Codice fiscale

Back in June, I attended a workshop at the Scuola Superiore Meridionale in Naples, which was absolutely fantastic. The process of getting reimbursed for my travel expenses has turned out to be slightly less fantastic, but now I have at least figured out that I need to apply for an Italian tax identification number (or codice fiscale) at the embassy in Stockholm. Sometimes you hear Swedish people complaining about how bureaucratic things are in Sweden, but my many years abroad have convinced me otherwise (at least as long as one is an “insider” with BankID etcetera).

Looking at the ten-day forecast for Halmstad, it is apparently going to rain every single day, so I decided to wrap up the pool season at Brottet with another thousand metres in the blue.

Early voting

Waking with the first light, I ran out to Tylösand, where the sea was perfectly calm, with only an Emirates A380-800 passing overhead on its way to Los Angeles. Running back into the sun on soft trails, I felt immensely privileged to be able to start a day like this and, with every kilometre, I picked up speed, feeling stronger and stronger. It was pretty much the opposite of how I felt two weeks ago, when I pushed myself way too hard on the same route.

After a few meetings at work, including one about the new course on AI and public administration that we are developing, I went down to City Hall to cast my vote in the 2026 general election, as I will be in Prague with Sofi on 13 September. Answering the questions in SVT's election compass, I was surprised by how strongly I matched with Centerpartiet, considering that the party is almost the opposite of where I stand on several issues, including urbanization and environmental policy. 

It should come as no surprise to readers of this blog that I voted left, despite how much I dislike the repressive turn that the Social Democrats have taken.

400 weeks

Every week for the last four hundred weeks, I have uploaded an activity to Strava, be it a run, a hike or a swim. Some weeks, including when I was down with Covid, I nearly broke my streak but, in the end, I kept going, which felt like something worth celebrating with a smoothie (more of a milkshake, to tell the truth) once I got out of the pool.

Late-summer days: learning how public radio is made over breakfast, having my annual performance review (luckily, my manager seems happy with the work I am doing) and a couple of other meetings before lunch, and then gradually drifting into article writing as the afternoon wears on, interrupted only by that swim. Tough life, I know.

In the real world: drones and military explosives near Leipzig Airport, the bond market signalling that $40 trillion in US debt, mounting interest costs and yet more spending on illegal wars might just be a bit too much even for America, and another deadly act of racist violence being reduced to individual psychological problems here in Sweden. Tomorrow, I am at least going to vote to micro-push reality away from cheap gasoline and venture capitalism hollowing out our welfare systems, even as a truly progressive global agenda appears as distant as ever (but for those, tune in to the recent P1 Kultur on visionary futures).

Kungsbacka

As expected, the early morning departure was brutal, but that did not really matter once I got to see William again, ten days after our grand day out in Gothenburg. Taking the train to Kungsbacka together, I got an update on his first week back at school, including a swimming proficiency test in Härlanda Tjärn, which he unsurprisingly passed with flying colours. And in no time at all, we were at the day’s unlikely chess tournament venue: a Peugeot dealership in Inlag.

Walking onto the site, I spotted a fully electric horse truck ingeniously branded “Plug and Ride”, reminding me again how politically effective it would be to brand electric vehicles as 100% nuclear powered – shifting the discourse around nuclear power from last resort to first choice.

As for the chess, William won three and drew one of his five rounds, ultimately finishing fourth and gaining another 20 Elo rating points, all while a heavy thunderstorm passed overhead. Luckily, the sky cleared once again, so by the time I got down to Halmstad, I had forgotten all about yesterday’s rest-day promise and headed out for five sunset kilometres along the coast.

Post-pancake

For this week’s long run, I decided to head up to the forests around Skedala and its three lakes. Located halfway between Halmstad and Simlångsdalen, the area was recommended to me by my colleague Ulf during my very first week at work in 2023, advice that I have happily heeded ever since. Without a car, though, it gets a bit trickier to explore unless you are prepared for a really long run, so in the future I might take bus 318 (in one direction, at least). For those driving, the whole area is very accessible – perhaps a little too accessible for me to dare a swim, tempting as the lakes looked.

Today’s run also brought my total above 2,000 kilometres so far in 2026 and left me right on pace for an average of 60 kilometres per week. I feel that this lower volume compared with previous years is doing me good. With my train leaving at 6:01 a.m. tomorrow for chess with William in Kungsbacka, I will get a natural rest day and, rather than panicking about it, I think taking more days off is making me come back stronger.

Sellpy, the sequel

Having had reasonable success selling things on Sellpy, I recently gave in to the temptation to buy something again, more specifically a corduroy jacket from Tiger for 335 SEK. Sadly, it turned out to be a little too boxy (not really visible in the picture above), so I have decided to return it, true to my new maxim of not keeping a single item in my wardrobe that I do not actively use. But the picture at least gave me a chance to show off the beautiful tinted windows here at Hallandsgatan, windows that have somehow helped soften some of the sadness I have felt since moving in last autumn.

Pouring myself a glass of Chilean Pinot Noir, I take some comfort in having completed a full airport loop earlier today and knowing that I will run another 25 kilometres tomorrow. More importantly, I am not condemned to Île du Diable like some latter-day Henri Charrière, but free to make the best of things – even if that may indeed include a bit of Îles du Salut.

Exotic redemptions

On its way from Copenhagen to Addis Ababa, Ethiopian Airlines flight ET725 makes a technical stop in Vienna, creating an exotic opportunity to travel for points between Denmark and Austria on a wide-body aircraft. Despite seeing two available seats, I think reason has prevailed for now, and instead I am exploring different Pågatåg options across Skåne before finally making it to Helsingborg.

Working on my article on the political economy of biogenic hydrocarbons, I am once again reminded of the enormous uncertainty surrounding all these long-term projections of the future, given how rapidly artificial intelligence is evolving and its potentially dramatic implications for the cost of machine labour. That is assuming, of course, that the future will be anything at all like the present. Just the other week, 1,367 researchers and engineers at OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google DeepMind signed another open letter warning about the risks associated with increasingly automated AI development. As before, the problem remains one of global coordination and broader catch-up as open-source AI models become ever more potent as well.

Reverse centaurs

Almost a year after our beer at Savoy, Gabriel and I got to meet up for lunch in Malmö today. Having grown up together in Kalmar, Gabriel has been a recurring character on the pages of Rawls & Me, with shared adventures stretching from Serbia to Sävar, but today we just got to hang out for a bit in Folkets Park.

Among the many things we covered, Gabriel brought up Cory Doctorow’s work on “reverse centaurs”: situations where machine intelligence does the directing while the human provides a cheap, disposable physical body to execute tasks, i.e. the exact opposite of what the AI revolution originally promised it would do. Like the suggestion that AI stands for “African Intelligence” (as its abilities depend on the underpaid work of millions in digital sweatshops across Africa), such concepts definitely have analytical purchase, even if their implications for the future remain ambiguous.

As much as I have spent the last 20+ years arguing for the democratic steering of technology, I am afraid that my personal response to AI embodies a certain degree of fatalism, a bit like Too-ticky in Moominland Midwinter: “All things are so very uncertain, and that’s exactly what makes me feel reassured”.

Outdoor office

While waiting to have lunch with Gabriel in Malmö, I walked down Friisgatan only to discover an “outdoor office” of sorts, a place where one can sit down without having to buy something. Small acts of resistance.

Low pressure

After a dry summer in Europe, the familiar Atlantic low-pressure systems have returned, bringing desperately needed rain to the British Isles and thoroughly soaking Eddie and me on the way to the station this morning. After sending him off to school in Gothenburg, I returned home and went for a rainbow run along Västra stranden.

And while I got caught in another shower, the views across Laholmsbukten definitely made up for it. Now on a train to Malmö, I am looking out over the stormy sea, pondering whether I should get off in Helsingborg for some more coastal air and a coffee. Having invested in a monthly ticket with Skånetrafiken (which, at 50% off, is one of the few really good things the current government has done), I suddenly have a lot of freedom when it comes to travelling around southern Sweden.

Otherwise, Eddie and I had a great evening yesterday, watching Erik Sandberg's Lönesänkarna to give him some historical background for his school assignment. Though short, I am still very happy that we get to have these moments together, even as a more permanent arrangement remains to be worked out.