pap

In the US, McDonalds is the Netto of burger chains.

That's why I'm keen on it. I genuinely think my generation of programmers were the last lot to have proper experience with command-line stuff. That said, aren't they shipping a small version of Linux with it? If that's the case, then many of the low level stuff that we want them to get close to ( hardware interrupts, etc ) may well be abstracted too.

We clearly have different motivations.

I've got mixed feelings on this. On the one hand, it's great that kids and enthusiasts are getting close to the hardware again. As someone who has dabbled with a bit of assembly code myself, it's definitely an edifying experience. That said, the stuff I do professionally involves none of that. We have come a long way in 30 years. My job is easier because I'm standing on the shoulders of giants, and that's the way a lot of development is going.

Hands up. You're right to point out that figure is too low. According to Human Rights Watch, the number of Iraqi civilians killed in 20 years between 230,000 and 250,000.

Did you look at our respective join dates and post counts before posting this?

You'll have to forgive me if I don't gushingly reciprocate. Respect is a two-way street, mate - and I haven't seen much of it coming from Alpsville.

Used to be something I'd look forward to as a kid. Not anymore. The food is mank and my closest ATM is built into the wall of a McDonalds. Every time I go to draw money out, the smell knocks me sick.

There is no-one on my ignore list, nor will there ever be.

Rich coming from the man on a thousand ignore lists.

I did some reading on the Iran-Iraq War a while back. If memory serves, the Iranians lost around 500K people. In total, it is close to a mil though.

Quoting myself a lot today:-

Right, I've got plenty to do today, so can't spend my time arguing the toss with people who are evidently not reading my responses anyway. I will say this though:- Some of the responses on here remind me of people who've walked in at the end of a film. They know what has happened, but they don't know why it has happened. I've qualified pretty much every argument I've made on here. Says everything when the only critical responses you get back are critical of the poster, not the post. Have fun discussing junior geopolitics, Alps, Turkish and TDD. You'll get a star if you study well.

How do you even qualify that? Let's take Iraq as one of your examples. In all the time Saddam was in power, it is estimated that he killed 40,000 people. I've been generous here, and given you the higher estimate ( some peg it as low as 5,000 ). During the most recent campaign against Iraq, over a million people died as a result of that conflict.

Which you didn't qualify. How many people died as a result of those nation's wars? You have a score of just over a million to beat.

Not even close.

One example of a nation that has caused more death. That's all I ask.

No, TDD - I want countries to be held accountable for their actions. Can you point to any nation responsible for more death in the last decade than the US?

Cultural vandalism driven by theocratic nutters. You can make the link to the US if you want, but I don't see one. Since we're on the subject of cultural vandalism, what do you think about the destruction of the remains of Babylon?

No, because I don't believe for a second that the EDL actually care about extremism. The existence of Islamic extremism has given them some measure of legitimacy that they otherwise would not have had. See below. I've quoted it again, but in bold.

Hardly an argument, Alps. Care to comment on the million plus dead in Iraq?

Absolutely. The EDL is a prime example, according to them. The problems in the Middle East did not start with 9/11, and I haven't said this at any point. What are you trying to argue here exactly? What part of that didn't you get?

I thought most people would know that heroin comes from morphine. In 2009, Afghanistan was still providing 82% of the world's supply.

I think the jury is still out on Afghanistan, and we'll only really know whether we've achieved anything lasting after Western forces leave the country. It's widely accepted that Karzai doesn't have support across the multi-ethnic spectrum and that the Taliban will probably be in control of southern and eastern parts of Afghanistan once Western forces have vamoosed. We know for a fact that some of the very people we've trained as policemen have murdered British and American forces, and there were anti-US riots last week. You'll forgive me if I don't travel out to Kabul to witness this idyllic oasis of progress. No-one is saying Islamic fundamentalists didn't exist before 2001. What I am saying is that there are now more people with a beef against the West, and that is a direct result of our foreign policy.

Depends on what the morphine is used for. The US have form for selling drugs to raise funds for black projects, like in the Iran-Contra scandal.