“When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned.”
Mark Twain
The voice of a wise old man from Europe is certainly missing in the world of geek blogs in the USA. I have been living in the States and have met American people in business and private and would like to provide some comments and insight about the Amrican life style from the other side of the Atlantic. .
2 responses so far ↓
travis lane // June 15, 2008 at 5:42 am |
ah yes….that’s what America is missing, a patronizing, arrogant European to tell us how we do everything wrong.
And typical of the xenophobe you appear to be, you pick out the exception and present it as the rule because it makes you feel superior.
You talk about a house in the northeast “with no insulation”. Either you’re dead wrong or you have an illegally built house–neither makes your argument worth much.
You swell with pride as you talk about “gas guzzling” american cars and then point out BMW of all things as a better alternative??? Hello, Mercedez and BMW are full of cars that get less than 20 MPG! You ever look at the gas mileage of an X5 or 500 series?
But when you get the reception here that your arrogance deserves, you’ll just write us off as unable to see your wisdom–in true “old europe” style.
portaleco // June 17, 2008 at 10:22 am |
Certainly there are very nice, very well built homes in the US. My cousin e.g. builds houses in the Nothwest with high insulation standards and geothermic heating and cooling systems for years. However, old houses built 50- 30 years ago (as my house I rented in the US) typically come with poor insulation because the poor people living in them could not afford an upgrade. These are the people which are hit most by the high price of gas and oil. Certainly this can be changed.
I am pretty sure that the US will manage the current energy crisis as many crisis before – that’s really the strength of the US society. It’s up to you wether you look for information available in the world or not. Remember – US invented the Internet. Why shouldn’t we use it to exchange information?