No, I think this is a great way to discern reasonable from unreasonable people. Unreasonable people would miss the question entirely and bring up these issues.

No, I think this is a great way to discern reasonable from unreasonable people. Unreasonable people would miss the question entirely and bring up these issues. Reasonable people would quickly disregard such jibber jabber, see what the question is asking, and get on to solving the problem. The alternative is to specify the problem in purely dense mathematical terms. However, I think this way is much better because to understand what the question is really asking without getting into this "eggs break easily" stuff is actually common sense. If someone can't use common sense to figure out what the question is asking without coming up with second grade smart aleck reasons why the problem doesn't work then I think the interviewer would have the answer they would looking for out of the exercise anyway. :)