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[Toriad]

An English princess with an Egyptian boyfriend crashes in a French tunnel, driving a German car with a Dutch engine, driven by a Belgian who was drunk on Scottish whiskey,

followed closely by Italian paparazzi on Japanese motorcycles;

treated by an American doctor, using Brazilian medicines.

This is sent to you by an American, using Bill Gate’s technology and you are probably reading this on your computer,

that uses Taiwanese chips and a Korean monitor, assembled by Bangladeshi workers in a Singapore plant; transported by Indian lorry-drivers, hijacked by Indonesians closely affiliated to Somali pirates, unloaded by Sicilian longshoremen and trucked to you by illegal Mexican workers…

And this my friends, is that is what Globalization is.

[Realmfighter]

That was quite insightful.

[Virex]

Didn't know there were so many illegal Mexicans in Europe?

[Aqizzar]

Or Bangladeshis in Singapore, or Somalis in Indonesia.  Good effort though.

[Nikov]

Globalization is people of different races, religions, nations and cultures working together to create wealth. Friedmann's Pencil, as it were.

[Aqizzar]

Friedmann's Pencil, as it were.

Or the Brooks' rootbeer in World War Z, for a more comedic and less Rand-ian example.

Where was the first electronic computer made anyway?  I want to say England for some reason.

[Nikov]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ENIAC

Next time someone says military technology doesn't find civilian use, I'm linking this.

[Leafsnail]

It depends.  The first "programmable, digital, electronic, computing devices" computer was in Bletchley Park, designed to break axis codes, so I guess you could say the first computer was in England (although as Nikov says, the first general purpose one was in America).

...It was destroyed after the war, so it doesn't really have much relation to the computers following it.

[Aqizzar]

I imagine the design and designers had something to contribute to the science.  I knew ENIAC was American, but I didn't think it was the first.  "General purpose" is a pretty big qualifier there, but hey.  It also appears the entire design staff was American (stands to reason for a military project), but one programmer of Chinese descent at least.  Surprising there isn't better online documentation of the staff.

[Virex]

It depends.  The first "programmable, digital, electronic, computing devices" computer was in Bletchley Park, designed to break axis codes, so I guess you could say the first computer was in England (although as Nikov says, the first general purpose one was in America).

...It was destroyed after the war, so it doesn't really have much relation to the computers following it.

On the other hand, the first turning-complete machine (in the widest sense of the word) was the Z3, which was in Germany.

[kuro_suna]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus_computer

Colossus was sort of general purpose but unlike modern computers the program code was stored in switches rather than electronic memory.

[ECrownofFire]

The greeks were pretty damn smart too you know. Don't worry, you were only off by about 2000 years

But yeah, not Turing Complete. Still a computer though. Computer is kind of a wide definition though. There's also the Jacquard loom, Babbage's Analytical Engine, Babbage's Difference Engine, fuck, even an Abacus is a computer. I have no idea about Turing-completeness for any of those though...

[Jackrabbit]

Oceania is seriously underrepresented in whatever the hell the first post was going on about.

[Virex]

The greeks were pretty damn smart too you know. Don't worry, you were only off by about 2000 years

But yeah, not Turing Complete. Still a computer though. Computer is kind of a wide definition though. There's also the Jacquard loom, Babbage's Analytical Engine, Babbage's Difference Engine, fuck, even an Abacus is a computer. I have no idea about Turing-completeness for any of those though...

The difference engine would've been turning complete if it would've worked. An abacus is ran by a human and since humans are turning complete (yes even that retarded mentally-3-year-old from the other side of the class room) any abacus is turning complete.

[Blargityblarg]

An English princess with an Egyptian boyfriend crashes in a French tunnel, driving a German car with a Dutch engine, driven by a Belgian who was drunk on Scottish whiskey,

followed closely by Italian paparazzi on Japanese motorcycles;

treated by an American doctor, using Brazilian medicines.

This is sent to you by an American, using Bill Gate’s technology and you are probably reading this on your computer,

that uses Taiwanese chips and a Korean monitor, assembled by Bangladeshi workers in a Singapore plant; transported by Indian lorry-drivers, hijacked by Indonesians closely affiliated to Somali pirates, unloaded by Sicilian longshoremen and trucked to you by illegal Mexican workers…

And this my friends, is that is what Globalization is.

And the post is being criticised by an Australian who was born in New Zealand.