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Things I've learned at Google so far

bentilly.blogspot.com

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Re: Things I've learned at Google so far

#81

Post by fexl »

ThinkWriteMute wrote: post #37
csomar wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with Blogger? It does its' job well. What's the point from Blogging? -> Getting the word to the others. and it does it well, so it's not crap.

If getting it done was the only objective then why isn't Blogger just a web server that people can FTP self written HTML files to? Blogger has a lot of paper cuts that slowly make it either unbearable to use or unsightly to visit. It takes me 4 refreshes just to comment on a page.

I know what you mean, sometimes things can get a little flaky. I haven't tried the comment feature yet. It is after all a big pile of Javascript with WYSIWYG editors and such. So far I have found the bugs slightly annoying, cute, and avoidable.

For my own high-powered purposes I've written a completely custom CMS with fully encrypted and extensible object types based on pure text. But have I written an "object" with a WYSIWYG editor, Labels, Archives, and other stuff built in yet? Heck no. So blogger.com here I come.

Re: Things I've learned at Google so far

#82

Post by nostrademons »

btilly wrote: post #67
jlees wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a fairly common thing to do though. "My IQ is 200, but I don't believe in IQ tests. By the way did I mention my IQ was 200?" (Joking aside, I think you conveyed it pretty well, though I have no real clue what a GRE score of nearly 20 years ago means relatively speaking, or how you can convert it into a measure of intelligence at all...)

I don't see the site I used to estimate my IQ before. But http://www.davidpbrown.co.uk/psychology/iq-conversion.html presents a calculator. And if you google around you can find other conversion charts that vary slightly from each other.

2340 on the calculator puts you at the 100th percentile, and at about 2100 on the pre-95 SAT (which only went up to 1600). You sure this has the right version of the score?

Re: Things I've learned at Google so far

#83

Post by nostrademons »

jff wrote: post #10

As my boss likes to say, they have the free meals because they expect you to be there for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

It's noontime and I'm still at home, having woken up just a half hour ago...though I guess I really should get in before they stop serving lunch.

I rarely make it to breakfast, and usually stay a couple hours past dinner.

Re: Things I've learned at Google so far

#84

Post by Retric »

elblanco wrote: post #56
btilly wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I normally don't do that. However for perspective I really wanted to give an idea of how intelligent I consider myself to be, and giving that relatively objective number sounded like the least assholish way I had to convey that to people who don't know me. You'll note that immediately upon giving the number I pointed out that there are issues with that method of measurement and gave an honest self-assessment whose up…

I'm surprised you don't know your own IQ score. I couldn't even make it to middle-school without having undergone a battery of at least a half-dozen IQ and aptitude evaluations. By the time I made it out of High School I knew probably more than any person should know about their own intelligence and had a pretty clear idea of the range my IQ would fall into as well as my learning styles, cognitive strengths and weakn…

I had all that same testing, but my parents would not tell me my scores.

PS: I was classified as Exceptionally Gifted / Learning Disabled and I am perfectly happy to leave it as that. In theory I could take another IQ test, but I think I am a little old to focus on my potential. IMO, your potential is only important when you have yet to accomplish anything.

Re: Things I've learned at Google so far

#85

Post by nostrademons »

elblanco wrote: post #57
johnyzee wrote: post #8

I am blown away by some of the stuff Google puts out, I can only imagine what their internal technologies and tools must look like. To me, that more than anything validates their approach to hiring, development and business strategy, of which I would otherwise be very sceptical. I'd never get hired at Google, and rightly so; I look at some of their stuff and know that I could never do that. I used to think (not witho…

I think that you can. To date, Google really only has one successful product (success meaning "makes money for Google") and that's Ad-sense. Sure it's wildly successful. But if that stopped making money for Google tomorrow (for example, I automatically mentally filter out all advertisements in my search results, how long before everybody does that), what would their revenue and profitability picture look like? In alm…

AdWords, not AdSense. AdSense is their second successful product.

And Search exists basically to supply inventory for AdWords. They wouldn't have anything to run ads on without search (okay, not quite true, there's AdSense, but they wouldn't have developed either...)

Re: Things I've learned at Google so far

#86

Post by gridspy »

jheriko wrote: post #74
alexgartrell wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having read this article, numerous other articles, heard from Google Employees in large and small settings, and knowing a few Google Interns, I can say one thing with absolute confidence. Google Engineers know that they're the best engineers, ever. I've always found it offputting, but maybe I'm just jealous or something. edit: Worth adding that this is a common thing among many engineers. Also, I know and like a numb…

That can't be right... because I /know/ that games programmers are the best engineers, and Google doesn't make games... ;)

The best engineers willing to work in low pay, crunch environments and high staff turnover.

Re: Things I've learned at Google so far

#88

Post by nostrademons »

neilk wrote: post #21
csomar wrote: post #20

In fact this is enshrined as an official corporate policy - engineers get 20% of their time to do with pretty much as they please, and are judged in part on how they use that time. I found a speech claiming that over half of Google's applications started as a 20% project. >> (I'm surprised that the figure is so low.) I wonder why you are surprised? Actually it's very high. Imagine Google don't offer 20% for its' empl…

Virtually no Google engineers use their personal time to develop new projects. In most cases, they have crushing responsibilities on their existing projects (that guy who appears to be 2x as smart as you and sits next to you? You are competing with him). Usually, people use the official personal time to take mini-sabbaticals with other projects, or write tools to make their own lives easier (which may have more gener…

"Virtually no Google engineers use their personal time to develop new projects."

I've tried, without success so far, though I've got a bunch of things in the half-done state that could turn into something useful eventually. It is very hard, kinda like starting up a company while keeping your day job.

I've found I had the most success by just trying to get my 80% project out of the way as fast as possible, doing as much as needed to keep my teammates happy, and then banking the remaining time to work on 20% projects. It's best used in chunks of a week or so, so that you can actually finish a lot and have something concrete that can sit and wait for your next big chunk of time.

Re: Things I've learned at Google so far

#89

Post by sahaj »

elblanco wrote: post #57
johnyzee wrote: post #8

I am blown away by some of the stuff Google puts out, I can only imagine what their internal technologies and tools must look like. To me, that more than anything validates their approach to hiring, development and business strategy, of which I would otherwise be very sceptical. I'd never get hired at Google, and rightly so; I look at some of their stuff and know that I could never do that. I used to think (not witho…

I think that you can. To date, Google really only has one successful product (success meaning "makes money for Google") and that's Ad-sense. Sure it's wildly successful. But if that stopped making money for Google tomorrow (for example, I automatically mentally filter out all advertisements in my search results, how long before everybody does that), what would their revenue and profitability picture look like? In alm…

i think folks are underestimating the scale of the google apps offering, and thus its money-making scale.
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