Whether this is a good interview question I don't know, but:
> When the hell would you ever need to know that?
I find this such a strange perspective. You're writing code for a computer. Sometimes you need to estimate how quickly it should run, or else estimate how quickly it could run with optimal code. Surely it's obvious that knowing how fast your computer does stuff, at least within 3 orders of magnitude, is a necessary ingredient to make that estimate.
And yet in your mind that fundamental fact is "useless trivia." Very odd.
> When the hell would you ever need to know that?
I find this such a strange perspective. You're writing code for a computer. Sometimes you need to estimate how quickly it should run, or else estimate how quickly it could run with optimal code. Surely it's obvious that knowing how fast your computer does stuff, at least within 3 orders of magnitude, is a necessary ingredient to make that estimate.
And yet in your mind that fundamental fact is "useless trivia." Very odd.