Showing posts with label Finland. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Finland. Show all posts

Jul 20, 2018

What's in a Name, Scandinavia

Scandinavia is an area of Northern Europe that shares a common historical, cultural, and linguistic Germanic heritage. This area includes the modern countries of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. It is a cultural term often confused with the geographical term: Scandinavian Peninsula.

The Scandinavian Peninsula is made up of Norway, Sweden, and Finland (plus a bit of Russia). Denmark is physically separate from the peninsula.

The Scandinavian languages, Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish are similar and can mostly be understood by people in each of the Scandinavian countries. Finnish is unrelated to the Scandinavian languages.

Finland, although a part of the Scandinavian Peninsula, is not usually considered a Scandinavian country. Despite its close location to Sweden and Norway, it does not share the same Germanic cultural and linguistic heritage as those countries.

Oct 9, 2015

International Day for Failure

October 13th is International Day for Failure. A holiday intended for people to share stories of failure and learn from them. The goal of the people organizing the event is to have it be an internationally-recognized holiday by 2020. Without the possibility of failure there is no success, they go hand-in-hand. On this day you can admit some stupidity, error estimation, awkward moments, and other fails to the world. Facebook has a page dedicated to it.

The holiday was created in Finland in 2010. In 2012 it expanded to over 17 different countries. You can share your failures at this LINK   It will be interesting to see if their failure campaign will be a success.

Feb 15, 2014

Bang for Your Buck

'Bang for your buck' means 'value for the money spent' or 'excitement for the money spent' and is based on the slang meaning of bang (excitement ) and buck (money).

Finland had one of the highest-ranked education system for many years, but came in #2 in 2013, behind to Japan. The UK #3 in 2013; Canada #7; Estonia #17 and the United States #18, out of 200 countries considered.

Japan spends an average of $10,596 per student and Finland $10,157. The US spends $15,172 per student, the highest of any country and 2.5 times more per student than #17 ranked Estonia. The US does not appear to be getting a bang for its bucks.

Oct 11, 2013

International Day for Failure

October 13th is International Day for Failure. A new holiday intended for people to share stories of failure and learn from them. The goal of the people organizing the event is to have it be an internationally-recognized holiday by 2020.

The holiday was created in Finland in 2010. In 2012 it has expanded to over 17 different countries, their goal is for it to be accepted worldwide by 2020. In 2011, their campaign got over 30 public figures in Finland to talk about their failures. They managed to reach 1/4 of the population with their media coverage. LINK   It will be interesting to see if their failure campaign will be a success.

Aug 2, 2013

Internet Usage

Iceland (96%), Norway (95%), and Sweden (94%) have the highest percent of populations using the Internet. The Netherlands, Denmark, Luxembourg, Bermuda, and Finland all have over 90% of their respective populations using the net.

Canada is 16th with 86% of its population using the Internet. The US ranks 28th, with 78% (244 million people) online.

China has 591 million people using the Internet, but that is just 44% of the country's 1.3 billion population.