[MUD-Dev] OT: Suomi Finland

[##Make Nylander]

[Original message sent by Ola Fosheim Gr=F8stad]
|Mike Sellers <mike at online-alchemy.com> wrote:
| >Interesting -- the city that I've read about putting cameras up on eve=
ry
| >streetcorner to create a companion "virtual city" is Helsinki.  Just a
| >couple of countries over. :) =3D20

	Virtual Helsinki is not the only "virtual city" effort in
	Finland. Around 1991, the Finnish government
	established a National Multimedia Program ("Kansallinen
	Multimediaohjelma, KAMU") around 1991. The purpose of that
	program was to support and promote use of multimedia and=20
	high-speed networks in public information dissemination. I
	took part in a "virtual village" project within KAMU in '96,
	the purpose was to provide a rural area a Web/VRML interface
	to local services. Of course, given the state of VRML
	implementations back then, the result wasn't particularly
	usable, but it was fun nonetheless.
|=20
| Had a Finnish guest
| lecturer once, he insisted on talking in English, totally
| incomprehensible.  Better than Finnish, of course, (Finnish is totally
| weird, excellent for cursing, I better not... I don't think JCL will
| approve.).  The weird thing is, his Swedish WAS comprehensible, but
| English it was...

	Swedish is one of the three official languages in Finland
	(other two being Finnish and Lapp [sami]). There's a=20
	small Swedish-speaking minority in Finland, about 5% of
	the population. As to why most Finns (myself included)
	prefer English over Swedish; it's a cultural thing. Finland's
	been occupied by both Sweden and Russia; neither culture
	is viewed favorably by the Finnish speaking population.

        Yeah, Finnish is excellent for cursing... a small anecdote:
	I was at my sister-in-law's wedding in Las Vegas, where I
	met my wife's Uncle Bob the first time. He came to me and,
	having learned I was Finnish, smiled widely, shook my hand
	and proudly exclaimed the only words he knew in Finnish:
	"Saattana perrkkele" (translation of these expletives is
	left to the imagination of the reader :).=20

And while I'm at it:
Name:                Markku Nylander
Place of residence:  Tennessee, U.S.
Occupation:          Sr. Systems Developer (mainly VB5 & SQL Server)
Current MUD project: Ursus II, a Diku derivative slowly mutating towards
                     a Mush. Game play is "roomless", based on event
                     triggered scripts/state machine, the ultimate goal
                     being a "self-modifying interactive novel" (long way
                     from there yet).
MUDding interests:   Social interaction, MUDs as authoring media.
Other interests:     Arabian horses (we have two), ice hockey,
                     religious studies, mechanical things I have No
                     Clue How To Fix.

--=20
I never regret my failures, but I regret every missed opportunity.