What happened to Google Translate?

Some four months ago, I was planning to write an enthusiastic article about how great Google’s translation service had become. Outside of linguistic institutions, translation from Swedish into another language has not been available to the public for so long (I believe Babelfish was the first), and I was extremely impressed with how well Google [...]

Swedish Pirate Party: A Critical Examination

(This is a translation of a blog entry in Swedish from June 14th, which was the hitherto most read article since the blog started in 2003.)
Now that the Swedish Pirate Party has got their 7 percent of the voters in the Swedish election for the European Parliament, I suppose it is time to write something [...]

Copyright reform – or abolition?

The other day I came across a web site called Question Copyright. One of its leading men is the software developer Karl Fogel, and a prominence such as Brewster Kahle seems to be involved as well.
Their ”mission is to educate the public about the history of copyright, and to promote methods of distribution that [...]

More on trigger points & muscle lumps

In 2003 I published a book about mercury poisoning from dental amalgam, fibromyalgia and the role in society of scientific research. It was built upon my own experiences as chronically ill. The print version is available in Swedish only, but there is a version in English available on line as a 131 page PDF.
After the [...]

What has copyright to do with democracy?

In view of recent debates, not the least those in Sweden, I wrote this article about the democratic aspects of copyright legislation:
Abstract: The debates on whether or not copyright and democracy are compatible concepts are not new. It has been discussed since the 1700s and concerns a form of separation of powers. Copyright is a [...]

Sweden’s first copyright acts (1810-1877)

”Every script [copy] shall be the author’s or his legal rights holder’s property. He who prints or reprints a script [copy] without the author’s or publisher’s written permission, shall lose the entire edition or pay a fine to its full value, undividedly accrued to the plaintiff.”

This was the first, very brief, copyright legislation in Sweden. [...]

Is illegal tobacco more dangerous than legal?

When I wrote about the tobacco industry and its mafia methods the other day (in Swedish) I had missed an ad that was published in Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet on December 7. Advertisers are the Swedish Tobacco Manufacturer’s Association and an association for Swedish Stores & Fast Food.
The main message appears on the [...]

Scientific fraud must be investigated – also in Sweden!

In Swedish magazine Axess (No 2/2008) I have an article about how important it is that Sweden finally gets an impartial institution that may investigate science fraud. Other Nordic countries have such agencies – while Sweden turns a blind eye to a lot of irregularities that should be classified as either science fraud or scientific [...]

Joseph Weizenbaum dead at 85

Mathematician and professor of computer science at MIT, Joseph Weizenbaum, died at 85 on March the 5th.
He is probably best known for his ”psychoanalysis program” Eliza – named after Eliza Doolittle in Pygmalion. Many people were fascinated by this relatively simple program’s ability to mimic ”human” conversation. On the other hand, Weizenbaum chose to emulate [...]

Glenn Gould and the artist’s new tools

(This article was originally published in the Swedish magazine Ikoner in 2006. I translated it into English especially for an American web magazine, which later gave a new meaning to the phrase editorial decorum by suddenly backing out. So, why waste the translation? Here it is.)
The pianist Glenn Gould was well-known not only for his [...]