Many have cursed their computer for taking things too literally! It’s easy to blame the computer when something goes wrong.
You get to the checkout at the market, and the item you bought ‘on special’ comes up at the full price. The manager has to be called to fix it up, and what does he say?
“We’ve been having problems with the computer, it gets the wrong price on some things.”
You put in a list of addressess to your Word processor, and print off party invitations for next week. Then you find that today’s date has been inserted in the signature block – by the computer!
Maybe you have heard the expression ‘Garbage in Garbage out”? Someone, at some point instructed the computer to do what it did, It didn’t decide to screw you up deliberately. Computers can only do what they are told, they are more logical than Spock and they take everything literally.
We are going to look at why they are so pedantic!
The world around us has many aspects which work in the same way as a computer. There are many examples of opposites, for instance Up and Down, Left and Right, Forwards and...