Scripting News: We have small differences

Scripting News, the weblog started in 1997 that bootstrapped the blogging revolution.

We have small differences

We do beds much better than Europeans.

They do bathrooms better. In America, public bathrooms have stalls, so your music is available for all to appreciate. And their music is there for you. In Europe each person gets a little room of their own to do their business. Much more user friendly, for everyone.

Except for showers. They make tiny showers. Our showers are human size. Their showers are tiny child-size showers.

I haven't figured out what to do with bidets, but they're everywhere in Italy. I imagine they think we're uncivilized because we don't have them.

Italians do public displays of affection better than Americans. Scandanavians seem hard to touch.

In general they do food much better than we do. Fast food in Europe is a nice sandwich with fresh ingredients, hand-made. In America it comes wrapped in plastic, filled with preservatives and artificial flavor. A quick meal at a tourist restaurant is filled with flavor and color. The equivalent place in America would not serve edible food.

They eat cheese for breakfast. We eat cheese too, but only melted, on omelettes.

I'm sure I'll think of other things.

Last update: Thursday, June 3, 2010; 4:00:50 PM

~About the Author~

Dave Winer, 55, is a visiting scholar at NYU's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. He pioneered the development of weblogs, syndication (RSS), podcasting, outlining, and web content management software; former contributing editor at Wired Magazine, research fellow at Harvard Law School, entrepreneur, and investor in web media companies. A native New Yorker, he received a Master's in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin, a Bachelor's in Mathematics from Tulane University and currently lives in New York City.

"The protoblogger." - NY Times.

"The father of modern-day content distribution." - PC World.

One of BusinessWeek's 25 Most Influential People on the Web.

"Helped popularize blogging, podcasting and RSS." - Time.

"The father of blogging and RSS." - BBC.

"RSS was born in 1997 out of the confluence of Dave Winer's 'Really Simple Syndication' technology, used to push out blog updates, and Netscape's 'Rich Site Summary', which allowed users to create custom Netscape home pages with regularly updated data flows." - Tim O'Reilly.

Mail: scriptingnews1mail at gmail dot com.

May Jul