crazyhaircut94 said:
I don't know much about other countries, or much at all, but what is it that other countries think of Sweden? I've heard some say meatballs, and other say sexy women, and some other stuff I can't remember. But what pops up in your head when you think of Sweden?
Well, my fellow Viking, *scoffs mightily*,
unfortunately a lot of people in the internet seem to think about ABBA, IKEA and Volvo. They don't think about dynamite, or the zipper, Polhemknuten, the 100-point thermometer, flintlock muskets, the Scheutzian calculation engine, the safety match, the Wahrendorff breech, the revolver (yes, at the same time and independently of Samuel Colt), cream separators, the pulse jet engine, sewing machine that can print logarithmic tables, the Nordenfelt machine-gun, the Odhner arithmometer, Telefonaktiebolaget L. M. Ericsson (okay, maybe some do), the three-phase electrical system (along with Tesla), the adjustable spanner, the blowtorch, paraffin oil/kerosene cookers, sootless kerosene stoves, the sun valve, bicycles with a free wheel and a rear-wheel brake, high-pressure steam boilers, the Ljungström turbine, the turbine-powered locomotive, the air preheater, the the multi-row self-aligning radial ball bearing, the steel alloy Kanthal, ship propellers, <url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Monitor>
Monitor, the ultracentrifugation method for determination of molecular weights, the pyranometer, gas absorption refrigerators, foam plastic, insulation materials, air conditioners, dehumidification devices, the defibrator pulping refiner, the Asplund-method, the the coated electrode used in manual metal arc welding, the first practical dialysis machine, the principle of hemofiltration, echocardiography, the three-point safety belt, the wired rotor principle for machine encipherment, the Malaise trap and his works, the absorption refrigerator, the spherical bearing, Tetra Pak, the digitizer (predecessor of the computer mouse), the further development of the satellite-guided GPS into the AIS, the Power Former, the usage of electrophoresis to analyse proteins, the battery-powered pacemaker, the gamma knife for brain surgery, Losec or the Mecanum wheel.
Nooo. They think of ABBA. ABBA!
No one likes ABBA, especially not us Swedish, and especially not when you have to hear that's what everyone associates Sweden with. Just think of dynamite and go blow something up.
Ingenuity. That's what the Swedish are famous for. That and being individualistic, socialistic, introvert, but hospitable, pricks.
