[tonylemesmer]

Some of the more flippant sounding ones could be useless but I thought the idea of the simpler ones (how many golf balls etc.) is to get a feeling for how people's minds work and whether they can make sensible best guesses in the abscence of concrete facts and make judgements based on those guesses. Weed out the ones who have no appreciation for how the volume of a golf ball relates to the size of a bus.

Good logical thinking shown here could indicate an ability to rapidly prototype systems without getting hung up on too fine detail.

[bengillies]

On the other hand, demonstrating evidence for being able to rapidly prototype systems without getting hung up on too fine detail also indicates an ability to rapidly prototype systems without getting hung up on too fine detail. And it does it much more directly (i.e. there is an obvious link rather than a tenuous at best one) and with much less stress, awkwardness and mind games.

[tonylemesmer]

fair point :) I guess I work in an industry (design engineering) where my interviews have only ever consisted of a "nice chat"