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Re: Successful trolls.

__/ [ [censored] ] on Sunday 03 September 2006 06:13 \__

> 
> Roy Schestowitz wrote:
>> __/ [ Peter Köhlmann ] on Saturday 02 September 2006 22:27 \__
>>
>> > Hadron Quark wrote:
>> >
>> > < snip >
>> >
>> >>> Plus hes english.
>>
>>
>> My nationality is German.
>>
>>
>> >> Thats ok. Englishmen invented computers and the "web".
>>
>>
>> You could say the same about GNU/Linux distributions, although much credit
>> must be given to FSF/GNU/RMS (Massachusetts), Torvalds (Finland) and
>> Tanenbaum (NYC, IIRC, before he move to Holland). I have had the pleasure
>> of woring with the creator of the first Linux distro.
>>
>> See:
>> http://www.kde-files.org/content/files/44218-linuxdistrotimeline-6.8.2.png
>>
>> It's MCC right there. I have just mended the Wikipedia page, which
>> contained a mild typo.
>>
>>
>> > Nope. Charles Babbage invented a sort of "computer", but never got to a
>> > real working one.
>> > The first working (programmable) computer was built by the german Konrad
>> > Zuse. It was called the "Z1", and it ran in the 1930s, long before the
>> > english built their first one to crack the enigma codes
>>
>>
>> Well, Alan Turing did some important work here in Manchester. And the
>> first (programmable) computer was created by Tom Kilburn (also
>> Manchester), who passed away a few years ago and had the building where I
>> worked named after him.
>>
>> http://www.computer50.org/
>>
>> Best wishes,
>>
>> Roy
> 
> I thought the computer with the changable cogs and all that were
> invented in 1850, programming theory by a woman named Ada and Hollerith
> and his punched tabulator cards were around well before the tubed
> computers of WW II. I'm 40 though and certifiably flakey. Roy, are you
> a genius among the blind, mute and deaf? : ) My mind is slipping, let
> me get some Polident.

Any achievement is made by 'standing on the shoulders of giants', to borrow a
famous phrase. Mind the not-so-narrow definition of computing: "first
programmable (electric) computer" or a "Turing machine". By that logic, you
could argue that nobody invented the wheel. There are enimals that evolved
to take advance of the motion of balls (or wheels). Alas, evolution wound up
giving us limbs rather than wheels. It would be interesting to find out why
that is (single-cell bacteia has a very rudimentary form)...

Reminds me of a story I read the other day...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/09/01/the_odd_body_tickling/

This tickles the mind. *smile*

Best wishes,

Roy

-- 
Roy S. Schestowitz      |    No SCO code was used to generate this sig
http://Schestowitz.com  | Free as in Free Beer ¦  PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
Cpu(s):  18.9% user,   2.7% system,   0.9% nice,  77.5% idle
      http://iuron.com - semantic engine to gather information

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