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Google rejected me and now I'm building a search engine

daoudclarke.net

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Re: Google rejected me and now I'm building a search engine

#71

Post by skulk »

bko wrote: post #11

Whenever I hear about alternative search engines, I try out a few famous people hoping to see Wikipedia entries towards the top. And almost always I see nonsense. For instance, if you search for 'Trump', the top links are ``` 1. http://www.trump.de — found via Mwmbl -- Trump 2. https://itep.org/md/ — found via Mwmbl -- Trump Tax Proposals Would Provide Richest One Percent in Maryland with 69.7 Percent of the State’s…

> but what's going on here?

I'm wondering the same thing. Google gives me _exactly_ what I want without me having to add keywords or cajole it. All of these other search engines give me such weird irrelevant results. If I search "python reverse string" on YaCy's demo peer, the third result is the ArchWiki page on ... MATLAB.

I really wish I knew what to do to help the situation here because distributed p2p search engines seem so cool. But then again, Google wouldn't be so dominant if it were so easy.

Re: Google rejected me and now I'm building a search engine

#72

Post by zer0zzz »

arandomusername wrote: post #66
bowsamic wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I agree, it's not hard to see why he was rejected from his attitude here

English is not everyone's native language.

And these sorts of hazing rituals are how that changes.

Re: Google rejected me and now I'm building a search engine

#74

Post by arandomusername »

nitwit005 wrote: post #60
kevmo314 wrote: post #5

I'm sure the post's author doesn't need interview advice anymore but in case there are any prospective interview candidates out there, completely freezing during an interview is a super negative signal. Even if you need to manually multiply out 2's on a whiteboard it would be more productive than saying "I don't know". In my experience the only reason you should say "I don't know" is if you're going to follow it with…

Very few of us have had to do difficult math in a high pressure social situation. Having someone sitting there and pushing for instant answers is just going to sink most candidates for no real reason. I've found you often need to directly ask the interviewer not to do what they're doing when they try this sort of thing. Sometimes they're just bored and want to talk because there has been a moment of silence, or becau…

Difficult math? You just have to multiply 2s until you reach >56mil, and you can just round up (i.e 16k -> 32k -> 64k).

Re: Google rejected me and now I'm building a search engine

#75

Post by JohnMakin »

harles wrote: post #21

> He continued to ask more questions about numbers of bits. I couldn’t answer any of them without a lot of help. He didn’t ask me about my PhD work building a new theory of natural language semantics. This strikes me as fairly petty “I didn’t answer wrong, you asked me the wrong questions!”. Honestly it’s the recruiting process working as intended - folks with this type of attitude don’t make good team members in my…

True, the hiring process working as intended - I don’t want to work for an employer that would waste my time having me solve irrelevant problems to placate some weirdly misplaced ego-driven attitude. Seems fairly gatekeepy, and I think it selects for a certain type of cult member, not necessarily “good team members.”

In my interviews I now throw out these dumb google style questions, not to see how they think, but to see how they react to a silly question. The person I’d like to hire, when asked “how would you calculate how many ping pong balls fit in a 747?” they would answer “I wouldn’t.” Only one so far has given me an answer like that and has been delightful to work with.

Re: Google rejected me and now I'm building a search engine

#77

Post by arandomusername »

Borg3 wrote: post #27
kevmo314 wrote: post #5

I'm sure the post's author doesn't need interview advice anymore but in case there are any prospective interview candidates out there, completely freezing during an interview is a super negative signal. Even if you need to manually multiply out 2's on a whiteboard it would be more productive than saying "I don't know". In my experience the only reason you should say "I don't know" is if you're going to follow it with…

If you do NOT know, then answer that you do NOT know, unless you can speculate. Noone is omniscent. I really dont like when people with no knowledge trying guess the answer or speculate without any background. Im sure I would NOT want to work with such person.

You should always try to arrive at an answer before giving up. You won't get anywhere if you won't even try.

Re: Google rejected me and now I'm building a search engine

#78

Post by snozolli »

harles wrote: post #21

> He continued to ask more questions about numbers of bits. I couldn’t answer any of them without a lot of help. He didn’t ask me about my PhD work building a new theory of natural language semantics. This strikes me as fairly petty “I didn’t answer wrong, you asked me the wrong questions!”. Honestly it’s the recruiting process working as intended - folks with this type of attitude don’t make good team members in my…

Honestly it’s the recruiting process working as intended

Sounds more like a bored sadist who's throwing away talent entertaining himself instead of focusing on finding suitable candidates.

Reminds me of the stories about Steve Jobs 'joking' that people are fired when they were trapped in an elevator with him.

Re: Google rejected me and now I'm building a search engine

#79

Post by withinboredom »

arandomusername wrote: post #62
withinboredom wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Asking questions irrelevant to the position is also a pretty good red flag that you don't want to work there.

The point of the question is to see your problem solving skills, not if you have your 2s memorized. Anyone with basic math skills should be able to arrive at the answer.

My answer would have been the same. When asked to work it out, I would have pointed out that I simply wouldn't; not because I don't know how, but because if I need to know the number of bits it takes to store such a specific number, there is probably a reason. That reason could be storage of some form, such as wire protocols or files, and I don't want to fuck it up because I miss a step or misremember something. So, no, I won't even bother memorizing it, let alone, calculate it by hand.

Re: Google rejected me and now I'm building a search engine

#80

Post by nimithryn »

harles wrote: post #21

> He continued to ask more questions about numbers of bits. I couldn’t answer any of them without a lot of help. He didn’t ask me about my PhD work building a new theory of natural language semantics. This strikes me as fairly petty “I didn’t answer wrong, you asked me the wrong questions!”. Honestly it’s the recruiting process working as intended - folks with this type of attitude don’t make good team members in my…

On the one hand, yeah, this guy is to some degree complaining on the internet because he was rejected. It’s annoying: No one likes listening to complaining.

On the other hand, a) this guy does have a point - it’s very very strange that you can have all sorts of interesting, highly relevant expertise and tech interviews don’t care at all, they just ask you generic stuff that has nothing to do with the job, b) he’s allowed to complain c) you’re complaining about him complaining.

I see a sort of weird logic all the time (usually around interviews or dating) where someone is complaining on the internet about how the system is broken and they are subsequently accused of some moral failing (being “petty”). I don’t think you know anything about this guys attitude or how this guy works on a team - you don’t know him!

I guess the lesson is “don’t complain on the internet”, which I suppose I agree with.

I guess I’m complaining about people complaining about complaining, so I’m part of the problem, too. But seriously, let’s engage with each other in good faith and not just assume someone’s a bad person because they’ve been hurt by rejection.

Edit: grammar

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