> America got to be strong by taking the best >of all the world's > cultures and blending them into one "melting pot". Oddly, the same thing is true of London (and no, I don't live there). In raw statistical terms it is acknowledged as being one of the world's most cosmopolitan cities (it terms of racial/cultural mix) - which is also held up as one of the things that seperates it even from the rest of Britain. I'm not saying this is unique to the UK either - most of the major world cities are like that, with increasing amounts in common with each other, more than their host countries. Although I might be stereotyping a bit here, I doubt that the deep mid-west is quite a melting pot of culture just yet. I suspect America's strength also has a lot to do with a continent full of unexploited resources and land that didn't belong to anyone already (at least no one that counted anyway). >If America's overriding influence were British, it would be > impossible to find a decent meal in this country Oh please, it's not 1974. Within 5 minutes walk from my flat I can eat good Thai, Chinese, Indian, and North African food, as well as excellent Italian, OK cheap Italian, and fantastic French pastries (hence the tight suit jackets!) - oh, and an OK chippy and caff, because despite exposure to all the above, some of us still love black pudding (mmmm!) - and I forgot - a KFC. Of course none of this is British food, but then . . . >and we'd be overrun with > chip stands. Not that over-running the rest of the world with burger and fries stands is exactly a great gift to the world's cuisine. . > Thank god American education is better than British education: >The first computer was the ENIAC 1, invented by in 1946 > John Mauchly and John Eckert who were working for the United ? > States Army > (nope not the British Army). Now to get really petty and not at all mod-related. This is actually an example of where the American education system may be being a bit dishonest. The first stored programable computer (rather than hardwired) was the Manchester Mk.1, built at Manchester University. They dispute that ENIAC was actually a computer at all, as it's not a true Turing (do they teach him?) machine. That might seem splitting hairs on definitions, except the American one is just as tenuous - electronic calculating machines of a similar nature were built and in use at Bletchley Park for code-cracking during WW2. Not quite as advanced, but then ENIAC wasn't as advanced as blah blah blah. It's simply choosing the definition to suit the victor. >The HTTP protocol which is the basis of the web was created at the > Swiss CERN labratory in 1993. By Tim Berners-Lee (I may have the name wrong). Who wasn't Swiss. Or American. Or French. I wouldn't care, if it wasn't for the ludicrousness of your next statement. > HTTP was made usable by an American, Netscape > founder Marc Andreesen in 1994. Pardon? This is up there with 'Bill Gates invented Windows which made the PC usable' and the whole Linux (wow, 'free' Unix - never seen that before) thing. _____________________________________________________________ Want to find the best email lists? Check out the Topica 20! http://www.topica.com/topica20
