Several months ago, I was browsing through Barnes and Noble (cause really, who buys things from there?), and I noticed "Are you Smart Enough to Work at Google". I'm sure you guys have probably heard of the different brain teasers/interview questions, but it was fun to thumb through and read some of the crazy things that they came up with to stump potential hirees (and be complete douches). I've also quite enjoyed figuring out some common ones, like the gold coins and the scale, or the three lightbulbs and switches questions.
Anyway, I was discussing this with a buddy of mine the other day and we got onto the topic on how Google actually came up with these scenarios/questions. Someone obviously had to think up these brainteasers before they could use them. Have you guys ever done that? I've tried, but usually the problem with coming up with your own brainteasers is finding a good answer to your question.
Example: I was driving the other day listening to my now ancient iPod, and I was flipping through the songs. I don't remember the last time I updated it, and I was trying to think about how many songs I had put on it (it wasn't that many). So that got me thinking, "what would be the best way to find out how many songs are on the iPod?" This then led it into me trying to make it into a brainteaser problems that I could ask during an interview (if the interviewee was a dick/bitch).
Here's the scenario: "Someone walks up to you and hands you an iPod. The person tells you that there are less than 30 songs on the iPod, and if you can tell them exactly where the beginning of a playlist starts on the iPod, they'll give it to you for free. You have no control over the iPod, with the exception of moving the songs backwards and forwards, and the songs have been playing for an undisclosed amount of time. The playlist is shuffled randomly, and every time the playlist is played through, the whole list starts over reshuffled. Without looking at the screen (and simply looking at how many songs there are), what is the quickest way to figure out where the start of a playlist is to claim your free iPod?"
Now, I have a semi-solution to the problem, mainly cause I fiddled with it for a while, but I'm interested to see what other people come up with. If you can come up with an answer, I'll throw you a banana. And feel free to post some that you might have come up with.
NOTE: I edited the question as the previous version was apparently stupidly easy to solve.
Listen to each song for five seconds to figure out what it sounds like. Count the number of songs until you hear the same song twice. Boom.
It's possible to do it this way but needs refining. All the songs are randomly shuffled each time the list is played through. You also don't know where the beginning is, you're just starting at a random place in the list. So, your method doesn't work per se: Say there are five songs, and were shuffled like this 3.4.1.5.2. If you started with "5", you would count 5.2., then songs on the next play list. However, the songs are reshuffled, so "5" could be at the beginning (giving you 2 songs which is incorrect), or at the end (giving you 5 songs which is technically correct), or in between (giving you 3 or 4). Simply counting the number of songs between two songs does not work.
I think I may have messed up the actual question though, since now I think about it the question I asked is way too easy. The question should be not how many songs there are, but where the beginning of the playlist is.
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