Google strives to hire "the world's best engineers,"and has crafted an "interminable" interview process dotted with puzzles and brainteasers to do so. One little problem: the process tends to give the worst scores to the best future employees.

• Time Inc. is expected to announce plans to slash $100 million in costs next week; naturally, lots of layoffs will be involved in making that happen. [NYT]
• The Wall Street Journal is closing its Boston bureau. Also in Beantown: The Boston Globe's publisher has announced he's stepping down. [BW, NYT]
• The war between the White House and Fox News is over. For now. [DF]
• Esquire's latest bid for relevance: Its December issue will be tricked out with "an emerging technology called augmented reality." Sounds hot. [WSJ]
• Lou Dobbs says someone fired a shot at his New Jersey home/horse farm. He's yet to blame the population of Mexico. But just give it time. [CNN]

How many valet parking attendants did it take to handle the (second) wedding party for Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner at the Puck Building last night? Quite a few, clearly. What, no one has chauffeurs anymore? [Curbed]

Part of Deadline Hollywood blogger Nikki Finke's pose as the only real journalist in Hollywood is her claim that everyone else just conveys spin, while she offers the truth. But her "truth" has a habit of changing.

What's Al Sharpton dressing up as for Halloween? A spokesperson for the good reverend declined to comment. [Previously]

That would be Mike Arrington, who plays startup kingmaker at TechCrunch. His recent no-shows: Arrington's Crunchies awards, Arrington's TechCrunch 50 prize ceremony and now a panel discussion that Arrington thought would turn against him.

The world owes a great debt to these documents.

David Spade had his sniveling say about the DirecTV commercial he did with Chris Farley's ghost. Now, one of the guys who wrote the commercial writes a fair, reasonable blog post about his intentions. Okay. But he ends with this:

The Way We Live Now: In secret shame. We walk around in public acting like the recession is finally over. But look in your dirty closet, America! Our fanciest corporations are undercover paupers. Our homeless are disappearing. Into the void!

Congrats! The website Total Beauty has concluded that New York is America's "vainest" city. The proof? Residents here spend more on hair coloring, skin care, makeup and hair growth products than those in every other city in America. But we save on food, so it all works out! [Total Beauty via NYM]

Hedge fund mogul Raj Rajaratnam managed to post $100 million in bail, but his lawyer asked a judge today to reduce it to $25 million as well as given Rajaratnam permission to "travel freely in the contiguous 48 states." How else is he going to enjoy his country house in Connecticut and condo in Florida while he's still a free man? [NYT, WSJ]

Page Six today has a not-very-thinly-veiled item about Anderson Cooper going on a very gay vacation with his very gay boyfriend who owns a very gay bar. Enough: Anderson Cooper is very gay. It's time he said it.

In your thinly-spread Thursday media column: A vicious backbiting war amongst Birmingham's press corps, David Remnick still has money to spend, Germany looks to screw bloggers, and Bernie Kerik: Journalistic Hero.

The Huffington Post has brought back its old trick of posting embarrassingly high-resolution photos of celebrities, Portfolio.com notes, to much controversy. HuffPo defends its pics as "playful spin on our... fascination with celebrity images." OK, let's "play." With your founder.

If Goldman Sachs wants to redeem its reputation, it would have to donate "at least $1 billion" to charity, says billionaire Pete Peterson. "'Only a donation that size would 'have much resonance in the public,' Peterson, the 83-year-old co-founder of Blackstone Group LP, the world's largest private-equity company, said in an interview in New York yesterday." Fair enough. But we're thinking Peterson might need to rename a concert hall or build a new hospital if he expects us to not immediately think of his fame-obsessed grandson every time we hear the name "Peterson." [Bloomberg]

Hillary Clinton won't be dressing up for Halloween. (But don't let that stop you from dressing up as Hillary, if you'd like.) When we called Secretary Clinton's press office in Washington, DC, and explained our request, the incredulous woman at the other end of the line said she'd have to get back to us. We later got a call from a press representative from the State Department. "Unfortunately, she's not going to be here to celebrate Halloween," he said. "She's traveling overseas in Asia and won't be back until the first week of November." So will she be dressing up overseas? "Um, I couldn't say," he replied. (MF)

Good afternoon, my lovelies!!! It's Joshie. Last night—OMG it was adorbs!—I curled up and watched Top Chef on the television. What did you do, my dolls?

As we draw deeper into the Circus Maximus era, the search for material goes to ever more interesting places; namely this week, rehearsal documentaries, male strip clubs and ghost videos. But we'll always have Housewives.

Ireland, the 14 year-old daughter of Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger, got this Lil Wayne birthday cake. What a thing. [Pic: Rosebud Cakes]

Did someone really think it would be a good idea to have Katie Couric dress up in various ball gowns for the socialite rag Avenue? Apparently so!