(Updated at 1:56 p.m. PST, after I put down my own bottle of Lapin Kulta.)
If you've ever spent a long night drinking with Finns, you may have noted that after the 10th beer, they can become jolly, effusive, and positively inventive. Well, please hark the words of Martti Roth, an alleged employee of Intel Finland, who thought of something rather special while under the influence of alcohol.
I am not libeling him, truly. Because Roth says he really did come up with the notion, while at a bar, that he and his Intel friends should create the world's biggest Intel chime ever by firing themselves out of cannons.
On the special Intel Cannonbells site, Roth declared: "I thought about the biggest, most exciting way we could create those five notes. And the longer I stayed in the bar, the more sense it made."
Roth says he is a field applications engineer. And his family has a history with cannons. No, not in some 19th century war, but, well, it sounds like a tragic story.
"In 1906, my great grandfather tried to fire himself from a cannon over the widest part of the river Vantaa in Helsinki," Roth said on the site.
I cannot imagine why he might have made this interesting choice. In answer to the question "did he make it?" Roth replied: "Some of him did. Funny really, but on the day [of the Intel Cannonbells launch], I really felt as though he was looking down on me and guiding me through the air towards that big, metal pipe. It was very emotional."
I cannot possibly suggest that Roth did this interview when still under the influence of the finest Lapin Kulta (supposedly Finland's finest beer). Or that, as some (including the site's disclaimer writers) might suggest, he is merely an actor.
Oh, all right, here's the full, tucked-away disclaimer: "All copy and videos are part of a marketing campaign for Intel Sponsors of Tomorrow. No Intel employees were harmed in the making of this film. All characters featured in the videos were played by actors specially trained in silly costumes and Finnish accents. Do not, under any circumstances, attempt to fire anyone out of a cannon."
Still, I trust that the video will inspire you to aim higher in the coming year to create technological feats that will truly make a noise in the commercial world. Even if it might make you mistrust Finns a little in the immediate future.
Screen shot taken from murder suspect's video
YouTube this week handed authorities in Finland an opportunity to stop a mass killing.
After spotting several threatening videos allegedly posted to YouTube by student Matti Saari, Finnish police tracked down and questioned the 22-year-old man on Monday. Authorities there are now answering questions about why they freed Saari, who on Tuesday gunned down 10 classmates and then killed himself at the vocational school he attended.
The sick trend of school shootings continues: Columbine, Virginia Tech, and last November's Jokela High School Massacre, also in Finland. What was different this time was that police were in a position to prevent the slaughter once they saw Saari's videos on YouTube. The clips featured Saari firing a handgun and making threats. One showed him pointing a gun at the camera and saying: "You will die next."
But there has been a debate about whether videos like the ones Saari posted should even exist on YouTube. Following the latest shooting, YouTube's "hand's off" approach toward such content is once again under scrutiny.
YouTube bans graphic violence and pornography and removes such content once flagged by users. In most cases, the site doesn't work proactively to censor speech. To be sure, there are plenty of videos at YouTube advocating the destruction of one group or another.
In the wake of last November's slaughter at Jokela High School by Pekka-Eric Auvinen, when the high school student went on a shooting rampage that left nine people dead, some argued that YouTube should do more to block hate speech or clips that promote violence. The thinking here is that YouTube may be the vehicle that inspires and emboldens teens and others to take lives. I'll just point out the obvious: School shootings were occurring long before YouTube hit the scene.
The way I see it, when the next deranged soul chronicles his preparations for murder by posting a video to YouTube in the way that Saari did, perhaps the clips will help authorities stop him. YouTube can act as an early warning system.
An example of that preventive characteristic may have come as I write this. The Associated Press is reporting that police in Sweden on Thursday arrested a 16-year-old-boy after viewing a suspicious clip he allegedly posted to YouTube.
There's no question that hate speech and threats of violence are disturbing and ugly. But if YouTube starts scrubbing the site of such videos, then the public has less information about those who promote these ideas.
I think it's better to know your enemy, especially when he or she might be preparing to harm you.
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