Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
Are you smart enough to work at a start-up? (news.com.au)
7 points by striker44 4642 days ago
10 comments
jnord 4642 days ago
Looks like that number is in base-36 instead of base-10 (decimal). Using http://www.unitconversion.org/numbers/base-10-to-base-36-con... yields number 80113871 as the last 8 digits of the phone number.
link
vjeux 4642 days ago
You can also type the following in your JS console :)

    parseInt('1bp49b', 36)
"The only problem is it's so tough, no one has managed to crack it yet." is very silly
link
yeah_ok 4642 days ago
I agree, "The only problem is it's so tough, no one has managed to crack it yet" is a very silly comment. Anyone who's done high school computing can probably figure this one out :(
link
jdoconnor 4642 days ago
in ruby '1bp49b'.to_i(36)
link
Patrick_Devine 4642 days ago
I'd be remiss without mentioning it in python: int('1bp49b', 36)
link
damncabbage 4642 days ago
In poster form: http://www.flickr.com/photos/craftydogma/6657220791/
link
aaronpk 4642 days ago
Looks like you are smart enough to work at a startup!
link
gooderlooking 4642 days ago
You too can be like Zuckerberg, by becoming employee #336 at a company rebranded in 2009 as a startup!
link
ajtaylor 4642 days ago
That was my first thought as well. Please don't tell me no one in Sydney managed to think of this.
link
kondro 4642 days ago
Trivial puzzle, but I have no desire to ever work for BigCommerce.

  require 'sinatra'
  require 'twilio-ruby'

  ACCOUNT_SID = "Your SID"
  AUTH_TOKEN = "Your Token"
  BIG_COMMERCE_NUMBER = "+612#{1bp49b".to_i(36)}"
  APP_URL = "http://path.to.this.app.com"
  YOUR_NUMBER = "+61211111111"

  get '/' do
    twilio = Twilio::REST::Client.new(ACCOUNT_SID, AUTH_TOKEN)
    twilio.account.calls.create(
      from: YOUR_NUMBER, 
      to: BIG_COMMERCE_NUMBER
      url: APP_URL + "/give-me-a-job"
    )
  end

  get '/give-me-a-job" do
    r.Dial callerId: YOUR_NUMBER do |d|
      d.Number(CGI.escape(YOUR_NUMBER))
    end
  end
link
broodbucket 4642 days ago
Kinda silly given they tell you the base...it'd be cooler if they didn't give you the base and you had to play with it until you had something that fit the phone numbers in the area that the company is in

Also, where's the startups in Brisbane anyway :-/

link
shearnie 4642 days ago
There's some of us here in Brisbane. There's just not as much as in Sydney to get that kind of press coverage I think.
link
broodbucket 4642 days ago
As someone soon to be entering the job market, can you suggest a good way to look around? All the dev positions I see around are just generic enterprise Java/.NET/etc for some corporation
link
shearnie 4637 days ago
I actually don't know. I've actually made some contacts within enterprise .Net for contract opportunities. I know that there's quite a few opportunities in the start-up space in entrepreneur meetups in Brisbane go to meetup.com. Although most often it will be the "I have an idea and I want you to be technical co-founder and do all the work for no pay" arrangement being sought after. The Silicon Beach scene has a huge amount of ideas people looking for "technical" so you'll be surrounded by vultures but at least you could pick and choose. Sorry for the late reply.
link
carlosdp 4642 days ago
Or no one has cared to try... Being able to identify a base-36 number isn't a good measure at all of being a good engineer, obviously. Google used to do something similar to this and then stopped once they figured that out.
link
gefuns 4642 days ago
Did anyone actually call up and checked if that is the solution? The base 36 thing was also the first thing that came to my mind, and after evaluating the number, I saw that the start is 8..., quickly checked the australian number codes and saw that sydney is indeed +61 02 8..., so for me there's a chance that's the solution. However, since it seemed kind of trivial to me, I thought maybe it's a prank of some sort...
link
shearnie 4642 days ago
That ad needs to be on a round manhole cover
link
chickensoup64 4642 days ago
Can anyone explain how the conversion works? I don't get how it works even after looking at the conversion table at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_36
link
msohcw 4642 days ago
In decimal, when you reach numbers after 9, there's no longer a single symbol you can use to represent the next number. Hence, you represent it as 10, which is one 10 and zero 1s. 11 is one 10 and one 1. This decimal, or base 10 system hence uses only 10 symbols, (0-9). In base 36, you can use additional other symbols, up to 36 different symbols. In this case they are 0-Z, changing to the letters of the alphabet A-Z as the remaining 26 unique symbols needed. Hence A is 11, B is 12 ... Z is 35. 36 (base 10) is then represented as 10 (base 36), one 36 and zero ones. 36^2 = 1296 (base 10) would be represented as 100 (base 36).
link
shruubi 4642 days ago
Got bored, solved it in 3 seconds, called the number and left my name.

Not really a complex puzzle by any means...

link
ErikAugust 4642 days ago
Out of Z types of people in the World, Y don't know anything about Base-36.
link
sharner 4642 days ago
Do it by hand and I'm impressed :)
link
freyr 4642 days ago
The number is 1bp49b. The base-10 values of b and p are 11 and 25, respectively. The decimal value of the number is then:

    1*36^5 + b*36^4 + p*36^3 + 4*36^2 + 9*36^1 + b*36^0
    = 36^5 + 11*36^4 + 25*36^3 + 4*36^2 + 9*36 + 11
    = 80113871
I'll start on Monday.
link