Musings

Billboard

Most of the billboards around the UT campus feature alcohol and/or scantily-clad women. But one austere black-on-white billboard on Guadelupe has intrigued me as I drive past it on my way home from work:

$\left\{ \array{\arrayopts{\colalign{center}} \text{first 10-digit prime found} \\ \text{in the consecutive digits of } e }\right\}$.com

If you find the aforementioned prime (I, personally, was surprised at how far out in the decimal expansion of $e$ one has to go to find it), and visit the corresponding website, you are greeted with a second puzzle

$f(1)=7182818284$
$f(2)=8182845904$
$f(3)=8747135266$
$f(4)=7427466391$
$f(5)=$__________

and you’re told to visit a second website, using “Bobsyouruncle” as a Username and the value of $f(5)$ as a password.

When you get there, you’re greeted with an offer to submit your resumé … to Google.

One thing we learned while building Google is that it’s easier to find what you’re looking for if it comes looking for you. What we’re looking for are the best engineers in the world. And here you are.

As you can imagine, we get many, many resumes every day, so we developed this little process to increase the signal to noise ratio. … You’ll find links to more information about our efforts below, but before you get immersed in machine learning and genetic algorithms, please send your resume to us at …

Now that’s a sexy advertising campaign.