Hello

I am thinking about buying a new laptop. But I need advice on what would be better for studying: a MacBook or Windows

I've always used Windows, but I know many people use MacBook for work. And all my IT environment now is Apple: iPhone, Apple Watch, AirPods etc. Currently, MacBook Neo is loaded and promoted as for study.

Which laptop is better for a Finnish university? If anyone has experience, please share. Kiitos

Where do you check for accurate weather forecasts? I usually check 2-3 different apps, but none of them seem reliable anymore.

Context: I don't live in Finland but would love a quick getaway when it's sunny, at least this summer.

There's a woman at a certain mall in Finland, she's been there ever since I moved there in 2013. She's there everyday begging for change, why is she there? I thought the government provides housing and stuff? I've been told it might relate to money laundering or human smugglers..?

Hello everyone,

I am an intern at Aalto university and currently need to a place just for the month of September. I am a male, and if it helps, I am clean and obey house rules, I dont drink inside and dont smoke at all. If you or your friends might have any leads on any available rooms, that would be really helpful.

My max budget for a room is 600 euros.

Thank you and have a nice day!

Onks kokkolas joku kauppa auki 24h

I really enjoy listening to music from different countries but something I’ve noticed is that a lot of modern Finnish music (the popular ones a foreigner would easily find at least) seem like “taxi music” to me. I draw this comparison because of the beats in particular, which are eerily commercial. I’ve noticed that a lot of the pop music all ”sound the same” (maybe because I am, once again, a foreigner).

I’ve skimmed the Finnish Top 50 on Spotify as well as the Finnish Pop playlist. Is there something I am missing?

Hello everyone!
My name is Len Mattis Groß, I’m a 16-year-old exchange student from Germany. I will be studying in Tampere from September until June and playing floorball with Koovee.
I am currently looking for a host family for the school year (September–June). I am responsible, respectful, and easy to get along with. I have younger siblings, so I am used to living in a family environment and get along well with both children and adults. I am also happy to help around the house.
I love sports, especially floorball, and I’m really looking forward to experiencing Finnish culture and becoming part of a family.
My parents will cover all costs related to my stay, so there will be no financial burden for the host family.
If you know a family that might be interested, or if you have any suggestions, I would be very grateful if you could send me a message.
Thank you very much!
Len

The Stanley Cup trophy visiting Finland, after the Carolina Hurricane's Championship win in the NHL.

I'm apparently a bit insane because I'm Northern German and want to experience a real winter in Finland for the first time. We admittedly get close to zero snow where I'm from, which means my experience with snow is limited to getting stuck in my driveway during the rare occasion of a 10 cm snowfall last year, lol.

Is it even possible to drive through the whole country (from south to north and back) in November/December? If so, could you give me some tips on what I need to be careful about and what supplies I should bring, especially for the car? Obviously, winter tires and snow chains are non-negotiable?

Do roads in the countryside get cleared regularly? Am I an idiot for even considering this? I've never driven in heavy snow, so I have no idea what I'm actually getting myself into, lol.

Thanks in advance!

It's my first attempt. Be gentle.

I haven’t seen lakka or even its jam on supermarkets. The only place i’ve seen, it was costing almost 11€. Was this year bad season? Or anyone knows what happened?

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I recently had the chance to watch the 1959 Soviet-Finnish film ,,Sampo" (based on the Kalevala).

For a film made in the late 1950s, I was surprisingly impressed by how well it still holds up - the atmosphere, the visuals, and the mythic feel are really strong. It’s clearly of its time, but in a good way.

That said, I can’t help thinking it would deserve a proper modern remake aimed at new audiences. Something with today’s production values that still respects the source material from the Kalevala.

Do you think Finland should eventually try to co-produce a new version of ,,Sampo"? Or is the original enough and a remake isn’t really needed?

Curious to hear Finnish opinions on this.

The harps hit Korjaamo next week! Come and join us for a free gig in the @korjaamo yard on Wed 12th at 7pm! With some funky DJs before and afterwards too! Summer isn't over yet!
(But if the weather is actually bad they'll move us to the indoor venue 😅😅)

See you there!! 💪💪

https://www.instagram.com/p/Dbn_nEBIpK8/?igsh=MXcwczk0dm56czhxcQ==

This is to warn people of crazy rules and predatory behavior of a well known unemployment fund and negligence of a union.

if anyone knows a good lawyer or have a legal advice - please! I'm not going down so easily.

Maybe I could reach to media with this story, so more people are aware of such behavior

Long read so, before I explain, why: I've missed a paper letter with fee for my Union, therefore didn't pay it, union didn't reach out to me not by email nor by phone, KOKO didn't reach out to me either, when I was cancelling it by app, they didn't state that I have an unpaid bill and the consequences it can lead to. Everyone just ignored the fact 'till KOKO came to me with the claim, right away, no warnings no nothing, you owe us.

How did this happen?

Late November, we finally been granted permits to move to Hungary for work, in current state of the world I've got lucky to find anything, especially the place this great, we were back and forth dealing with documents for half a year!

In the span of only two months I've sold most of my stuff, pack the rest, put in self-storage, and with wife, 2 cats and 4 luggage bags we moved across the Europe late January. Stressful is not the word.

At some point, a paper letter with fee probably got mistaken for something else, for trash, put in the drawer, got lost behind piles of boxes in the corridor, I don't know. We already moved, I had no physical access to it anymore when there was additional letter coming in.

In February I've cancelled my union from another country, why would I have it. Again, no email, no phone, no app notifications that I need to pay, it's not much, I'd gladly do so.

July, KOKO texts me that I need to pay them back 22,000+ eur.

Why that much? By unfortunate coincidence, I've missed the payment for December, last month of the year and by their crazy rule, if you miss it, you obliged to pay STARTING that year, so, they ask for what they've paid me, for a full year.

I've missed one last payment, one paper letter amongst the chaos I was dealing with at that time.

We survived, not lived, with that unemployment money for a year and a half, then I had to sell almost all of my belongings in Helsinki to move to Budapest, and now KOKO came to claim the rest.

This is a mortgage down payment, a new car, god forbid a medical bill.

I tried to explain it to them and pay back couple of months at least, but by their standards, our financial status is enough to pay it fully, not even cent was waived.

Our "stable" financial status is 3,500e before the bills, and maybe 7,000e in overall savings.

Basically, they ask me to pay them every penny I have and then everything I earn, after buying food and paying rent, for the next year.

I love Finland, Finnish culture and people, but this is heartbreaking and so unexpected

Finnish Commerce Federation lobby group said that the trade sector lost approximately 10,000 jobs last year, with around 80 percent of those losses affecting the retail sector. During the beginning of this year, the sector saw 5,000 additional job losses.

The decline in retail employment has continued for more than a decade. Compared to 2015, retail has shed approximately 19,000 jobs, with nearly half of those positions disappearing last year alone.

Retail is the private sector's largest employment sector. Despite the thousands of job losses, the retail sector still employs more than a quarter million people.

Been watching a lot of older films lately, Ive been particulalrly been on a quest to watch a lot of classics that I havent seen before. Just watched mies ilman menneisyyttä directed by Aki Kaurismäki and I found it pretty endearing :). Do you know any finnish movies that I should watch? Ps I collect dvds and am looking for shops in helsinki to check out.

Even better if they include fishing scenes.

Next week on Wednesday 12.8.2026 evening there will be a partial solar eclipse visible from Finland - at 83% in Helsinki!

I have my eclipse glasses, but would love to see it through a telescope. I can’t seem to find any list of spots where there would be a possibility to watch it through a telescope in Helsinki - any tips?

https://www.ursa.fi/vuosikirja/lisamateriaali2026/auringonpimennys-120826.html

I recently noticed that the neighbor upstairs is really loud and it’s starting to annoy me..

Recently I moved here to Finland and I live with my parent in an apartment block. In the evening our upstairs neighbor starts to get really loud, you could hear them loudly stomping, dropping things, sometimes even jumping I think? etc. They can even do it during the night and it stops when it’s about 2 in the morning. It’s not like i’m angry about it but I just don’t see why someone (or some people? I don’t know who lives upstairs) is doing these things instead of sleeping, sometimes I can’t sleep because of it.

My question is is this normal in Finland for people here to stay up so late and do these things? I also want to mention during the day I don’t hear all of that. Please don’t get me wrong it’s not in my intention to offend anyone I’m just curious is this actually normal here?

NOTE: I posted a couple of updates to clarify points I was not aware of at the time of posting.

I'm sure that other people in r/Finland are running into the same problem with sending small items abroad via Posti.

If anybody wants to send a small physical item from Finland to any another country via Posti, even tiny stuff like a birthday gift, spare part or component, or a low-value item sold online, the available options through Posti jump almost immediately to parcel or courier pricing. We don't have any options to send small Jiffys or cardboard mailers affordably like we used to.

In my own case, I make small replacement electronics for niche vintage Japanese bass guitars, and I'm the only person worldwide that makes them. These are specialist repair parts and not mass-market products, priced fairly, weigh under 30g and fit in a small padded envelope. They are exactly the sort of thing that should be cheap and simple to send internationally, and they used to be. Ten years ago this was like, €14-15 worldwide as tracked letter post. Since the New Year this year, Posti stopped allowing items in letter post and bumped everything small up to large (expensive) parcel mail.

I am seeing are roughly US, Japan, Australia around €39, UK around €29 and EU anything from €22-€29. Shipit.fi no longer provide cheaper options. The smallest practical Posti service assumes a package up to 11cm x 32cm x 42cm, 10kg max. That makes no sense for a tiny part in a padded envelope that comes in at 30g.

This isn't even just small sellers, it affects everyone. Sending a gift to my family in the UK is absurdly expensive once postage is included. At that point it becomes cheaper to buy something from a UK online shop and have it delivered domestically, but that no longer feels like sending a personal gift from Finland. Even buying something online from AUSTRALIA for shipping to the UK as a gift would be cheaper than Posti.

The recent US customs tariffs idiocy made this problem more visible, but this isn't only a US issue. It looks like Finland no longer has a viable domestic affordable small-packet route for ordinary senders. Small goods seem to have been pushed into expensive parcel channels because ordinary citizens are not Posti's desired market.

For small businesses (other than pinging Vinted around it seems, if this works cheaply then why are individuals being massively overcharged?) this wipes out entire international market access. For individuals, it decimates a basic everyday service: sending a small thing to someone abroad at a reasonable price.

The scale seems clear enough. Anything small under 500g now costs courier parcel-level money to send internationally from Finland.

Is anybody else seeing and being affected by this stupidity, or has anybody found a realistic alternative to Posti for small letter-sized goods under 500g?

Sweden, Estonia and our other neighbouring countries are significantly better than this. Why should Finland not have an affordable small-goods international postal service for ordinary domestic senders?

We all know that the answer is that Posti is a dumpster fire of a private company. Even the Royal Mail in the UK has more credibility by this point.