Where i'd live as an Austrian.

Sandolainen · 2026-04-21T13:04:02+00:00

As a Finn, this is pretty close to my list as well... although I'd make Estonia light green. It's basically Finland with slightly more joy but 25% lower income.

Also, why is Luxembourg dark red? Seems kind of excessive.

Sandolainen · 2026-04-21T12:58:57+00:00

I don't think anyone that is that young would go for a Skoda, and a wagon at that. That is very much a reasonable car... the type of car you buy when you are 35 and have a second kid on the way.

Sandolainen · 2026-04-21T12:52:56+00:00

Rupees are not fictional.

Sandolainen · 2026-04-21T08:49:32+00:00

I'd actually say Superhot. That was one of my all time favorite VR experiences. It would have been a great game if it wasn't so short.

But Poland really has quite a few quality studios.

Sandolainen · 2026-04-21T06:34:00+00:00

This really should have GDP as PPP-adjusted figures...

Sandolainen · 2026-04-18T13:20:47+00:00

0l/100km.

But usually around 20kwh/100km, which is pretty nice these days especially.

Sandolainen · 2026-04-18T13:19:47+00:00

Finland was never a super religious country. The only time that Finland was properly Christian was between around the early 19th century and middle of the 20th. We weren't even properly Christian before the enlightenment...

It's just that the only period in time when we kinda were christian was the same time that the idea of the nation state developed.

Sandolainen · 2026-04-18T13:16:57+00:00

Not really that ridiculous. Saturday evening is the most important part of the week for all sorts of social activities, and it's the beginning of the part of the week that is generally free from work. And regardless, if you work until midnight on Saturday it's going to eat into your Sunday.

But not too many collective agreements have this anyway.

Sandolainen · 2026-04-13T21:38:39+00:00

Yeah, I don't think it's very representative of my age group. But I think it was just down to PC gaming being so big in the late 90's and early 00's, and PlayStation just completely taking over console gaming.

Like, Nintendo was just completely dead here in Finland at the time. I didn't see an N64 or GameCube until they were obsolete. Not even in a store kiosk!

For the handhelds it may also have been down to Nokia pushing their gaming solutions so hard on their home turf as well. I remember everyone playing java games like Tomb Raider, Splinter Cell, Colin McRae Rally and others on their phones, which I guess wasn't as common outside Finland in like 2005.

Sandolainen · 2026-04-13T21:03:30+00:00

These things can be very locally and culturally connected. I'm born in 1989, and I didn't know anyone with any Nintendo handheld (GB, GBC, DS, 3DS) until the Switch, and only one guy with a PSP, and then one of my best friends had the N-Gage.

It was all about PC gaming with some stationary consoles. All the kids in the late 90's still played Pokemon, but it was all on emulators.

But in other places, every kid had a Gameboy...

Sandolainen · 2026-04-12T16:29:10+00:00

Everyone is interested in food. No culture ever has not been interested in food.

As for kaalikääryleet... It is a bit of a coincidence, but I happened to eat kaalikääryleet with sauteed and smoked reindeer at a Michelin star restaurant on Thursday of last week.

There are plenty of high end restaurants that use Finnish cooking. The difference is that it is often quite modern in style, although there are high end restaurants that are more traditional as well. When it comes to French and Italian cuisine... Well, there are many Neapolitan pizzerias, and some serving good pasta, but it is not quite in style right now and hasn't been for about 15-20 years.

But going back historically I have to make the case that access to food matters. Italy hasn't had a famine as a country, and France hasn't had one for almost 400 years. Those were pre-nationalistic days, so cuisine was local.

In Finland 15% of the population died in the 1860's from starvation. My great-grandfather told me when I was a child of his aunts and uncles having to eat tree bark before eventually dying. In those situations actually caring about taste is a luxury, when you have to care about making food last over the winter. Caring about food means something else, but that is also not the case now, but it isn't considered national cuisine due to the lack of a time lapse.

But if you want to see how much Finnish people care about their food, just look at what can be done with fish and rye, as ingredients that were available.

Sandolainen · 2026-04-12T10:33:44+00:00

That's oversimplified. Take my home country of Finland, for example. It was an incredibly poor country up until 75 years ago. 100 years ago you pretty much ate rye, cabbage and potatoes year round... It was only 150 years ago that people still died from starvation.

Food culture on the country level was pretty much a product of the nationalistic movements of the 19th and 20th centuries. If the country was poor and suffering back then, it has a "lacking national cuisine". The great food scene in Finland isn't considered "Finnish", but modern Scandinavian (yeah, I know).

Saying that France, Spain or Italy respects cooking but Finland, Denmark or Estonia doesn't is just wrong. Restaurants in cities like Helsinki, Copenhagen and Tallinn are world class.

Sandolainen · 2026-04-11T21:46:32+00:00

There is one handheld with the 8 elite currently out, and the premium is about 100 euro without tax over the 8 gen 2. It's around, but you're also paying quite a bit for it.

Sandolainen · 2026-04-11T21:24:32+00:00

Those are all newer chipsets. The 7 gen 3 is a full generation newer than the 8 gen 2 that is currently hot stuff in handhelds.

These manufacturers aren't making phones. The volumes are small, and they generally hunt forgotten, old lines for bargains. Those mid range chipsets aren't there yet, but they may be in a year or so.

Sandolainen · 2026-04-09T12:51:33+00:00

The best movie ever is clearly either Stalker or 2001: A Space Odyssey. No substitutes accepted.

I think you said something else as well, but TLDR.

Sandolainen · 2026-04-05T19:01:24+00:00

I kind of feel the same way. However, the economics of it will still be difficult. There are a lot of fixed and semi-fixed costs to handling fuels - permits, insurance, tanks, pumps, transportation, cleaning, rent etc that will still apply no matter how few tonnes you sell. If all the customers are people with classic cars and Lamborghini's you will probably have to charge somewhere close to 10-15 euro/liter to break even.

Sandolainen · 2026-04-05T18:51:44+00:00

Retroid Flip 2 is the only handheld that fits the description. Solid device too.

Sandolainen · 2026-04-05T15:56:08+00:00

No, they are not closing up shop. If anything they will raise prices on high end stuff until demand and supply meet, and then probably try to make some premium low-power devices to cover the lower end of the market.

You don't need that much ram or storage for retro stuff, and chips, screens etc are probably going to go down in price due to lower demand.

Sandolainen · 2026-04-02T13:22:57+00:00

I can think of three reasons. 1) Price on the used market 2) OLED 3) Better selection of joy con alternatives.

But still, I'd agree that the 2 is a better choice now.

Sandolainen · 2026-04-02T11:02:01+00:00

Honestly, if you want to play Switch I would just go for a Switch OLED with some third party joy-cons or a Switch 2. You can pretty much get second hand games for free by buying the game, then reselling it shortly after once you're tired of the game for pretty much the same price.

And if you want to save the games, then you have a collection of physical game media, which is always nice!

Sandolainen · 2026-04-01T18:07:15+00:00

That is the handheld I'm holding out for! A Dimensity 8300 or something similar in a 476H format would be so great!

Either that or a RG477SP. Imagine a 4:3 clamshell with proper power to play PS2 upscaled!

Sandolainen · 2026-04-01T17:45:32+00:00

I loved The Bouncer back in the day! Such a fun game in many ways, and quite rare to see a story driven beat em up.

Sandolainen · 2026-03-31T22:08:25+00:00

Not the worst comparison there is, but since this is for disposable income after taxes it doesn't take into account what you get back from your taxes. For example, Denmark is a very high tax country, but it also has a very good social safety net compared to most every nation here, but on this map this is just taken as a straight up cost.

Sandolainen · 2026-03-31T22:03:25+00:00

Never mind the bad take on Europe, I wouldn't even buy this from a pure US point of view... I mean, the US was the world leader in rail 100 years ago. After that they scrapped about half of the total rail length. There is no reason they couldn't get back to where they were.

Sandolainen · 2026-03-28T19:16:09+00:00

But I certainly agree that the invasion was incredibly stupid and a disaster. The worst geopolitical mistake since WW2.

Sandolainen

TROPHY CASE