Welcome! Välkommen! Welkom!

Welcome to our new site allegedfacts.eu.
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Whatever the case, welcome!

…to my personal view on subjects of my choice. Happy reading!

…till min egen syn på saker som intresserar mig. Trevlig läsning!

…bij mijn eigen visie op onderwerpen die mij interesseren. Lees ze!

Continue reading →

The Gaza War

The ongoing Gaza war between Israel and Gaza (Hamas and by extension also Hezbollah) has been impossible to miss or ignore in the daily news since its start in October last year. Equally hard to ignore are the devastating and cruel initiatives taken by all parties whenever negotiations for a cease-fire are approaching. Sticking out like a very sore thumb, however, are the excesses in cruelty that both parties seem to find perfectly acceptable in this war. With the escalations in bad behavior as bad as they are now: where will this go, and when or where will it end? Continue reading →

The foreign language – A comparison

When Eef wrote his piece on foreign languages, more specific on the French language for non-native speakers, he presented the article to me by email. In this email Eef he asked me on my view on the situations sketched in his article. This is a very fair question indeed as my wife and I left our home country The Netherlands (aka Holland) in 1997 when we emigrated to Sweden. You could say Eef’s and my family share the experience of moving abroad to a country we did not speak the language of. The prevailing language in Sweden being Swedish as it is French in France. In Eef’s defence, they were pensioners, while we were in our thirties. Continue reading →

The Foreign language

My wife Wil and I live permanently in France since 2008. We’ve bought our house in 2005, but we were not ready for the final step at that time. Our reluctance was mainly due to the difficulty we had in speaking French.

But in 2008 the ultimate decision was made: France was the place to be, attracted as we were by the beautiful nature, the calm pace of the French countryside and the low-stress attitude of the local people, so we sold our Dutch property.

Does this mean that we overcame the problems we had with the French language? Not by a long shot. Continue reading →

Aleksej Navalnyj vägen, Stockholm – Beslut

Tidigare i år skickade jag in ett förslag till Stockholm stad att göra en namns ändring på ‘Gjörwellsgatan’ till ‘Aleksej Navalnyj vägen’. Läs mer om det här. Idéen med att ändra just denna gata till minnet av Navalnyj var följande:

  • Stockholm skulle äntligen få en gata nämnd efter en viktig politiker/aktivist som mördades av den ryska regimen
  • Av en slump skulle den ryska ambassaden i Stockholm få ‘Aleksej Navalnyj vägen’ som besöks och postadress

Efter ha skickat in mitt förslag till Kungsholmens stadsdel i Februari 2024, fick jag ha tålamod i några månader. Svaret kom först nu, i Juli 2024. Continue reading →

Det Svenska valet – 3

Det är inte ett bra tecken om jag ser anledning att publicera än en artikel om det svenska valsystemet, denna gången med löpnummer 3. Se tidigare artiklar kring samma ämne här och här, och mer nyligen här.

Några veckor efter det senaste EU val, bestämde SVT sig för att kolla hur bra det fungerade på en skala från 0 till 1, läs SVT’s inslag här. SVT tittade inte på hur själva valet genomförs, vilket jag själv har synpunkter på, men de kollade om det fanns avvikelser i själva rösträkningen – ett ännu viktigare del av valet. I all enkelhet påstår jag att om det finns avvikelser i rösträkningen så är dessa resultatet av hur valet och rösträkningen genomförs. I ett demokratiskt val påstår jag att avvikelser inte får förekomma.

Några av slutsatser som SVT drar efter granskningen:

  • …sprickor i systemet…
  • …i nästan hälften av de granskade distrikten går inte siffrorna ihop…
  • …riskerar att skada förtroendet för valsystemet…

Continue reading →

Det ska inte se ut som NASA!

När jag nyligen besiktigade min Toyota Urban Cruiser, Urban för vänner, blev det ett glad besked – som vanligt.

Nu tänkte du kanske, Visst gick det bra, det är ju en Toyota! Och det har du rätt i.

Men, till skillnad från tidigare besiktningar blev det denna gången en anmärkning. Anmärkningar är inget som man behöver ordna med detsamma, men man bör nog åtgärda det till nästa besiktning om ett år. Mina anmärkningar blev:

  • glapp i kardanknut
  • spricka i fram fjäder

Självklart ska vi inte åka ett år till med dessa fel, de ska åtgärdas med detsamma! Continue reading →

New book on the way

Just letting you know that I’ve got a new book in the making. The preliminary title is:

The Fifth

The 5th, now what could that be? Here are some ideas:

  • The fifth commandment? (‘Honor thy father and thy mother…’)
  • A mysterious fifth person?
  • The fifth sense? (smell)
  • The fifth dimension? (allegedly taken from my blogging mate’s post  Graham’s number)

Let me put you on the right track. The preliminary cover page is:

…and may give you a hint on the subject. Continue reading →

Aleksej Navalnyj vägen, Stockholm

Till minnet efter den nyligen mördade ryska aktivisten Aleksej Navalnyj, låter det som att han bör ha en gata nämnd efter sig. Den självklara platsen för en sådan gata är förståss Gjörwellsgatan i Stockholm.

I google maps ser platsen ut så här:

Just anslutningen till ‘Fria Ukrainas plats’ gör Gjörwellsgatan extra lämplig för en sådan namns ändring. Continue reading →

ˈɪnflu.ənsə(ɹ)

Say what…?

The word ˈɪnflu.ənsə(ɹ) phonetically spells the word ‘Influencer’, but what does it really mean? Here are the official meanings according to Wictionary:

  1. A person who or a thing which influences
  2. A person who is able to influence consumption, lifestyle and/or political preferences of their online audience by creating and/or engaging social media content, often as a part of a marketing campaign

In my experience, a third category ought to be added. But, for the time being, let’s stick to these two categories as these seem quite straightforward. We’ll tackle my proposal for a third category later. Continue reading →

Using AI in non-fiction context, a justification

In his recent essay, “The slippery slope of AI in books” Paul was almost shocked by his publisher’s question “Did you use AI in creating text, images and/or translation in your book?” Of course, he answered with a loud, indignant “NO” to this question.

Then Paul explains to us that he uses Word’s spelling checker and occasionally a grammar checker. But of course, his text as a whole, is his own. Created by him and only him.

That made me wonder, how does this work out for my text with e.g. the contributions to the math section? I am not a book writer as Paul definitely is, but I write nonetheless. And doing so, I try to maintain my personal style. On a very regular base, Paul and I, exchange email messages with a great variety of subjects. We do this for more than 25 years. The writing is in our own style and very recognizable as such.

But this is entirely different from creating a fictional story as storytellers do. Continue reading →

The secrets of RSA encryption

When clicking on the padlock in the address bar of an internet session, a window appears with the message: “Safari uses an encrypted connection with …”. [red. this message may look slightly different for other browsers]

After pressing the buttons ‘Show certificate’ and ‘detail’, a lot more is shown. The typically used security algorithm nowadays at most news sites etc. at the opening session is: public key with elliptic curve.

But for the sites where security really is an issue, e.g. a login session into your bank account or a large online store, RSA is the encryption algorithm. And RSA encryption is the subject of my contribution this time. Continue reading →

KDP – How to self publish your book

In the past few years, I’ve managed to write and publish four books. Three of them are in English while only one is in Dutch. But, writing a book is just one of the many steps between the idea and the book being bought and read by someone.

As I live in Sweden, and none of my books are in Swedish, I presume my readers are most likely be found abroad in Europe and the US. Reaching out to established publishing companies abroad to persuade them to publish my books seemed like a stretch for a newbie writer, so I did not pursue this avenue. Of course, it would be easy to have my books printed locally and then sell each copy myself, but that would require a considerable investment in printing. And I’d have to go door to door to sell them, which is not my thing. Thus the idea of self-publishing them came up. Continue reading →

The slippery slope of AI in books

‘What, AI in books!’ you may say. Indeed, with generative AI you can ask your AI application to write a text, given a set of parameters such as number of words, subject, genre, and much more.

When I recently was editing the blurbs of my books on KDP, the publishing platform for the Amazon book store, I was asked this question:
Of course, my answer was a solid No as I do not engage any AI form in writing my books for me. Or do I? Continue reading →