Frequently Given Answers

To avoid repeating the same conversations about this blog over and over again, here are the most frequently given answers.

• Thanks, fine.
• Yes.
• Just half a glass, thanks. 
• No.
• Maybe.
• Why?
• Milk. No sugar. 
• At the end of the road, take left.
• Or right. 
• Just a little higher, please. Yes! Right there!
• Arabidopsis thaliana.

Nyokratus

When I was a little child, I read a book called Lyckans lexikon, "The Dictionary of Happiness" by Falstaff, Fakir, pen name of Axel Wallengren.

Translated into English, the first lines of the first dialogue go like this:

- What is happiness?
Already Nyokratus asked that.
- Who was Nyokratus?
An old Greek.
- What is an old Greek?
A dead person who lived on black soup and truth.
- What is truth?
Well...
- I insist. What is truth?

From thereon, the book becomes less interesting, and Nyokratus is never mentioned again.

I read this when I was a child, but my childish curiosity never inspired me to learn more about Nyokratus. If Falstaff said he was an old Greek and stopped there, surely there was nothing more of interest? It turns out I was right. Nyokratus is not mentioned anywhere else in world literature, apart from those two lines in Lyckans lexikon. He is a made up figure and of no interest whatsoever.

Nevertheless, I ask myself, where the name comes from. Falstaff made it up, but he must have been inspired by something. One can come up with a few guesses.

Guess 1: new. In Swedish, the word for new is ny. Perhaps it is some association to a new Socrates.

Guess 2: νυός. The Greek word nyos (νυός)  means daughter in law. The word κράτος means strength, power. Perhaps there is something about the power of the daughter in law. Is a family happier when the daughter in law is strong?

Guess 3: Νικοκράτης. The name Nikokrates, which sounds somewhat like Nyokratus, was the name of a tyrant of Cyrene (Κυρήνη) in present day Libya. He killed the husband of a lady called Aretaphila (Ἀρεταφίλα), and then married her against her will. She tried to poison him, but failed. When he accused her, she claimed that she had tried to apply a love potion, and he apparently believed her - at least according to the author Polyaenus (Πoλύαινoς). The story goes on with a lot of people killing each other. However, Aretaphila survives the mayhem and then lives a long and peaceful life with family and friends. Perhaps Falstaff thought that all this had something to do with happiness. There is anyhow no record of Nikokrates asking what happiness is. Or of him eating black soup.

Privacy when I have Nothing to hide (Part 2 of 2) - The Future

(Part 1 of this post.)

So much for the present. But what about the future? You have nothing significant to hide today, but what you accept that others can access today, may not be anything you want to share with the world in the future, like 10 or 50 years from now.

The standards of the world occasionally change radically.

Before the beginning of this millennium, same sex marriages were an absurdity to most people, even in the Western world. Today, it is widely considered an intolerant extremist opinion to be against them.

People who had been proud of their idealistic communist convictions in Germany in the 1920s thought that they had nothing to hide. However, with the nazi takeover, tens of thousands of communists were killed. If communists had used Facebook before the nazi took over, the number of victims would undoubtedly have been higher.

Less harsh but still annoying were the consequences for people who had feared communism in the 1930s and who joined the nazi party as the safest bulwark against the communists. Those people may have left the nazi ideology early on, as soon as they realised what it was all about. So did for example the author Gottfried Benn. Nevertheless, after the war, things changed radically, and the liberators banned his work, because he had initially supported the nazi. That he had chosen to leave the movement did not matter. Other people were in similar situations. That kind of ban may or may not have been morally right, but it was certainly nothing those people had seen coming.

In the U.S., alcohol consumption was banned during the Prohibition 1920-1933. If the American police had had access to private Facebook posts and party pictures before 1920, how easy would it not have been to identify suspects to investigate for illegal use of alcohol.


Sometimes opinions become really suspicious through no fault of our own. When people start using violence or even killing in the name of opinions you share, you risk becoming a suspect as well. There are people who have used violence in the name of Christianity, animal rights, Islam, abortion bans, women's rights, and so on. You may have any opinions you want. However, if you feel really strongly about your opinions, there are bound to be some nutters who feel even more strongly about them, and who are willing to use violence to promote them.

For every such nutter, you become slightly more suspect as a sympathiser in the eyes of anyone who knows that you hold or once held such opinions.

We should of course use our freedom of speech to promote our opinions. However, when we consciously do so in public, we can choose the way we pronounce them, to avoid any unfortunate misinterpretation. When we write a private mail, we should not have to spend time on making sure the message is perfectly clear to any secret reader.

Let's say you write the following in a private mail: “I would really do anything to get rid of that politician.” The authorities may take that as a serious threat, if they or one of their text algorithms find it. However, when your sister reads it, she will realise that you just mean the following.

“I would really do anything to get rid of that politician - within the law of course. When I say ‘anything’, I mean things like going to the voting booth and perhaps even participate in a public manifestation, if someone invites me. And if there are cookies.”


What you do online can be used against you. What you consider innocent today may not be considered innocent by others in the future. The vast number of people in the world are nice almost all the time, and the risk that something really bad happens may be low, but we do not know. We really don't know yet.

Privacy when I have Nothing to hide (Part 1 of 2)

I have nothing in particular to hide. I have no old sins from the past, no criminal record, no plans to overthrow any government or even any thoughts of pinching candy at the grocery store.

If I truly have nothing to hide, and this always will be obvious to everyone regardless of what selection of information about me is shared, then there is no problem. Unfortunately, none of those conditions ever applies. 

Everyone has things to hide. At the very least, I do not want to share my passwords with the world. I do not want other people to send mails in my name. I want that blog posts and other things published online in my name really should be written by me. I trust other people in general, but that does not mean that I want to give everyone the right to transfer money from my bank account.

If the government has all my personal data, that means that some person in the administration can get access to it. In general, I trust people in the administration. But I do not trust that all of them are above reproach.

A friend of mine seems very average to me. He assures me he really has nothing to hide. However, when he takes domestic flights in the U.S., he is usually taken aside for additional security checks. He does not know why, but something in his profile apparently makes him suspect. His travel pattern? The fact that he usually travels alone? Did he go to the wrong cities at the wrong times? Did he stay at a hotel where some criminal gang had had some meeting at another floor? Was it something he had mentioned in a mail or a Facebook posting? I do not know, and neither does he. 

This shows that some invisible unknown factors can trigger suspicions and inconveniences for anyone - like my friend, innocent to everyone except the security algorithms of some authorities.

If the authorities have access to all your mail conversations, all your Facebook data, all your text messages, and all other traces you leave in supposedly private electronic form, then they can use that information. You may not like how they use it. 

With algorithms, they can identify suspect individuals, like my perfectly innocent friend. They can do this not only from things the suspect mentions privately online, but also from things he leaves out. For example, someone could run a search for people who never talk with their parents or siblings to look for people with family problems.

If you want to remain inconspicuous, it is not enough to avoid talking about controversial subjects. You need to select things to say that make you appear normal.

So much for problems you can get by people misinterpreting your data. But what if someone really is after you? I trust almost everyone I meet. I like most people, and I trust they like me. But every now and then there are some kind of conflicts in our lives. What about that neighbour who complains that you play too loud music? Or that plumber who got upset when you pointed out that he overcharged you? Or that driver who made an unexpected left turn, so you hit him in a way, so the insurance company won’t pay for his damages? Most such people will probably see reason in the end, but some of them may not.

If one person, who really does not like you, gets access to your data, he is bound to be able to find something bad in there. You have left a lot of electronic traces in your life, and there are a lot of laws you do not know about - you are bound to have broken at least some of them. For example, about half of all adult Americans have tried illegal drugs at least once. Did they all avoid mentioning that in supposedly private spaces online?

Cardinal Richelieu allegedly said: “Give me five lines written by the hand of the most honest man, and I will find something in them to have him hanged”. He probably did not say it actually, but that is beyond the point. He or someone like him could have said it. Neither is it certain that the nazi propaganda minister Goebbels said: “Who has nothing to hide has nothing to fear”. But he could very well have said so. And some people may have believed him.

You do not know who gets access to your data, in the end, but it may be a friend of Richelieu’s, and even if you think you have nothing to hide, that person can find something.

And what if they are right? What if your insurance company learns that you have called an HIV advice line or some other health support, and you try to take out a life insurance? It will be in their interest to avoid giving you a good insurance if they are likely to pay out a huge sum in just a few years or months. It is in their interest to find out the truth that you would rather hide.

To be continued...

Why simplify when you can beautify language?

New research has shown that all languages evolve to be as efficient as possible. That is both trivial and wrong. And right, as well, of course. When we're in a hurry to convey an important message, we try to apply as many shortcuts we can without losing meaning, thereby making language efficient.

However, sometimes languages do not communicate efficiently but beautifully.

For example, the Roman poet Horace (65 BC - 8 BC) ends a poem thus:

... Me tabula sacer
votiva paries indicat uvida
suspendisse potenti
vestimenta maris deo.

A word for word translation would be something like this:
"My tablet sacred votive wall shows wet (I) hang dominating clothes sea god."

However, applying some knowledge of Latin word forms, it is clear that the actual meaning could be conveyed with a word order that is easier to grasp in English:
"The votive tablet on the sacred wall shows that I hang up my wet clothes to the god who dominates the sea."

Added colours may hint which parts of the poem belong together:

... Me tabula sacer
votiva paries indicat uvida
suspendisse potenti
vestimenta maris deo.

No efficiency in the poem, but beauty nevertheless.

Another writer with a sense for unexpected word order is the Icelander Sigvatr Þórðarson (995 - 1045), who has the following verse in his Austrfararvísur:

Oss hafa augu þessi
íslenzk, kona, vísat
brattan stíg at baugi
björtum langt en svörtu.

The original word order:

"Us have eyes these Icelandic, woman, shown uphill road to the ring bright long and black."

Again, one first has to study Old Icelandic grammar for a few months to figure it out: 

"These black, Icelandic eyes, have shown us, woman, the long uphill road to the bright ring."

I love the way he throws in "svörtu", black, at the end, as if he had forgotten about it until then. These Icelandic eyes have.... oh, they were black, by the way. Another nifty thing is the assonance between "svörtu" and "björtum", bright. And the contrast between black and bright. And the alliteration between "brattan", "baugi" and "björtum".

All in all both Horace and Sigvatr knew what they were doing in their inefficient writing.

How Successful People Brush Their Teeth

Are you successful? Did you ever become CEO of a Fortune 100 company that sold a billion smartphones on the North Korean market? Did you ever play bagpipe on the moon? Did you invent cheese?

I thought not. Did you ever ask yourself why? What is it that makes truly successful people different from you?

I am convinced it is that it is in the way they brush their teeth. It is a daily (or at least weekly) task where one can go wrong in so many ways.

The first challenge is the tooth paste. Where should it go? A survey of an unfathomable number of successful business executives showed that a majority of them applied the toothpaste on the bristles. You may have thought that the toothpaste should go in the little hole at the end, but no. That hole is there just to hang the toothbrush on a hook (purchased separately). 

The second question is how to hold the toothbrush. Successful people have a tendency to hold it in the handle end. Hardly any clasped the bristles. 

The third and most crucial bit is where to apply the toothbrush. It turns out that of the people who put it up their nostril, not a single one figured on a list of America's most well paid entrepreneurs. No, you should put it in your mouth. That's what successful people do. 

Then it is just a matter of brushing away, and wait for the first million dollars to arrive at your executive corporate bank account. 

Music in Public - Legal Status

It is clearly just an oversight from the law makers that there is no law to explicitly allow you to take action against people playing  loud music in public on radios or phones or other music devices. To make it easier for law makers, here is my proposed list of actions that should be allowed and actions that should be forbidden, when someone plays loud music in public. 

Should be allowed:

* Remove the device from its owner and switch it off. 

* Unplug the device, if connected to the electric net. 

* Confiscate the batteries of the device. 

* Confiscate the device. 

* Throw the device in a bin. 

* Throw the device in a river, lake or the sea, if available. 

* Throw the device against the ground. 

* Repeatedly smash the device against rocks, walls or other music devices. 

* Jump on the device with spiked shoes. 

* Jump on the device with clogs. 

* Hit the device repeatedly with any hard object, like a hammer, a stone or the Koh-i-Noor diamond. 

* Procure a military tank and repeatedly run over the device, until it is paper thin.

* Bury the device in a deep mine and cover it with nuclear waste. 

* Launch the device into space to orbit one of the outer planets.

* Grind the device to a thin powder and spread it over a haunted cemetery. 

Should be forbidden:

* Nothing.

Biology of Species That do Not Exist

People may consider biology a science too much down to earth to be exciting. There are admittedly plenty of exciting things in the world of the living, but the one boring thing they have in common is that they exist.

Luckily, there are some biologists who leave all reason behind them and research interesting things that most likely do not exist at all - cryptids.

Cryptozoology

Cryptozoologists study animals that are rumoured to exist, like the yeti and the Loch Ness monster and the gorilla. The gorilla is of course no longer studied by cryptozoologists as its discovery in the real world 1847 proved that it actually existed - to the cryptic community's big disappointment.

Cryptobotany

Cryptobotanists spend their time studying plants that do not exist, like Vampire Vine or Man-eating trees. They also try to find the Balkan raskovnik (Serbian: расковник), which is a magical herb that can uncover anything according to legend. What really makes the raskovnik mysterious to me is that it is supposed to be a grass that looks like a four-leaf clover, which means that it would be both monocot and dicot at the same time. It will be so annoying for Darwin, if they find one.

Future Animals

I recently learnt of a project by the palaeontologist Sébastien Steyer and the paleo-artist Marc Boulay, which is to describe animals that will evolve in the future. It is very possible that they will be right in some of the things they describe, and in less than a few million years, we may be able to tell.

"De Monocerote: figura haec talis est, qualis a pictoribus fere hodie pingitur, de qua certi nihil habeo." - "The unicorn - as it is usually painted. I have no clue myself." 

Konrad Genser: ''Historiae animalium'', 1551

Source: Wikipedia

Geometry - nothing more than a theory

I had enough of all that celebration of pi day yesterday. After all, geometry is just a theory. Mathematicians like Euclid and Lobachevsky have different ideas of the value of pi, and if the professionals do not agree, I think everyone should be allowed to make up their own mind. Geometry is definitely nothing to trust. Well, to be honest, I am not sure if it is just a theory, or if it is a hoax, like the moon landings.