Cause and Effect

I’m listening to two guys in the next cubicle discuss boolean logic in our product. I’m innately interested in this topic, because I wrote the logic engine. The two guys talking are the guy responsible for presenting the choices to the user and generating the appropriate XML, and the guy responsible for taking the XML after it has been transmitted to the remote sites and stuffing the values into the database so that my logic engine can use that information. Two computer scientists, probably with degrees in computer science, discussing something that is at the very core of computer science. And like everybody else in this office except me, they’re getting it wrong, wrong, wrongity wrong. And I’m wondering if I’m going to have to run over there and smack one or both of them until they get it right.
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Bait and Switch

Today I had to make yet another concession to advanced age – I’m getting reading glasses. Actually, the optometrist came up with the same prescription that he came up with last time, but last time he basically said “You can take them or leave them”, and this time he gave a harder sell. Of course, having just spent half an hour playing Toucan on my Palm Tungsten in his waiting room, my eyes were a little stressed, so it wasn’t that hard to sell me.
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