
Foobar - franze
https://www.google.com/foobar/
======
bshimmin
I think this is very clever. Assuming this is something to do with recruitment
(as the other comments suggest), then of course I find it intensely irritating
and it confirms my pre-existing notion that I would never want to work for a
company like Google. But, on the other hand, the people who devised this
puzzle are clearly people who would be enticed by a puzzle like it, and would
therefore think it was a good way to find like-minded people - and they are
probably correct in that assumption.

~~~
jpfr
No puzzle here. You can only log in if Google has flagged your search topics.

On google search, you have the variable window.location.search =
"?gfe_rd=cr&ei=XXXGyZiVNHoFcuF8Qe7wYHACw&gws_rd=ssl"

That string is appended to the url of the iframe:
src="[https://foobar.withgoogle.com/"+window.location.search](https://foobar.withgoogle.com/"+window.location.search)

~~~
dansingerman
I don't see any mechanism that appends it from any search topics when you load
[https://www.google.com/foobar/](https://www.google.com/foobar/)

The code snippet will only load the URL with appended values if there are
present in the parent URL: e.g.
[https://www.google.com/foobar/?some_query_string](https://www.google.com/foobar/?some_query_string)

~~~
jpfr
That's why the link to foobar turns up in people's search results.

~~~
dansingerman
Ah! Do you mean the 'chosen ones' will get search results linking to
[https://www.google.com/foobar/](https://www.google.com/foobar/) with a
special query string?

------
teddyh
Google is self-selecting to employ those people who are fine with the idea of
Google recording everything they do. This does not bode well for the rest of
us.

~~~
rational-future
Only the very stupid are fine with Google recording everything they do.

~~~
teddyh
You’d be amazed by the amount of doublethink that even very smart people are
capable of, and the extreme and convoluted arguments they give for their
position.

~~~
hueving
Yeah, just look at everyone who works for Google. The company is fundamentally
about centralizing all of the information in the world. By working for them
you support that goal and everything it implies.

------
k-mcgrady
If you are as confused as I was this old HN thread might help:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8588080](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8588080)

~~~
mragh
<\- Author of that thread. The site is an interactive shell with progressively
harder (but fun) coding challenges to complete. It's made to look like a *nix
shell and has the basic commands built-in.

Also, there are a lot of rabbits.

~~~
dontreact
There are many in this thread who would greatly appreciate tips on how to
access the challenges. Any ideas?

~~~
mragh
If I remember, I was blanking on the exact Python lambda syntax, so I Google'd
"python lambda". I bet it had something to do with other searches I'd done in
that session as well though, and I don't remember what they are.

~~~
dontreact
If you wanted to you could check:

[https://history.google.com/history](https://history.google.com/history)

Also, it is possible that the url once you actually enter is different and
that may be sufficient to get in.

Thanks!

------
domas
Looks like it's Google's recruiting for Python devs:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8588080](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8588080)

~~~
fizixer
More like javascript/web-developer recruiting. The page-source doesn't contain
anything other than html/css/js.

~~~
Nickoladze
Read that post, the person searching for Python had a different page than the
rest of us. Something with a console.

Seems like you need to be "invited".

------
dorkrawk
I had the "You speak our language..." message pop up while searching for some
Python info and send me to Foobar a few days ago. So far I've just done one of
the challenges. I'm sure it's a recruiting thing, but they seem like fun
puzzles and it's obviously not the only way to get a job with Google, so good
for them for building something fun.

~~~
theVirginian
I search for python stuff all the time and have never come across this link, I
want to do some puzzles too!

~~~
tormeh
Maybe it depends where you search from? If you're not in the US while
searching you might not be that interesting.

------
sp332
Huh, this is a really weird mix of subdomains.
[https://www.google.com/search?q=withgoogle.com](https://www.google.com/search?q=withgoogle.com)

~~~
dsl
.withgoogle.com is used for mini-sites that are developed externally or do not
meet the security requirements to be on a proper Google domain.

~~~
13throwaway
Do you know why the new interstellar movie is on that domain?
[https://interstellar.withgoogle.com](https://interstellar.withgoogle.com)

~~~
gerbal
There is a tie-in game on the Play Store. Looks pretty mediocre.

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.paramount....](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.paramount.interstellar)

------
nanoscopic
Taking a look at the CSS code included on the page I see things related to
"terminal-output" and "editor". This corresponds with what the poster says the
page does. There seem to be "question_options" also; likely some sort of quiz.
Also see reference to a countdown timer of some sort.

Note also that the application bounces you to /_ah/logout on deny. That is an
admin URL within Google App Engine applications. I figure everything on
"withgoogle.com" is hosted by GAE?

I checked waybackmachine for mirrors of older versions of the site, perhaps
when it had more clues. Nothing. I did direct it to archive
foobar.withgoogle.com though, since they did not yet have it cached.

------
lazzlazzlazz
Funny. Two years ago I had an on-site interview with Google. My recruiter
understood that I was looking for a "data science" type position, and although
I have Java and C experience, I preferred Python. He told me to expect
interviewing in Python.

When I arrived, not a single one of the 5 technical interviewers I dealt with
used Python and seemed to think I was crazy to be interviewing with Python.
Needless to say, I did not receive an offer.

~~~
toblender
Same story for me, went for a front-end developer position, but didn't get any
front-end developer questions.

------
nanoscopic
I think google should make a system where you can play these puzzles by simply
asking to and then agreeing not to share your solutions with anyone.

That way, any hacker news people who would like to do so can.

Sure people could enable google search history and google random python stuff,
but any privacy minded hackers will have that disabled permanently ( as I do
). I'd like to note that I actually googled python lambda's myself recently,
attempting to ascertain whether "lambda:0" is really the shortest way to make
an empty object in python...

The fact that google themselves hasn't commented on this hacker news thread
itself is somewhat disappointing to me.

~~~
sltkr
> attempting to ascertain whether "lambda:0" is really the shortest way to
> make an empty object in python...

In what sense does "lambda:0" create an empty object? And how is it better
than "object()"?

~~~
nanoscopic
Specifically I was in need of making an "object" that could have attributes
set on it. You can either use lambda:anything_syntax_ok or an empty class. The
empty class is much bigger. Lambda is an ugly hack but it works...

------
DanielBMarkham
For those who are confused, the local papers say Google is looking to hire 30K
people?

I believe this app/page is part of that push. Bunch of problems to complete.

~~~
izolate
Surely not all programmers? Because if so, I may just be able to slip through
the cracks!

~~~
rational-future
How is this going to help you? Would you be happy with a job you're not good
enough to do properly?

~~~
izolate
My comment was in jest. I have no desire to join Google, or any other large
tech company.

------
toblender
I got a little further.

If you append /login to the url, you get another script:

Points to:

[https://foobar.withgoogle.com/_ah/logout?continue=https://ww...](https://foobar.withgoogle.com/_ah/logout?continue=https://www.google.com/accounts/Logout%3Fcontinue%3Dhttps://appengine.google.com/_ah/logout%253Fcontinue%253Dhttps://foobar.withgoogle.com/denied/%26service%3Dah)

I've tried some ways to login to appengine etc but didn't work.

[https://appengine.google.com/_ah/logout?continue=https://foo...](https://appengine.google.com/_ah/logout?continue=https://foobar.withgoogle.com/denied/%26service%3Dah)

I've managed to get it to log me out of my google account. Not sure what's up.

~~~
Donzo
I got one like this.

[https://appengine.google.com/_ah/conflogin?continue=https://...](https://appengine.google.com/_ah/conflogin?continue=https://foobar.withgoogle.com/login/)

Throws a 500 error.

~~~
hiou
Same thing. Got 500 error by messing with that url. Seems like the idea is to
chain that together in a way to login before you login.

------
codecondo
I'm guessing in order to successfully log-in, you've to trigger yourself as
someone who's eligible? Otherwise, it looks like everyone else is wondering
how to make it work.

~~~
NamTaf
That sounds right, which implies that you have to be logged in to a google
account and searching interesting terms to them. They'll redirect you to that
and you can carry on.

~~~
rudolf0
I Google Python-related things all the time from work, including yesterday and
today, but I prefer not to login to any of my Google accounts when doing so.
I've not yet received any kind of popup or redirection to foobar.

~~~
Ironchefpython
> I Google Python-related things all the time from work, including yesterday
> and today, but I prefer not to login to any of my Google accounts when doing
> so.

Same thing here... I'm guessing that Google figures anyone cynical enough not
to trust Google implicitly is a less desirable potential hire.

~~~
ionwake
hmmm well I have a Python app running on GAE and I dont think I have been
allowed access. With all the languages I work in they must be seeking
something very specific.

------
derblub
[https://foobar.withgoogle.com/staticfiles/img/sprite@2x.4d81...](https://foobar.withgoogle.com/staticfiles/img/sprite@2x.4d81b058.png)

~~~
jason46
Is it interesting this is in class "decoded"?

~~~
derblub
it's not uninteresting

------
rmsaksida
I have search history disabled in my Google account settings. I guess that
probably disables the login for me as well. I search for Python related stuff
dozens of times a day.

------
yojo
Based on comments above, I: 1) Turned on google search history 2) searched for
'python lambda syntax' and 'mutex lock' 3) got the invite that opened the
foo.bar UI

You get a terminal, from the terminal you request coding challenges. They have
a minimal IDE to code in. Choice of language is Java or python. Only tried one
challenge. YMMV

------
drewthomas
I got the invite a couple days ago but didn't "play" because I don't have the
time or inclination, but I have to say the transition revealing the invite was
pretty cool. Although I'm an app developer, based on my search history, I
would say getting the invite is not based on how much or how often you search
coding-related terms or your history of searching, but how nerdy your terms
are, which alone is enough to overcome the barrier of entry (like the people
here who triggered the invite searching for "python lambda" and "mutex lock").
So, _after_ you get the invite and accept it, then you can log in on Foobar.
The reason the HN link is so confusing is because the it goes to the Foobar
login page, which assumes you already got the invite.

------
jpgvm
I am not sure that it's the normal kind of web puzzle.

The logins are being handled by an endpoint on AppEngine called 'ah'. Also
this mysterious url:
[https://appengine.google.com/_ah/](https://appengine.google.com/_ah/)

Though there is definitely some semblance of it being a game, the iframe
contains a reference to CSS file called rhgame.css.

There doesn't seem to be any avenue to log yourself in, by the looks of it
they first send people to a registration URL of some description (probably a
redirect from a specific set of search terms or something similar).

I am not really one for doing the kinds of puzzles where you just shoot in the
dark for a while.. if there were actually clues/riddles hidden in the
HTML/JS/CSS or similar then I would have alot more fun with it.

~~~
kylebrown
The puzzle is not figuring out how to log in. You get an invite, then you get
the challenges:
[http://i.imgur.com/xtCdf94.png](http://i.imgur.com/xtCdf94.png)

They are story problems. The first one is cycle detection for a singly-linked
list. After solving that, you can request another (time remaining is reset).
In the math category, its a subset sum problem:
[http://pastebin.com/SEZXhKHY](http://pastebin.com/SEZXhKHY)

------
pranavpr
It seems if you have searched something which Google has interest in, you
would be allowed to login. Below code on page points towards this:

    
    
      var g=document.getElementById("g");g.src="https://foobar.withgoogle.com/"+window.location.search

~~~
dangrossman
window.location.search returns the query string part of the current URL.

All that bit of code is doing is ensuring the frame on the page gets passed
the query string the outer page had.

E.g.
[https://www.google.com/foobar/?hello](https://www.google.com/foobar/?hello)
->
[https://foobar.withgoogle.com/?hello](https://foobar.withgoogle.com/?hello)

------
dchichkov
Seems to be broken "message: '<span class="term-red">Error(6): Login
unavailable. Try again later.</span>',"

Stay away. They would just waste your time.

------
tshadwell
It mystifies me especially that the logout URL for the login call is chained a
number of times.

logoutUrl:
'[https://foobar.withgoogle.com/_ah/logout?continue=https://ww...](https://foobar.withgoogle.com/_ah/logout?continue=https://www.google.com/accounts/Logout%3Fcontinue%3Dhttps://appengine.google.com/_ah/logout%253Fcontinue%253Dhttps://foobar.withgoogle.com/denied/%26service%3Dah')

~~~
1945795
It's just logging out for every domain/service, use RequestPolicy and you'll
see the redirects for normal logouts.

------
basicallydan
If you've successfully logged in somehow, please share.

~~~
kylebrown
I got an invitation a couple days ago when I searched "mutex lock". Not sure
whether search history makes a difference, but it worked for the gf too a
couple minutes later:
[http://i.imgur.com/l4rGps5.png](http://i.imgur.com/l4rGps5.png)

------
wanda
Reminds me of HackThisSite & notpron. I have many happy memories of my peers
sweating at the thought of not solving those puzzles. +1 to Google HR
department, they know what they're doing.

It'd be amusing if it was a social experiment to see how many devs/wannabe
devs frantically searched for Python topics after this foobar site was
discovered. Like a contrast MRI to illuminate the people who wanted a job at
Google.

~~~
alvarosm
yeah, no doubt...
[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/06/20/google_hiring_proced...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/06/20/google_hiring_procedures/)

~~~
wanda
I didn't mean they'd hire good people, I just meant they know how to reach
people.

------
casebash
Is there any reason to complete these puzzles if your resume/contacts are
strong enough to get you an interview anyway? Apart from fun, that is?

------
winterbe
Seems to be some kind of text adventure game?

[https://foobar.withgoogle.com/staticfiles/css/rhgame.e6cf5ce...](https://foobar.withgoogle.com/staticfiles/css/rhgame.e6cf5ce7.css)

.console {}

.prompt {}

.terminal {}

.cmd .cursor.blink { -webkit-animation: blink 1s infinite steps(1,start);
animation: blink 1s infinite steps(1,start) }

But it seems I've already failed before even clicking on the Login link:

<div class="error">...</div>

~~~
jellekralt
It looks like those css classes match this plugin:
[http://terminal.jcubic.pl/](http://terminal.jcubic.pl/)

------
tiefenb
"To login, you have to have logged in before"

~~~
hodgesmr
Have you not heard the stories? Captain Barbossa and his crew of miscreants
sail from the dreaded Isla de Muerta. It's an island that cannot be found
except by those who already know where it is.
[http://pirates.wikia.com/wiki/Isla_de_Muerta](http://pirates.wikia.com/wiki/Isla_de_Muerta)

~~~
swombat
Except that's easily solved, by going there with someone who's been there
before...

~~~
d_k_f
How did your guide get there the first time?

~~~
woof
He was born there?

~~~
TeMPOraL
How did his parents get to the island? Were they born there as well? If so,
how did the first settler found it? Or is this island the origin of life on
Earth?

~~~
chipgap98
It doesn't say the the island was always findable only by those who already
know where it is. This could have changed at some point.

~~~
rational-future
True. Also most islands are younger then life on Earth, so the island could
just appear under the first guide.

------
impassebreaker
With a little help from, umm, Dr. Google, seems that a song called "Been Here
Before" by Jeremy Engik was included as an MP3 in winamp. Random coincidence?
Evil plot? Artful noodling? You decide. Here's the song:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQQydvAjVYI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQQydvAjVYI).

------
tkrupicka
I got in to foobar a few days ago off of a search where the invitation window
came up. It's a terminal interface were you can solve some challenges in
python or java. I solved the first one right away, but then didn't have time
to keep going until today. I can still log in, but it says my invitation has
expired and I need to continue searching.

------
clviper
In the name of the file /staticfiles/css/rhgame.e6cf5ce7.css, that RH is
probably HR (Human Resources Game).

~~~
felipebueno
hmm nice catch :) It would make sense in portuguese as RH stand for Recursos
Humanos (literaly Human Resouces).

------
Igglyboo
Could this have to do with Googles ARG Endgame[1]? It seems just cryptic
enough to fit the bill.

[1] [http://www.theverge.com/2014/10/7/6927605/welcome-to-
endgame...](http://www.theverge.com/2014/10/7/6927605/welcome-to-endgame-
google-worldwide-augmented-reality-game)

~~~
mholmes680
I'll go with this theory as well. Anyone have google glass and an augmented
reality app from google? That login logo seems like an AR trigger waiting for
someone to look at it the right way.

also found the rhgame reference in css...

~~~
MrBuddyCasino
Yeah, that image looks like it was designed for easy recognition. Picture
search via Google Goggles doesn't return any results, though.

------
UUMMUU
I would imagine, if this came out today, it's something related to the
military. foo.bar == FUBAR? Maybe?

~~~
pilsetnieks
foo, bar, and baz are commonly used placeholders for function and variable
names in programming examples.

~~~
wuliwong
At least according to Wikipedia, this connection of foo bar and FUBAR is
plausible but not proven. You forgot the 4th basic one, "qux" btw.

------
ilovefood
I believe they track our search results and they check if some keywords are
there.. I just made a crawler (again) to get some Python related sentences
from the web and automatically append them to the search query with the
ei=XKZAJDKLJ code... Let's see if that makes sense....

------
troy1987
This seems really dumb!

[https://foobar.withgoogle.com/staticfiles/js/landing.5252068...](https://foobar.withgoogle.com/staticfiles/js/landing.5252068f.js)
: !function(){ "use strict"; function a(){ var
a=document.getElementById("login");
a.addEventListener("click",function(a){a.preventDefault(),window.launchPopup()},!1)}
window.handleAuth=function(a){ a.logoutUrl ?
window.location.href=a.redirectUrl : window.location.reload() },
window.launchPopup=function(){
window.open("/login/","AppLogin","resizable,scrollbars,status,width=600,height=400")
}, a() } ();

This script handles the login. a object looks something like this : Object {
message: "<span class="term-red">Error(6): Login unavailable. Try again
later.</span>", logoutUrl:
"[https://foobar.withgoogle.com/_ah/logout?continue=…ps://foob...](https://foobar.withgoogle.com/_ah/logout?continue=…ps://foobar.withgoogle.com/denied/%26service%3Dah"),
redirectUrl: "/denied/", allow: false}allow: falselogoutUrl:
"[https://foobar.withgoogle.com/_ah/logout?continue=https://ww...](https://foobar.withgoogle.com/_ah/logout?continue=https://www.google.com/accounts/Logout%3Fcontinue%3Dhttps://appengine.google.com/_ah/logout%253Fcontinue%253Dhttps://foobar.withgoogle.com/denied/%26service%3Dah"message):
"<span class="term-red">Error(6): Login unavailable. Try again later.</span>"
redirectUrl: "/denied/" }

handleAuth() function will either take you
to[https://foobar.withgoogle.com/denied/](https://foobar.withgoogle.com/denied/)
or just reload the page.

Google is just getting a tonne of analytics data.

~~~
bastawhiz
You're assuming that's the only thing it will ever do. Just because you saw
that particular code doesn't mean that's the same code served for every
possible user.

------
teja1990
Have any of you, who had disabled their search history and still got an invite
?

------
msth
What does this Code means :

<p class="profile-name"></p> <form novalidate method="post"
action="[https://accounts.google.com/ServiceLoginAuth"](https://accounts.google.com/ServiceLoginAuth")
id="gaia_loginform"> <input name="GALX" type="hidden" value="5tczTdlnWNs">
<input name="continue" type="hidden"
value="[https://appengine.google.com/_ah/conflogin?continue=https://...](https://appengine.google.com/_ah/conflogin?continue=https://foobar.withgoogle.com/login/">)
<input name="service" type="hidden" value="ah">

------
jweir
Examining the CSS class names there are:

'questions'

'terminal', 'console'

'editor', 'ace_editor'

'count_down_timer', 'prompter' and 'resizer'

and the media rules for mobile, laptops, desktops

~~~
slang800
`ace_editor` is almost certainly referring to
[http://ace.c9.io/](http://ace.c9.io/) ... but the JS component isn't loaded
on the page.

------
fractalb
I searched for "foobar login" in the search box and the first result was login
to Hackerrank.com for Foobar contest. But it says the contest has ended.

------
bl4ckm0r3
It's interesting to see how people are just focused on solving the puzzle and
see what's "behind" more than actually work for google :)

------
barbudorojo
In one of the js files there is window.opener.handleAuth(..), perhaps changin
allow from false to true can result. This seem to be a js related essue.

~~~
dontreact
When you click the login button, the following function is called:
launchPopup=function(){
window.open("/login/","AppLogin","resizable,scrollbars,status,width=600,height=400")}

Which opens
[https://foobar.withgoogle.com/login](https://foobar.withgoogle.com/login)

There, an object a:

a = {

    
    
    				message: '<span class="term-red">Error(6): Login unavailable. Try again later.</span>',
    				logoutUrl: 'https://foobar.withgoogle.com/_ah/logout?continue=https://www.google.com/accounts/Logout%3Fcontinue%3Dhttps://appengine.google.com/_ah/logout%253Fcontinue%253Dhttps://foobar.withgoogle.com/denied/%26service%3Dah',
    				redirectUrl: '/denied/',
    				
    				allow: false
    			}
    

Is passed to the original window's handleAuth function:

window.handleAuth=function(a){
a.logoutUrl?window.location.href=a.redirectUrl:window.location.reload()}

It seems that the allow property of the object passed is never checked :(

~~~
dontreact
Put more simply, you can redefine the handleAuth function to automatically set
the allow property to true

window.handleAuth=function(a){ a.allow = true;
a.logoutUrl?window.location.href=a.redirectUrl:window.location.reload()}

and then click the button.

But it won't help for the reasons explained above.

------
shernshiou
anyone not curious on why is the logo a pink square?

~~~
medecau
are you sure it's not salmon?

anyway, it doesn't look relevant to me.

~~~
wuliwong
What do you mean by relevant?

------
dhimes
Uncaught SecurityError: Failed to read the 'localStorage' property from
'Window': Access is denied for this document.

~~~
deathanatos
Heh, I see that all the time! Oddly, this time not so much, but I permit
cookies from *.google.com (perhaps you don't). But the "withgoogle.com" domain
causes a redirect loop in the login popup…

------
longlivegnu
unfortunately I do all my searching through DDG :(

~~~
eridal
You meant.. luckily!!

------
kbart
A strange strategy to hire only developers that aren't privacy and security
conscious? Way to go, google.

------
brserc
I haven't been able to solve the puzzle - if there's any, however there is
some interesting pattern in filenames.

/staticfiles/svg/error.33ab1eb5.svg -> 33ab1eb5 hexadecimal is 866852533,
which seems to be a prime number.

I believe the probability is very low if unintended. Also other file names,
can be factored more or less to 1 big prime number and few small primes.

~~~
robryk
These hex strings are beginnings of md5 checksums of these files:

    
    
       sh-4.3$ md5sum error.33ab1eb5.svg 
       33ab1eb5129ee5085793166d2f691dae  error.33ab1eb5.svg
    

I believe the point of appending them to the name is a kind of versioning:
one'd want to be able to change these files and cause everyone to drop their
cached version. This way when one changes a file, the filename changes too
(most likely), so the cached old version will not be used.

~~~
slig
You're correct.

It looks like they're using Django. You can configure it to add the md5 of
static files to each name. [1]

[1]
[https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.7/ref/contrib/staticfile...](https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.7/ref/contrib/staticfiles/#django.contrib.staticfiles.storage.ManifestStaticFilesStorage)

------
josu
Interestingly [https://www.google.com/foobar/](https://www.google.com/foobar/)
and [https://foobar.withgoogle.com/](https://foobar.withgoogle.com/) seem to
be the same page, but they have different source codes.

~~~
abdullahdiaa
Actually [https://www.google.com/foobar](https://www.google.com/foobar) wraps
[https://foobar.withgoogle.com](https://foobar.withgoogle.com) in an iframe
with [absolute/top:0/left:0] positioning.

~~~
jengamaster
Also [https://www.google.com/foobar](https://www.google.com/foobar) uses JS to
set the src of the iframe holding
[https://foobar.withgoogle.com](https://foobar.withgoogle.com) and appends
window.location.search to it.

------
shaaaaawn
withgoogle.com subdomain list www.fvm.withgoogle.com
interstellar.withgoogle.com edudirectory.withgoogle.com
atmosphere.withgoogle.com accelerate.withgoogle.com insgruene.withgoogle.com
atmospheretokyo.withgoogle.com connectedclassrooms.withgoogle.com
think.withgoogle.com smartypins.withgoogle.com streetart.withgoogle.com
cardboard.withgoogle.com nikhelp.withgoogle.com docchinogame.withgoogle.com
kickwithchrome.withgoogle.com yourtour.withgoogle.com
candidatos.withgoogle.com trendstw.withgoogle.com spellup.withgoogle.com
impactchallenge.withgoogle.com

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plumeria
I wonder if it works only for people in the US...

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adzeds
Anyone have any idea what this is all about yet?

~~~
hallman76
a ploy to get developers to disable their ad-blockers in hopes of getting a
foobar invite? :)

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infojam
google image search the logo....gives some strange results. I doubt its
related.

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ssw1n
Given that it's Veteran day, and the term "foobar" is thought to be borrowed
from military term "FUBAR," I am guessing that it is Google's attempt to
recruit Tech-savvy Veterans.

~~~
marche101
Foobar is a fairly common term in programming as well.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foobar#Usage_in_code](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foobar#Usage_in_code)

~~~
wuliwong
In the article you linked to, there is even a short discussion of the possible
connection between "foo bar" and FUBAR. If your comment was meant as a
rebuttal, it failed.

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mangeletti
I'm not trolling when I say this, nor am I some sort of hater...

But, isn't Google the same company that we're always reading about, the one
shaping up to be one of the most evil entities humanity has ever seen? After
all, they pretend to protect net neutrality until it's their turn to play
ball. They pretend to be pro-freedom, anti-big-brother (maybe you should read
a bit about what Julian Assange has to say about Larry Page and Google in
general, in case you missed all that), and anything else that will help them
gain traction in the minds of the public, especially the techy youth.

They always just want to help, don't they. They're so thoughtful... Now,
Google wants to put tiny electronics in our blood... what's next?

My point is, why would anyone want to support such a company? I suppose
humanity had supported many bad things. Maybe my convictions don't match up
well with the rest of the US anymore.

~~~
skj
> the one shaping up to be one of the most evil entities humanity has ever
> seen?

quite an assertion.

