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Encarta, Britannica and Citizendium have already proved many other approaches and/or management styles substandard.

Getting rid of notability: Are you talking about something like Wikia? Currently the largest network of gaming sites (30M unique views/mo.), but overall progress has been surprisingly slow since the start in 2004. Jimmy Wales as a founder and 11M raised less than a year ago.

This was also an underlying factor when I tried to find why Russian tourists used to spend crazy amounts of money right across the EU border. Few of them told that looking back, it's possible that things might not last, so you mind as well use what you have now. When your planning perspective isn't long, you make different choices.

FRA is one of the reasons why Finland is very close to building another cable to Germany via the Baltic Sea, bypassing Sweden. It's politically very high on the to-do list.

Follow-on project would be to connect it to Asia via the Northwest passage. Russian company is already laying some cable there, but connecting these two is wishful thinking at the moment. On land the cables are already there, reaching from Helsinki to near Russian Murmansk.

Pictures here: http://yle.fi/uutiset/suomi_haluaa_oman_tietoliikennereitin_...

Makes sense. In Finland the only constant between parliaments seems to be the Swedish People's Party. One or two cabinet seats since 1979 (support ranging from 4.2 to 5.5%). They basically exist to maintain the Swedish language's position in Finland. Since their demands are predictable and relatively trivial, they end up in all combinations, even the current mongrel six-party coalition.

They matter if they pass on good word of mouth.

In Finland the operating costs are nationally averaged to make up unit rate (google: yksikköhinta). Majority of state funding can be then traced back to Unit rate x number of students.

Great stories in the blog comments.

Cross-European medical tourism could explode next year, after 2011/24/EU: Directive on patients' rights in cross-border healthcare enters into application.

The directive created a legal framework for patient’s right to seek healthcare in another member state and for reimbursement.

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2...

Finland: Yes, perfectly normal.

I'm sure that our custom of including a line about military service would raise more eyebrows around the world. Yes, it's mandatory, but can't really be related to if the target country doesn't have conscription (you have a certain mindset of which kind of people seek to enlist). Which is why we are trying to drop it even from CV's intended for Finnish employers.

Yes, I believe another Finnish Swede active in this scene is somewhat more culturally Swedish - Monty Widenius, founder of MySQL/MariaDB.

On the other hand Linus' father is a Member of the European Parliament for Swedish People's Party of Finland, and was until 2011 the party vice chairman. But he (Nils) has been quite relaxed about things like mandatory Swedish education, which most Finnish Swedes dearly cling on to.

I believe that this Israeli-Finnish mentality of informality and "to the point" attitude has something to do with both still having military draft, besides the usual being small, educated, remote and history of living under threat. In both countries there is remarkably small difference in perceived (and acted upon) status, say between prime minister and common man should they engage in casual conversation.

Few posts later, what might be the crux of the matter (first four paragraphs): http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=137391223711946&w=2

Linus really has only a few tools at hand to restrict otherwise almost unlimited access he is providing. Instead of usual secretaries filtering and rationing access, he has to be blunt whenever he encounters inconsiderate time wasting. Like he said previously, occasional swearing shortens the e-mail queue. If Linus resorted to hand holding he would never get anything else done, because there is virtually endless demand for it.

Most likely because Red ochre paint is also easy to make. Around here (Finland) every other paint is bought, but Red ochre is occasionally boiled on site for painting out farm buildings and summer cottages. Partly for economic reasons, but mostly because it continues centuries old Scandinavian tradition. This and log cottages found their way to America with immigrant Forest Finns from northern Sweden. They practised slash and burn agriculture, which became frowned upon because it was thought to threaten the wood supply for building ships. So they had to find another frontier. This shared heritage could explain why some commenters point out never seeing red barns where they grew up, when they are commonplace in others.

Instructions for diy Red ochre paint: http://www.kaupunkiyhdistys.jns.fi/punamulta/english/redtext...

You don't always have to specifically dig uranium. Plenty of other mining products produce a side stream of uranium, which can be utilized.

In larger picture these side streams don't matter much. What happens in Kazakhstan's (36% of all U production), Canada's and Australia's uranium mines does. They account for 64% of global uranium production. Australia has 23% of the world's uranium deposits, CAN 12%, KAZ 10%.

About 85% of current needs are met with digging, 15% comes from secondary sources.

It's interesting that two of the biggest producers of uranium do not utilize nuclear energy themselves. Even Canada produces only 12% of their electricity with nukes (France 78%). Good business even if you don't personally believe in it?

page 55: USA has the most First-day deaths in industrialized countries

page 69: 2013 Mother's index rankings, first six includes all Nordic countries plus Netherlands. Canada #22, UK #23, USA #30. Besides child mortality, too few women in politics weigh USA down in the index.

Don't forget that even though en.wikipedia is the most important, each language version is independent. Some of those have distinct characteristics.

Many things are carried off from the largest one, but for example governance can include unique features (e.g. Arbitration Committee, which is rare). Each have their own established practices in deletions. For example En.wikipedia has merit-based deletion, where you suggest support or delete with an argument and it hopefully leads to a consensus. In fi.wikipedia only the numbers in a community-wide vote matter. There are also some optional quality assurance methods (Flagged revisions).

For example De.wikipedia has a very developed, almost professional Wikimedia foundation chapter behind them. They run several development projects and global services on behalf of the whole community. Flagged revisions was piloted there. They also have a distinct look due to strict guidelines on image use. Unlike most, they don't allow fair use pictures.

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Flagged_Revisions http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Arbitration_Committee

Tektok @ Economist: "Wikipedia is run by those who have the most time to waste and energy to outlast others." Unfortunately this is not far from the truth.

Can you really build efficient/reliable mass transit systems and other related services without zoning?

I agree that some part of zoning is pure conservation (skewed towards status quo and the interests of the majority of current owners) whereas no-zone is closer to plain economical interests and favors individual cases.

Linus Torvalds: "Q: How do you know you are in the middle of nowhere in Finland? A: Sometimes your cellphone downgrades from HSPA to 3G." https://plus.google.com/+LinusTorvalds/posts/LuhjmWpAgVi

Welfare states are quite fault tolerant, but could they handle unlimited immigration? It isn't just money. Societies with high level of trust would change psychologically if too many people from states in disrepair would arrive at once.

How much poverty would need to be eliminated that dismantling of welfare state becomes an acceptable trade-off?

Here's Swedish taxi fare sticker for comparison: https://www.arlandaexpress.com/files/bilder%20integrerad%20s...

Another good development path is to write Wikipedia articles. You get to see someone "kill your darlings" and perhaps learn from it. Plenty of readers too. But there is no opportunity for blog-like self promotion. You only get better writing and analyzing skills. Editing popular articles vs. starting a new one are completely different experiences.

Unwittingly in this attempt to legislate, they might have found the best way possible to raise moral justification to do farm tapes in the first place.

Thailand & co. already excel in it. Research common search result stories like this: http://www.jaunted.com/story/2011/10/11/125413/89/travel/Tra...

Did you know that Sweden (which included Finland) had effectively 100% reading ability as early as the first part of 18th century?

This was due to a decree (Church law of 1686) by Charles XI which required reading skill in order to be allowed to wed. There are complete parochial records ("church examination registers") to study this progress up to level of single individuals.

Surprisingly enough these documents prove that writing ability and reading ability don't need to go hand in hand which has often been thought as self-evident.

tl;dr What you don't see immediately in Finnish/Swedish education is hundreds of years of reading tradition and deep historical commitment to literacy (ability to read), quite unconnected to industrialization (unlike elsewhere), which happened rather late in Sweden and Finland.

More: Understanding Literacy in Its Historical Context, pg. 28 "The history of literacy in Sweden" http://www.google.fi/books?id=WBLOVq4ocLEC&printsec=fron...

"The reading ability campaign in Sweden was carried through almost completely without the aid of proper schools." (pg. 42) Thus there has always been a strong component of household education.

No demand. Our university education is not based on liberal arts, which makes the likes of Latin effectively vanity subjects.

Also not having any Catholic tradition lessens the appreciation of Latin.

Start here: http://www.globalutmaning.se/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Davo...

Then follow up on things that picque your interest. Like social trust and Nordic social contract.

All know at least 3, because two are compulsory and that does not include English.

Finland has a small problem of degree inflation. Masters degree is highly preferred. Vast majority in traditional research university students are likely to skip over the bachelors. Because of this average graduation age is dangerously close to 30.

Finnish perspective: The only quality you truly need to worry about is the quality of your teacher education.

They can because VAT is the ultimate cash cow. For example in Finland VAT accounts for 40-50% of all tax proceeds. In 2010 VAT proceeds were 12.7 Bn while Income & Capital Gains taxes were 7 Bn.

I was rather surprised to read* that neighbor Finland is actually responsible for the largest community of foreign watchmakers working in Swiss industry. 30 overall; names like Kari Voutilainen and Stepan Sarpaneva.

[*] http://www.worldtempus.com/fr/actualites/a-la-une/detail/art...

Here's a great background piece on School of Watchmaking, est. 1944 near Helsinki: http://www.tp178.com/wsw/ahci/fin_wmschool/article_01.htm

Outline of FINHEEC audit process and outcomes: http://www.qaa.ac.uk/Partners/education/Documents/FINHEEC%20...