Rory

OK, the magnetron, the inductive device used for the actual cooking was invented in the 1940s by two British scientists, originally part of the radar project. It's like someone inventing a superheating raygun and someone else claiming credit cause he was the first to use it to caramalise a souffle.

Videogames were invented in japan, everyone knows Namco (fathers of pacman) made pong.

Lol!
Ok apart from Thomas Edison (who was a statistical error) all the others are not American. Sewing is ancient, and the first mechanical sewing patent was a 1755 British patent issued to German, Charles Weisenthal, to do with automating the manufacture of parachutes.
As for the computer, Charles Babbage designed the concept and Alan Turing implemented it.

Finally I point you to Doctor Who:

But the no-one owns the internet...
That's right, let's just keep them thinking that kids!

Ooble

Don't get me started on patents... the number of technologically-oriented patents out there that are so retarded they're unbelievable is astounding.

http://www.eff.org/patent/

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Berto

I want a patent on the stuff that comes out my arse.

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- Albert Einstein

Rory

Right...

I was about to make the unbelievably witty comment that you can't patent speech but decided against it.

Nuticulus

I bugger off from PFO for a week or two and I come back to find this! Pah! You, you... smelly poo poo head! In a not un-French way, I fart in your general direction!

I'm appalled that you hurl terrible and ungrounded slander upon us Brits, suggesting we use VB. Might I remind you that it was your American Bill Gates that invented the original BASIC language, and its future pal, VB. Aaaaagh, I feel impure, I have spoken the words of the Redmond devil.

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uman

Gates didn't invent BASIC, he just implemented it on a particular machine.

Nice MP:HG reference, though.

Ancient Dragon

http://inventors.about.com/library/i...rs/blbasic.htm

syntax-error

using "powerful" and "FORTRAN" in the same sentence, paragraph, or even in the same post is not only an oxymoron, but morally wrong.

Rory

Must be Service Pack 347 by now.

I think BASIC was more like Pascal or real C in that it was a "pure" and rigidly defined form based on states as opposed to line numbers, a direct translation of maths, and Bill Co. distorted it into the hideous beast littered with GOTOs and single letter variables we despise.

Anyway I'm prepared to defend VB (.NET) insofar is it's as good as C#. That's the official Redmond stand, execution speed is actually identical as it's all CLR anyway, and the language has had a complete overhaul with unsubtle Delphi influences, meaning it does everything C# does.

I always think of VB6 and before as VB "Classic" as, like the Coke variety, it's colourful, funky, addictive (though not due to crack drugs), and will probably be proven to cause bowel cancer.

FORTRAN was a cunning ruse to ensure their children would be employed fixing the millenium bug. We should do the same for ours. VB anyone?

uman

VB.net could be considered to be as good as C#, depending on one's definition of "good". In my opinion, however, C# has a definite advantage, although some of the reasons may be unfair.

First, VB.net quite simply requires more typing on the part of the programmer. This has no real effect on how long it takes to write a program, as generally one's mind generates code slower than the fingers can type it. Fingers are not the bottleneck, so to speak. The problem arises in such areas as fatigue and carpal tunnel.

Second, C#'s syntax is ALGOL-based. This makes it much easier and less confusing to learn C# if one has a background in another language with ALGOL syntax, like C, C++, or even JavaScript, and likewise makes it easier to learn these languages when coming from a C# background. As a real-world example, syntax-error, whom I know in real life, was utterly forgetful to place semicolons at the end of each line of C# after coming from a VB.net background when I first convinced him to learn C#

Third, and this is the unfair reason, C# is far more respected than VB.net, mostly because people are used to the undisputable inferiority of VB 6 and below. A C# programmer will be more respected and often earn higher wages than an equally-skilled VB.net programmer.

Fourth, C# has more support on Linux, as far as I know. I could, of course, be wrong.

Fifth, VB.net is t3h l4m3x0rz.

Sixth, I said so.