Category Archives: Ohpinjun

The best of both worlds – Hybrid cars

In response to an article on electric vehicles I published recently on this site, my co-columnist Eef wrote a reaction – an editorial comment if you like. As it was more voluminous than your regular ‘Editorial comment’, and was also in itself a very interesting read, I decided to publish it as a separate article – which you can read below. Enjoy!

I agree with Paul that EV’s have their advantages.
There is no doubt in my mind that the modern electric motor is far superior to the internal combustion engine ICE, no matter how advanced the latter may be.
I picked a few of the superior qualities from the internet:

Much greater efficiency (90% vs 30%), half the size and weight, hardly any service maintenance, no CO2 exhaust, no gears, near-instant torque, silent operation, long life span.

These characteristics are so outstanding that the discussion is closed, you should say.
However, there is a major setback: the energy supply by batteries. Continue reading →

EV’s – Practical or affordable?

Electric vehicles, or EV’s for short, seem to be what we all need to drive in the future. At least if you believe the government and science. Our combustion-engined cars have done what they can; now we need to step up with better alternatives to limit polluting our atmosphere even more.

While I’m not a great admirer of EV cars, I do see their merits, foremost on the exhaust pollution aspect. That said, there are major downsides, partly with the cars and technology itself, partly with legislation. And of course, the elephant in the room: the way they are charged. Continue reading →

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 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 →

Ukraine – A short history

Perhaps, as I did, you wonder about the modern history of neighbors Ukraine and Russia, like:

  • How did Ukraine become a sovereign country after the USSR fell?
  • What agreements for the sovereignty of Ukraine were signed over the years?
  • How did these agreements work out?
  • Why can’t Ukraine and Russia just trust each other and sign a peace treaty?

I’ve tried to summarize all agreements on peace and sovereignty that Ukraine has been involved in with Russia since the fall of the USSR…

Continue reading →

Windows 11, or rather Linux?

My computer of choice is, has been for a long time, and probably remains to be for the forseeable future, a 2008 Lenovo X220 laptop. Yes, I’m aware that it is rather oldish.  When it was new, it must have been a beast of a machine, and likely sported quite the price tag. Today, close to 20 years later, it is still a fast laptop. It boots in under a minute and shows no delays in loading files or web pages. Of course, it came with a spinning hard disk when new, but I swapped that out for a Solid State Disk (SSD) years ago. The internal memory was with 16Gb already up to spec, it came standard with a 64-bit processor, and it never was, nor is today, a slow machine. It ran Windows 7, then Windows 10, and then….Microsoft said NO!

Say what? You heard me, they said NO, you ain’t gonna run our shiny new W11 on that old thing! Continue reading →

Putin’s Christmas wishlist

Two days ago, from the time I write this, a peace plan for Ukraine was leaked, most likely from the White House or from the Pentagon. It didn’t reveal much detail, but from any of those sources, anything could be expected. Two days in and the contents all over the news, I can confirm that it must look exactly like the put’n wishlist for Christmas presents. And there’s nothing in it for Ukraine. Continue reading →