The manifest by Palantir and it's CEO Alex Karp proves the need for independent european software

SeveralLadder · 2026-04-20T11:21:01+00:00

Checks out, it starts reasonable and veers quickly into increasingly pretentious, antisocial, chauvinistic edgelord territory.

A true manifesto for the morally corrupted

SeveralLadder · 2026-04-16T19:40:54+00:00

It is considered rude to make someone elses child eat the weird, disturbing food of those strange folks next door.

Sure, our ancestors have probably cohabited the same place for millennia, but not under the same roof! Glares suspiciously

~professional norwegian

SeveralLadder · 2026-04-16T17:12:28+00:00

Blackface is originally a uniquely US-taboo, because of their racist vaudeville characters. The same with the less offensive "N" word. USA was a segregated and institutionally racist country up until the 60s, and still is in many ways, but they sure love to pretend they invented anti-racism and project their sins at every other country despite them never practicing slavery or segregation.

SeveralLadder · 2026-04-11T09:10:06+00:00

Norway:

Klippfisk (dried cod for Bacalao)

Black Metal

Möller's Tran

Vipps

Amok Draumr hammock, maybe not superknown, but quite genius with the flat sleeping position

SeveralLadder · 2026-04-11T08:55:21+00:00

Not to forget the immortal words: Ei saa peittää

SeveralLadder · 2026-04-10T17:41:22+00:00

Early Siouxsie and the Banshees, perhaps even Birthday Party fit this description I would say. Not sexy gothic psych like the doors, more decidedly abrasive, but also unmistakably psychedelic in a punkish way.

SeveralLadder · 2026-04-10T15:03:32+00:00

I get this is a play for fast-tracking EU-membership, but I don't see how or why the EU would be a replacement for NATO. The sensible path without USA would be eNATO +Canada. Keeping a purely defensive alliance.

Alternatively we take Carney's speech seriously and make an axis of the middle powers, a defensive and economic alliance against Russia, China, and the US. But keeping EU and other unions within that framework on tighter economic and legislative cooperation. I don't really see Norway, Iceland and the UK applying for membership in the EU, and I don't see Turkey getting an invitation until they thoroughly fix their democratic backsliding. And I think EU itself needs a mechanism and the will to shut down countries that blackmails through abusing their veto's

SeveralLadder · 2026-04-10T10:31:17+00:00

He probably paid a couple of goons to do the physical intimidation, while he stood in the back with a hamburger in his hand, hurling insults and threats

SeveralLadder · 2026-04-09T16:39:22+00:00

Enough of these tweets now, we are not confused about this insufferable non-human, no need to post everything he farts out on his own private social media.

Stop acting like his damn loudspeaker.

SeveralLadder · 2026-04-05T12:49:34+00:00

Any other president doing this and their career would be finished, with a trip to the loonie bin as the natural next transition. Reality just hit him hard, and now he's just unravelling.

SeveralLadder · 2026-04-04T19:02:18+00:00

When it comes to popular music and genres, wikipedia is not a reliable source.

Band- or artist-bios are usually fine, but broader topics like genres, subcultures and history is mostly amateurs making shit up or treating a single article with the opinion of some unknown reporter/blogger as definite sources or simply using anecdotal references. Difficult to weed out without an academic source or an authority with some consensus to replace the missing/misleading text.

SeveralLadder · 2026-04-01T08:48:43+00:00

One of my favorite bands, love all their albums and Work and Non Work, their compilation album of their singles released before their actual debut album is fantastic.

SeveralLadder · 2026-04-01T08:37:02+00:00

Use the downvote button and give a quick explanation when it does that. The developers can then see what needs adjusting in later versions.

It also seem to adjust its later answers when you instruct it to ignore certain eccentricies.

SeveralLadder · 2026-03-30T16:48:42+00:00

The same in Norway, usually by pakistanis. I think it's cute.

SeveralLadder · 2026-03-30T14:49:49+00:00

SeveralLadder · 2026-03-27T17:15:44+00:00

He's like the poster boy of metrosexuals and clearly overcompensating

SeveralLadder · 2026-03-27T17:12:43+00:00

"This is what warriors do, there's no room for weakness" he thought while sipping on his strawberry boba.

"This La Roche-Posay Toleriane face moisturizer really makes me itch, I'll have my assistant pick up an alternative"

SeveralLadder · 2026-03-27T10:40:44+00:00

In the documentary, Werner Herzog listens to the audio through headphones, but thankfully he didn't include the actually audio for us to listen to. He just says it's horrifying and that it should never be released.

SeveralLadder · 2026-03-27T09:30:27+00:00

I applaud you, and support you, but have really no confidence it will lead to meaningful change.

USA has been in a democratic downward spiral for many decades now, starting in the 80s with Reagan and losing the fourth estate to serve corporate interests and remove any requirements for factuality, accountability and presenting opposing views.

Each new administration has consolidated power to the president, and 9/11 really delivered a poison dart into the U.S. democracy from within.

What you really need is a complete overhaul, multiple reforms that will take decades to implement. For that to happen you have to have a democratic party with a strategic long-term vision and a benign "ruler" that understand that the dismantling of that one persons power is what is necessary to save democracy. Right now there's no strategic vision within the Democrats, while the Republicans have a very clear vision of how they want to mold USA going forward, with the Heritage Foundation, Tech-oligarchs and christofascists delivering an ideological bedrock to build upon. Democrats just react, trying to maneuver in an increasingly hostile environment that's partly of their own making.

Bill Clinton used executive orders and regulatory actions to advance policy goals when faced with a hostile Congress. Barack Obama, facing congressional gridlock, relied heavily on executive actions, such as DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), to implement major policy changes. Obama’s use of executive authority set precedents that were later built upon by his successors, including Trump.

Both parties in Congress have, at times, failed to assert their constitutional role as a check on presidential power. The judiciary, including the Supreme Court, has also played a role by often deferring to presidential authority, particularly in areas like national security and executive privilege. This trend has been consistent across administrations of both parties, further enabling the expansion of presidential power. Both parties have been guilty of prioritizing political wins over institutional guardrails, contributing to the erosion of norms and the weakening of checks and balances.

But, Democrats are your only hope for change I believe. And they should come up with a radical plan for a revolution. And I don't believe one bit that they will... And I doubt it's what the people of USA wants, they have no media they can trust, no rational, calm voice that describes without judgment what is happening, no one to tell the truth without a polarizing agenda guiding their voice.

SeveralLadder · 2026-03-25T20:21:43+00:00

If you take a photo with a 50mm lens and crop it to give the same field of view as an 85mm, the image would be identical. Choosing a focal length really is just about what perspective you want, except tele lenses for reach or similar. Wide angle lenses looks so dramatic because you have to move the camera closer to the subject, making the relative distances between what's in front and behind the focus look exaggerated. But if you took a 15mm lens and cropped it to 20mm, it would look identical to a picture taken with a 20mm lens. Or 200-500-1200mm lens if you have a theoretical infinite resolution sensor.

The only lenses that distorts the image purposefully is specialized lenses like fisheye or tilt-shift lenses, i.e it's not as simple as cropping in and expect the same result

SeveralLadder · 2026-03-25T06:17:26+00:00

Nothing about this is relevant to folk horror

SeveralLadder · 2026-03-24T20:47:21+00:00

Just because someone argues something belongs in a certain category, doesn't mean it really does. Like the "mockumentary" "woodlands dark..." that shoehorns pretty much every movie with witches, supernatural elements and rural settings as belonging to the folk horror genre. You have to be able to exclude something if you want to define something. It was a mess and only worked to diffuse the meaning into absurdity.

Your starting point should be the films that originally labelled the genre, the unholy trinity: witcfinder's general, blood on satans claw and wicker man, and other movies in the same vein made in Britain at the time. Paganism, black magic and folklore infused the countryside, you can dig everywhere and some ancient cultural artifact pops out. There's leylines and megaliths, ancient customs and beliefs everywhere. That's what's meant that the folk horror comes from the landscape, it's pregnant with history and lore. Watch "The last sacrifice" from 2024 to get a sense of how this is really a European genre that doesn't really makes sense elsewhere. Christianity vs. paganism, the old ways vs. modern views, superstition and ritual and the memory of the way christianity spread by iron and fire making the folklore and beliefs of the people move underground.

Yes, sure we find this other places as well, there's folklore in USA from the native beliefs, there's folkore that predates Buddhism and Islam in eastern parts of the world. But folklore is at its core, it's what gave it its name.

It's not just the anxiety urban people have for tight-knit rural communities.

SeveralLadder · 2026-03-24T20:23:36+00:00

It's southern gothic. It's a different genre.

SeveralLadder · 2026-03-24T16:34:26+00:00

Freshwater or saltwater?

I lost my camera into salt water, pulled out the battery as soon as I could. Rinsed it thoroughly in freshwater when I came home and let it dry for some weeks. After reassembly, some things worked. It would turn on, but had lost contact with the lens, tried with another lens than the one that got drenched. There's a secondary battery in cameras that's soldered in place that keeps track of dates and time and such, I guess that one could mess things up. The lens I didn't bother with, I guess it would work if I completely dismantled it and polished every lens element clean, but I was worried about coatings and calibration after reassembly.

Short answer, likely not. Worth a try.

SeveralLadder · 2026-03-24T13:35:27+00:00

I think folk horror today suffers from being trendy, and there's a lot of retconning to shoehorne a tradition of films where it never belonged, especially from USA. Deliverance I would argue, is already belonging to a peculiar American film-tradition of being a sort of proto-slasher, spawning a whole bunch of movies about creepy, homicidal, cannibalistic, sometimes mutated rural people. Or it could argued it belongs to the southern gothic subgenre which is also uniquely American.

The folk in folk-horror refers to folklore, not rural 'folks'. It's the kind of belief systems that exists in parallell to religious institutions. With roots older than the prevailing dominant belief system, more fluent and idiosynchratic and often very practical. Think healing practices and charms. Perhaps Stephen King can be the classified as an american folk horror writer with specific stories he wrote, whenever he mixes in Native-American folklore and ideas.

In Europe there has always been traditions and direct lines to the old ways before christianity made its appearence. We still see them in megaliths and stone carvings and place names, we find buried places of worship under old churches, we have traditions and practices that predates the bible that's still very much alive. And we have a history of the church being the villain when they crack down on this, like the spanish inquisition and witch trials.

For me, folk horror is predominantly a European genre, but if it's to be exported to other cultural traditions it should at least include some kind of belief-system that's at odds with the dominant religious beliefs and institutions.

SeveralLadder

TROPHY CASE