Frequently asked questionsPaul Cooijmans
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Click on a question to go to the answer and use the <Home> key on your keyboard to return to the top of the page if needed.
Please first try to find the answer on this page, the rest of the web site, or elsewhere on the Internet via a search engine. If that fails one may consider asking it by e-mail..
Please ask only the first, wait for the answer and read it before sending a next one. When multiple questions are asked at the same time, the second and further typically become superfluous or change after seeing the first answer (which tends to be different from what the asker expects), so that time and effort put into answering those (the second and further questions) would be wasted. Also, one is not a machine that automatically responds to lists of questions. Answering questions takes much more time and effort than asking them. An exception is a carefully composed interview, in which a list of questions is acceptable.
I am more than willing to cooperate in an interview if there is an absolute and unconditional guarantee my answers will be presented integrally and verbatim, including punctuation and spelling. Such a guarantee is self-obvious to me, but not to everyone, which is why it is mentioned here. Under this condition, interviews are a sublime way for me to communicate with the world.
Anonymous questions are not answered because experience shows that anonymous persons are often up to no good. For clarity: To avoid being anonymous, push <Enter> (on some keyboards called <Return>) twice after typing your message, then type your name. This is not irony or patronizing, some people actually need this instruction for they do not understand the word "anonymous".
Please rephrase it into a proper form so that it is clear what you are asking. Questions starting with "What about..." are often too vague to be answered.
Please put it in the body of the message instead. The subject line is for the subject, the body for the message. That is how one naturally reads e-mail. Questions in the subject line are never answered.
That information is kept private. In the past a list with all of my test scores was online, but after abuse of it it was removed. I do not claim to be extremely intelligent; people may see me thus, but that is based on their perception of me and of what I have done, and not on knowledge of actual scores.
Please take the assumption out, put it into a separate question and ask that first. Questions containing assumptions cannot be answered if the assumptions are wrong; and those inclined to ask questions containing assumptions often get their assumptions wrong. For clarity: The question "Why is two plus two five?" cannot be answered because it contains the false assumption that two plus two is five. So, the proper way to go about it is to put the assumption into a separate question; that is, to first ask "Is two plus two five?".
I request to use capitals where required; that is, for the first letter of each sentence, the first letter of each name, the word "I", and all of the letters of acronyms and abbreviations that are conventionally written in capitals. If one takes this small trouble, one will suddenly find one's written communication to become very much more effective, not just with me but with any civilized person. Lower case messages are not taken seriously by anyone of erudition. This reply is therefore a golden opportunity for who did not know this yet; an "eye-opener"; a "learning moment".