Eef, our resident columnist and contributor of mainly scientific content to this blog, decided it was time to write and publish some short stories collected from his memory under the sub-title ‘Unexpected turns of events‘. It is my pleasure to publish them on this site and bring them to your attention. Eef wrote three stories to date, I have no doubt that more will follow shortly. Continue reading →
Tag Archives: #ohpinjun
AI? For an audiobook? Are you mad?
Well, that remains to be seen. The question is if I can publish an audiobook using AI?
Good question, I’ve written a few books, and published them both in paperback and ebook format, but never given the idea of publishing them as audiobooks much thought. While I’ve always been an avid reader of printed books and more recently also of ebooks, audiobooks never really became my thing. I tried one of them once a long time ago but never managed to finish it. Mind you, that was in the age when CD’s had just become fashionable. Continue reading →
ChatGPT in gesprek met een kind
Kleinzoon (8) versus ChatGPT
You can find the English version here.
K: Hi.
ik mag van me opa eve achter de leptop om met jouw te praten.
ik heet Arjan en ik ben 8 jaar.
AI: Hallo Arjan! Leuk om met jou te praten. Hoe gaat het met jou vandaag? Heb je vandaag iets
leuks gedaan? Continue reading →
ChatGPT rivals StarTrek’s main computer
Eef versus Arty
E: Hello again.
Do you remember the last conversation I had with you?
It was featured by my wrongly quoted Descartes statement “I think, so I exist”,
corrected by you into “Cogito, ergo sum,” which means “I think, therefore I am”. Continue reading →
Police brutality – Unique to the USA?
It has been impossible to ignore the cases of severe police brutality from departments all over the USA. Any reasonable person would wonder, after reading about this for the second, third, or even fourth time in the same year, why US police departments do not learn from previous examples. After all, how hard can it be? Continue reading →
ChatGPT…
After a recent contribution by fellow columnist Eef, suddenly a lot of articles in the Dutch and Swedish press about this AI were published – did they read Eef’s column? As usual with the presentation of any new AI, the articles vary from handy tools for the curious, via a new don’t-have-to-do-any-more-homework trick for students, to the latest threat for AI to take over our jobs and ultimately the world.
Finally, I got curious and decided I had to try the thang for myself. Continue reading →
Mathematical issues
Some remarkable mathematical issues
Although the Dutch newspapers Volkskrant and NRC can be blamed for being too political (D66) biased to be independent as journals ought to be, it must be said that both have excellent science sections.
On an irregular base even topics of mathematical nature have been published.
Of course for a layman’s audience, mathematics lacks the ability of other science disciplines of being easily visualized.
So the topics in these sections were about trivial stuff like the latest calculated decimals of π or some large regions on the number line without any prime number called prime deserts, a newly found Mersenne number, etc.
But that hardly scratches the surface. Continue reading →
Cogito ergo sum, conversation with an AI
Below you’ll find a short exploration of the behavior and possibilities of conversation between our columnist Eef and a more advanced AI, ChatGPT in this case.
~
E: Hello again.
AI: Hello! How can I help you today? Continue reading →
‘Referendum’ in Ukraine
As no one can possibly have missed, russia is in the process of organizing a referendum. The fact that they organized it in another country makes it more unique. The fact that the subject is whether the folks voting in the referendum want to join the russian federation makes it even more unique. Note that my use of the word ‘unique’ is not to be interpreted in a positive manner. Continue reading →
Det Svenska valet – 2
Med några dagar sedan valet återkommer jag till mina tidigare kritiker på det Svenska valsystemet. Jag konstaterade tidigare följande briser:
- Vid ingången, dock utanför, står folk från lokala partier för att uppmana rösta på deras parti
- I ingången där man tar de små papperslappar finns en vakt som ser till att allt går rätt till där
- Kuverten man använder att lämna in lapparna har mellan 1 och 2 cm stora håll. Valkommittén ser vad det är du röstar på
- Man får inte själv stoppa sitt kuvert i valurnen, det ska en i valkommittén göra
Det svenska valet – 1
Svenska valet innan 2022
Jag tror jag har nämnt det Svenska valet och valsystemet förut, och om jag gjorde det så var det inte med lovande ord. Som icke Svensk medborgare får jag inte rösta i Riksdagsvalet, dock bara i kommun samt länstyrelse valen. Jag deltog några gånger i de första valet sedan vi flyttade hit, sedan började jag granska systemet lite mer kritiskt och slutade rösta. Istället gick jag till vallokalen för att kolla upp läget, kommentera och sedan överklaga mina synpunkter till relevanta myndigheter. Continue reading →
Educate russian tourists?
Since the unprovoked invasion of and war from russia* against Ukraine, relations between the EU and russian federation have been at a historic low, at least since the cold war ended about thirty years ago. Many rich russian folks, certainly those aiding and supporting the putin** regime, have found travel restrictions to the EU and US. Continue reading →
Echte taxi versus Uber
Toen we een antal jaren in Zweden woonden moest ik m’n rijbewijs laten verlengen. Ik had reeds eerder een Zweeds rijbewijs gekregen, maar dit moest, net als in Nederland, op een gegeven moment verlengd worden. Aangezien ik in Nederland alle rijbewijzen behaald had, A, B, BE, C, CE, D en DE, waren deze categoriën ook aanwezig op mijn Zweedse rijbewijs. Bij de papierwinkel voor de verlenging ervan moest ik invullen welke categoriën ik wilde behouden. Allemaal was natuurlijk mijn antwoord. Continue reading →
SAS, piloterna och flygresenärerna
2022-07:
Efter en vecka av förhandlingarna mellan SAS och piloternas fackförbund, lägger piloterna ner arbetet för att övergå i strejk. Ultimatumet från piloternas sida var satt till klockan 12 på måndag, och trots att det rapporterades i nyhets media att partierna hade kommit nära en överenskommelse, så lyckades man inte fram till klockan 12. Resultatet var att klocka 12:01 så var strejken verklighet. Inga SAS flygplan lyftes efter det och tusentals resenärer antingen kom inte iväg, inte tillbaks eller fick kliva ut flygplanet de precis hade hunnit boarda. Continue reading →
Paperback time! (…the sequel)
The great Amazon has since a few years problems delivering print-on-demand paperback books within Europe. Sure I can order a paperback to my summerplace in Spain with no problems and delivered within days. But getting one out to Sweden, where I live, is not possible for the great Amazon. Mid 2022, they still blame it on Covid…
So I struck deals with two publishers, Amazon.com for the North American market and BreaveNewBooks.nl for the European markets. The content of BraveNewBooks is forwarded to other large bookshops such as bol.com. Continue reading →