(Part 2) Top products from r/google

Don't get anything but Phillips Hue.

I thought I could find a slightly better or cheaper way...

Don't waste your time or money. Everyone in the Hue system agrees. Worst decision was not going straight for it

The Hue lights normally need a hub because they use non-wifi radio.

It is better to do that


But I got a Amazon Renewed Hue hub with 3 white & dimmable bulbs for 70.

Perfect.

Wait for the best sale or a good Renewed deal.

The ambiance whites are what you want at first. Unless you want to splurge for color.

Now Hue did just make a new version with Bluetooth that probably isn't what you usually want but for a couple of cheap starters it looks ok. They just came out.

I assume prices are cheaper but id look around.

Philips Hue White 2-Pack A19 LED Smart Bulb, Bluetooth & Zigbee compatible (Hue Hub Optional), voice activated with Alexa https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07R2MQ2PY/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_dXnsDbRMD31EN

Hmm those are just white so that's just an idea. Might not work.

--

ok I got my Amazon order details

This was 67 dollars on April 8.

I can now pick and choose as I want.

Philips Hue White Ambiance Smart Bulb Starter Kit (4 A19 Bulbs and 1 Hub Compatible with Alexa Apple HomeKit and Google Assistant) (Renewed) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07FXYR1RQ/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_Z2nsDbAXP925T


So just look around till you get an idea and snatch a deal or whatever you're okay with spending!

Ah, cool - it is a fascinating place. I'd estimate it stretches somewhere between one to two miles of coastline but most people use the bus instead of walking and so only see a tiny portion of it - there are some key bits of interest like the organ and the Giant's Boot.
Also don't forget it's counterpart in Scotland - Fingal's Cave which lead to the story about Finn MacCool - there are lots of versions but this is the ones that I love reading to my children and is the closest to the one my wife was told as a child.

If you are wired, you would have to get a 3.5 mm cord and run it from the phone to your 3.5 mm port on your reciever. If you don't have a 3.5mm but have a 1/4" port on your reciever, you need a
3.5mm to 1/4inch - which range in price. Anywhere from $1 - 30 or more. Usually the higher the price, you pay for branding but quality aswell sometimes. Just check the reviews

Also I reccomend a pretty long 3.5mm cable with shielding - Something like such is fine

____

Now if you are using trinus then you are streaming from your computer, OR you can do a 3.5 mm to RCA from your phone to your reciever. But you would probally need a 20ft or something. so you can use a simple 3.5mm to RCA cord (That goes from the 3.5mm port on your computer to the RCA port on your reciever). A cord like Such would suffice

____

The first method would work with apps built into the phone aswell like Youtube VR for example.

The second method could POSSIBLY have some latency involved. I am not 100% sure only because when a service like Trinus works is, it streams from the computer to your phone (Or tethered), and any latency involved there could have latency with audio. And things may not be in sync with each other.


____

PS: I reccomend and prefer VRidge over Trinus.

> how to use google to solve a programming problem

You can't. You have to figure out how to solve the problem yourself. Then you use Google to look up individual pieces of that.

In other words, you have to go "Well, I need to open the file, then read it line by line, find the first opening brace, find the last closing brace, and extract the piece of the string between those two braces, then print that out."

How do I open a file? I can google that.

How do I find the opening brace? I can google that.

How do I chop out the middle of a string into a new string? I can google that.

See what I mean?

> CS textbooks in general just aren't as well written

Not any more. People just generally don't give a shit, I've found. I've learned numerous programming languages by reading the manual for the compiler in older times. Nowadays, you're lucky if there's even a formal spec of the syntax of the language, let alone a complete readable manual. The "Ruby on Rails" text that seems to be the authoritative text is full of stuff like "this routine seems to do ...." meaning the guy writing it doesn't actually know, and didn't bother to read the source code to figure it out for sure.

However, the good news is that the classic books full of the knowledge that does not become outdated are actually very well written. Start with some of Knuth's texts (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Computer_Programming), Date's book on SQL and relational models (http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Database-Systems-8th/dp/0321197844), Bertrand Meyer on OOP (http://www.amazon.com/Object-Oriented-Software-Construction-Book-CD-ROM/dp/0136291554) and so on. (That last is even available as a PDF floating around.)

> some of the knowledge you gain could become potentially outdated in the future

Everything that you could look up on Google will be outdated in about five years. The stuff about how computers work, how to solve problems, etc never gets outdated.

On the other hand, it's one of the few jobs where you can take a job to do X and start working on it without any idea of how to do X. I've been programming almost 40 years and I've never taken a job that I knew how to do when I took the job.

Pick up a copy of "Programming Interviews Exposed." If anything in it is not clear and obvious to you, reading it at home, then you're sure to stumble when asked the question in an interview. It's not the best book, and I found mistakes in it. But I think it's a decent syllabus for preparing yourself.

I think contributing to the same open source projects that Google does would make a lot of sense. :) DanMorogh's suggestion to do Summer of Code is spot-on.

Ask yourself which project you want to work on, and figure out which campus works on that (you can mostly figure that out from the jobs.google.com site.) If possible, work on related technologies.

Follow the Googlers who work on those projects on G+, if you can. Make intelligent comments on their posts if they come to you. Don't force it.

I also like Project Euler to keep yourself limber. It's like a kata for coding.

Good luck!

EDIT: formatting.

The graphic novels are pretty good if you're into that kinda thing :) https://www.amazon.co.uk/Snowpiercer-Vol-1-Escape-Jacques-Lob/dp/1782761330

People interested in Google from its start all the way up to a few months ago should check out Steven Levy's In the Plex. It's a great book.

• $40 - ATA Router
  
  
• ~$3/month - Callcentric. Keep your number, 911, local and long distance pay by the minute, voicemail to email, works with existing analog phones, spam filter.
  
  We almost always use our cell phones, but I still like have a number I can give out that anyone in the house can pick up the call. I've been using Callcentric for about 4 years, they had a big outage for a few days about 3 years ago, but it's been completely consistent since then. It's like .015/minute, so I make sure to use my cell phone for long calls.

Pretty fun game, tbh, if you like card/board games.

I was using the latest stable, now I am using the latest beta (still didn't fix it). Here is what it says:

Graphics Feature Status

• Canvas: Software only, hardware acceleration unavailable
  
  
• Compositing: Software only, hardware acceleration unavailable
  
  
• 3D CSS: Unavailable. Hardware acceleration unavailable
  
  
• CSS Animation: Software only, hardware acceleration unavailable
  
  
• WebGL: Unavailable. Hardware acceleration unavailable
  
  
• WebGL multisampling: Unavailable. Hardware acceleration unavailable
  
  
• Flash 3D: Unavailable. Hardware acceleration unavailable
  
  
• Flash Stage3D: Unavailable. Hardware acceleration unavailable
  
  
• Flash Stage3D Baseline profile: Unavailable. Hardware acceleration unavailable
  
  
• Texture Sharing: Unavailable. Hardware acceleration unavailable
  
  
• Video Decode: Software only, hardware acceleration unavailable
  
  
• Video: Software only, hardware acceleration unavailable
  
  
• Panel Fitting: Unavailable. Hardware acceleration disabled.
  
  
• Rasterization: Software only. Hardware acceleration disabled.
  
  
  Problems Detected
  
  
• ATI/AMD cards with older or third-party drivers in Linux are crash-prone.: 71381, 76428, 73910, 101225, 136240
  
  
• Accelerated 2d canvas is unstable in Linux at the moment.
  
  
• ATI/AMD cards with third-party drivers in Linux are crash-prone.: 95934, 94973
  
  
• Stage3D is not supported on Linux.: 129848
  
  
• Accelerated video decode is unavailable on Mac and Linux.: 137247, 133828
  
  
• Enable panel fitting capability on ChromeOS only on IVB and SNB Graphics Controllers.
  
  
• Panel fitting is unavailable, either disabled at the command line or not supported by the current system.
  
  
• Accelerated rasterization has not been enabled or is not supported by the current system.
  
  
  This is the video card I have: http://www.amazon.com/VisionTek-Radeon-Express-Graphics-900345/dp/B004JU260O/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1368125410&sr=8-1&keywords=900345
  
  Thanks,

Bananagrams is my favorite word game.

They do, they aren't expensive either and will roll and shape to fit just about any toilet at about any angle.

Give it a shot and see if it works for you.

http://www.amazon.com/Neiko-60166A-All-Angle-Plunger-Patented/dp/B000MAXASM/ref=sr_1_1?s=hi&ie=UTF8&qid=1422584733

You don't need a different charger, you'll just need an adapter so you can plug it in. Something like one of these.

European sockets run at 230V while US ones run at 110V, so for some types of appliances there can be problems. But things like laptop chargers are made for the international market anyway, so they almost always just work.

I just have the output of the obihai going to a cordless Panasonic phone base with 3 handsets. My house was built in 1992 so I do have good old fashioned phone wiring running throughout the house, but I don't use it.

https://www.amazon.com/TP-Link-8-Port-Ethernet-Desktop-TL-SF1008D/dp/B0034CL3MA/ref=sr_1_5?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1479250744&sr=1-5&keywords=8+port+switch

reminds me of the book The Circle https://www.amazon.com/Circle-Dave-Eggers/dp/0345807294/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1481582624&sr=1-1&keywords=the+circle

Nope. Go read The Blank Slate

No, its okay. You can buy a chromebook book.

http://www.amazon.com/My-Google-Chromebook-Michael-Miller/dp/0789743965/ref=pd_sim_b_1

Not really. It's popular because it's so easy. Check out some of Kevin Mitnick's stuff if you're at all serious about this opinion. Dude literally wrote the book on how easy Social Engineering is in the modern age. Example cited quote from his Wikipedia:

> At age 12, Mitnick used social engineering and dumpster diving to bypass the punch card system used in the Los Angeles bus system. [...] Social engineering later became his primary method of obtaining information, including usernames and passwords and modem phone numbers.

Oh, he also hacked a TON of analog systems. Like John Draper who hacked phone systems with a whistle from a box of Captain Crunch. Switching to digital systems can help raise the barrier to hacking above this low bar.

I think you should do some more looking into your statements, because your vague explanations are far outnumbered by anecdotal evidence stating otherwise.

If you want a job at Google, look up Steve Yegges article on how to prep for the interview.

There's no shortcuts from actually knowing your shit. Code, algorithm, design, Big O... Stuff that you actually do on the job.

Don't waste time on questions mentioned in this article.

When I interviewed, I read Skiena's Algorithm Design Manual cover to cover for a couple of months leading up to the interview.