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Finnland is not a NATO member, so US wars affect the country only marginally. It has about 260 peacekeepers around the world though: http://formin.finland.fi/public/default.aspx?nodeid=32296&contentlan=2&culture=en-US#Map

Governments should be afraid of citizens, not vice-versa. and drawing to the comfort that i do happen to live in Finland, a neutral country, and for the most part our government wants to do the right thing. Let alone that our president isn't afraid to be aggressive to voice her and our governments opinion if she sees wrong doing, even if it hasn't anything to do directly with us. Yes, Finland is a weird tiny big country.

For the most part I agree, the goverment is trying its best. But right now, the current ministers, especialy our minister of information, are slowly forgetting or things like ignoring freedom of speech. The fact that some pages are still being censorerd in the make of "preventing the spreading of child pornography" (even though most of the pages censored do not actually contain child pornigraphy, or pornography of any kind) and that they allow things like the "lex nokia" (effectively allowing not only corporations, but also some private organisations such as housing companies to monitor the network usage and emails of ther members) - though it hasn't apparently been used since it passed - proves that many people in the current goverment have seemingly forgotten the importance of these fundamental rights. Also, Finland has been repeatedly fined for breaking the EU articles on freedom of press and speech (note: link in finnish).

And our president hasn't said a thing about these issues - nor for example the fact that Finland is one of the few remaining countries ehere one can still be fined for blasphemy (a law, which has been used a couple times even in the 21st century). And with the current presidential powers being what they are, it wouldn't make a one damn difference. The office of the president under the current constitution is akin to the king of the Swedes: a public figure. All the concrete power rests in the hands of the prime minister, who also has done or said nothing to defend a citizen's right to freedom of speech and expression.

In the upcoming elections next year, none of the major parties have so far informed that they would be focussing on these kind of issues. And why would the? Taxation, budget and immigration are the "hot topics" here like in most western countries so they are what's being used to entice voters. I like being a Finn living here, I think this is a great country and that our educatioon system for exmpale is probably one of the best if not the best in the world. And the political system is beyond repair yet - the major parties just really need a wake up call; a snap on their fingers to remind them that they cannot keep slowly chiselling away our personal freedoms while we're distacted. They need to be shown that this is not the US of A (no offense to any americans) and we won't swallow any "patriot acts" they try to push down our trhoats and that in the spirit of true democracy we will throw them out the door of the senate if they do.

That's why, if you're like me and are truly worried and care about thigns such as freedom of speech, I advice you to consider strongly about not voting any of the major parties in the next elections. Instead, I'd recommedn voting for the Finnish Pirate Party which is not by any means only a party concerned with torrenst and p2p like many unfortunately think - if you check their themes and core values from the site you will notice that personal liberties and freedoms are infact their key points along with de-criminalization of piracy for personal use. They have many candidates focussed primarily on the personal freedoms.

So yes, we're still a great nation. But by no means perfect. So please, for the sake of all of us, stop thinking that we're flawless and vote for somebody who doesn't think that it's a good idea to censor the net abd limit personal freedoms because child pornography is EVIL or because we don't want t

A) No. Only the population centers of Wyoming are, because the outlying population density doesn't warrant a cell tower.
B) I don't live in Wyoming. I live in MI, and I live amid many dead zones.
C) 100% of Finland? Or 100% of the INHABITED areas. http://finland.fi//finfo/images/people/popumap_b.gif Unlike Finland, most of the US is NOT tundra. Places in the US which are sparsely populated still have a thousand people in the radius of a cell tower http://www.cast.uark.edu/local/catalog/national/images/maps/Population.dir/USpop1990.gif. I once made a call from a place where I could see 50km for 270 degrees and nothing behind me. I could count the mercury vapor lights in that area. 100. Someone paid to have that area covered. It probably wasn't the people who lived there. It was probably the other 250 zillion cellphone users in America.
D) I'm not complaining. I would have paid $100 for that one call, so my bills subsidizing Wyoming farmers pays me back eventually.

Finnish e-voting results annulled, municipalities to hold new elections by Electronic Frontier Finland ry (Effi), the best summary in English, IMO;
Helsingin Sanomat;
Helsinki Times;
The Brad Blog;
NewsRoom Finland;
YLE; and
Turre (the lawyers that won the case).

The voting system was provided by Tieto and Scytl. In their News Page, Scytl declares: "Scytl's Pnyx.core successfully used in local elections in Finland" Shouldn't they update this...? It is even possible that the 2% of the votes lost was due to the Pnyx.core, instead of usability issues with the voting terminals, as has been commonly assumed - who knows.

Actually the machines were supplied by local company called Tieto.

More about the case in English
Yle News
Helsingin Sanomat
Newsroom Finland

Population density again. The densely populated portions of Finland are higher than New Jersey!

http://virtual.finland.fi/netcomm/news/showarticle.asp?intNWSAID=25785

http://virtual.finland.fi/finfo/showpicture.asp?pictureURL=http://virtual.finland.fi/finfo/images/people/popumap_b.gif

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States#Population_density

Population density again. The densely populated portions of Finland are higher than New Jersey!

http://virtual.finland.fi/netcomm/news/showarticle.asp?intNWSAID=25785

http://virtual.finland.fi/finfo/showpicture.asp?pictureURL=http://virtual.finland.fi/finfo/images/people/popumap_b.gif

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States#Population_density

That would be Finland. No (absolutely none) earthquakes, no floods (if there are any, they are extremely limited), no hurricanes, no extreme weather (same note as for floods).

Finland. Second highest suicide rate in Europe.

everywhere is fucked to some degree.

I call PRIOR ARt... check out how they do it in Finnland (via SMS)... text the number of the (coke machine | coffee bar | bus route) and get your (soda | receipt for hot beverage | bus pass)...

http://virtual.finland.fi/netcomm/news/showarticle.asp?intNWSAID=42626

The Inuit peoples (aka Eskimos) are not represented in the study, and are generally considered to have different origins from the First Nations peoples. I wonder how their inclusion would have fit with the rest of the data.

Seeing as how the Inuit of the US and Canada are related to the Inuit of Iceland and the Sami and Laplanders of the Artic and Northern Europe it could have thrown a hole in their theory.

Translation of the original comment in finnish*:

October 1st, 2007, 22:03 by Jaakko Lehtinen
Re: Wrong opinions

Can it really be, that Microsoft would be involved in this decision as well.

I question what caused this lack of trust. We don't know that, as we're not told. This however causes suspicion regarding the SFS.

You see, I was there at the SFS's ooxml decision meeting, which ended in very even votes for and against and where the state's votes also were 2-2 — first even 3-1 against ooxml.

Mr Nirhamo handled his role as chairman in a very professional manner. He kept the discussion tightly within the agreed 'frame', to use contemporary wording. Some [attendees] tried to start for example comparing the existing standard and the suggested standard against each other, but that was ended immediately, as it was not on the agenda for the meeting. No kind of deviations to other subjects were allowed. Not even from Microsoft.

And it was a very well handled decision meeting, I dare say as someone who has been in meetings with hundreds of pretty big decision makers.

Rarely — hardly ever — have I seen and experienced such a great performance by the chair.

Further about speaking one's mind, he made it clear at least twice, that the SFS doesn't have and can't have any other opinion that the decision of that meeting.

Due to Microsoft's pressure he separately inquired if he can put forward his own opinion of the matter. The representatives of the SFS who were present gave him permission to temporarily diverge from his position as chair and to state his own opinion.

He then showed the facts, that he based his opinion on. These arguments could not be denied by Microsoft either. There are errors and contradictions in the ooxml-suggestion.

I am very sorry about how Mr Nirhamo has been treated and disappointed at the SFS's way of handling the matter, if the alleged lack of trust was due to that meeting.

In that case, the SFS does not deserve my trust.

This looks like a full-blown scandal at the SFS to me. Certainly, the SFS under managing director Pekka Järvinen, can not be trusted to create standards according to the SFS's charter (link in Finnish), which among other things says that the SFS is an independent organisation and that it should represent the interest of Finland.

____________
*) Although I believe this translation to be very good, I'm not a translator by trade.

i'm not so sure it's a hack or prank. YMMV...

posted on http://digg.com/ (by sickaltima and achiIIe):

Jani Taskinen
http://www.zend.com/person.php?handle=sniper

Something to note:
http://virtual.finland.fi/stt/showarticle.asp?intN WSAID=13246&group=General

"Finnish UN observer feared killed in Israeli airstrike" ...

from Freenode:
"_sniper_" is Jani Taskinen.

[_sniper_] hehehehe..
[_sniper_] all other members of the UN security council wanted to condemn Israel for attacking the UN post but USA (freedom and democracy) vetoed it....Israel says the resolution was fair.
[_sniper_] hell yeah..
[_sniper_] NUKE ISRAEL!
[_sniper_] I'm so full of that fucking country..
[Shai-Tan] indeed
[_sniper_] Eye for an eye..I'll kill one Israel officer for one of ours, is that fair?
[_sniper_] I bet I'll be hanged for that.
[_sniper_] They kill one of my brother-in-arms-for-peace..I think I'm entitled to kill one of their nazis.
[_sniper_] Hezbollah, where can I enlist?
[_sniper_] FYI: I don't care at all what anybody thinks about me. I'm going to be openly anti-Israel from now on. This was the last straw for me. Fuck you jews.
[_sniper_] I will also quit this project. As long as it's backed by some Israel company, I don't want to have anything to do with it.
[_sniper_] Good bye.
[-- _sniper_ (~jani@a88-112-115-63.elisa-laajakaista.fi) has left #php.pecl

Jani is also Finnish BTW

It probably has something to do with this: http://virtual.finland.fi/stt/showarticle.asp?intN WSAID=13246&group=General

If you say so. By the way, Sweden is a monarchy. I should have caught that for you.

-h-

Even the exceeding residential land lines part seemed surprisingly backwards to me. My mother is the only one I know of who doesn't have a cell phone. Having a cell phone hasn't been unusual or a status symbol since 1996.

This Business Week article from 1999 claims cell phone penetration was 58% in 1999 in Finland. Apparently 96% of the population had a mobile subscription in 2004. The US isn't that much behind, is it?

You seem to be painting this as if someone in the US was limiting internet access for Finland and they were somehow convinced by Linux to let Finland "join the club". I think it is more likely that changes in Finland's telecommunication regulations and deployment of ATM between Finnish Universities had more to do wtih it.

He denied suggestions - sparked by comments from Mr Blair that he was changing his mind on whether international treaties were the best way to tackle global warming - that Britain was moving closer to the stance of the US, which has refused to back Kyoto-style emission reductions.

I believe sooner or later someone comes up with a claim like "you can't get rid of corruption". That's just bullshit. Enforcement of transparency would make corruption impossible to practise. Right now the trend in US appears to be going to opposite direction - those in chief are given even more tools to decrease their accountability to the public. In Nordic countries, particularly in Finland, the corruption is practically unexistant comparing to U.S or rest of the Europe. According to Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index, also New Zealand has adopted very effective policies. From my Nordic point of view, U.S. or France are not too far from China or Nigeria in the context of bribery, or whatever names you have from political donations, gifts to strategic deals. People here were worried how effectively their Katrina donations reached/will reach the projects and people in need in U.S. and how much was lost in biased decisions.

Some ./tters are certainly from U.S., so: When you Americans feel your country is screwed enough by 'flexible' politicians and other public servants who were supposed to make the best decisions, you should put up a mass movement with slongans like "if you want to serve the America, you have to publish what you're doing&lose your privacy in finances (so we have tools to keep eye on whether you are serving this country's interests at all)", to turn the ship 180 degrees to the direction of accountable governance and corporate culture. It would be good for the economy, too. Internet petitions, anyone?

Er - then how do you explain Finland, which is less than 2% immigrants, but is one of the most socialist countries in the world? Even the Finnish government's own Ministry of Finance website says "The Government's main aim is to develop the welfare society". (And, before you ask, its GDP is growing quickly and its debt is much lower than ours.)

Face it, dude, "liberal ideology" ain't a foreign influence from "Muslims and Jews"---it's homegrown, through the whole western world. Sorry, but you'll have to find another rationalization for your prejudices.

Did you miss the part where I said "including being colonized"?

I don't doubt the Sami are people, but are they a distinct nation?

The Sami, in some places spelled "sammi" though with other variations of spelling, I wouldn't say are so much a distict nation as much as they are part of a group of interrelated peoples. They are related to the Lapps which is a derogitory term, Lapps call themselves Samek or Sambe, and range from northwestern Russia to Norway and Sweden. Also related are the Inuit of Iceland and northern Canada and Alaska. Because these people are spread over a broad area they have formed their own dialects and customs. Here's a link to a pdf on Artic languages from UNESCO, Artic Languages: An Awakening. It's quite large at 446 pages and more than 2MB. Here are more links:

• An introduction to the Sami people
• The Sami in Finland
• The Sami and Lapland
• The Kola Sami in Russia
• INUIT CIRCUMPOLAR CONFERENCE
• Eskimo (Yupik/Inupiat/Inuit)

Here in Finland we've had these kind of id cards since 2000 or so. The novel idea is that that the authorities issue one for you and then you can use it when you need to prove who you are when doing business with the authorities from home. Great in theory since you can use web service from your home's comfort while previously you'd had to go there and have some other official identity with you, eg. passport. Well this thing pretty much flopped. Very rare service support it (though my company offers a service that supports it) and even fewer have card readers at home. It's a chicken and egg problem, really, combined with unfamiliar for the common people technology and concepts. Nowadays, when you need secure e-identification, many use the identification services offered by banks. Finnish banks are pioneers in e-banking and their systems are very established and generally trusted. So they've found a new business opportunity in offering their authentication and identification technology to 3rd parties who need their customers identified and are willing to out-source the operation. And this is something about everyone can use since on-line banking is so so 1996 that everyone does it by now. And to authenticate you don't need any extra computer stuff or passwords, just the code sheet your bank sent you. I believe electronic ID card is much more popular in Estonia. I don't know why, but they've been using it almost as long as Finland.

And to all American who are wondering the privacy effects. It's difficult for us to see your point. For us national id cards are no privacy threat at all. This is because the ids are mainly used when dealing with authorities, banks, etc. who one can trust (authorities) or whose interest is that their customer's privacy isn't compromised so they do their best to ensure that (banks, etc.). And why do we trust the authorities? Well our rulers don't have the habit to piss off the people by doing really things to us. And if something happened either intentionally or accidentally, they'd get caught very soon. According to Transparency International, Finland has been the least corrupted country on the planet for five consecutive years now. But it wasn't worse before, but the mutual trust and respect between governance and the people have been there since the 1917 independence.

The way I see it, we've got about 24 years to party before the world ends. Have another glögg!

Seriously, if it hits 5 or greater on the scale, then we'll have reason to really worry. In the meantime, it's sufficient to just watch and see what happens. As phreakuencies pointed out, right now there's a 97.8% chance of absolutely nothing happening.

Well, other points aside, your argument that cellphones are lagging in the US because of its size, is bordering on the ridiculous. The EU is as large as the US, yet the mobile phone penetration has been far higher ever since the mid 90's. Up here in Finland, there is only a population of 17 inhabitants per square kilometer. In the US the same figure is a little over 30 (use google to convert to metric). So, you seriously need to rethink your argument about why the US is lagging in mobile technology.

The Scandinavian languages are of Germanic heritage, while the Finish language is of Slavic heritage. Actually, Finnish is a Finno-Ugrian language and is less related to any other European language than Persian or Hindi. See e.g. this article. Understanding Swedish for a Norwegian is like understanding cockney for an Englishman. Yes, this is probably true. However, few Swedes understand spoken Norwegian. (We have to blame TV for this one.)

Definitely not the case and/or setup for those overclockers out there :) especially with heat output getting real close to 100W...

That does not really matter. As others have pointed out, the heat disappation of your metal case is close to zero compared to how much is dissappated by the air circulated by your case fans, so switching to wood won't make any difference.

There are lots of predicatble jokes here about it catching fire, but most traditional Finnish saunas are made from wood. You can actually have wood panelling right next to metal that is so hot it's glowing red without the wood smoldering. Though just like with saunas, it would probably be best not to use wood that is impregnated or treated with anything for the cases, as that might give off not very healthy gasses if warmed up.

With regards to being heavy - it might be a bit bulky, but I think I read wood is actually one of the strongest materials compared to its weight in the world. Hey, here is an idea, how about spider silk cases?

Finally, the environmental question: wood is about as renewable resource as there is, and we have lots of it in Sweden. As long as the wood doesn't come from protected forests ("ur-skog") or rainforests, you can't really get more environmentally friendly.

Linus, is that you? By the way, I'm looking forward to 2.6.

Highly unlikely. Though Finnish by citizenship, by nationality Linus is actually Swedish.

In Soviet Russia, Russia operates Finland control system.

In Modern Russia, Finland operates control of Russia's systems.

There's still very rural places in the most densely populated areas. Just go from Helsinki to Espoo and admire all the farm houses and fields. Finland is quite spacious where everyone lives in the "lande", even the cocky Helsinki-dwellers (even if they won't admit it).

More information about Finland here and here.

I'm sorry to inform you that the Penguin has left the country.

On a more serious note, I was sure you were making up the Hungary/Finnish relationship, until I found this.

reading the letter by tolkien at the beginning of the (latest? dunno about earlier prints) silmarillion lights his inspirations pretty well.

noted though, he wanted to have a mythology that wasn't christian, as brits already had such in the tales of the knights of the round tables..

the way 'magic' is used in tolkiens stuff greatly (imho) is like how it is portrayed in kalevala, a finnish mythology/poem collection, the spells/powers are done (mostly) by singing/playing a song.

a good timeline of kalevala is at
http://virtual.finland.fi/finfo/english/kaleva7. ht ml. tolkien said to have had much inspiration of it. it is imho very tiring to read though, being versed as a poem and some words are not used anymore in everyday finnish, note that tolkien learnt finnish to read kalevala..

you might find some names like Ilmatar a bit 'tolkienish' ;), but that's just how he made elvish (ilma means air, '-tar' means that it is mistress/woman, in finnish)

The ballad you mention was probably Kalevala, the finnish national epic. It was collected in the 1830s from various rune singers by Elias Lönnrot, and is actually more like a collage of poems than a tale. FYI, Sampo is a kind of magical machine which ensures unending wealth for its owner (naturally a much sought-after thingie in the tale).

If I remember correctly Tolkien had read his Kalevala too, and also used the finnish language as an inspiration for the elf-language.

And here and here are some links to Finnish news (in English).

And YLE daily news (in Real Audio)

Finland has the most press freedom in the world. Did you know that Finland is also the country with the least corruption? in the world?

Yes! Hate speech is good!

Imagine someone reading for example Pekka Siitoin's pages. Does that give a good impression on Nazism? NO! People laugh at it. They can see themselves how stupid their ideologies are.

Rumours and similar memes are much more dangerous. The badly html-formatted, speling erorr-containing sites can actually do more good than harm, because no one trusts them. Face-to-face, it is harder to disagree and laugh.

Hate speech is already banned on many of the countries of EC, so for example here in Finland nothing would change. There are always providers outside Europe, and they will host the sites no matter what EC legistlation is. Tracing them is not feasible.

Swedish is his native language. It's the second official language in Finland and the Finnish speaking population (94% of the population) learns the language in school.

But it is a place to start.

Side note:

while looking up the Finnish Language pages for this comment, I came across this tidbit: That Finnish has "no equivalent of the verb to have". This has interesting philosophic implications in the history of open source, etc.

Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip

But it is a place to start.

Side note:

while looking up the Finnish Language pages for this comment, I came across this tidbit: That Finnish has "no equivalent of the verb to have". This has interesting philosophic implications in the history of open source, etc.

Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip

Here are some sights that have a few good pictures of the Aurora Borealis in them: Aurora Borealis - Northern Lights, pictures, Auroral Photography, & The Aurora Page

DMCA is an US law and it applies to US citizens (naturally), but can it apply to non-US citizens / corporations? What about the E-mail not being very private-thing?

To an outsider like me (I'm from Finland) this starts to seem like your government was something you can't get a grip on. It does what it wants and that's pretty much it. No matter what you say or do. It feels like the US government was something big, dark.. not something you can point a finger at. A faceless organization with all the power they could want / need. It's spooky. Makes me think if Mulder & Scully were right after all. But then again, I'm an outsider. What do I really know?

I used to look up to the States and it's citizens, but now I'm not so sure anymore. I used to think I'd leave Finland for USA, but I think that'd be a bad idea. The land of the free seems to be far from free.

Hell, If my computer was that badly messed up, I'd reinstall it.