The One with the Thoughts of Frans

I seem to have missed Donner’s latest brilliant idea for a new law. It seems that the Dutch government is looking to limit the number of people with multiple nationalities to a minimum. In today’s NRC Handelsblad Ulli d’Oliveira wrote a great opinion piece about the matter on page 14. Some highlights:

De rabiate weerzin in delen van het politieke spectrum tegen het verschijnsel van de meervoudige nationaliteit heeft een gevolg dat pas laat aan het licht kwam – dezelfde beperkingen aan het behouden van de oorspronkelijke nationaliteit die aan buitenlandse aspirant-Nederlanders worden opgelegd, gelden voor Nederlanders die een buitenlandse nationaliteit willen aannemen. Een petitie met meer dan vijftienduizend handtekeningen van mensen in het buitenland keert zich tegen deze collateral damage.

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In het nationaliteitsrecht is het nuttig om politics of identity te onderscheiden van politics of interests. De laatste jaren wordt het Nederlandse nationaliteitsrecht gedomineerd door de vurige wens om aan buitenlanders die Nederlander willen worden eerst de eis te stellen dat ze ideaaltypische Nederlanders zijn geworden. Ze zijn ingeburgerd, spreken de taal, participeren in de samenleving, verdienen behoorlijk, hebben hun startkwalificatie op zak, hebben geen strafblad en zo meer – alsof Nederlandse losers niet bestaan. Deze Nederlandse identiteit mag niet worden bezoedeld door vreemde smetten, zoals een buitenlandse nationaliteit. De identiteit van de would-be-Nederlander moet exclusief Nederlands zijn.

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Het wetsontwerp houdt geen rekening met burgers. De argumenten van expats zijn verstandig en invoelbaar. Mensen willen settelen in den vreemde zonder hun Nederlanderschap te verloochenen. Om praktische, zakelijke overwegingen nemen ze een vreemde nationaliteit aan, zonder dat ze erover piekeren hun Nederlandse identiteit weg te snijden. Het zijn dezelfde overwegingen die buitenlanders ertoe brengen om Nederlander te willen worden.

Quick, messy, summarizing translation: the dislike in some parts of the political spectrum against multiple nationalities has an unexpected result: the same limitations that apply to aspiring Dutch apply to Dutch people who wish to assume another nationality.

In recent years Dutch politics has been dominated by demanding that foreigners become idealized Dutch people, part of which is being exclusively Dutch.

The law design doesn’t take citizens into account. The arguments made by expatriates are reasonable and can be empathized with. People want to settle in a foreign country without renouncing their Dutch nationality. For practical reasons they assume a foreign nationality without considering cutting off their Dutch identify. These are the same considerations that make foreigners want to assume the Dutch nationality.

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I have little to add to that. The whole shebang about multiple nationalities is ludicrous. Perhaps the Dutch municipalities should stop automatically submitting babies born of Moroccan-Dutch parents for Moroccan nationality if it’s truly a problem of such massive scale — although they might’ve stopped it by now, since I think a some Moroccan-Dutch parents sued Amsterdam over this gross misconduct. Nobody will apply for multiple nationalities just for the heck of it.

She remembered the day a furniture van from Portland had shown up with a two-thousand-dollar sectional sofa. Scott had been in his study, writing with the music cranked to its usual deafening levels — she could faintly hear Steve Earle singing “Guitar Town” in the house even with the soundproofing — and interrupting him was apt to do another two thousand dollars’ worth of damage to her ears, in Lisey’s opinion. The furniture guys said “the mister” told them she’d let them know where to put the new piece of furniture. Lisey had briskly directed them to carry the current sofa — the perfectly good current sofa — out to the barn, and place the new sectional where it had been. The color was at least a fair match for the room, and that was a relief. She knew she and Scott had never discussed a new sofa, sectional or otherwise, just as she knew Scott would declare — oh yes, most vehemently — that they had. She was sure he’d discussed it with her in his head; he just sometimes forgot to vocalize those discussions. Forgetting was a skill he had honed (emphasis mine).

From Lisey’s Story by Stephen King (p.148 of the 2006 Scribner hardcover).

My wife alleges I do just that.

Written in response to someone talking about thinking critically “against the powers that be.”

Given your phrasing, it’s highly improbable that you’re actually talking about critical thinking. One does not think critically against anything. You think critically, period, about everything. Perhaps most important, this includes yourself and your own notions. If you only think critically about (let alone against) others, you’re not thinking critically at all. If you think critically against someone or something, rather than about, you’re just out to find flaws so you can justify your own preconceived notions.

Early in secondary school, many of my classmates used to be exasperated by the perceived lack of practical application of the mathematics we had to learn at the time. I never really understood why, because it had clear practical applications, though I admit I also simply thought it was fun. Later on, things like statistics were really boring, but I figured I’d share how the simplest of elementary algebra can help you make financial choices.

Having just moved, we had to decide whether or not to buy a washing machine. Washing machines start at about €400 — they can be obtained used for much less, but last time I picked up a used washing machine for €40 it broke within about a year and it’s just so much trouble trying to fix it or getting yet another used replacement — while laundromats cost about €3-4 per load (+20 cents for detergent). Admittedly the load sizes are slightly larger at the laundromat, but I don’t see that as a good thing: it just makes it harder to carry and dry the laundry.

Washing costs per load for various temperatures in € according to Nibud

temperature/ type of costs	90°C	60°C	40°C
electricity	0.48	0.25	0.15
water	0.10	0.08	0.08
washing powder	0.19	0.19	0.19
depreciation / maintenance	0.48	0.48	0.48
total	1.25	1.00	0.90
total without depreciation	0.77	0.52	0.42

We usually wash on 30 degrees and have an otherwise energy and water efficient washing machine, but I’ll just run with the price for a single wash without depreciation value. I’m not interested in depreciation of the value of the washing machine, since the point is how many times you have to wash to break even compared to the laundromat. Of course a depreciation value could be used for this so that ax = bx should yield a useful conclusion, but that’d be a bit of a roundabout way.

I devised the following simple formula: ax = bx + c, where a is the cost of one load at the laundromat, b is the cost of one load in a self-owned washing machine, and c is the price of a washing machine. x is the break even point of the number of washes required to make it worth your while to buy a washing machine as opposed to utilizing a laundromat.

3.20x = .42x+480 (-.42x)
2.78x = 480
x=480/2.78=173

I haven’t counted the number of times we’ve washed, but if we haven’t surpassed it yet, I bet we’re quite close. We’ve had it for nearly two years and we wash slightly more than once a week on average.

Lost now to family, buddies, girlfriend, rabbit hound, society, and himself, this poor young sailor had fallen—not very many miles from Jerusalem—understanding virtually nothing of the situation in the Middle East. He probably believed it involved a struggle between right and wrong, good and evil, freedom and oppression. That was his second mistake. His third mistake was in trusting that even if he didn’t understand the situation, his leaders did. His first—and worst—mistake was blindly doing what he was told to do. Without questioning their methods or their motives, he allowed politicians to make the decisions that led to his early demise.

What is politics, after all, but the compulsion to preside over property and make other people’s decisions for them? Liberty, the very opposite of ownership and control, cannot, then, result from political action, either at the polls or the barricades, but rather evolves out of attitude. If it results from anything, it may be levity.

From Skinny Legs And All by Tom Robbins (p.118 of the May 2003 Bantam trade paperback reissue).

Dutch pannendrager (pan carrier/support) is known as burner grate (primarily AmE) or pan support (primarily BrE) in English.

This post is not recycled, but it is a couple of years old; it was originally written as part of proving possession of near-native English proficiency during some relevant academic writing course. Someone on the Internet wrote that “Wikipedia is a load of rubbish and [doesn't] always tell the truth and anyone can go on and edit the answers; I’ve been told about this at college by a few lecturers.” This reminded me of the following essay, which argues the opposite: Wikipedia can be useful and even trustworthy as long as you use it wisely.

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On the night of February 8, 2009, an anonymous edit on German Wikipedia, in the article about the German politician Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, sparked the beginning of a controversy. Guttenberg gained an extra name: Wilhelm (Anonymous, par. 4). His full name is so extraordinarily long that the addition initially escaped the attention of Wikipedia’s editors, but they caught on quickly (Anonymous, par. 6). In theory, every fact on Wikipedia requires a source. However, that is what caused the problem. Since Guttenberg was to become the new Minister of Economics on February 9, the media all ran articles about him the day after the notorious edit, and, ironically, many used Wikipedia as a resource. While the additional name was considered suspect by Wikipedia’s editors, various newspapers were publishing it as fact (Anonymous, par. 7). Three days later, all the media had rectified their mistakes, and the article on Wikipedia was back to normal (“Wilhelm,” par. 5). Events like this keep casting a bad light on Wikipedia’s credibility. Even so, the number of factual errors in Wikipedia’s science articles is comparable to that of Encyclopædia Britannica. Furthermore, Wikipedia has no practical limit on the number and size of articles. Additionally, Wikipedia is a useful source of information. Finally, Wikipedia has a great deal of information that has no place in traditional encyclopedias. Wikipedia can be a reliable, comprehensive source of information.

Wikipedia is not significantly less accurate than Encyclopædia Britannica. According to Giles, Wikipedia and Encyclopædia Britannica each had four serious errors when forty two articles were reviewed by experts; they were not aware from which encyclopedia the articles originated (par. 13). However, the quality and readability of Wikipedia’s writing often leave something to be desired (Giles, par. 15). For instance, in Wikipedia, scientific theories that are still the subject of controversy are given a nearly equal amount of attention as established theories, whereas Encyclopædia Britannica gives them little or no attention (Giles, par. 15). Wikipedia users not familiar with the subject might infer that the theories are equal, when they are not. An additional advantage of Wikipedia is that articles can be updated very quickly when new information is published. Therefore, it can potentially reflect recent insights and developments within hours, while changes and corrections to the information in paper versions can take years to update.

Wikipedia does not have the limitations of a paper encyclopedia. Consequently, in Wikipedia neither the number of potential articles, nor the length of articles, are bound by the physical constraints that limit paper volumes (“Wiki Is Not Paper,” par. 1). Articles on long subjects are frequently made into summaries of the most important points; there are links to in-depth articles in the relevant subsections (“Wiki Is Not Paper,” par. 6). One of the most intriguing implications is the fact that there can be a separate, detailed Wikipedia article for each character in a book, TV show, movie, etc. (“Wiki Is Not Paper,” par. 5). Furthermore, other media, such as images, can be implemented without additional costs, which typically restricts the usage of (colored) images in traditional encyclopedias (“Wiki Is Not Paper,” par. 16). Moreover, audio or animations can be added for further clarification and enhancement, which is impossible in print (“Wiki Is Not Paper,” par. 17). There are several other advantages to the electronic format of Wikipedia; for instance, words can be made into hyper links, which allows the user to immediately open articles for further clarification, or simply out of interest. Furthermore, the age of a person is always automatically calculated from date of birth (“Wiki Is Not Paper,” par. 18). There are quite a few other minor enhancements like that, but none of these advantages are as influential on the overall user experience. This does not, however, mean that Wikipedia does not apply traditional encyclopedic principles. It should be noted that there are also many things that are not possible in Wikipedia, like opinions and pure dictionary definitions, just as they are not in traditional encyclopedias.

Wikipedia is a worthwhile information resource: not just for random trivia, but also for scientific research. Its articles have greatly benefited from the introduction of the <ref> element in 2005, which is used for referencing sources. In April 2007, 30,368 references had already been made to external sources (Nielsen 4). Consequently, heavily referenced articles gain trustworthiness. Many references are to scientific journals: as Nielsen states, “the individual journals with the largest number of inbound citations from Wikipedia [are] Nature (787), Science (669) and New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) (446) … (number of citations in parenthesis)” (3). Wikipedia’s function is thus not only to provide a valuable summary of the information on a specific topic, but also provides ample opportunity for further research (Nielsen 4).

Wikipedia is more complete than Encyclopædia Britannica on subjects that are of moderate interest to a more traditional encyclopedia. For example, Encyclopædia Britannica’s article on Star Trek: The Original Series is 343 words long, vs. roughly six thousand words in the Wikipedia article. The article does not contain all of Wikipedia’s information about Star Trek: much more information is available on independent related articles. Wikipedia has, among other things, a list of all episodes, with a summary and other trivia for each episode, and an extensive article about the Star Trek theme tune. This demonstrates very well that Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia; nevertheless, it is unlikely that all of this information would be present in a traditional encyclopedia, even if paper constraints were not a concern. Wikipedia contains information regarding television series, movies, books, music and much more, which makes Wikipedia very useful to find information about a fictional character that might only be mentioned by name, if at all, in a traditional encyclopedia.

To conclude, Encyclopædia Britannica is not much more free of error than Wikipedia. Furthermore, the restrictions associated with paper do not apply to Wikipedia. In addition, Wikipedia is a decent research tool, and, finally, Wikipedia contains a good deal of information that cannot be found as easily and as comprehensively elsewhere. Therefore, Wikipedia is a good source of information for subjects that have a large, interested fan base and for science articles that have many references to respectable sources. If there is one thing that can be learned from Wikipedia’s occasional embarrassing mistakes, it is that any source should be examined with a healthy dose of skepticism.

Works Cited

Anonymous. “Wie ich Freiherr von Guttenberg zu Wilhelm machte.” BILDblog. 10 Feb. 2009. 10 Mar. 2009 <http://www.bildblog.de/5704/wie-ich-freiherr-von-guttenberg-zu-wilhelm-machte/>.

Giles, Jim. “Internet Encyclopaedias Go Head to Head.” Nature 438.7070 (15 Dec. 2005): 900-901. Academic Search Elite. EBSCO. Utrecht University, Utrecht, NL. 13 Mar. 2009 <http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=afh&AN=19171583&site=ehost-live>.

Nielsen, Aarub. “Scientific Citations in Wikipedia.” 1 Feb. 2008. 17 Mar. 2009. <http://arxiv.org/abs/0705.2106>.

“Star Trek.” Encyclopædia Britannica. 2009. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 14 Mar. 2009 <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/563557/Star-Trek>.

“Star Trek: The Original Series.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 14 March 2009, 13:02 UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 15 Mar. 2009. <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Star_Trek:_The_Original_Series&oldid=277174592>.

“What Wikipedia Is Not.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 18 March 2009, 22:30 UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 19 Mar. 2009. <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not&oldid=278220991>.

“Wiki Is Not Paper.” Wikimedia, Meta-Wiki. 19 February 2009, 00:00 UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 15 Mar. 2009. <http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wiki_is_not_paper&oldid=1398243>.

“Wikipedia: Size Comparisons.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 31 January 2009, 02:50 UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 15 Mar. 2009. <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Size_comparisons&oldid=267536315>.

“Wilhelm II.” BILDblog. 12 Feb. 2009. 10 Mar. 2009 <http://www.bildblog.de/5731/wilhelm-ii/>.

To a nice observer, it would have been worth while to remark the difference in tone and manner between the Resident and Havelaar on this occasion. Both had often attended such a solemnity [the reading of the decree of the Governor-General, whereby Mr. Max Havelaar was appointed Assistant Resident]; the difference which I refer to was not, therefore, occasioned by their being more or less affected by a novel and unwonted spectacle, but was only a consequence of the very different characters of the two persons. The Resident, it is true, spoke a little quicker than he was used to do, because he only had to read the decree and oaths, which saved him the trouble of seeking for the last words of what he had to say; but still all went on with a gravity and a seriousness which must have inspired the superficial spectator with a very high idea of the importance which he attached to this matter.

Havelaar, on the contrary, had something in expression of countenance, voice, and mien, when with uplifted finger he repeated the oath, as if he would say, “Of course, without ‘any oath,’ I should do that.” Any one having a knowledge of men would have had more confidence in his freedom from constraint than in the sedateness of the Resident. Is it not ridiculous indeed to think that the man whose vocation it is to do justice, the man into whose hands is given the weal or woe of thousands, should think himself bound by a few uttered sounds, if his heart does not feel itself obliged even without those sounds to do so (emphasis mine)?

We believe of Havelaar, that he would have protected the poor and oppressed wheresoever he might meet them, even if he had promised by “God Almighty” the reverse (emphasis mine).

From Max Havelaar by Multatuli.

Weather in fall always comes paired with temperature drops, fall storms, and lots of rain. But seldom did the temperature drop from 20°C to a mere 7°C from one day to the next.

The release of Ubuntu 10.10 coincided with this change for wintry weather; however, while I’m sure it’s swell, you won’t see me upgrading just yet. Perhaps I’ll have to look a little harder into acquiring a netbook so I can use it with the Ubuntu Netbook Edition.

Of more interest is the announcement that Opera 11 will have extensions. Or, more particularly, that I was the first to guess this in a contest.

syncme.se^beta performs synchronization of Google Calendar with SyncML supporting cellphones in a manner that easily outperforms all other alternatives.

Opera Mini and this kind of calendar synchronization enable me to use my now over three years old Sony Ericsson s500i much like it were a modern smartphone. I realize the phone is as ubiquitous these days as the Nokia 3310 was in the early 2000s, but I take comfort in being a pioneer: I got the phone about one to two months after it came out.

But none of that is really relevant. If you use Google Calendar and a phone that supports SyncML, syncme.se might just be what you were looking for.