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 →

Riksdagsval – En jämförelse

För några dagar sedan var det val i Nederländerna. Jag tänker dock inte ta upp resultatet av valet. Däremot är det ett bra tillfälle att jämföra den Nederländska valprocessen med den Svenska.

Den Svenska valprocessen har jag skrivit om vid två tidigare tillfällen; en gång innan ett tidigare val här, och sedan några dagar efter samma val här. Slutsatsen var då att jag inte är särskild imponerad av valmetoden som tillämpas i det Svenska valet. Continue reading →

Writing and hobbies

One of the many perks of writing is that you get to incorporate things you fancy in your stories. After all, as a writer, you own the story! I regularly make use of that perk. Readers who know me will recognize these details, while others take them for regular book content.

One of the things that always has had my interest, apart from reading, are cars, motorcycles, and sailing. So I eagerly jump to every opportunity to put in my favorite cars or incorporate cars or sailing in my stories.

Nuremberg:
When I was working on my first book Nuremberg in 2021, I could not resist using a 2CV as a means of transport in the center of Amsterdam in the 80ies. Even if the make and model are never mentioned in my book, when reading the attached text snippets you’ll probably agree the car cannot be anything other than a 2CV. Continue reading →

P vs NP – A promise fulfilled

P versus NP – An early encounter

My first programming experience was in the early 80’s. I had bought myself a Texas instruments 58-c programmable calculator, and I was curious what could be done with such a device. That turned out to be very modest.
The calculator was capable of 480 program steps but held then zero memories for data storage. Each memory used for data consumed 8 program steps, so with the storage of e.g. 10 integers, the programming space was diminished with 80 steps.
The 58-c’s memory was retained even after switching off the calculator, but before creating another program, memory first had to be erased. Continue reading →

Cultural dilemma – Country vs Religion

One would think it would be easy to describe or define a country. But its definition in Wikipedia leaves room for interpretation that attempts to describe it as ‘…a distinct part of the world, such as a state, nation, or other political entity…’. Notably, the definition of a country does not include ‘a group of people with a certain religion‘ or even ‘a group of people‘. On the other hand, the Wikipedia article does mention religion in any way but for the use of religious symbols, eg. in flags. Continue reading →

Ocean floor infrastructure vulnerability

Just about one year ago (although it seems longer than that), the Nordstream pipelines were sabotaged. Within a short period of time, all four pipelines appeared to have blown up, likely by explosive charges. As a result of this, central Europe had to find alternative sources to replace the gas delivered by the Nordstream1 pipeline, Nordstream 2 was not yet ready, albeit very close. Continue reading →

Paperback weekend!

This weekend I’ll be publishing all my four books on amazon in paperback format. Until now, I had my ebooks on amazon (Kindle) and my paperbacks on bravenewbooks.nl. This last webshop turned out to be quite expensive for readers outside of the Netherlands, myself included, that had to face excessive shipping costs up to €25. With amazon, I hope y’all at least get better shipping costs as the books can be printed on demand more locally. Continue reading →

TweetrX

Once upon a time, you had Twitter to distribute new, opinions and other stuff you wanted to share. I joined quite late, in 2016, and used the app mostly to share technical conferences I joined. Once I started writing books, I used the platform to announce my books. Later, after The Deep was published and the actual sabotage took place, I published links to the news articles combined with a comment and a link to my book.

Then Elon came along… Continue reading →

New site!

Indeed, you may have noticed we’re now at allegedfacts.eu rather than the trusty old plusservices.se. or my former company site pvdconsultancy.se.  Perhaps you were automatically redirected here when trying to get to the old site.

Whatever the case, welcome to our new home!

Why, you may ask? Fair question! There are actually several reasons for this change:

  • The .se did not match the international character of the site anymore
  • The plusservices URL  was actually an old company account (that was never used for my company)
  • The name of the site had no real relation to its content
  • The website of my old company PvD Consultancy AB was finally mothballed

Anyway, from wherever you came: welcome here! I hope you’ll like it as much here as you did the old site – or perhaps even better!

Continue reading →