You are shrunk to the height of a nickel and your mass is proportionally reduced so as to maintain your original density. You are then thrown into an empty glass blender. The blades will start moving in 60 seconds. What do you do?

Given that you are a size of a nickel, you won't be able to make much noise and you surely won't be able to escape on your own. If you are stuck inside a blender in the Google office, chances are you probably won't be able to jam the blades before they start turning as it is a very nice Black & Decker model blender.

That really narrows down your options. If you had a grappling hook, you could easily escape. But who carries grappling hooks around waiting to be shrunk and stuck inside a blender? No one.

Lets take a look at the facts:

Blenders do not operate on their own. Maybe the fanciest ones have timers, but that doesn't make much sense to have a blender auto-start. It isn't like coffee. So someone has to be pushing that button to start the blender in 60 seconds. Your best bet is to jump around frantically waving your arms to get their attention before they dump their blender food in on you. Since the blades are probably shiny, and just maybe, the sun is shining in on the room, you may have a chance to run around the blades and the reflection may catch their eye. (shiny to covered and back to shiny). At this point , you engage the individual in a discussion in which you may need to plead for your life if they are a generally apathetic or cynical person. Otherwise you are good to go as far as getting out of the blender. But the problem doesn't stop there. You are the size of a nickel. You must now go home and watch Honey, I Shrunk the Kids! and watch it till the end (Yeah, I know...) to see how the kids get returned to normal size. Follow the same steps in the movie and you will be back to normal. And then you can enact revenge on whoever attempted your murder by miniaturization and death by blender.

This is how I would answer this question.

Joseph

Posted in: Interviews, Programming