

Are you smart enough to work at a start-up? - striker44
http://www.news.com.au/business/companies/are-you-smart-enough-to-work-at-a-startup/story-fnda1bsz-1226732117936

======
jnord
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...](http://www.unitconversion.org/numbers/base-10-to-
base-36-conversion.html) yields number 80113871 as the last 8 digits of the
phone number.

~~~
vjeux
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

~~~
jdoconnor
in ruby '1bp49b'.to_i(36)

~~~
Patrick_Devine
I'd be remiss without mentioning it in python: int('1bp49b', 36)

~~~
damncabbage
In poster form:
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/craftydogma/6657220791/](http://www.flickr.com/photos/craftydogma/6657220791/)

------
kondro
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

------
broodbucket
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 :-/

~~~
shearnie
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.

~~~
broodbucket
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

~~~
shearnie
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.

------
carlosdp
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.

------
gefuns
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...

------
shearnie
That ad needs to be on a round manhole cover

------
chickensoup64
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](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_36)

~~~
msohcw
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).

------
shruubi
Got bored, solved it in 3 seconds, called the number and left my name.

Not really a complex puzzle by any means...

------
ErikAugust
Out of Z types of people in the World, Y don't know anything about Base-36.

------
sharner
Do it by hand and I'm impressed :)

~~~
freyr
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.

