带着郑轶嘉去旅行 (II)

去年这个时候写过一篇《带着郑轶嘉去旅行》,说到郑轶嘉从四个月大到一岁半去过的地方:四个月大的时候去了夏威夷,六个月大的时候去了San Diego,八个月的时候去了Banff国家公园,快一岁的时候回了一次上海,一岁出头一点去了Las Vegas,去年五月份他一岁半的时候去了大峡谷。

一晃一年过去了,郑轶嘉两岁半了。这一年小胖子又去了不少好地方:

1. 去年七月份去了纽约。

2. 去年九月份去了佛罗里达,还坐了游轮。

3. 感恩节去了意大利。这张照片是在San Gimignano拍的,就是最近《花儿与少年》去过的那个San Gimignano。

4. 今年一月份去了Whistler滑雪,就是2010年开冬奥会的地方。雪道超赞的,但小胖子还太小,只能在下面耍耍:

5. 五月份,也就是上个月,去了Tahiti。

# to be continued #

跑步和编程

以前有阵子我有玩足球经理类的游戏,游戏里面我就是一个俱乐部的主教练和总经理,有一笔钱,转会费,可以到市场上去买球员。游戏一开始钱很少,只买的起便宜的球员。便宜没好货,买的起的都有这样那样的缺点:前锋Finish数值挺高的,但Acceleration不行,中场Passing不错的,Stamina不行。但几个赛季过后钱就多起来了,越到后面钱越多,那时候买球员就眼光高了:搜索所有的前锋,先把按照速度和射门过滤一遍,只保留速度和射门都高于80的,然后再按照Flair、Passing、Heading、Team Work等慢慢选。这样挑剩下来的都身价不菲,但咱不在乎。咱有钱,都买的起。大不了买来用用,不好用就贱卖了,不为收回投资,只为尽快腾出位子买新的。

现在有些搞软件、互联网的公司的套路和我当年玩足球经理有钱了以后的做法挺像的。他们但凡面试人,就是做编程题,而且还是有点难有点复杂的编程题。但凡是编程题做的不好的一律不要,只在做得好的里面再挑选。道理大部分人都明白:做产品并不只是写程序,写编程题写得好,真的工作起来未必能做好。面试程序员主要靠四五个小时的编程题来决定,就有点像足球俱乐部只根据射门准不准和跑步跑得快不快来决定买不买人。但谁让那些公司有钱又有名呢,像皇马曼联一样,大家都想去,就可以把跑得不怎么快的直接涮掉,剩下还有足够多的可以选。

十几年前Microsoft就是这么一家公司,后来Microsoft失宠了,轮到Google和Facebook来这么玩了。Microsoft当红的时候是不把其他公司的职衔放在眼里的,比如来个惠普或者摩托罗拉的,管你是Lead还是Manager,来了一律只给Engineer的职位。太阳底下无新事,现在这么干的是Google。前两个月跟一个Google的人吃饭,他说着说着说到从外面去他们那儿的,职位都是要降一级的(从M2变成M1,从M1变成IC)。当时我一阵恍惚,分不清他在说的是今天的Google,还是我刚毕业那阵子的微软。

Why Startups Use Misspelled Names

When I read the news these days, I see lots of startups using misspelled words as their names, though when you read them, they pronounce like legit words. A few of them have grown pretty big, such as: Flickr (flicker), Tumblr (tumbler) and Reddit (read it).

There are more out there:

  1. Flayvr (a photo organization site)

  2. Drync (an app for wine lover)

  3. Loudr (a music seller)

  4. TheKitchn (a recipe site)

  5. Sprinklr (they say they do social experience management)

  6. Cloaq (an anonymous app)

  7. Evrythng (they do Web of Things)

  8. Rdio (a music site)

  9. Kabbage (an online loan site)

  10. Automattic (a web development company)

The list goes on and on.

Why they are using misspelled words as company names? In one of his posts, Jeff Knupp said: "Start-ups don't make developers wear multiple hats by choice, they do so out of necessity". Similarly, I believe startups chose the misspelled words as their names out of two necessities.

First, domain names are very expensive. It was said that XiaoMi paid tens of millions of dollars for the new domain name mi.com (was xiaomi.com). I also heard that JD.com paid a lot for the new domain name, to replace 360buy.com. I haven't seen any rumor about box.com, but I believe the price tag must be at least multi million. To get more idea about the hefty price tag on domain names, go to godaddy.com and check it out.

Second, I guess those misspelled names are good SEO (search engine optimization). For example, see what you can get by searching for "louder" in Bing. But if you search for "loudr", loudr.fm pops up as the first result.