Interesting. I googled "Why is a manhole round?" and found many bitching about it, about Microsoft, etc. not trying to use their brains to find an answer. On the other hand Google gave a link to a PrisonTalk chat room where somebody gave some reasonable answers, although you could imagine some of the other comments ...
you can hear gave's goofy thesis in mp3 format here: http://www.financialsense.com/Experts/2005/Gave.html my favorite part of that interview is when gave claims that the democrats are the party that champions free markets. i'm not making a political judgement here, just introducing the idea that gave is not really a careful scholar and a very pop-art thinker. gave's basic premise is that there is a new world order, and that traditional methods of economic number crunching are irrelevant. he makes some good points but there is a big failure when it comes to the idea that trade deficits no longer matter and that western countries will forever remain the creative thinkers and eastern countries the producers. it's a pretty arrogant idea actually. there's an inherent supposition in his assertion that the chinese and other eastern nations are incapable coming up with their own original intellectual property. that's garbage, and the probability that they will develop their own "platform companies" (basically transnational focal points of capitalistic ingenuity) will likely undermine his thesis and the current world economic order. if your interviwer thinks gave's quacky work is seminal, then you prolly don't want to work for him (he'll go broke) your interviewer sounds like a major dickhead, anyway. so don't sweat it. i would never want to work for someone like that. why don't you take a shit and smear it in the pages and send your interviewer a "special" copy?
I agree with drsteph, who would want to work for someone like that anyway, it was best that you didnt get hired. Good luck in your search.
This is precisely why I work for myself and always will. This interviewer sounds like the biggest asshole ever. Could you imagine having to call that guy 'Sir' 5 days a week. God, I would drink myself into a coma every night.
Don't feel bad.. Microsoft interviews are ridiculous.. years ago I interviewed for a corporate finance internship on the main campus. The questions they asked were just ludicrous. I kept saying this has no relevance to the internship and has nothing to do with finance. I told him he was wasting both our times by not asking me relevant questions, and furthermore making me go through this hoop jumping before I got to ask a question that would make or break it for me. I like a riddle as much as the next guy, but he was a nut. He was even impressed and said the exercises existed to have people think for themselves and outside the box. His favorite was if you were in the room with the queen of england what kind of cake would you serve her. My answer was a magical cake that would tell me whether or not the internship paid more than 20K for the duration. After he answered the interview was magically over. Don't feel bad, get the facts and find out if its even the "opportunity" you want to begin with as soon as possible...
Actually manholes are round because they use less materials to build inclusive of the covers. Same reason sewers are round. The secondary answer would be that the perfect round is the strongest shape, witness submarines, the pressure is equal at any point on the cylinder.
Ahahah dont i feel proud. What Banjo said was exactly what I was thinking. Actually I wouldn't be able to say it as well especially during an interview. I can pretty much picture myself screwing it up and not saying what was really in the back of my mind.