experience as well (minus the 20% project because the one I wanted to do would have tipped some sacred cows had it succeeded)...

Exactly--I didn't quite say it explicitly, but part of the problem was my naiveté about working for a large company after a career of mostly startups.

(And my summary of the project may have been overly short. It was a week of full-time work, with a plan of making it an ongoing 20% project.)

Re: No, I still don't want to work for Google

#162

Post by dpark » Mon, Oct 29, 2012, 5:41 PM UTC

waqf wrote: post #144

dpark wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you chose an exceptionally poor reason to downvote him. You downvoted him because you disagree with his views ("view things through very narrow lenses"), which is different from downvoting him because you disagree with him only in phrasing. Downvotes should be for comments that do not add to the discussion. Considering that most of the comments here are in response to him, his comment clearly added to the dis…

> Considering that most of the comments here are in response to him, his comment clearly added to the discussion. By your criterion, how would one distinguish between someone "adding to the discussion" and a troll? Or is it your position that trolls add to the discussion, because they elicit responses?

Is this a serious question? Can you generally not tell the difference between a comment that pushes an opinion you disagree with and a comment that exists simply to push buttons? If a "troll" comment is so good that it appears to just be a legitimate comment that you disagree with, then you should probably assume that it's just a legitimate comment that you disagree with.

Re: No, I still don't want to work for Google

#163

Post by waqf » Mon, Oct 29, 2012, 5:43 PM UTC

bmelton wrote: post #121

benatkin wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You aren't the first to try to attach a different meaning to the term free speech and you certainly won't be the last. That isn't what it means, though.

Care to clarify?

benatkin means that speech is no longer free if you can't express things that you're afraid to put your name to. (You clarified this even more when you said in another thread (paraphrased) that people could say anything they "should" say.)

Free speech means you can say anything. If you want to argue the contrary, that you would prefer some limits on speech, then that's fine, but it's disingenuous – well, it's Newspeak – to refer to your position as "free speech".

Re: No, I still don't want to work for Google

#164

Post by danielweber » Mon, Oct 29, 2012, 5:44 PM UTC

redwood wrote: post #73

raldi wrote: post #41

Please don't propagate the myth that Google asks prospective programmers questions like, "How many golf balls could you fit on a bus?" Google interviewers list the questions they asked when they write up their conclusions, and anyone who asked a question like that for an engineering interview would be immediately contacted by the hiring commitee and told not to do it again.

Why would that even be a bad question to ask?

Because it was popular in the past, and nothing is more out of fashion now than what was in fashion last year.

Re: No, I still don't want to work for Google

#165

Post by amplitwist » Mon, Oct 29, 2012, 5:48 PM UTC

papsosouid wrote: post #139

amplitwist wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People like you scare me, because you are so ignorant of history. While we might be heading towards a uber-PC socialist nightmare, one could argue just as easily that we'll end up in a hell like fascist Italy, where leftists were rounded up and shot for their opinions. You also scare me because you are so sure that you're right, and those that disagree with you are not just wrong, but evil. I disagree with you, but I…

What on earth provoked that random screed? Who said anything about left or right, or PC socialist or fascist? You scare me because you seem to be mentally unstable.

I think it's pretty obvious what I'm talking about. The comment I was replying to suggested that people would be imprisoned for thoughtcrime. The original comment was disagreeing (slightly) with someone that has a very left-wing view of "social justice" or whatever. People like the person above clearly haven't learned their lessons about censorship, because there is a fair chance that even those with the "correct" politics like the author will disagree with the censors at some point, which could lead to imprisonment or death. Furthermore, you illustrate my point about people viewing their political opposition as evil perfectly, because instead of responding to me in a serious fashion, you call me mentally unstable.

Re: No, I still don't want to work for Google

#166

Post by danilocampos » Mon, Oct 29, 2012, 5:52 PM UTC

griftah wrote: post #155

She is building a social network for hobbyist gardeners. Apparently this is what humanity needs more than geek toys like self-driving cars and augmented reality sunglasses.

What do you suppose you've contributed to the conversation with this remark?

Re: No, I still don't want to work for Google

#167

Post by michaelochurch » Mon, Oct 29, 2012, 5:52 PM UTC

illuminate wrote: post #91

michaelochurch wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I futilely attempted to get reassigned to something close to field D (really, B, C, E, or F would have been just peachy) and that seemingly got me flagged as trouble internally. "Meets Expectations" ranges from 3.0 to 3.4, and employees in this range have no idea where in that interval they landed, even the career effects of the numbers are dramatically different. 3.4 is above average, while 3.0 is fatal to transfer…

"A lot of Enron employees had nowhere to go (for geographical and specialty reasons) and had to make ethical compromises" You're not seriously blaming Enron on your average grunt, are you?

No, of course not, but it wasn't only grunts who were subjected to PRC.

Re: No, I still don't want to work for Google

#168

Post by juiceandjuice » Mon, Oct 29, 2012, 5:54 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #133

DanBC wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a silly question like, "how many golf balls could you fit on a bus." Why is it a silly question?

Because it makes all sorts of assumptions that are outside the scope of what you really want to test. First, it assumes familiarity with golf balls. I have friends who grew up in Manhattan who have never seen a golf ball. They may have seen one on TV, but that doesn't let you really gauge the size of something. Second, it assumes familiarity with buses, and assumes the interviewer and the interviewee are talking abou…

It's not a silly question at all. You can completely parameterize the answer in terms of bus volume and golf ball size, or define a "best guess" by explicitly defining your assumptions on the size of a golf ball or a bus in the question. Finally, you should at least be able to provide a magnitude.

Or, you know, you could always just ask what size a golf ball, and bus is.

It seems to me the only assumption the question makes is that a person could make some logical assumptions about the question, ask some logical questions, or ignore all assumptions and parameterize the answer.

Re: No, I still don't want to work for Google

#169

Post by bmelton » Mon, Oct 29, 2012, 5:54 PM UTC

eropple wrote: post #160

bmelton wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems to be a common reply to my statements, so I'll say it once here and link to it elsewhere. I feel that I am empathetic (or at least sympathetic) to the plight of transgenders, minorities and others who feel that they need an anonymous or pseudonymous platform upon which to share their views. I am substantially less concerned with those who do not see that it is Google's right to offer a platform that requir…

I do not feel it is within the rights of those users to demand (or at least, to get a result from the demands) that a platform change its policies to suit their ideals. Sure it is. The only reason for a company to exist is to provide positive social effects (and capitalism is predicated on the idea that positive social effects correlate with revenue and, less so, with profit). When you want to create an all-encompass…

At the end of the day, a social network is, at best, a convenience to you. That you're unwilling to suffer the inconvenience of not having the ability to use their network in the way that you want is an opinion I do not share.

It has nothing to do with whether or not it affects me personally -- it obviously does, but whether I agree or disagree with the choice being made here. I happen to agree, and as such, I use G+ (if only rarely). You disagree, so you don't. I assume that nobody is completely friendless or in complete isolation from their friends/family/colleagues because of their decision to not use Google Plus. A social network is not vital, and even if it were, there are plenty of others to choose from. If your friends aren't on that social network, then you don't get the benefit of it, but that's true of anywhere.

Insisting that Google abide your choice is the sucker's bet in my opinion. For what it's worth, almost every social network excludes somebody. In this case, it is 'people who aren't willing to use their real names', in other cases it might be 'people who are spamming the server' or 'people who are preaching hate crimes' or 'child molesters' or 'people outside of America'. An application has policies that it abides. You happen to disagree with one of their policies, and it apparently matters to you a great deal. You can complain as loudly as you like, and you can certainly hope that Google changes their minds, and you can even hold it against them that they don't. That doesn't make what they're doing wrong in any way other than something you disagree with.

(Note -- I didn't mean to intentionally lump any of the categories of people used in network exclusions together, except to come up with examples of why somebody might exclude somebody.)

Re: No, I still don't want to work for Google

#170

Post by michaelochurch » Mon, Oct 29, 2012, 5:55 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #67

michaelochurch wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I futilely attempted to get reassigned to something close to field D (really, B, C, E, or F would have been just peachy) and that seemingly got me flagged as trouble internally. "Meets Expectations" ranges from 3.0 to 3.4, and employees in this range have no idea where in that interval they landed, even the career effects of the numbers are dramatically different. 3.4 is above average, while 3.0 is fatal to transfer…

WAT? Enron was a scam from the very highest levels of the corporation. Unless you're suggesting that Kenneth Lay got a 3.0 from his board of directors and reacted accordingly, this is a ridiculous comparison.

It was actually Skilling, at least as much as Lay, who was responsible, but you're right that the corruption existed mostly at the executive levels.

It's probably more likely that Enron's management practices were a symptom rather than a cause of moral depravity, but I tend to think of such things as self-perpetuating. PRC probably didn't do any cultural harm that wasn't already there, but it did no good.