Linked by Thom Holwerda on Sat 1st Dec 2012 09:05 UTC
I was on vacation to the US last week, and a few technology-related things stood out to me. One, the in-flight entertainment things aboard international Delta flights are absolutely terrible. Worst software I've ever used, and many of them were plain broken. iPads/Android tablets please, Delta. Second, there were more employees than customers in the Las Vegas Apple Store. Since there were a reasonable amount of customers, there were even more employees. It looked ridiculous. Are they all like that? Three, using a Windows Phone 8 device to mooch off an Apple Store's wifi is strangely satisfying. Four, there are a lot of technology commercials on US TV, and they are all corny as hell. Two iPads playing piano? Children holding a PowerPoint presentation to convince their parents to switch mobile plans? Seriously? Is this what this industry has come to? Five, it's pretty clear iPads and iPhones are way, way, way more popular in the US than in The Netherlands. You see them everywhere, and people display them so openly. It was jarring. In The Netherlands, I always feel as if people are ashamed to take devices out of their pockets in the first place. No wonder US-based writers like Gruber and Arment think Apple dominates everything - if you rarely leave the US, it seems as if they do! Six, and this is not technology related at all but I want to get it off my chest because us Europeans could learn a thing or two from it: Americans are the nicest people I've ever had the pleasure of dealing with. I knew this from my existing American friends and from my previous trip to the US (Texas, ten years ago), but it bears repeating. Open, interested, kind, helpful, considerate, and nice. Not exactly qualities I'd ascribe to most of my fellow countrymen. Alright, as you were!
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Member since:2005-08-18
Just because the Dutch can act like peasants to foreigners
Ah, so they're friendly and accommodating folks? That's what it means, right?
The US *is* the world, really, by and large
This is probably the most annoying thinh about 'em. The expectation that everyone, everywhere are familiar with every single american thing lest they're uneducated imbeciles.
"What, you've never had a Twinkie? You don't know who the Captain and the Skipper is?? What's wrong with you?"
Yeah, ok. Whatever. You ever had a negerboll? No? How about Brodrene Dal?? No?? Wtf is wrong with *you*?
I find that it's not pessimism that's not deep (in the West) but politeness itself.
What makes you think it's any less shallow in the east?
Member since:2006-06-02
Because I have been able to experience both West and East; that part of the East I know most about, South Korea, has little in the way of the manners I was brought up with in England, and so can come across as being rude but there's a layer of consideration in people's thinking about each other that I find lacking beneath England's so-called 'old-world charm'.
I have feasted on aspects of American culture as much as anyone, and it's not all bad, in and of itself, or regarding impact: it can be a very useful common point of reference for disparate cultures. Who knew Deputy Dawg was also apparently big in Israel amongst people my age?
Member since:2005-07-06
You ever had a negerboll? No? How about Brodrene Dal??
So I googled those ...turns out you made an error, it's actually Brødrene Dal ;P Also, curious www.imdb.com/title/tt2235661/ & http://www.thelocal.se/blogs/gregelk/2010/02/04/varfor-far-man-inte... (does that saying really make rounds in Sweden?)
Generally, it's a bit sad how the tribes of Europe typically know each other, their cultural output, worse than the culture(? ;p ) in the dominating lingua franca of our times, EN.
And yes, Nordic are essentially my neighbours, a hop across the Baltic. I still had to google...
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Member since:
2006-06-02
Just because the Dutch can act like peasants to foreigners (I have been told by other countries' folks that the English and Dutch are quite similar, except the Dutch are even more reserved, socially judgemental and punctilious) does not mean that Americans are any less boorish in their own way.
I deal with quite a few Americans, and they, like the English (of which I am one) can be very polite while still getting exactly what they want. Yes, Americans are outwardly friendly and well-mannered but they are at the same time (in general) bumptious, overbearing, loud, arrogant, incapable of listening, unbending, blinkered and culturally ignorant. The US *is* the world, really, by and large. I once encountered in Germany the biggest *rse it has been my misfortune to have had to spend time with: an American exchange student. Apparently (he reported, guileless seemingly and all smiles) his tutor had informed him that Europeans would simply love him because he was from California. That was his carte blanche. He took heed of nobody's advice about nuancing his outrageously high-octane 'dude' behaviour on account of local sensibilities, or even those of the group he was in.
As I say, we English are no better. Sure, we have 'manners' but we are also cold, unfeeling, heartless, two-faced Anglo-Saxon b*st*rds exactly when it suits us.
I find that it's not pessimism that's not deep (in the West) but politeness itself.