[jaredsohn]

This book was about puzzle interview questions from Microsoft in the early 2000s: https://www.amazon.com/How-Would-Move-Mount-Fuji/dp/03167784...

Also, a famous question around that time was 'why are manhole covers round?'. (Thought there was a book from that era with that name but not seeing it; only found a newer book.)

Remember doing interview prep at the time by trying to memorize the answers to a bunch of these puzzles. Leetcode is useful in comparison to that. I had an interview once where the interviewer could tell I knew these and he was asking me to tell him about others I knew about.

[jghn]

"Remember doing interview prep at the time by trying to memorize the answers to a bunch of these puzzles. "

I remember bumping into a friend on the subway, he was coming back from an interview. We were trying to work out some cockamamie puzzle involving barnyard animals crossing the river. He felt he got it right, but one of the interviewers grilled him.

When I got home I googled the problem and found out there was a generally accepted answer that was wrong. And that's what the interviewer was pushing. My friend had arrived at the correct answer.

And he didn't get the job.

[ngc248]

Ah the crossing the river puzzle, got that during my campus interviews.

[riffraff]

The manhole cover thing was always confusing for me, as where I'm from manholes are all square.

[jaredsohn]

Wonder if people where you're from run into problems where the manhole covers tip onto their diagonal and fall in (since that's the answer I memorized and I think is known as the predominant reason.)

[Ekaros]

Isn't actual reason that round shapes handle pressure better. So in the end it is about shape of the hole not the cover. As holes in ground are not square.

Then again I think here we have both, square and round. Square ones are more for rain runoff on sides of roads. Where as anything in middle of road are round usually with no grating and some rain water run off locations are also round for access again.

[riffraff]

yeah I also memorized that answer, but my follow up question is: storm drain grates[0] seem to be commonly made in a rectangular form, why doesn't the same issue apply there?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storm_drain