During the drama of yesterday , I mentioned to Bill my desire to do something to the front yard. As I said this, I was holding the hose as Bill scrubbed the sludge off of his hands.
When he responded, he began to gesture, finally walking over to one of the trees in the yard, and, with his hands covered in soap, began to move the full length of his arms as he talked about shaping the tree. I had to laugh and mentioned that his Italian was coming out. .jpg)
He responded with, “Really? I wonder how Estonians would handle this conversation. Oh, right, they would silently pick up their laptops and do a Google search…”*
I LOVE that he knows this about this tiny country across the globe, lol.
And here is what he’s basing that comment on:
from 2014: Estonia – Most Wired Country in the World
and from this article from way back in 2006:
“more cell phones than people and nearly ubiquitous WiFi coverage across the country, both commercially and in homes of citizens. I found national identification cards embedded with a microchip, which allow citizens to utilize a variety of online “e-services” in day-to-day life, from e-Tax systems and e-Banking to e-Healthcare, and in October 2005, for the first time anywhere in the world, nationwide e-Voting. “
and from this 2013 article on The Economist referencing that all school were online as early as 1998:
“A nationwide project to equip classrooms with computers followed and by 1998 all schools were online. In 2000, when the government declared internet access to be a human right, the web spread into the boondocks. Free Wi-Fi became commonplace. Rubber stamps, carbon paper and long queues gave way to “e-government”. The private sector followed: the sale of Skype to eBay in 2005, for $2.6 billion, created a new class of Estonian investors, who made tens of millions of euros from their shareholdings—and have been putting their experience, and their windfalls, to good use.”
