Author Archives: admin

Unfinished business

What’s in an AI?

In our kitchen stands a trash can that I consider to be a primitive AI.
When my knee bends towards this bin, the lid opens, and after a fixed time it closes.
When within this time interval a new open command is given, the timer resets.
This is an intelligence upgrade over the previous model that closed the lid no matter what when it felt like it.
I have a short wish list for further improvements (an adjustable timer, voice interface), but I’m stuck with the present AI that patiently awaits my – and others’ – command and acts the best it can.

Some years ago, I encountered Siri for the first time, but after some attempts to have a conversation, I gave up. I found that she used a list with ’smart’ answers to questions she didn’t understand, and that she had no sense of coherence whatsoever.

Continue reading →

What defines a book?

Catchy title this time. What collection of paper leaves, containing printed text, glued together, counts as a book? Any notebook will easily fill these requirements, as does a handwritten pre-Gutenberg Bible, a brand new handwritten copy of the Tora, and any analog copy of ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance‘ (Robert M. Pirsig). The obvious point of discussion is the notebook. Yes, it does match the requirements as the other books I mentioned, but is it therefore considered a book?

What does Wikipedia have to say about what a book is: Continue reading →

The myriad faces of Artificial Intelligence

As loyal visitors of this site, you are likely aware that a regular recurring subject of investigation published here is the psyche or the inner workings of Arty. Arty, being writer Eef’s favorite AI persona, is perhaps better known as ChatGPT. With ‘inner workings’ we do not refer to the nuts and bolts, the transistors, chips, and circuit boards, but to Arti’s mind – if indeed an AI is presumed to have a mind.

By now, Eef’s series of articles involving AI, and indeed Arty, spans over a number of years. Each article investigates – every new one deeper than the previous – what makes Arty tick. How does he work? Has he, over time, become more than the sum of the trainers that ‘educated’ him? If this progress were extended, I’d hazard a guess that even Turing himself would be impressed by today’s Arty. With the obvious exception of the ‘pass me the salt‘ test… Continue reading →

Advanced parasitic draw diagnosis

We have a new article in our series Car Electrical Systems, which reviews a controversy in the diagnosis of parasitic draws. Depending on the vehicle and the problem that particular vehicle faces, the method of how to tackle the problem differs. Choosing the correct method is crucial for a successful diagnosis – pick the wrong method, and you’ll be replacing perfectly good parts while not solving the issue at hand. Here are some clues:

Just pull fuses?
Parasitic Battery Draws
Classic vs Modern Approach Continue reading →

Factoring RSA numbers

Earlier, my essay on the mathematical problem P vs NP was published on Paul’s blog.
A short memory refresher:

The P versus NP problem is a major unsolved problem in theoretical computer science. In informal terms, it asks whether every problem whose solution can be quickly verified can also be quickly solved.

In that essay, some samples of this question were mentioned, like The Traveling Salesman problem and also the subset sum problem. Continue reading →

Graham’s number – v2

In the 2nd or 3rd grade of my catholic primary school, our teacher spoke of stuff like ‘God’ and ‘Heaven’. “People live in Heaven after their death,” she told us. “All eternity.”
Nobody knew what eternity was, so she had to explain.
“Eternity,” she said, “never ends. “The years go on forever.”
Apparently, she saw her pupils struggling with this concept, and that made her tell us a story. Continue reading →

The myth of true time

The clock shift

Spring is approaching.
The astronomical spring begins this year on March 20, when the sun is perpendicular to the equator.

Shortly after, the Middle European Summer Time will start: Sunday, March 29th.
As we all know, on that date we have to turn the clock one hour forward.

In the meantime, this familiar procedure is preceded by an equally well-known concert of moaning, whining, and complaining by the opponents of tinkering with the clock.
The Dutch in particular sound the loudest in this symphony. Continue reading →

Dawit Isaak – 2026

Ni har kanske läst om Dawit Isaak förut, på denna sida eller ute på internet. Om inte, läs gärna upp om honom här eller här.

Nästa år, 2026, har Dawit tillbrinad hela 25 år i Eritreansk fängelse – och detta utan rättegång! Det är den famösa svenska tysta diplomati som har pågått lika länge. Den verkar gå ut på att sakta påtrycka landet politiskt för att få det att göra som Sverige vill, i detta fall att Eritrea ska släppa Dawit Isaak. Med jämna mellanrum tas den upp i nyheterna igen och påståss att framgånger har gjorts. Trots denna insats, och 25 år senare, sitter Dawit fortfarande fast.
Notera att Sverige under den tiden har haft olika regeringar varierande från centrum-vänster till centrum-höger politisk riktning.
Continue reading →

Reading, Writing, and AI

The reading and writing skills of young people

Recently, I updated my Mac to version Tahoe 26.0 and shortly after that, I noticed that selecting text while editing made the well-known ChatGPT icon appear.

Clicking on the icon did pop-up a menu:

My mouth dropped open at this unprecedented level of ‘support’. How convenient! Continue reading →

YouTube och bil elektriska diagnoser

Jag fick nyligen en fråga om min serie kring bil elektriska diagnoser. Frågan var om det fanns några bra kanaler på YouTube man kan följa för att lära sig mer om ämnet. Själv följer jag  ett antal kanaler redan under några år, men det kan vara bra att lista de för andra. Det gör jag härmed. Kolla gärna denna länk.