I've worked with a fair number of people that graduated from the Mathematics and Informatics at Babeș-Bolyai University. I'm generally very impressed by them, and is just another data point of areas of that world that get overlooked.
Intern Impact: Brotli compression for Play Store app downloads
121–130 of 184 posts
Re: Intern Impact: Brotli compression for Play Store app downloads
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
> So she used a compression algorithm developed by other googlers? Yes. > So what? So she saved 1.5PB per day - which no other Googler did. Nor you or me. She did. > Don't get me wrong, I'm sure she did a lot of work for it, but looks like a lot of people would have been able to do that, there is nothing innovative in what she did, right? If it was that easy, why wasn't done already? Why did she have to come along to…
What makes you think she came up with the idea? Read the article -- it's clear that it was her "project". She's an intern at Google, they're generally on a short leash.
> they're generally on a short leash
How do you know that?
Re: Intern Impact: Brotli compression for Play Store app downloads
#123The amount of negativity in the comments section here is astounding. How could you not be excited and happy for this promising young woman's achievement? No, her work will not put her on the shortlist for a Turing Award. But it is something any engineer should be proud of, and has real impact for millions of users. You have a right to be unimpressed, but if you're taking the time to say "So what?" or "This is just a…
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Re: Intern Impact: Brotli compression for Play Store app downloads
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
> a senior engineer at Google could have implemented this compression and it would still be HN worthy, No, I doubt it would be. How many of the hundreds of little features in the google play store have been posted on HN with an article about the person who implemented them? Also, I find it more than a little presumptuous of you to assume that any scoffing is due to sexism. I see the exact same cynicism and lack of aw…
1.5 petabytes of savings in data usage per day is not HN worthy? I've seen far less significant improvements get voted to the front page with hundreds of comments. This is more than a small tweak to the Play store. Agreed on the high level of cynicism here -- we've also come to expect that. Moreover I never come to HN (my account is five years old) to point out sexism/racism -- it's just too sensitive and difficult o…
>> But this particular achievement is high-impact and the intern deserves credit on that blog for her work
I think the issue is that the project here was a library swap, which isn't hard to do. It just so happens to be at Google, where small optimizations reap huge rewards. Google want's to market it as "hey, look at the huge impact our interns have" and make it sound like a big deal, when in reality it's not that much of a crazy technical achievement.
>> 1.5 petabytes of savings in data usage per day is not HN worthy? I've seen far less significant improvements get voted to the front page with hundreds of comments. This is more than a small tweak to the Play store.
I know a lot of interns at smaller companies who did very impressive work, but because the companies are smaller the numbers aren't as crazy (both women and men, I should add). The effort by them might very much be HN worthy, but you won't see it here because they don't have a huge PR machine behind them.
Kudos to Anamaria for the great work though! Will probably save Google some cash.
Re: Intern Impact: Brotli compression for Play Store app downloads
#125So she used a compression algorithm developed by other googlers? So what? Don't get me wrong, I'm sure she did a lot of work for it, but looks like a lot of people would have been able to do that, there is nothing innovative in what she did, right?
> So she used a compression algorithm developed by other googlers? Yes. > So what? So she saved 1.5PB per day - which no other Googler did. Nor you or me. She did. > Don't get me wrong, I'm sure she did a lot of work for it, but looks like a lot of people would have been able to do that, there is nothing innovative in what she did, right? If it was that easy, why wasn't done already? Why did she have to come along to…
They had to wait for someone to design and implement the compression algorithm before they could have an intern swap it out.
Re: Intern Impact: Brotli compression for Play Store app downloads
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
What makes you think she came up with the idea? Read the article -- it's clear that it was her "project". She's an intern at Google, they're generally on a short leash.
> they're generally on a short leash How do you know that?
Many friends who had gone there. It was one of the reasons I turned them down. It's just part of being a large tech company -- they get hordes of interns and generally want to get something out of them in a short period of time. Most are explicitly attached to one or two projects which can be completed in ~2 months.
Re: Intern Impact: Brotli compression for Play Store app downloads
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
She worked on something completely different in Krakow, and earned a lot less (about 1000 euro I think). The compression work was in London, where 2700 GBP doesn't go a long way at all. Rent is about 1000 GBP for a room, and 2700 GBP is about 1800 net, so that leaves 800 GBP per month to spend on food, transportation and other expenditures. I happen to know the person in the article. I was also an intern at Google th…
For an intern, that is insanely good. edit: In fact, for a lot of people, that is insanely good! Apologies if I came across as an asshole when I said "for an intern".
No it isn't, especially considering it's 30% that what Google interns earn in the US, even in cheaper places than London (Pittsburgh, Seattle).
Also, it's a lot less than what competitors pay interns in London (Bloomberg, Facebook and Palantir pay interns a LOT better, among others).
Re: Intern Impact: Brotli compression for Play Store app downloads
#128So she used a compression algorithm developed by other googlers? So what? Don't get me wrong, I'm sure she did a lot of work for it, but looks like a lot of people would have been able to do that, there is nothing innovative in what she did, right?
You're missing the point of the blog post, which is "Hey, students, Google deals with massive amounts of data, so even as an intern you can have a huge impact."
Re: Intern Impact: Brotli compression for Play Store app downloads
#129The amount of negativity in the comments section here is astounding. How could you not be excited and happy for this promising young woman's achievement? No, her work will not put her on the shortlist for a Turing Award. But it is something any engineer should be proud of, and has real impact for millions of users. You have a right to be unimpressed, but if you're taking the time to say "So what?" or "This is just a…
This is typical HN; a bunch of people who think highly of themselves for not being sheep working for the big companies, and for whom everything that these companies do is easy peasy stuff that they could do in their sleep.
If I had done something to save anybody 1.5 Petabytes of bandwidth per day, I would be very content for at least a few months. Congratulations to the intern for having such a lasting impact.
Re: Intern Impact: Brotli compression for Play Store app downloads
#130The amount of negativity in the comments section here is astounding. How could you not be excited and happy for this promising young woman's achievement? No, her work will not put her on the shortlist for a Turing Award. But it is something any engineer should be proud of, and has real impact for millions of users. You have a right to be unimpressed, but if you're taking the time to say "So what?" or "This is just a…
+1
I am proud and jealous of her. She did something amazing during her internship that I haven't done in my 10 year professional career. Hell she very well might win a Turing. I would happily have her as my mentor.