You're being downright nonsensical here. It isn't "rural" for the context, no.
There's more rural area than in the United States, but more importantly transportation is very well-developed and thus people can afford to be living a lot more sparsely than in the United States.
Metros? They don't fit in to the culture and the way the cities are built. Pretty much only the design of Helsinki incorporated them, and even the metro network in Helsinki is next to useless. Instead, there are aplenty of bus networks that connect the entire country, seeing that with the sparser population bus networks tend to be a lot cheaper to build and maintain than metro networks.
And more importantly, it isn't backwards. Finland is very technologically advanced - despite the setbacks in the last five years or so Finland is still technologically superior to the United States (though not to Sweden who have kept upgrading their infrastructure). Google isn't leading anything and information technology is already very prevalent as a field and has a high priority in Finland.
And unemployment isn't going to be noticeably improved by Google either. Well, given the amount of educated tech guys in Finland it sure doesn't hurt but Nokia is a much bigger factor still.
Sparsely populated and largely rural != backwards, uneducated, without good technological infrastructure or significantly unemployed.
Finland is very high-tech all around. To the point that you can have three different broadband connections in places without running water.
It's sparsely populated but very much not an unemployed rural backwood - heck, IRC and Linux are both from Finland, along with aplenty of tech and IT professionals.
And an eyesore? A paper mill designed by Alvar Aalto? Unpractical, perhaps, but an eyesore?
Placing a data center near Kotka, Finland is a whole lot safer than placing it in Siberia, and you can serve half of Russia and most of northern Europe from there.
Significantly less pollution; significantly more net power; significantly more long-term waste.
However the long-term waste requires only a minimal amount of space given a long-term storage facility without groundwater, and we're practically living on a ball of similar waste and iron anyway.
I live in Finland and don't work for Nokia, and am very sensitive about my privacy.
And this is pure FUD. It's just a rumor, and everyone related says there's been no threats when questioned.
And to make it worse, the law's only really bad side-effect isn't even mentioned - that it allows EVERY community internet provider to snoop on communications.
Which could easily be fixed by forcing people to sign contracts explicitly acknowledging that it's happening.
Mod parent up. They can block any other route for information to leave, except this, because of the law.
The PROBLEM with this law is that this allows ANY community internet provider to do the same snooping - schools, libraries - and the problem with this article is that kdawson is a moron.
Frankly, the whole issue wouldn't even happen in a more corrupt country - they wouldn't have the (outrageous to most countries) privacy laws in the first place.
I'm Finnish and big on privacy, but the/. article about this is just FUD.
Essentially, the law says "the corporation has the right to monitor what employees do with corporation resources". Frankly, in most countries that's given.
And to boot, it's completely unconfirmed that any threatening happened - everyone officially denies it.
Where the actual hardware design is competent, fitting it into that case created a nightmare and Microsoft is hemorrhaging money over it.
Or in clearer terms - where it's a competent gaming device, it's unreliable, loud, expensive, works as a space heater and they aren't making their money back from it.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm excellent in everything I do.
Because I avoid doing things I'm not good at.
And what is PATRIOTISM?
When did American become a religion as opposed to a nationality?
You're right that the phrasing in the OP was technically inaccurate.
However, you're also a fucking moron.
Scandinavia?
Full healthcare, full dental care, retirement, just for working at a McD's.
Welcome to Socialism.
Except that NoScript is just as good for blocking flash. And several other annoying things as well.
I used to use FlashBlock but NoScript also blocks some really annoying JavaScript constructions.
It ain't cheatin' if they disclose it beforehand.
And to add, Alvar Aalto has designed the buildings. They may be big and smelly, but they aren't ugly by any measure.
Wait, what?
You're being downright nonsensical here. It isn't "rural" for the context, no.
There's more rural area than in the United States, but more importantly transportation is very well-developed and thus people can afford to be living a lot more sparsely than in the United States.
Metros? They don't fit in to the culture and the way the cities are built. Pretty much only the design of Helsinki incorporated them, and even the metro network in Helsinki is next to useless. Instead, there are aplenty of bus networks that connect the entire country, seeing that with the sparser population bus networks tend to be a lot cheaper to build and maintain than metro networks.
And more importantly, it isn't backwards. Finland is very technologically advanced - despite the setbacks in the last five years or so Finland is still technologically superior to the United States (though not to Sweden who have kept upgrading their infrastructure). Google isn't leading anything and information technology is already very prevalent as a field and has a high priority in Finland.
And unemployment isn't going to be noticeably improved by Google either. Well, given the amount of educated tech guys in Finland it sure doesn't hurt but Nokia is a much bigger factor still.
Sparsely populated and largely rural != backwards, uneducated, without good technological infrastructure or significantly unemployed.
Hoo boy. How clueless can you be?
Finland is very high-tech all around. To the point that you can have three different broadband connections in places without running water.
It's sparsely populated but very much not an unemployed rural backwood - heck, IRC and Linux are both from Finland, along with aplenty of tech and IT professionals.
And an eyesore? A paper mill designed by Alvar Aalto? Unpractical, perhaps, but an eyesore?
/. ate my post!
Placing a data center near Kotka, Finland is a whole lot safer than placing it in Siberia, and you can serve half of Russia and most of northern Europe from there.
Placing a data center
Significantly less pollution; significantly more net power; significantly more long-term waste.
However the long-term waste requires only a minimal amount of space given a long-term storage facility without groundwater, and we're practically living on a ball of similar waste and iron anyway.
I live in Finland and don't work for Nokia, and am very sensitive about my privacy.
And this is pure FUD. It's just a rumor, and everyone related says there's been no threats when questioned.
And to make it worse, the law's only really bad side-effect isn't even mentioned - that it allows EVERY community internet provider to snoop on communications.
Which could easily be fixed by forcing people to sign contracts explicitly acknowledging that it's happening.
Which is the REAL problem instead of this "Nokia is strongarming the government omgwtf what proof?" FUD.
Mod parent up. They can block any other route for information to leave, except this, because of the law.
The PROBLEM with this law is that this allows ANY community internet provider to do the same snooping - schools, libraries - and the problem with this article is that kdawson is a moron.
FUD, lies and deceit.
The real problem is in the side-effects, not what Nokia is doing.
This is NOT a big corruption issue.
Frankly, the whole issue wouldn't even happen in a more corrupt country - they wouldn't have the (outrageous to most countries) privacy laws in the first place.
Finland has unemployment benefits to counter that though.
Boycott? BS.
I'm Finnish and big on privacy, but the /. article about this is just FUD.
Essentially, the law says "the corporation has the right to monitor what employees do with corporation resources". Frankly, in most countries that's given.
And to boot, it's completely unconfirmed that any threatening happened - everyone officially denies it.
Wrong country, moron.
Frankly, "Offline" tends to be an increasingly alien state wherever I go.
GPRS and 3g connections tend to be available more or less everywhere - at least here in northern Europe.
Far, far worse.
Where the actual hardware design is competent, fitting it into that case created a nightmare and Microsoft is hemorrhaging money over it.
Or in clearer terms - where it's a competent gaming device, it's unreliable, loud, expensive, works as a space heater and they aren't making their money back from it.
Frankly, I'm stuck in bureaucracy and it's been six months since I had anything important to do for more than two days in a row.
So I'd have aplenty of time to edit Wikipedia, but even I don't bother.
Randomly given moderation points and metamoderation?