hackers with guns

Today I had lunch with several engineers visiting from the Taipei office.

In Taiwan, every male citizen is required to complete mandatory military service. One of the engineers had just finished his stint in the army. So, halfway through the meal, I found myself listening to a glib discussion about the merits of the various types of guns used by the Taiwanese military. Apparently there are several important things to consider, such as the length of the barrel (shorter is less accurate but easier to carry for short Asian soldiers), the age of the model (some guns from the late 1970's were still being used as recently as a few years ago), and various gun performance benchmarks.

I'm not sure exactly why I was amused, but I was. I guess I'm not used to computer science geeks who know their guns.