Vincent's shared items

I am a foreigner here. I am many other things, but this is my chief designation in the eyes of society. This is perhaps the situation of anyone who is a foreigner anywhere. Now I regret all the times I inquired as to the source of a person's accent in the US. "And where are you from? The former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia?"

Foreigner. This is not necessarily a burden. It lifts you above the others, singles you out from the pack. Anyone can be a writer, but not everyone can be a foreign writer. Anyone can play guitar, but not everyone can be a foreigner playing guitar. Some of Estonia's most successful musicians are foreigners: see Dave Benton or Ruslan Trochynskyi from Svjata Vatra. Anyone who's seen Ruslan yield his scythe and croon about sexy time in Ukrainian remembers him for his foreignness. But who are the guys backing him up? Ah, just a bunch of Estonians. So, there you have it. Foreigners are special. When you walk down the street, my fellow foreigners, hold your heads up high!

And yet, just as being a foreigner sets you apart from the lumpenproletariat, the "flotsam" of Esto society,it also makes you invisible. Conversations typically revolve around language acquisition or reactions to the local cuisine. Few people really talk to you about anything important, because few people really know how to talk to you. Whole conversations cascade around you of which you can play little role, maybe because you don't understand everything being said, but mostly because you have so little to contribute. I recently watched two acquaintances have a deep conversation about forestry. Forestry! What the &%¤£ do I know about forestry? Even if we were speaking the same language, we'd be speaking different tongues. Do you catch my drift?

This was an issue in my second book. Most of the main characters, the deep characters, the ones who carried around with them meaning, were foreigners. The Estonians were like cardboard cutouts of people, two dimensional, but not only for my lack of ability to translate them into text, but because so few of them had shared any shred of their souls with me. This was perhaps less because of the national character of the Estonian people, than because of the simple fact that I was an outsider, a foreigner, and somehow disconnected from the reality around me. Being a foreigner gives one the unique ability to walk down the street in one land, and still simultaneously, metaphysically, be in another.

Not like it would be any better there. I feel the same claustrophobia around most of my countrymen. Just as Estonia is too quiet, America is too loud. When I arrive home to New York, I snake through the sweaty bowels of John F. Kennedy International Airport, only to cross through the gates of US customs, where I am always made to feel as if I have done something wrong, though at last check, I have committed no crime. I get nervous standing there, wondering if my name has somehow wound up on some kind of list. "No Teen Idols!" "But I'm not Timberlake, I'm not Bieber!" "Guards, take him away!" "I swear, hey, what are you doing? Get your hands off of me! I'm innocent! I can't even dance, watch me, I'll prove it to you." "Mmm. Resisting arrest? That's another 10 years." "No, no, there must be some mistake!" "Tell it to your lawyer, kid."

America. The over-saturation of stimuli, the clamor of the crowds, the thousands of TV sets suspended from the ceilings blaring the day's misfortunes, pundits yelling over one another, people climbing over each another, the aroma of fried chicken and pizza, old newspapers, Andean flute players, Penn Station, New York City! One never feels so alive as when he's cruising the 6, drunk as a skunk, standing next to some punk Wall Street broker with a flattop who is singing along to The Supremes on his iPod. "You can't hurry love. No, it just has to wait ..."

And when you finally emerge from the swampy mess, battered and chafed, and you land back in Estonia, you exhale. I feel this every single time I make the journey between the two countries. The heat of America, the coolness of Estonia. The more I think about it, the more it reminds me of the Estonian sauna, running between the oven-like conditions of the saun to the ice waters of the lake, only to find peace somewhere in between for a few fleeting moments.

Just as the Americans annoy me with their 24-hour cable news networks, the Estonians annoy me because they don't know how to live, they don't know how to enjoy themselves. Each day I watch construction workers slave late into the evening, 10, 11 o'clock at night, cigarettes dangling from their lips, blue circles beneath the eyes. There is this incredible urgency to everything they do, because summer only lasts so long, and soon it will be too cold to work anymore. I am sure that it all makes sense, but at the same time I feel that they are committing suicide, that never-ending work and drink and smoke are the Estonian version of harakiri.

I cannot change anything though. I cannot advocate a mezzogiorno for my neighbors. I cannot organize one for myself. Could you imagine in Estonia stopping work at around 1 pm to rush home and eat a prolonged, savory meal until about 5 in the evening, lounging around, munching on olives and fennel and telling pointless jokes and stories? No. Here it would be condemned as rape, a brutal, graphic violation of the Protestant work ethic. It just doesn't happen. Even when Estonians do relax, it involves the consumption of hard liquor, stuff that hits the bottom of your gut like a fiery asteroid. There must be moving, doing, consuming ... The more I think about it, I don't fit into America or Estonia or anywhere. I have become a perpetual foreigner. I will be a foreigner everywhere I go.

“This,†says Matthew Car­pen­ter, “is my favorite exercise.†I peer over his shoul­der at his lap­top screen to see the math prob­lem the fifth grad­er is pon­der­ing. It’s an inverse trigono­met­ric func­tion: cos-1(1) = ?

Car­pen­ter, a serious-faced 10-year-old wear­ing a gray T-shirt and an impres­sive black dig­i­tal watch, paus­es for a sec­ond, fid­gets, then clicks on “0 degrees.†Presto: The com­put­er tells him that he’s cor­rect. The soft­ware then gen­er­ates anoth­er prob­lem, fol­lowed by anoth­er, and yet anoth­er, until he’s nailed 10 in a row in just a few min­utes. All told, he’s done an insane 642 inverse trig prob­lems. “It took a while for me to get it,†he admits sheep­ish­ly.

Car­pen­ter, who attends Santa Rita Ele­men­tary, a pub­lic school in Los Altos, Cal­i­for­nia, shouldn’t be doing work any­where near this advanced. In fact, when I vis­it­ed his class this spring—in a sun-drenched room fes­tooned with a paper­craft X-wing fight­er and stu­dent paint­ings of trees—the kids were sup­posed to be learn­ing basic frac­tions, dec­i­mals, and per­cent­ages. As his teacher, Kami Thor­dar­son, explains, stu­dents don’t nor­mal­ly tack­le inverse trig until high school, and some­times not even then.

But last Novem­ber, Thor­dar­son began using Khan Acad­e­my in her class. Khan Acad­e­my is an edu­ca­tion­al web­site that, as its tagline puts it, aims to let any­one “learn almost any­thing—for free.†Stu­dents, or any­one inter­est­ed enough to surf by, can watch some 2,400 videos in which the site’s founder, Salman Khan, chat­ti­ly dis­cuss­es prin­ci­ples of math, sci­ence, and eco­nom­ics (with a smat­ter­ing of social sci­ence top­ics thrown in). The videos are decid­ed­ly lo-fi, even crude: Gen­er­al­ly seven to 14 min­utes long, they con­sist of a voice-over by Khan describ­ing a math­e­mat­i­cal con­cept or explain­ing how to solve a prob­lem while his hand-scribbled for­mu­las and dia­grams appear onscreen. Like the Wiz­ard of Oz, Khan never steps from behind the cur­tain to appear in a video him­self; it’s just Khan’s voice and some scrawly equa­tions. In addi­tion to these videos, the web­site offers soft­ware that gen­er­ates prac­tice prob­lems and rewards good per­for­mance with videogame-like badges—for answer­ing a “streak†of ques­tions cor­rect­ly, say, or mas­ter­ing a series of alge­bra lev­els. (Car­pen­ter has acquired 52 Earth badges in math, which require hours of toil to attain and at which his class­mates gaze with envy and awe.)

Ini­tial­ly, Thor­dar­son thought Khan Acad­e­my would mere­ly be a help­ful sup­ple­ment to her nor­mal instruc­tion. But it quick­ly become far more than that. She’s now on her way to “flip­ping†the way her class works. This involves replac­ing some of her lec­tures with Khan’s videos, which stu­dents can watch at home. Then, in class, they focus on work­ing prob­lem sets. The idea is to invert the nor­mal rhythms of school, so that lec­tures are viewed on the kids’ own time and home­work is done at school. It sounds weird, Thor­dar­son admits, but this flip­ping makes sense when you think about it. It’s when they’re doing home­work that stu­dents are real­ly grap­pling with a sub­ject and are most like­ly to need some­one to talk to. …

Une conférence aura lieu le Mardi 22 Février 2011 de 18 à 19h au Centre Culturel français, situé au cœur de la vieille ville de Tallinn, rue Kuninga 4.

Les auteurs Katrina Kalda et Richard Millet seront les invités de cette conférence en français (traduite en estonien) durant laquelle ils présenteront leur dernier ouvrage (en vente sur place également) et répondront aux questions du public.

Katrina Kalda y présentera son roman désormais bien connu « Un roman estonien », publié en Août 2010. Voir l'article sur Katrina Kalda

Quant à Richard Millet, il souhaiterait écrire un livre sur l’Estonie, et est un peu le mentor de Katrina Kalda en littérature.

Le verre de l’amitié sera offert par l’Institut à la fin de la conférence.



Un Roman Estonien de Katrina Kalda
Résumé : 1994. A Tallinn, Estonie. ex-république soviétique, depuis peu redevenue indépendante, August. un jeune homme introverti, rencontre Eerik Pall, homme politique et grand industriel qui le fait entrer au journal Tänapäev. Sommé d'écrire un roman-feuilleton patriotique se déroulant à la fin des années 1980, August crée le personnage de Théodore. un étudiant engagé dans la dissidence antisoviétique. Epris de Carlotta, réplique littéraire de Charlotte, l'épouse d'Eerik, Théodore, le jeune héros, finit par se révolter. Il prend à son tour la plume pour révéler les secrets de son créateur et les dessous de l'Histoire officielle.

Hand a two-year-old child a shoe and she will probably end up throwing it. Hand her an iPhone, however, and she'll navigate through it to find her favorite app in no time. Those are two lessons that I (and other members of the Ars staff) have learned first-hand in recent years, but it's not just us. According to a new survey from security software maker AVG, kids can grasp new tech skills long before they even learn how to do normal kid things, such as swimming or tying their shoelaces.

AVG surveyed 2,200 parents with children between the ages of two and five in the US, Canada, UK, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. Nineteen percent said their kids know how to access a smartphone application (and it's not just the older kids either—17 percent of 2- to 3-year-olds did as well). Another 58 percent can play a computer game, and a quarter of kids can open and operate a Web browser. By comparison, only nine percent of kids between 2 and 5 can tie their shoelaces, 20 percent can swim without help, and 43 percent can ride a bike.

The numbers got even more interesting once AVG split them out by country—for example, 44 percent of Italian kids can successfully place a mobile phone call, compared to 25 percent in the US. Young boys and young girls, however, are almost equal in their skills; AVG said that 29 percent of girls could make a mobile call compared to 28 percent of boys, and 59 percent of girls could play a computer game compared to 58 percent of boys.

This may not be particularly shocking to those who have watched their kids zip through an iPad before even fully learning the alphabet, but AVG points out that parents need to be on top of technology too. "[T]hese children are growing up in an environment that would be unrecognizable to their parents," AVG CEO J.R. Smith said in a statement. "As our research shows, parents need to start educating kids about navigating the online world safely at an earlier age than they might otherwise have thought."

Online safety is definitely becoming an issue to start thinking about at birth instead of later in life. However, those of you with kids should rest assured that the Internet isn't as scary a place for kids as it seems, as long as they're educated on how to handle themselves. The next question is: will you be Facebook friends with your children once they are old enough to have Facebook accounts?

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La fin d’année est généralement le moment de faire une rétrospective sur l’année passée. C’est également la période des bêtisiers et best-of en tous genres. Il existe déjà des dizaines de classements des « must see » de Tallinn et de l’Estonie, et, plus simplement, il suffit d’ouvrir un guide touristique pour choisir vos futures visites selon vos affinités.

Cependant, ce que les guides ne présentent pas (ou peu) sont les petites choses de la vie, les activités « secondaires » qui font cependant tout le charme du pays que vous visitez ou dans lequel vous vivez.

Ainsi, s’il y a des immanquables évidents à Tallinn et en Estonie, il y en a d’autres auxquels on ne pense généralement pas. Et pour cause, il faut aller dénicher ces activités plus méconnues, les vivres car elles ont souvent plus attrait à l’aventure qu’au tourisme.

Voici donc un petit recueil d’aventures immanquables que j’ai commencé à lister et que je m’engage à compléter ! N’hésitez pas dans vos commentaires à me faire part de vos remarques et éventuels ajouts.

Se baigner dans les lacs saumâtres des tourbières
A première vue, se lancer dans un lac à l’aspect sombre, dans lequel on ne peut deviner ni profondeur ni ce qui peut s’y cacher n’est pas réellement engageant. D’autant plus lorsque des panneaux vous expliquent que des bêtes mythiques y vivent (voir Sookoll)….

Bien au contraire, les tourbières ont un rôle important dans le filtrage et l’assainissement de l’eau. La flore qui y pousse purifie l’eau et utilise l’excédent de matières minérales et organiques pour sa croissance. Ainsi, l’eau est assainie.

Rendez-vous plutôt dans un marais isolé (la baignade n’y étant pas réellement autorisée) afin de faire une pause pique nique/baignade en plein été.

Lever de soleil dans les tourbières (voir photo en haut)

Maintenant que vous êtes dans une tourbière, profitez-en pour regarder se lever (ou se coucher) le soleil. Un spectacle magique. Profitez du calme et de la sérénité de l’endroit, de la luminosité changeante.

Emprunter une route de glace
Changeons de décor, nous sommes en plein hiver ! Lorsque le froid persiste, la Baltique créé différents ponts naturels entre le continent et quelques îles. Il est alors possible de rouler sur cette route de glace, appelée jäätee en Estonie.

L’Estonian Road Administration s’occupe de ces routes et décide de les ouvrir lorsque la glace est épaisse d’au moins 22 cm sur la totalité de la route.

Il existe plusieurs routes de glace : celle permettant de rejoindre l’île de Piirissaar (lac Peipsi) est ouverte la plupart des hivers. Les hivers très froids, des routes entre le continent et les îles de Hiiumaa, Vormsi, Muhu et Kihnu peuvent être ouvertes, ainsi qu’entre les îles de Saaremaa et Hiiumaa et entre Haapsalu et Noarootsi.

Lorsque vous êtes sur une route de glace, quelques règles s’imposent :
- Selon les conditions, le poids limite est de 2 à 2,5 tonnes.
- Respecter une distance de 250m entre deux véhicules
- Votre vitesse doit être inférieure à 25km/h ou comprise entre 40 et 70 km/h. La fourchette comprise entre 25 et 40 km/h est à éviter dû au danger de créer de la résonance dans la couche de glace.
- Ne pas attacher sa ceinture (au cas où la glace craquerait… très rassurant !)
- Ne jamais arrêter son véhicule
- Se rendre sur la route durant la journée seulement

Se rendre à pieds sur l'île de Vilsandi
Si vous avez la chance de passer quelques jours sur l’île de Saaremaa, vous ne pouvez pas manquer le parc national de Vilsandi, réserve ornithologique très sensible utilisé par de nombreuses espèces d’oiseaux migrateurs.

L’île de Vilsandi est le point le plus occidental de l’Estonie. On peut accéder à la petite île de 9 km² par bateau, au départ de Papisaare. Pour un trajet plus original, vous pourrez vous y rendre dans un camion spécialement équipé ou tout simplement à pieds, en vous frayant un chemin parmi les vagues. Le Centre d’Informations Touristiques de Kihelkonna vous fournira toutes les informations nécessaires.

Du sauna à la glace 
Le sauna peut quasiment être considéré comme une activité sociale. C’est un instant de détente et de convivialité. Ses vertus sont très largement connues : hygiène, relaxation, chasse le stress, élimine de la fatigue, stimule la circulation sanguine (meilleure oxygénation), renforce le système immunitaire contre les rhumes notamment, dégage les voies respiratoires, accélère la sudation, nettoie et améliore l’élasticité de la peau, assoupli les muscles, élimine les tensions musculaires…

Pour profiter de ces nombreuses vertus, il faut cependant réaliser un certain nombre d’étapes.
Avant le 1er sauna, prendre une douche et se sécher. Rester une dizaine de minutes avant de sortir prendre l’air frais. Prenez une douche froide ou fraiche, séchez-vous et faites une pause. Recommencer l’opération 3 à 4 fois.

Le bain (ou la douche) doit être le plus froid possible afin de refroidir le corps et de réaliser la constriction (resserrement) des pores de la peau et des vaisseaux sanguins dilatés par la chaleur du sauna. Pour cela, vous pourrez remplacer le bain froid par une petite escapade en extérieur, directement dans la neige ou, mieux, dans un lac gelé au bord duquel vous aurez préalablement percé un trou assez important.

Si un peu de courage est nécessaire au départ, vous verrez que se retrouver immergé dans une eau proche de 0°C est, d’une part supportable, d’autre part très agréable. En sortant, vous aurez une sensation de légèreté, de bien-être et bien sûr de propreté assez surprenante !

La suite bientôt.... :mines de Piusa, canoë dans le Soomaa inondé, dormir dans un refuge au beau milieu des bois, les souterrains de Tallinn...

This is the second part of our coverage on Estonia, following our recent Baltic tour. If you'd like to find our more about Baltic entrepreneurship, we recommend you join this Facebook groupand Linkedin group.

In addition to Erply, Zeroturnaround and Fortumo which we listed in part 1, I’ve compiled a list of the ones that are the most promising or already succeful Estonian startups. Keep in mind this is in no way a definitive list. There are plenty more in stealth mode or really early stage and hopefully you'll hear from them soon.

Talentag is a social recruiting app. It allows you to create social resumes, where you can tag and badge your friends, and give them feedback. Basically, it’s a fun Linkedin.

Emply shares founders with Talentag, and enables social sharing of job ads. Post on Facebook or Linkedin, create incentives to share your profile.

PosterBee is a “crap freeâ€, private Facebook. Picture an advanced Google groups, without the Farmvilles and co. Allan Martison, one of the famous Estonian tech entrepreneurs and VC, is behind the project.

Toggl is a simple and efficient time tracking service. It supports most platforms, too.

Homeview uses augmented reality to include 3D models of furniture in pictures of your apartment, before you make a purchase. The company is about to launch in public beta, and was one of the startups from the first Garage48.

Kratid is a collection of mini games made around the Kratids, little characters that you can also order as plush toys. They are also from Garage48, and are looking to partner with existing gaming IP.

Yoga is a home automation company. They provide a touch screen to control your home.

Guardtime is a timestamping service that focuses on data integrity. They have raised $8M in funding.

Grabcad is a free library for CAD models, with an engineering marketplace. People can create and share 3D models to be build later on your 3D printer.

Sportlyzer is a smart personal trainer (think Heiaheia). They focus on exercise, motivation and training planning.

Fits.me is a virtual fitting for online clothing retailers.In addition to receiving copious coverage in European tech events, they’ve recently gotten their 2nd round of financing from Arengufond.

Utopia Revolution is a free to play browser based strategy game in a fantasy setting.

Kaaluabi is the most successful Estonian weight watchers service. It was launched last February and has been growing quickly since. They are expanding to Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, and making revenue.

Pipedrive is a sales management software that focuses on making dealmaking faster.

Indilo Wireless is one of the major iPhone developers in Estonia. They focus mobile development; check these links.

Taxipal is an ordering automation service for mobiles. Users in 2000 cities can rate and review.

Edicy allows free and very easy website creation. To date, 200 000 pages have been created.

Cutefund is a “crowdsourced mutual fundâ€. This means that people can vote which stocks will be bought in the fund. It was founded by Andrei Korobanik, of Rate.ee fame (the biggest social network in Estonia).

I don’t commute. I work from home. And I love it. I think of it as getting an extra hour a day. Add that up over the years and it’s a huge chunk of my life that’s given back to me. Not to mention the emotional toll that’s saved from not doing a rush hour commute, especially one on public transportation. (I still have flashbacks to the #66 Chicago Avenue bus I used to take to our office, including the one time – at 10am – a guy started snorting coke off his bus pass while sitting next to me.)

The toll that commuting can have on you is discussed in this article at BusinessWeek. It mentions “the commuting paradox†and why the trade-off of a long distance commute is rarely worth it.

Seems like yet another reason to consider remote workers. Who wouldn’t want a team that’s filled with folks who are less stressed and more satisfied with their lives?

….is that it’s been a blessing in disguise for the EU. Before the crisis the Euro was heading towards 1.50, now it is down to a more reasonable 1.35. If Greece defaulted on its debt, it would probably go down to 1.2. Would that be bad for Europe? Most would say no. In a world of competitive devaluations in which China has been amassing $2.4 trillion in reserves thanks to an artificially devalued currency, exporters in the EU would welcome the fall of the Euro. Moreover, the only real danger of a declining currency, inflation, looks very well under control: labor costs are down because of unemployment and energy costs are down because of lack of demand. No wonder it’s taking so long to bail out Greece.

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