Recall the last time you were impressed by a Yahoo! website, product, or service. Okay, that was fast. Why is it that these guys are so hooked on being mediocre? Not bad, mind you, or evil, just sub standard. So that almost everytime you use one of their services it pains you that there are glaring bugs they could have fixed.

I already reviewed once how they are destroying Yahoo! Mail, which is actually one of their very best services, in favor of a new version of the service that's much worse. But that's just the top of the iceberg.

Today I was watching an interesting talk about javascript on Yahoo! Video, and I soon realized that Yahoo!'s flash video player is the worst one I've ever seen. When I watch it, the play button gets stuck so I can't pause and none of the maximize/minimize controls seem to work either. And if you think it's Adobe's linux flash plugin that's buggy, I'm happy to say that I can watch flash movies without a hitch on any number of other sites.

And that made me think back on various times I've used Yahoo! services in the past. Many years ago, I was trying pretty hard to promote Juventuz, my football fansite. Back then, the surest way of getting good traffic was to be in Yahoo!'s directory. Their directory was very exclusive and very hard to get into. As one of the leading fansites in my particular category, I think I waited about 2 years for my site to be added. Meanwhile, the category listed a couple of sites that were either almost dead or completely 404. After Juventuz finally got added it didn't make a big difference anymore, by that time I had built up good traffic through other means.

Of course, the reason Yahoo!'s directory was important was that they were a force in web search, long before the Google revolution. But if you look at their search right now, it's hard to be impressed by it. It's only a single input box, there's no advanced options to filter on language or whatever. Compare that to Google's advanced search that has lots of options.

So what else does Yahoo! do? Flickr. It wasn't built by Yahoo!, but they own it now. And it's a successful site, probably the most popular photo sharing site, and might be Yahoo!'s more successful venture right now. But the navigation is horrible. Once you zoom in on a picture, there's no way to navigate, you have to go back. And the way albums are presented, it's awful. The best photo site I think is Zoomr (unfortuantely they are in the middle of a redesign right now), although there seems to be little competition in this space.

Yahoo! is a veteran internet company, and one of the major players. But is there anything they are leading at? Their search is far inferior and always has been to Google. Their messenger service is basically irrelevant. Their map service I think was launced after Google's, and I don't know anyone who uses it. Yahoo! Groups is decent and pretty popular, but if you actually need to set up a group it's quite a pain to use and very limited. And, of course, their video is fairly irrelevant to Youtube. For an internet company, they don't seem to have much of a talent for internet products.

As a kid, I was used to silent transactions. You would go into a store, pick up some items, proceed to the checkout line, and when it was your turn, the cashier would say "that'll be 2.50" (kids don't have a lot of money). You would hand over the money, and if you wanted to be super polite you would say "here you go" as you did that. Transaction end. Silent or near silent.

Then came those holidays in Poland, which introduced a new set of problems. The elders would instruct you that upon entry you are obliged to say "good morning" (you can't just say "hi", that's rude). This goes not only to the person working there, but also all the other customers (if they are around). Then if you wanted to ask about something, you couldn't just say "do you have?", you'd have to say "dear miss, does the miss have...?" Then as money is changing hands, the "here you go" is not optional. And finally on exit, you're obliged to say goodbye to both the cashier and the other customers. The etiquette varies a bit, it doesn't apply so much in supermarkets (which didn't really exist at the time), but it applies in every small store, barber shop etc.

I always hated these rules, because they seemed so completely pointless. I get irked by anything that is overly complicated for its purpose. And it's not that people in Poland are nicer to each other, they just talk more. If you were mad at someone, you would still have to utter those pleasantries, although you would say them in a completely different tone of voice. So it's just pointless blather that doesn't add anything to the scene. Instead of saying good morning to actually wish someone a good morning, you're obliged to say this robotically to every person you interact with. If you're a really cheery person who wants to wish everyone a good morning, go ahead. But otherwise, why would you have to say that all the time?

I could not bring myself to pronounce those terms myself, out of how plain stupid they sound. I would always try to formulate myself in a way to get around the "dear miss" and "does the miss have". You can say "excuse me, is.... present?" and that way you avoid addressing the person at all, and it's still polite enough.

The language of these phrases is just totally out of context. Popular language in Poland is often very vulgar, more so than say Norwegian. If you're 13-16, you're not cool unless you use fuck in every sentence. In fact, to be on the safe side, use it several times. Fuck, I don't know what the fuck I'm gonna do fuck. (To be technical about it, the word used for fuck actually means whore.) This is the way people actually talk, and it's not just kids either, when grown men are in the company of their peers they do talk like this. And if you want a truly enriching experience, let your parents send you to summer camp; when kids get away from their parents, you'll hear little else that fuck, whore, bitch etc. (It's actually at camp that I felt completely estranged, didn't feel like I fit in at all with these weirdos.) So, when a group of teenagers is walking down the street and one of them stops to buy a magazine in a booth, he will switch from the fuck language to "does the miss have". The contrast is frankly shocking. When people need to be formal they are, otherwise they see no reason why they shouldn't be as vulgar as they possibly can.

To me, these are two worlds I don't fit into. The formal language is contrived and aristocratic like, and no one talks like that outside formal situations. And the popular language in many circles is completely foreign to me as well. Of course, I'm not foreign to curses, we all use them sometimes. But I don't mangle them into my sentences like that. So who's the barbarian here? The person who doesn't utter polite phrases, who only has one mode of expression, or the person who cycles between formality and vulgarity all the time?

Mind you, there are more oddities that come from strict etiquette. For instance, let's say you go into a little shop that only has one person working there, and there are already a few people in there. You enter with a group of 3. Now, what are you supposed to do? Does each of the three people have to say good morning? Is it okay if just the first person says it? If the cashier is currently doing business with a customer, how many times does she have to be interrupted by a good morning when a group enters the store? And whom do you address it to, the cashier, the other customers, everyone? You address the room. You generally look to the cashier, and whoever wants to respond is free to do so. Generally the person working in the store is obliged to respond. Of course, when you enter with your parents, who always go in first (and make the greeting) and you don't say it, they will come down on you. But how stupid is it for 4 or 6 or 9 people to come into a room, each saying good morning? What is this, a conveyor belt?

So maybe you think you're just gonna try and fit in. You observe people, what they do, and try to copy it. This is not easy. People are not consistent. In spite of these strict rules, people are not [complete] robots, they break rules all the time. And it's hard to determine what is definitely rude and what is acceptable.

Then, into my adolescence somewhere, a new trend started taking shape in Norway. People would be saying hi to you in stores for no reason, and sometimes say bye when you left. Continental influence probably. I found this odd at first, I hadn't grown up with it. But it's not a Napoleonic practice that stems from some kind of high aristocracy as in Poland, it's a very common kind of thing. The expressions aren't formal, they are common. It's the same language you use with your friends daily, so you don't have to wear that imaginary wig and pretend to be someone you're not. I got used to the practice and now I don't mind saying hi. When I say it I mean it, I'm not just saying it for show. If I don't want to say it, I won't say it, and no one will give me deathly stares over it. Kindness over politeness. Humans over robots.

Don't get me wrong, the intentions behind politeness are good. People who shaped these rules I think really wanted us to be friendly to each other. And if you take them in that spirit then I think you're doing a good thing. But people are not robots, just because you give them rules to follow does not mean they will a) follow them or b) follow them with the given intention. Politeness in Polish culture is such a strong norm that people follow it out of necessity, not kindness. In fact, think about that principle for a minute. Is there any way to enforce kindness? There isn't. What you can enforce is politeness, a rigid, blind, meaningless code that we feel obliged to adhere to. There is no shortage of good theories that don't work in practice.

I was on a flight a few months ago and I needed to bring my tennis racket. It's a bit awkward to take if you only have a backpack, cause there's no way to pack it. And no way to conceal it, unfortunately. As I'm going through security, this woman stops me. "That's a strike weapon, you have to check that in." What now? Oh, my racket? No no, it's just a racket, it's not a weapon. It's for sports. She made me check it in and I was a little panicked cause I wasn't prepared for this. Well it turns out I was still okay on time, so no big deal.

But the stupidity of it is annoying. A tennis racket is now a weapon? "What about that guy over there, he's carrying a laptop! Have you seen those youtube videos, you can maul a guy with a laptop!" (No, neither have I, but youtube has everything so I bet you could find people beaten with laptops as well.) I mean a tennis racket, that thing is made to be really light, it would be a terrible weapon. A baseball bat I could understand.

Somehow when I get into these situations with the security people, there's always someone else who comes out of it unscathed. On the very same flight there was a guy that had a racket on the plane. A badminton racket. Even worse for a weapon, would probably break that thing. But if mine is a strike weapon then his is too. What, you couldn't hit someone with a badminton racket if you wanted to? They won't take our laptops, cause that would really piss off the business travelers, but it's actually a more potent weapon.

Another time I'm going through security at Schiphol, again with just a backpack. I had a pair of scissors in there, not that I even remembered, I had them in my pencil case since junior high. But sure enough the guy pulled me over and stole them. "You can't take these on the plane." Right next to me there's another guy being examined and he's carrying a first aid kit in his backpack. In there, yes you guessed it, a pair of scissors. The security guy takes them out, looks at them, puts them back in. I think his were actually bigger than mine (and probably sharper on account of a first aid kit having to be in good condition). So apparently I'm a terrorists, because I have scissors, but the guy next to me, pretending to be medical personnel, couldn't possibly be faking, right?

Air travel was once a luxury for the wealthy. Flying as a business was so expensive anyway that they could increase their profit margins by giving you selling you food, drink and entertainment, which only raised the price cost marginally. Then came the age of ever cheaper flights, and gradually they began phasing out everything but the bare essentials: the flight itself.

So an activity that was once about giving you an enjoyable experience, albeit in the confines of an airplane seat, is now nothing more than just transportation. Like taking the bus. Sure, they keep trying to sell you food, but very few people bother overpaying for a sandwich unless the company pays for it. And there's nothing else for you to do, between This is your captain speaking blahblah would you can it already, Sir, would you care for a sandwich *waves them away* and We'll be landing in 45 minutes, the weather is blahblah.

And that's the problem, they keep trying to pretend like flying gives you something to do, but it absolutely doesn't. And people don't believe it for a second, they're trying to just get through it. Is trying to get some rest too much to ask for? Do I really need the pilot talking his standard nonsense right above my head when I'm trying to doze off? Shut up already, I'm tired enough as it is having to get up early to get to the airport and oblige you with the ridiculous "safety" precautions, wait around doing nothing, take the flight, wait 40 minutes to get my luggage, re-check-in to my connecting flight, waste another hour at the damn airport and then listen to you all over again.

I always look to my mp3 player for salvation. Without it flying would be much worse. And recently I listen to audio books a lot. So when I get on the plane, I want peace and quiet, cause either I'll be listening or I'll try to go to sleep. Everything you could possibly say I've heard a dozen times over, please just shut up. I think we should have the stewardess hold up those big signs with everything they want to say written on it, like a teleprompter. That way they can talk as much as they want, the rest of us can get some peace.

The interest and fascination by mafia movies astounds me. It almost seems that out of all males, half love mafia stories. Favorite movies? The Godfather, Scarface etc. On tv? The Sopranos. Some take it so far as to idolize mafia characters, like they're some kind of positive example to imitate. But why? I have to say I find that disturbing. I've seen a bunch of these movies, all hotly recommended of course, and I don't quite see the attraction. Interests aside, the idol worship is unsettling.

Why is it that people idolize mafia characters? I guess it's because they like the idea of having that kind of power, it tickles them to imagine what it would be like. Curious thus that they aren't drawn to other well established symbols of power. Stalin, Hitler, that kind of thing. They too did whatever the hell they wanted, killing people, hoarding fortunes, exempt from any consequences, in fact absolute power on a far greater, more successful if you will, scale. So why aren't those held up as examples to idolize?

The whole mafia fandom thing is very misguided.

Or is there another side to this? I think it might be something else, something a lot more innocent in fact. Just plain teenage rebellion. If you think about what age it is that most people start digging the whole mafia thing, it's usually in their teens, isn't it? And they start acting up, wishing they could challenge the establishment and claim power they don't have. That makes it sound a lot less deranged, but somehow also pretty pathetic. I mean watching mafia flicks and imagining that you have the kind of power of Tony Soprano, because you're mad at your parents for not letting you have your way? That's pretty lame.