On Tue, 24 Jan 2012 16:49:57 +0000, Invisible wrote:

>>>> You do know that the US pulled out of Iraq, yes?
>>>
>>> I've heard multiple rounds of "We're pulling out. Oh, wait, we're
>>> pulling out in 6 month's time. No, we're pulling out next month. Oh,
>>> actually, make that 2 years. Actually, wait, make it a month. No, hang
>>> on..." It's news to me that they *actually* did it at last.
>>
>> There was an agreed-upon timeline with the Iraqi government for the
>> pullout to be completed by December 31, 2011.  They met that timeline.
> 
> I heard so many conflicting reports about what they were or weren't
> going to do, I stopped paying attention.

That was actually (AFAIK) always the plan, agreed to while our last 
President was in office, in fact.

>> It seems that that probably doesn't have a lot to do with reality. 
>> There were a couple of Star Wars games that came out as well, yet the
>> Empire is still a work of fiction.
> 
> Well, sure. But I suspect before all this happened, most people had
> never even *heard* of Iraq.

Except for everyone who remembers the first Iraq war (back in the 90s), 
or everyone who heard of Saddam Hussein, or everyone who took the 
slightest interest in where oil in the US came from.

>>> Wait - Afghanistan and Iraq aren't the same place? o_O
>>
>> Um, no, they're not.  Are you serious?
> 
> Oh. Crap...

When's the last time you looked at a map, young'un?

>>>> I've found it kinda hard to avoid news about that.  I'm wondering how
>>>> you managed it without even trying.
>>>
>>> I've heard a lot of talk about "illegal downloads". I haven't heard
>>> anybody mention TPB.
>>
>> Do you read slashdot?  The Register?
> 
> Nope, never. Why would I?

Because you're in technology and keeping up on technology trends is 
important to furthering a career in technology - and those are two places 
where LOTS of news about technology are posted or linked from?

>>> (That and the talk of ISPs charging YouTube money because they're
>>> "using up all the bandwidth". Translation: "our profit model depends
>>> on customers using only a fraction of the bandwidth that they pay us
>>> for, and now people are using /all/ of what they rightfully paid for,
>>> waaaaa!")
>>
>> Actually, not YouTube, but Netflix; it's streaming has been claimed to
>> take more bandwidth than illegal downloads.
> 
> Maybe in the US. In Britain, it seems to be YouTube and iPlayer that
> everyone was whining about.

iPlayer I could see.  YouTube?  I haven't heard that, but I could see 
that it does take up a fair bit of bandwidth.  There was a report 
yesterday that they've exceeded an hour of video uploaded *per second* of 
actual video runtime.

Jim

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