It is not a trick so much as thinking what kinds of operations can be done with these vessels and water. Not necessarily a good interview question, but may be a good discussion with a young student.
I just want to wish you good luck on your journey to software engineering. It is an incredibly satisfying and rewarding experience, and I know that many people who have chosen this path as a career change are happy and successful!
You are right, but I would add another item. She forcefully inserted herself in the conversation you had with your friend, and did it in a way that changed the conversation to the worse, with the tone becoming adversarial, and the direction of the thought rather different from what the original participants of the conversation intended. When it happens to a friendly group of people (as was the case here) it is okay, the confusion can be resolved peacefully and the conversation can move whichever way the three of you choose, being friends and all. But sometimes it happens in a larger scale, and then the conversation can be destroyed. I really wish people had been more conducive to maintaining a dialogue, we need to maintain a decent level of discourse in the society (and, more particularly, in our industry).
Your line of comments is really our of line here, not related to the substance of discussion but only pushing a political agenda. Please try to stay close to the topic.
To add a little background, the "White Sun of the Desert" belongs to the genre which is sometimes called the "eastern", in the footsteps of the American "western". It describes what was known in the Soviet historiography as "the establishment of the Soviet power in Central Asia".
I keep using Waze over Map but I have noticed what looks to me like a one sided data flow from Waze to Map: traffic information, road closures etc. Too bad that it extends well beyond end user experience.
I am not sure about the down votes (no reason for them in my opinion) but the casual jab at capitalism looks gratuitous and does not help making the argument seem stronger.
Possible but costly. The US lacks a single information system regarding criminal history. There are private investigators, other private companies in the business of "record retrieval", but the results are not 100% accurate.