Category Archives: Paul

Alternatief voor een dure EV

Elektrische auto’s (EV’s) zijn de toekomst. Althans dat doet de overheid ons denken, en de autobranche speelt daarin uiteraard vlijtig mee. Maar is dat wel zo? Of is er ook een toekomst voor niet-EV auto’s?

Hier in Zweden kost de goedkoopste nieuwe EV rond de €30.000. Dat was een Citroën die er prat op ging de goedkoopste EV in de markt te hebben. Ter vergelijking ging de voordeligste EV in Nederland toen (2024) al voor ruim onder de €20.000 over de toonbank. En dan hebben we het slechts over de instapmodellen, de meest verkochte modellen hebben in Zweden prijskaartjes vanaf €45.000 tot tegen een ton! Wie kan zich dit veroorloven? En dan als tweede auto? Continue reading →

Zen and the Art of the Book Cover

I have good memories on reading M.Pirsig’s novel ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance‘. It was the Dutch version, so I now know some nuances were lost in translation. Also, it was over 45 years ago, and with that, it is long overdue for a new read.

Covers:

If I may believe the more than a handful of accomplished bestselling writers’ groups on Facebook, I have to invest in hiring a professional to design the cover of my books. In traditional publishing, with a publisher’s house, they will take care of this as it is included in their fees. But when self-publishing as I am, the consensus seems to be to hire an accomplished artist with experience in book cover design, and let this person create an attractive cover for your book. Continue reading →

Ukraine – Book sales donated

Summary:

Today, the money collected from the book sales for my book ‘Ukraine – Infrastructure victory’ was transferred to the organization Help99. Exactly 20 books exchanged hands; some were sold, others donated. For the donated books, I footed the money it would have made in sales. Two buyers chose to pay more for the book than I was asking; I thanked them and added the full donation to the account. Those who bought a copy off me: thank you!

Two copies landed in different libraries, one in a private community library in Spain, the other in the communal library in Knivsta, Sweden, where we live. Of course, for these books I also footed the assumed sales profit.

Some books have been promised as a donation but have not yet been delivered. I preemptively added the assumed profit to the list. Continue reading →

Felkodens magi

Moderna bilar fick utan undantag en ny varningslampa för sådär 25 år sedan, motorlampan:

Lampan är fruktad och samtidigt älskad av många. Den lyser när bilens ‘dator’ har upptäckt något som avviker från det som den förväntar sig. Efter det börjar lysa bör man enligt instruktionsboken besöka verkstaden som kan läsa ut felkoden och berätta för dig som kund vad som är trasig och hur många tusenlappar det kommer att kosta för att lampan släcks. Medan det låter enkel, oftast är det mycket mer komplicerat än så. Continue reading →

The art of the sale

Anyone who knows me can vouch that I’m not much of a salesman. Au contraire, I can easily state that I have got to be the worst salesperson in the history of sales! In my latest project, I decided to write a book about a covert espionage operation in russia, with the goal to undermine russia’s infrastructure to the point where it would be more than noticeable in society, government, and military. The book was written and then published earlier this year.

The idea of this project was to sell as many copies as I could, deduct the (very low) printing cost from each sale, and send the remainder – the total profit – to an organisation that helps civilians and military in Ukraine. Due to my poor sales skills (it cannot be the book, ’cause that’s great!), hardly any sales were made. Continue reading →

Writing – How to secure your manuscripts

As you hopefully are aware, I’ve done a fair bit of writing and publishing. Currently, this activity is now waiting for new inspiration to arrive, but the days of a new book certainly will come again.

When I’m not writing, I’m active on several Facebook groups on various subjects, and have also joined and am active on several writing groups. A frequently recurring question in several of these groups is from folks tragically having lost parts of or complete manuscripts. In close to one hundred percent of these cases, no copies of the work in progress (WOP) were saved elsewhere. Continue reading →

How about Iran?

Yesterday, as I am writing this, the US decided to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities deeply buried under tens of meters of concrete. Whilst this may seem like a good idea any day of the week, it certainly escalates the already high tensions in the Middle East. It also may bring the US something the current regime said it would avoid at all cost: WAR. Continue reading →

New book – Ukraine (all sales profit will be donated to Ukraine)

Again, a new book is close to publishing published and available for sale:

Ukraine – Infrastructure victory

The total profits of this book go to help99.co, an Estonian nonprofit that collects funds to help Ukraine. The help is not only Ukraine’s citizens with everything from medicines and fully equipped ambulances to solar panels and generators. But also for the front lines eg. by supplying ambulances that can work in combat circumstances.

So, buy the book and you contribute to the freedom of Ukraine, it’s as simple as that. And as an added bonus, you get to keep the book! Continue reading →

Online security basics

Nowadays, most of us use IT devices and software online on a daily basis. At our workplaces but also at home. We read the newspapers, check our bank accounts, exchange photos and text with our relatives and friends, receive and send emails, and check our social media.

While we all know about viruses on our computers and phones, these are the simplest things that can happen to us. And, there’s pretty good software helping us to recognize and remove viruses as they attempt to come into our devices. But there’s more.

Imagine you are working on your computer at the office and you receive an email. The mail seems to come from a friend and it contains a text and a link you can click on. The link seems to point to a football match from one of the kids of that sender.

The short paragraph above uses the word ‘seems’ twice, and not without reason. Continue reading →

The US elections – How to do better next time

It has been impossible for anyone to ignore the results of the recent election in the US. The orange candidate won in his words with ‘a landslide victory’, but in our fact-checked reality only with an ever so slight margin. Obviously, this depends on what numbers you are looking at: the number of electors or the number of actual votes.

The results:

  • Electors:
    • Reps: 312
    • Dems: 226
  • Actual votes:
    • Reps: 77 302 580
    • Dems: 75 017 613

Continue reading →

ChatGPT – Arty, facts and initiative

As my co-columnist Eef has been rather enthusiastic about his knowledgeable pal Arty, I decided to also check out Arty again. I’ve done so earlier but was probably less impressed as Eef. However, Eef’s articles shine a light on another Arty than I remember from my early and brief encounter. So, why not give Arty a fresh chance?

For the new visitors of this website, Arty is the nickname for ChatGPT. And ChatGPT is an AI or an Artificial Intelligence question and answer dialogue website or mobile app. Note the term Artificial, hence Arty. Continue reading →

From TweetrX to BlueSky

Over a year ago, I wrote a short post on Tweetr and left the platform. Read more about the article here. With no real alternative, I refrained from this part of Social Media and concentrated on others. Now I’m back, but not on Tweetr!

After a year without me tweeting, a viable alternative did finally surface in the form of the BlueSky mobile app. BlueSky looks like Tweeter used to look and offers similar functionality. But here without the downsides Tweetr developed. For one, BlueSky offers proper moderation and a timeline that makes sense. It is add-free (for now) and free of use. 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 →

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 →