Given everything you've said, I suggest you keep using bash and PHP. Invest your effort in mastering the tools you're using. You may be surprised at just how powerful bash can be, for example.

The thing is, unless you really invest the time to master a new technology, it isn't likely to be of much use to you. So master the technologies you're using.

Now it does...

In fact, the Crusades were directly a result of the Turkish invasion - in particular, the destruction of the Byzantine army at Manzikert, which resulted in the loss of much of Anatolia - the Byzantine heartland. There is abundant historical testament to this fact; entreaties from Byzantine emperors to the Pope, kings, etc. The First Crusade was explicitly an answer to these calls.

Any relation to the Moorish conquest of Spain, 300 years earlier, is at the very best, indirect. In fact, it is so indirect as to be non-existent. What it really meant was that Spain didn't involve itself in the Crusades.

I agree that Muslims, as a whole, were more aggressive than Christians for much of the time since Mohammed. Islam was a militant religion, spread by the sword. That started from the very beginning of Islam. Mohammed himself led the charge, as it were. It is an essential part of Islamic creed that the whole world must be converted to Islam, forcibly. And de-conversion is punishable by death. It is a highly virulent religion.

Of course, Christianity was spread by militarism, too. It started with Constantine (400 years after the religion was founded): as soon as Christianity became the State religion, it began to be imposed on the mostly pagan population of the Empire, increasingly, over a period of decades. Eventually, Roman successors (e.g. Charlemagne) imposed Christianity at the point of the sword on other native populations (e.g. Germans). All across Europe, Christianity was imposed by the force of the state. This continued as late as the year 1,000, when Iceland was converted. It continued, of course, with the Crusades - very explicitly, a campaign to conquer the Holy Land, to re-impose Christianity on it (largely by killing or driving out the inhabitants and replacing them with Christian colonists). That takes us to about 1,200, when they were driven out. It continued with the conquering of the New World, beginning in the 1500's, as Native Americans were forced to convert at the point of the sword (especially by the Spaniards).

But I would agree that Islam was (and still is) far more militant, as a religion, than Christianity, at any given time. Christianity has largely been de-fanged (and is slowly disappearing, as a result). Islam has not been defanged, and is still spreading. But keep in mind that both Christianity and Islam have been spread mostly by military, or state, force.

Mao did not "kill 50+ million" in the same sense that Hitler "killed ~10 million". Mao's poor policies (the ironically-named Great Leap Forward) led to tens of millions of deaths by starvation. Hitler systematically carried out the destruction of particular populations (mostly the Jews, but also the Roma, and various other groups), shipping millions of civilians to death camps where they were killed and cremated. Hitler's premeditated murder cannot be compared to Mao's manslaughter.

Hitler certainly saw himself as a Christian (misguided tho he may have been in that regard), and received significant support from the Roman Catholic Church.

I think you're wrong about that: the Crusades were all about religion. They were about Christendom's desire to control the Holy Land, for purely religious reasons. There was no great treasure that was taken. Far from it. It was all just senseless, religious-motivated violence.

There is no other way to explain what happened. Read about the events surrounding the First Crusade. Hundreds of thousands of European peasants went streaming down to Constantinople - threatening the Byzantine Empire itself! It was a mass movement. It was not about the money. Indeed, families would regularly spend their fortunes to send their best and brightest (well, maybe not brightest) down to fight for the Holy Land.

The invasion you're referring to must be the Seljuk Turkish invasion of the Byzantine Empire - especially, the great disaster (or great victory, depending on whose perspective you have) at Manzikert in 1071. Some points to consider:

1) The Seljuk Turks were not particularly Muslim at that time. They could have gone either way, really (i.e. Christian or Muslim). It was not so much a Muslim invasion, as an invasion of horse people from the steppes (like the later Mongols).
2) While it's true that the Byzantines called for help from the Christian West to stem the tide against the Muslim Turks, the Crusades never targeted the Turks. Instead, they targeted the Holy Land, and later...
3) In the end, the Crusaders sacked Constantinople, effectively destroying the Byzantine Empire.

Were the Crusades effective? If they were, they were only effective against the Arabs (who had controlled the Holy Land, and against whom the Crusades were mostly targeted). But any gains against the Arabs were reversed by Saladin. 200 years after the start of the Crusades, the Crusaders had been completely ejected from the Holy Land.

Were the Crusades effective against the Turks? Absolutely not! In fact, they greatly aided the Turkish expansion, by destroying the Byzantine Empire. The later, resurrected Byzantine Empire was a mere shadow of its former self, restricted pretty much to Constantinople itself. By the time the Turks finally took Constantinople (in 1453), the Turks had already taken over almost the entirety of the former Byzantine Empire.

So what were the Crusades effective at doing, exactly? Did they lead to the Renaissance? Perhaps they contributed, indirectly. Eventually, as it became clear that Constantinople would inevitably fall to the Turks, large numbers of Byzantine scholars moved to the West - especially Italy - along with caches of texts. Some of these texts went right back to the Ancient Greeks - texts which had been lost to the West for centuries. This may have help re-ignite interest in Ancient Greece, and learning in general. It certainly coincided with the Italian Renaissance of the mid-1400's.

Why don't people have a right to complain if it didn't end up the way they wanted? People always have a right to complain. That has to be our most basic human right!

Doesn't stop Windows from sucking in this regard, tho. What you're saying is that it may be too difficult a problem for Microsoft to solve.

Ditto.

I agree with OP. I want a compiler, OpenSSH, productivity suite, etc., built in. I don't want to have to piss around installing and maintaining them. Call me greedy, but I want it all. Your argument is that it is too much to ask - that Microsoft would find it difficult to bundle them.

Again, I agree with OP: containers & jails are very useful for a variety of practical reasons. When you have a powerful tool like that available, you tend to find uses for it. You, on the other hand, have no use for them.

So you accept the premise that NTFS is inferior. But you don't mind.

Ouch.

Once again, I agree with OP. I very often find it invaluable to have access to source code, for anything I'm interfacing with. Once again, Microsoft would find it difficult to offer what Linux does on this point.

Overall, my sense is that what you're saying is, "Microsoft doesn't match up with Linux in a number of ways. But because it would be difficult for Microsoft to match up with Linux, it's OK."

What I don't get is, why do you care whether it's difficult for Microsoft or not? Why not simply use the best tool available for your purposes?

I am surprised if that's true about CS depts. switching away from teaching statically typed languages in favor of a scripting language(s). You simply can't handle the same scale of project, with the same performance or reliability, without static typing.

> What they are missing is that many university CS departments are dumping Java in favor of Python as Python is becoming the defacto language of academia.

I don't see how Java and Python are in any way comparable. One is a typed language, the other typeless.

So creationism = "I don't know".

Whenever I don't know how something works, I can just say it is the doings of a god(s). That way I can stop worrying about it. This formula has worked for thousands of years - why stop now?

I think you miss the point. The point is that legal != moral. Look at your first example. Killing the daughter simply isn't moral. I'm sure that honor killing has been at least de-facto legal in some cultures at some points in history. No doubt it has been considered by many or most people, at those times, to be The Right Thing To Do. No doubt there are hold-overs who still thing it's right. But in Western culture, it is horrifically immoral. So, sure, make a stand: you're going to uphold your traditional values and kill your daughter. You're a murderer to us. We will find you, and we will put you away.

The same kind of reasoning goes with your other examples. You haven't identified any laws which people would commonly agree are immoral. That's not to say that there are no such laws. There's a growing disconnect between the corporatist laws of the land, and the common person's sense of morality.

The VPN argument is nonsense. The laptop was obviously set up, by them, to automatically use the VPN.

Again, if the school feels the need to play Big Brother on their VPN, then they should no provide the VPN to the kids at all. If that means they wouldn't provide the laptops either, then so be it.

Nothing excuses their contemptible behavior.

If they believe they need to wiretap childrens' laptops after they take them home, then they shouldn't give the kids laptops at all. Wiretapping them in them privacy of their own home is really creepy, and utterly unethical. It goes against all our values as a society.

We can't let the fact that we're using fancy computer equipment, make us forget that we're still HUMAN BEINGS.

I don't know why you think it's reasonable for the school to monitor what this kid is posting, privately, in his own home, to another person. There's no sense in which this is OK.

If the school find this policy to be necessary, then they should stop giving out laptops for children to take home altogether.