The “Here's a Random Question” series

At a high level, the specification or requirements for a project can often be distilled into a single question of the form “How do I get X, without Y, ignoring Z”. In the real world, ignoring Z always comes back to bite your butt, and “without” is usually more of a suggested “minimize”, but considering the necessities imposed by such a question can be the mother of interesting often inventive solutions.

This series is about some of those solutions, or rather the interesting subjects that come up while answering questions like these. It completely ignores the circumstances that lead to them which can make them appear quite random or contrived; hence the name.

And to be honest, that's exactly how many of these questions appeared when voiced by someone standing in the doorway to my office! However I almost always found them fun and interesting to try to solve, and even write up. I hope you do too.