#estonia — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #estonia, aggregated by home.social.
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Book Reviews
Photo by Simon Wilkes on UnsplashAnthology #70
Far Above the World, by Paul MorleyThis sprawling anthology, subtitled The Time and Space of David Bowie [if you didn’t instantly recognise the lyric, although the cover image is instantly unmistakable] is part-biography and part philosophical exposition of David Bowie’s multifaceted personality and the ideas and experiences he craved & explored, driven by the impulses he didn’t, or couldn’t, understand, but which he didn’t dare question, for fear that they might evaporate, leaving him stumbling through life as an ordinary mortal; unexceptional, and unremarkable. Morley is obviously an admirer, and there is so much that can be said about Bowie, and his influence on late twentieth century music and the wider creative arts, but I do feel that Morley has made this work more extensive than it needed to be, with occasional diversions into the lives of other people, who didn’t necessarily even work with Bowie: they might just have been a person whom Bowie admired, or whose work might have influenced him. Having said that, there is plenty of interesting biographical material here, and some of his regular collaborators, such as, first & foremost, Tony Visconti, and Carlos Alomar, are given plenty of space of their own. There is a small — regrettably so, given how public a figure Bowie was — selection of photographs accompanying the text, but other than these, the book is subdivided into many relatively short chapters: even the layout of the contents list at the front of the book is designed to mimic the lightning flash image which Bowie wore on his face only for a fairly short period. He was undoubtedly an enigma, unknowable even to himself to a large extent, but he produced an incomparable wide range of music in many different genres; although his later misunderstood, and even reviled, expedition into the Tin Machine experiment is only very briefly touched upon; but he is a creator whose music I find it impossible to envisage having lived without in my formative years & early adulthood: I can still remember the shock, including my own, that reverberated around the world when his unexpected death was announced in 2016. If you have the stamina, and are a fan, this is a book worth ploughing through. The paperback I read was published in 2026 [2025] by Headline Publishing Group Limited, London, an Hachette UK Company, ISBN 978-1-4722-8948-3.
Decline and Fall, by Evelyn WaughI don’t normally feel obliged to seek out books which are regarded as classics, merely for that reason alone, but I was pleased to find this book, given that it is the first example of this author’s work, perhaps surprising to some, which at the tender age of 72, I have ever read. It is set contemporaneously in England, just before it was published, so in 1926: a world recognisable in some respects, given the continuity of its culture, but also very different. Much of his work appears to be a gentle satire on British life, especially the middle & upper classes; he was from a comfortable background himself, so it’s not as if he had a chip on his shoulder, but he was clearly conscious of the wealth divide, a situation which is regrettably still with us just as evidently today. The story relates the transit in early adulthood of a young man who is rootless, being raised by a guardian, and begins when he is sent down from his fictional Oxford College, Scone, for a charge of misconduct, arising from an incident during a rowdy party in which he doesn’t participate, but which nevertheless results in him being ‘debagged’. Strangely— although this is an early indication of his character — he doesn’t try to refute this charge, and consequently his guardian withdraws his allowance and even his inheritance, so he is forced to seek employment, which he finds at a rather seedy private school in north Wales. What follows, given his complete lack of experience and even aptitude for the post, is a mixture of good fortune & misadventures: without revealing any details, he seems to be rising towards a golden future when fate intervenes, and he comes crashing back down to earth, hence the book’s title; although he seems able to accommodate these vicissitudes with some equanimity, which was perhaps a message from the author: that we are always capable of more than we probably give ourselves credit for. The humour is dated, of course, but most human characteristics don’t change very much in 100 years. The paperback I read was published in 2017 [2001, 1962, 1937, 1928] by Penguin Random House UK, London, ISBN 978-0-2412-9906-7.
Service Model, by Adrian TchaikovskyThis clever novel deserves to be read very widely, to serve as a stark warning of the dangers of rampant AI-driven automation; unfortunately, it isn’t possible to reveal very much of the plot without spoiling the story, which unfolds nicely; although the main premise is pretty obvious from early on in the narrative; not that this diminishes the import of the message in any way. The story is set in an unnamed country, which could be Britain, given that the author is British; but it could also be the USA, because some of the spelling & dialect is US; however, that could also be another example of my aversion to USAmericanisms, as a result of being out of touch with the way the language is commonly used now, by younger people in English-speaking countries, concomitant with my age. Charles is a robot valet, working for his Master in a mansion on an estate: this is apparently a very common situation in this time, and as far as it might be possible for a ‘human-facing’ robot to have what could be interpreted as feelings, Charles is perfectly content with his function, and fulfils it diligently to the best his programming will allow. That is, until an event occurs which changes his whole existence: the death of his master, which Charles inadvertently has a hand in. What follows thereafter is a complete unravelling of the logic of the world as Charles understood it, and he embarks on a quest for answers, encountering increasingly bizarre situations along the way, and one intermittent companion which will prove to be fundamental to his resolution of the conundrum. Although the author clearly has a good understanding of high-level technology, the latter doesn’t hinder the story, and to reiterate, I only hope that people with sufficient influence absorb the message here: if it wasn’t already blindingly obvious, that is. The paperback I read was published in 2025 [2024] by Tor, an imprint of the Pan Macmillan, London, ISBN 978-1-0350-4568-6.
A Damned Serious Business, by Gerald SeymourThe name of this espionage thriller from this accomplished author, who has very wide experience reporting from locations of political tension & warfare around the world, derives from a saying from the hero of the protagonist: the former being the Duke of Wellington, and the latter going by the nickname Boot. The reason for this is that Boot is almost obsessively fixated on the battle of Waterloo, and spends as much of his free time as he is able to at & around the field of action in Belgium, which he is able to do reasonably freely, given that he is a senior figure in MI6, which is here referred to as VBX [for Vauxhall Bridge Crossing]. Realistically, it probably is very difficult to escape the shadow of Smiley in such characterisations, but there is a distinct similarity here in personality, clothing & physical description; which could of course be a respectful tip of the hat from the acolyte to the master. The mission, which isn’t explicitly Boot’s last, but he is well advanced in his career, involves delivering a bomb to a meeting in Russia, just over the border from Estonia, of young but highly valued computer hackers with their gangmasters and the FSB officers who provide a roof, i.e., a place of safety in which to work, which consists of stealing any valuable data from the enemy, the West but also, ideally, money; so Boot wants this to be an unattributable strike back at this thorn in the side of the UK. His rationale is that the bad actors are so paranoid that they will immediately blame each other first for whatever damage transpires, rather than thinking that the Western security services might be responsible. I think I’ve read enough of this type of thriller to cynically expect the mission to go wrong; otherwise, it wouldn’t be much of a story, would it? The main question is how badly, and where & when. Using his trusted & competent subordinates, the Maid [Marian, his office-based fixer & occasional carer] and Daff [Daphne, the ‘field fixer’], he recruits Merc, a battle-scarred but fearless solder, currently serving in Afghanistan, and three middle-aged but unattached Estonian men, all of whom lost grandfathers to the Russians, to assist him on the ground by passing the bomb to one of the hackers. The book is written in Seymour’s trademark breathless style, often detailing a stream of consciousness lacking personal pronouns, and I am guessing it is quite accurate, so it is a gripping read. The paperback I read was published in 2018 by Hodder & Stoughton, an Hachette UK company, London, ISBN 978-1-4736-6351-0.
#AI #Belgium #CarlosAlomar #DukeOfWellington #Estonia #FSB #MI6 #OxfordUniversity #Robots #Russia #TinMachine #TonyVisconti #Waterloo -
🇬🇧🇪🇪🇺🇦🇲🇩🇱🇺🇪🇺Leaders of UK, Estonia, Luxembourg, Moldova and European Council president arrive in Kyiv (more) https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2026/08/24/8050003/ #Ukraine #UK #London #Moldova #Luxembourg #Estonia #Brussels #CoE #PACE #Press #Media #News #Headlines #russiaUkraineWar
#12yrInvasionOfUkraine #RussiansAreBabyKillers -
...The contribution of climate change cannot be properly assessed yet, said Viksna from the Latvian Environment, Geology and Meteorology Center, but “it is plausible that human-caused climate change may have intensified the rainfall associated with the cyclone.”...
https://apnews.com/article/cyclone-baltics-storm-power-injuries-f5e6f0701da4649fa8f6ce13424deffb
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Today is the Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism https://cromwell-intl.com/travel/estonia/?s=mb #travel #Estonia #history
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Jaan Sarv, who died OTD in 1954, founded Estonian language mathematical #education https://cromwell-intl.com/travel/estonia/?s=mb #travel #Estonia #history
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Best outdoor gyms I've ever used are all in #Tallinn #Estonia 🇪🇪
Great use of tax money to promote public health! Other countries should copy this and other good practices from Estonia:
https://optimizedbyotto.com/post/estonia-well-governed-country/ -
RE: https://www.psicospace.it/patto-molotov-ribbentrop-accordo-tra-hitler-e-stalin/
Il 23 agosto 1939 Germania nazista e Unione Sovietica firmarono il Patto Molotov-Ribbentrop. Un accordo di non aggressione che nascondeva un protocollo segreto e avrebbe contribuito a ridisegnare l’Europa orientale.
Cosa prevedeva il patto? Perché Hitler e Stalin decisero di accordarsi? Come si arrivò alla spartizione della Polonia?
#PattoMolotovRibbentrop #Storia #SecondaGuerraMondiale #Hitler #Stalin #URSS #nazism #Polonia #Europa #Finlandia #Estonia #Lettonia #Lituania
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🇪🇪🇺🇦 Prime Minister Kristen Michal has travelled to Kyiv, where he will co-chair a summit of Nordic-Baltic (NB8) and Ukrainian leaders with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and take part in events marking Ukraine’s National Flag Day.
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🇫🇷 Most interesting about Putin's "verbal appearance" is that he is always trying to project himself as everything he isn't... but very much wish that he was. He even stole a media company (and jailed the owner) as a tool for that "job"! 🇷🇺 💀
#ukraine #europe #eu #canada #uk #france #turkey #poland #estonia #lithuania #trump #usa #latvia #politics #netherlands
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‼️🇪🇪Estonian court punishes spy who fed Russia military data for years (more) https://newsukraine.rbc.ua/news/estonian-court-punishes-spy-who-fed-russia-1787399633.html #Ukraine #Estonia #Press #Media #News #Headlines #russiaUkraineWar
#12yrInvasionOfUkraine #RussiansAreBabyKillers