This is the first part of a series on what it means to be Finnish. If you’ve ever visited FInland you know we live in one of the greatest places in the world. But it’s not all fun an games. There are some things you just have to master to live here
Let’s get started with essential history. I could go on about the times as part of Sweden and Russia, or the fight for independence. But that’s not really important. To understand us there is one historical event you must know and that is:
The Winter War 1939-1940.
It was kind of like the battle of Hoth.
Main difference was that the Soviet tanks didn’t have legs, so instead of rope we used Molotov’s Cocktails.
How to use a Molotov's Cocktail
So why are the improvised fire bombs called Molotov’s cocktails? Well, it’s a joke, obiously. Soviet Commissar for Foreign Affairs Vyacheslav Molotov claimed in radio broadcasts that the Soviet Union was not dropping bombs but rather delivering food to starving Finns, so Finns started calling the bombs “bread baskets”. Soon they responded by attacking advancing tanks with “Molotov cocktails” which were “a drink to go with the food”.
That’s pretty much sums it up. The Soviet Union attacked with half a million men and thousands of airplanes and tanks. The Finns, being short on pretty much everything, threw bottles at them. Their tanks blew up and eventually the Soviets called quits so they’d have an army left to fight Hitler.
The Oscars are upon us – as is Energia’s live tweet. And Timo will be on tv on Nelonen’s Oscar studio after 3AM (Finnish time).
In case you don’t use Twitter yet, below are Widgets of all the tweets from me (@energia) and Timo (@leonblank) and the Finnish Oscar discussion. They should update with the latest tweets. But we’ll see how Twitter copes with the huge amount of people sure to be Tweeting tonight.
And the Finnish Oscar discussions, in Finnish, most probably. Vaihdan #hashtagiksi sen jolla on eniten juttua.
Right now tanker trucks filled with Botox are running 24/7 to LA to make sure all the important people are wrinkle free next Sunday, for the 82nd Academy Awards.
The Iron Sky gang will still be in Finland, so thankfully we are not required to paralyze our faces. But we’ll be watching. It doesn’t matter how many Botox jokes I make, Oscars are still the highlight of the film year and absolutely unmissable. Especially with Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin hosting the gala.
Thanks to the miracle of time zones the Oscar gala starts at 3AM monday here in Finland. But we’ll be staying up late to watch the Oscars. Our director Timo will be on TV commenting the gala live on Nelonen.
I’ll be on a comfy sofa at home, chatting about the Oscars on Twitter and IRC. Timo will try and join the Tweeting as well. So follow @Energia and @LeonBlank.
If you don’t use Twitter programs I’ll make a blog post on Oscar night and add streams of our tweets and the general Oscar discussions.
Just got an email from Voddler, the “Spotify for films”, that they will be closing down until March 8th. There are not too many users to be affected by this, but it’s a sign of some more interesting things to come:
Voddler was exposed to an attempted security breach. The Voddler Client, the media-player, was attacked and we take seriously to all offences towards Voddler, our members and the content. Therefore we have decided to close the service until the new website is launched.
The new Voddler will feature web-based movie-player, search tool and mouse control. With a completely web-based movie service Voddler is confident to be able to meet the ever-growing demand for a great selection of free and rentable movies in an accessible environment. The sparkling new Voddler service will not only satisfy the Swedish movie-viewers but the time has come to invite Norway, Denmark and Finland.
I got the invite couple of months ago, but haven’t really used the service except for testing. Even in the client form it was a promising service, way beyond any other VOD system in the Scandinavian countries: meaning it was actually possible to watch films with it! Actually, it was pleasant enought I can’t really complain. Most of the films were free with a couple of pre-roll ads before them. The selection wasn’t great and the new films were only available for rent, but all in all it was as nice as watching videos on a computer can be. I still prefer the sofa and tv, but that’s no fault of Voddler.
Now the coming Flash player should make things even more interesting. It will be interesting to see how tv channels react. My inner optimist is already thinking about the possibility of having a Scandinavian Hulu, but that’s probably too much to hope for. I’ll be happy if we get a VOD service that actually works.
Facebook has become the place where many people spend most of their online time. And it’s way more personal place than say, MySpace. Because of this I think it really does matter how often fan pages post updates. If it’s too often it can get annoying. But how often should you update? In the spirit of democracy we asked fans of Iron Sky how often they’d like to see updates on from us.
167 people responded. Turns out almost half thought once a week is good. While 18% would like daily updates only 5% would like to see several updates a day.
That said, social media is not about doing it by numbers. That means we’ll still post updates when we’ve got something to say, even if it’s more often than once a week. But now I can stop worrying if Facebook should be updated as ofen as Twitter – it shouldn’t.
On a larger scale, this is just a small poll and you shouldn’t read too much into it. But what I think is safe to say is that you shouldn’t syndicate all your Twitter updates to your Facebook page. The two services are used differently and need to be treated as such.
In 2005 a group of young Finnish filmmakers released Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning. In 2006 they founded Energia Productions Ltd. These are their stories.
Right now tanker trucks filled with 
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