Is foriegn stuff better than American stuff?

[danielwang]

YES!


List all the things about foriegn countries that are different, and therefore better.

I do, realize that The States has some serious advantages over some countries in certain ways, and that my/our definition or superior (better) is arbitrary, unbased and biased. However, please, no spamming about how The States is "uber-l33t", that's just not fun.

If you are offended or bored, simply think of it this way: I am intending just to collect the differences between The States and the rest of the world. Just to see what's different. But why not add some excitement and controversy? It makes it all more fun if it's a hot topic!





They Do/Use/Are/Etc:

MEASUREMENT / NOTATION:
Metric instead of Imperial English.
24-hour time format.
Write negative numbers in parenthesis
Write currency (7,15EUR) = -7.15 Euro (see note on commas)
ISO standard fonts

TRAFFIC
Driving on the left side (actually may be a disadvantage)
Putting driver on the right side (advantage)
Put speed limits, in km/h, in a red circle
May have a night/day limit.
Optimize traffic through the use of dynamic flow direction...
---One city is rumoured to have electronically changeable speed limit signs
---Japan and Italy is experimenting with electronically changeable lane flow
Have better dirvers, highways, and cars (discussed in detail later)
In fact, highways go up to 250kmh
Osaka highways look like Metroid every day. Sydney highways look like Armageddon. But insurance rates are still substantially lower! They're not traffic LAWS in the UK, merely traffic SUGGESTIONS!

LANGUAGE:
Commas ticked the right way (ours are backwards)
Questions and exclamation preceded by inverted mark.
Periods are small circles
Descriptor chaining is done correctly
---Descriptors are almost always on the left side
---Including adjectives
---No structure change with operators (de, no,) = (of)
------FOR EXAMPLE:
------Our Bad Way: Cold [January] Night
------Their Correct Method: (kaze no tani no nausicaa) (title of an anime)
------Their Correct Method: le veste de Marie est beau = Mary's jacket is beautiful
------I can go into more detail on Why This Is Better
Languages are usually highly predictable and fluent
Easier to compare objects and communitate highly complex concepts...
---In The States, you need more vocab. In English, there is the word "free", while...
---In Europe, "liberte" and "gratuit" already come as seperate words

INCLUDING SLANG:
Slang is independent and not derived.
Bloke, Plod = "Guy", except gender neutral
Geil = "Cool", except not temperate related
French offensive word = a suffix "con" not pronounces [sh]on

PHYSICAL COMMUNICATION:
Circle made with thumb and forefinger = Money as opposed to OK
Left hand slapping down in closed fist = Offensive Gesture (requires two hands = better)
Jumping up and down, gestures = Excitement or priority, not used for anger

COMPANIES:
Citroen, Renault, Honda, Toyota, Dasan(?) (now Nissan) etc
SUPERIOR TO: Ford, GMC, other American companies
Toei (Japan), TGV Metro (France)
CHEAPER THAN: www.rtd-denver.com LOOK $50/MONTH RAIL! Expensive!
Our Light Rail and Maglev trains run only at 40MPH, they run at hundreds of kmh.
Segway > Vespa...
BUT: Vespa got it right first
Airbus, Boeing > Douglas McWhatever
Asea Brown Boveri > Honeywell (The proof is in Gundam 0083 episode 17)
Ferrero Rocher, Yoplait Marques, Nestle Groupe > Mars
- Note: Mars= M&M, etc; Ferrero Rocher= Tic Tac, Nutella, hazelnut-choco ball

ETCETRA:
Deeper, more intricate culture.
Group mentality.

THE WINNER IS JAPAN
In all of the above categories
The group mentality
Honesty, integrity and common altruism. People don't steal as much.
Integrated traditional and modern culture.
More details on culture are on AnimeTheory site as dissertation "Design Culture"
Great connectivity and rail system
Cram schools beat the hell out of our crappy, worthless, piece of shit public education
NO ACCOUNTING SCANDALS! NO SLEAZY ATTORNEYS! NO FRIVOLOUS CIVIL LAWSUITS! NO IMMORAL STUFF!
Better television, partly because of a lack of 1) stupidity and 2) Media thought police
Excellent constitution. Great politics.
Emperor has little political influence but:
1) is still a leader 2) is not a PR mascot and 3) citizens recognize his birthday
There is a unique Japanese word for Thermodynamics and other scientific principles

Germany, all of Europe including the UK, Russia, all of Asia, and Canada beat The States in the aformentioned comaprison!

Although, Canada lost some points for not granting DirecTV and Echosphere a business charter there. Screw "cultural integrity" BS, I don't want Star Choice or Bell Expres Vue, I WANT MY HBO.

A quick look at the UK's "Project Chip and PIN" site indicates clearly that they don't qualify for the group mentality / altruism category. In Japan, they don't do card fraud. In France, they just take 20 Euros worth for a personal reward. It seems in the UK and The States, fraud is an everyday occurence!

Anything to add?

[Mr Pilkington]

Someone should take away your internet connection. Or atleast limit you to a 9600 BOD.

[moonslayer]

If it's so much better then wtf are you doing in the U.S. ?

[leathelanime]

he's just another 'other country' fanboy

[Truest-Chaos]

GOD FUCKING DAMNIT, I FUCKING HATE DIPSHIT OTAKU. GO LIVE IN JAPAN DANIELWANG, BEFORE I CHOP YOU INTO LITTLE BITS AND MAIL YOU THERE.

Your bullshit about language is way off (and it would help if your comparisons offered a detailed synopsis of each languages spelling and grammer, but that would be too fucking much for you I guess). French is the dumbest language I know of so far, and Japanese may be stupid as well, but I do not know enough about it to declare that. However, I do know that French can use about 14 letters for 2 fucking syallables.

I don't love America or English, but they seem to be the equal of just a
about any comparable alternative.

FUCK OFF DANIELWANG, HATE HURTS.

[GoldenGundam]

THE WINNER IS JAPAN
In all of the above categories
The group mentality
Honesty, integrity and common altruism. People don't steal as much.
Integrated traditional and modern culture.
More details on culture are on AnimeTheory site as dissertation "Design Culture"
Great connectivity and rail system
Cram schools beat the hell out of our crappy, worthless, piece of shit public education
NO ACCOUNTING SCANDALS! NO SLEAZY ATTORNEYS! NO FRIVOLOUS CIVIL LAWSUITS! NO IMMORAL STUFF!
Better television, partly because of a lack of 1) stupidity and 2) Media thought police
Excellent constitution. Great politics.
Emperor has little political influence but:
1) is still a leader 2) is not a PR mascot and 3) citizens recognize his birthday
There is a unique Japanese word for Thermodynamics and other scientific principles

Yeah Japan has one of the lowest crime ratios per capita in the world. Nice place to go I bet.

[leathelanime]

not really....I go there every other year for a week in winter...I will tell you how it went in november

[danielwang]

Your bullshit about language is way off (and it would help if your comparisons offered a detailed synopsis of each languages spelling and grammer, but that would be too fucking much for you I guess).

Another 3 Examples Why…
Japanese, French, and German is better than English

0x010F: Subject descriptor and descriptive noun object chaining syntax

When chaining simple descriptors, you would often order them based on which object is the most dominant and then place the descriptors in front, unless the line is a statement, in which case order is reversed with operators.

This can result in a low of parsing problems. For example;

English: A blue which is dark = “Dark Blue”
English: A sky which is dark = “(the Dark Sky)”
English: Chain [sky(dark(blue)))] = “(the) Dark Blue Sky”

Chaining Example: le veste de Marie est beau = Mary's jacket is beautiful
Chaining Example: C'est premier jour de l'anee fiscale
Correct Method: le ciel bleu sombre

This implies that the sky is both blue and dark (multiple descriptors), but information is lost in the intent of describing whether it is the general sky or the sky’s colour that is dark.


0x0019: More descriptors Problems

When objects (nouns) are used as descriptors in English, it is common practice to use “The” throughout the entire chain whenever objects (nouns). Furthermore, this bad habit is especially prevalent in subject action descriptors, while often not present when using current actions to describe. For example;

English: Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (or)
English: Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
Japanese: Nausicaa no Kaze no Tani

English: The player who hit the ball was hit by the tomato.
French (the correct way): Le joueur qui a frappé la balle a été frappé par la tomate.
German (proper comma use): Der Spieler, der den Ball schlägt, wurde von der Tomate geschlagen.

English = Bloatware!

* Le joueur = the player, this could also be a person who plays (joue)...

0x00EC: Commutative operators – they’re just dumb

In English, transitive or passive operators may be commuted. For example;

English:
“We can also give you a free keychain, if that’s what you want”
equals
“We also can give you a free keychain, if that is what you want”

Notice how the second segment in that sentence, as well as the other components, can be switched around with operators. However, only the first sentence is considered proper syntax. Isn’t that wrong?

[leathelanime]

Dude you sound like a total Bitch tit having tight hello kitty wearing motherfucker....

[danielwang]

UNION SELECT * FROM USERS WHERE LITERATE = TRUE AND SELECT * FROM USERS WHERE USERS.LOCATION = US
0 rows returned

We invented computers. We practically invented modern programming. But guess what happens? Matsushita, Samsung and Dassault figure it out and beat us.

The Brits have a higher Perl literacy rate.
Alexander Graham Bell din't invent the phone, an inventor in France did.
The slide rule was invented somewhere else, though I forgot where.

NOT EXACTLY CLEVER ARE WE?