[unnouinceput]

1 - Because Russia is there and apart from a brief period of time at beginning of 90's in the rest three quarters of century US and Russia (Soviet or not) went to war with each other by proxies. Syria is just the latest proxy in that wrestling.

2 - Probably maintaining/honing the skills. "If you don't use it you lose it" it's a very old and very actual saying.

I got hit very hard by this one at beginning of my programming career. Went home for vacation after my 1st year at Uni and when came back 3 months later I got very surprised to find I lost my speed typing ability. Had to start from beginning and was very frustrating. Never let my guard down after that.

[krono]

WPM? Key layout? Favourite keyboard and switch? Main and/or favourite programming language(s)? IDE/Code editor of choice? How have you been keeping up your typing speed since then?

Not going to let you off so easily here!

[unnouinceput]

Was learning Pascal and Assembler back then. Like I said took the 3 months off (former communist country, not everybody could afford to have such a device at home) so I had no PC interaction during that time. When I came back to school in October I found my typing was slower. The year was 1994, so over 25 years ago. Learned like every single major programming language ever since, it is my day job after all, the one that puts food on my family's table. Freelancer for 12 years now, I love working from home - it's basically pay to be around my kids. Any more hooks you need?

[krono]

Was obviously just messing with you but I appreciate the serious answer. Very interesting to me as a fellow freelance dev with far less field time under his belt.