Alan Minyard wrote in message . ..
On 10 Jan 2004 04:01:41 -0800, (Michael Petukhov) wrote:

(Krztalizer) wrote in message ...

Do you think that above is somehow due to that is discussed below?

Michael


from "Notes from a Big Country" by Bill Bryson

There are idiots in every country, Michael, obviously. In my son's elementary
class, there are 22 kids; fifteen of them were tested for the GATE program and
of 22 'average American kids' (five immigres from Eritrea, one from Iraq, four
from Mexico, two from Somalia + six caucasian children and four latinos that
were born in the USA), three qualified for Gifted and Talented programs - none
of these were from overseas. So when you look at Russian schools, where NO
ONE immigrates, and US Schools stuffed to the gills with immigrants, you would
expect the results you get. That said, of course there are dumbass American
kids. I feel better knowing that there are dumb****s in every nation - you do
your best to prove that for us, daily.

Not to mention the fact that the great majority of inventions of the last 100 years
have been invented by Americans, including the computer

Computer is hardly an american invention.

Britannica:

" Development of the digital computer.
Blaise Pascal of France and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz of Germany
invented mechanical digital calculating machines during the 17th
century. The English inventor Charles Babbage, however, is generally
credited with having conceived the first automatic digital computer.
During the 1830s Babbage devised his so-called Analytical Engine, a
mechanical device designed to combine basic arithmetic operations with
decisions based on its own computations. Babbage's plans embodied most
of the fundamental elements of the modern digital computer. For
example, they called for sequential control--i.e., program control
that included branching, looping, and both arithmetic and storage
units with automatic printout. Babbage's device, however, was never
completed and was forgotten until his writings were rediscovered over
a century later.

Of great importance in the evolution of the digital computer was the
work of the English mathematician and logician George Boole. In
various essays written during the mid-1800s, Boole discussed the
analogy between the symbols of algebra and those of logic as used to
represent logical forms and syllogisms. His formalism, operating on
only 0 and 1, became the basis of what is now called Boolean algebra,
on which computer switching theory and procedures are grounded.

John V. Atanasoff, an American mathematician and physicist, is
credited with building the first electronic digital computer, which he
constructed from 1939 to 1942 with the assistance of his graduate
student Clifford E. Berry. Konrad Zuse, a German engineer acting in
virtual isolation from developments elsewhere, completed construction
in 1941 of the first operational program-controlled calculating
machine (Z3). In 1944 Howard Aiken and a group of engineers at
International Business Machines Corporation completed work on the
Harvard Mark I, a machine whose data-processing operations were
controlled primarily by electric relays (switching devices)..."

and the internet

Internet can hardly be qualified for invention at all.
What is Internet? mainly software supporting TCP/IP protocol
for computer communications. Not sure about US but in many
more civilized places software cannot be patented. In US
it perhaps can be, as these barbarians also attempted to
patent sequences of human genes. Was it also invented in USA?

Michael