Category: English

  • How Much Do You Support Fascism?

    Not sure how to quantify it, but we could try.

    Do you think Donald Trump is a great guy or have great ideas or have done something good? This one was easy: You support fascism.

    Have you bought a Tesla this decade? Bad news (unless you really like fascism), you enable fascism.

    Do you use Twitter, or is it X?, or is it part of SpaceX now? Do you use SpaceX? You are enabling fascism. Yes, I imply that financially supporting Elon Musk (one way or another) is enabling fascism.

    Use any products from Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon or Meta? I know I do. Well, they don’t exactly stand up to fascism. So we should try harder to not enable the enablers.

    Also, you should stay away from anything Meta regardless. I know; it is addictive. Guess what? It’s by design.

    These thoughts came after reading “Never Forget How Eagerly Apple And Google Coddled Fascism” and “Normalized Fascism in Open Source: $12 Million Given to DHH“.

  • Em Dash Is Fine – It Is AI That Sucks

    Here is a dialog from the movie Office Space — and just to be clear; Michael Bolton in the movie are talking about Michael Bolton the singer.

    • Michael Bolton: Yeah, well, at least your name isn’t Michael Bolton.
    • Samir: You know, there’s nothing wrong with that name.
    • Michael Bolton: There *was* nothing wrong with it… until I was about twelve years old and that no-talent ass clown became famous and started winning Grammys.
    • Samir: Hmm… well, why don’t you just go by Mike instead of Michael?
    • Michael Bolton: No way! Why should I change? He’s the one who sucks.

    And this made me think about AI — and em dashes.

    I have been told that em dash is the hallmark of AI writing, and that seeing em dashes in a text is a sure sign that an AI was involved. But this is simply not true.

    Granted; AI do tend to use em dash and bullet points a lot, but that in itself proves nothing, although it can be an indication of AI writing.

    The interesting thing is that the people who look at em dash and think “this must be AI”, are people that do not read much. And I could say that this is the hallmark of people using generative AI — they do not read. They do not know what good texts looks like.

    (And based on my writing you may say that neither do I)

    AI written text might look better than what most people write, but as John Gruber of Daring Fireball writes; most people are terrible writers, so the bar is low.

    I would rather see your words, and more importantly, your thinking on a subject than a grammatically correct text with a lot of unnecessary fluff.

    Writing is thinking after all, so why would you deprive yourself of this invaluable tool? And if you do not care to write it, why should I care to read it?

    I am not against AI on everything. I use it for research (the glorified search engine), but I always check multiple sources if it is important. But for generative text and images? Please, spare me.

    I like to use em dashes. Why should I change? It is AI that sucks.

    There, I am done. Now go watch Office Space.

  • Rodents in the Attic

    I’ve just watched the most delightful C64 demo, Rodents in the Attic.

    Actually, I first watched the video on how this seemingly impossible demo was made, then I watched the demo.

    The thing about Rodents in the Attic isn’t just the impossible made — which you probably even wouldn’t think about — but the storytelling in the demo is just so perfectly on point.

  • Real Life Events Inspired by… Movies?

    I have a theory.

    In 2018, or thereabout, Mark Zuckerberg watched “Ready Player One” — or maybe he actually read the book — and decided to pivot Facebook into the Metaverse12. That went tits up, but everyone kind of forgot once AI made its appearance.

    Then, late in 2025, Donald Trump — a truly horrible, horrible person — watched the first 5 minutes of “Air Force One” — where Harrison Ford says “Get of my plane!” in the end — and promptly ordered the kidnaping of Venezuela’s president Nicolás Maduro, which happened just a few days into 2026.

    It makes me wonder; how many other leaders are getting their ideas from television series and movies?

    1. Ready Player One is a dystopian science fiction book/movie, so obviously it was a perfect fit for Mark and Facebook. ↩︎
    2. If you ever read Ready Player One, stop there. After the success of the movie, the author, Erneste Cline decided to write a follow-up in 2020 called “Ready Player Two”, and it ruins everything from the first book. ↩︎

  • Comparing Analog and Digital Film

    A few weeks back, I took my analog camera — a Canon AE-1 Program — for a walk in Haugesund, a city on the west coast of Norway.

    I also brought along my Canon 5D Mark II for three reasons:

    1. Take comparison shoot (which we will look at today)
    2. Verify that the light meter in the AE-1 is working correctly (it is)
    3. Be able to take more pictures once the 24 frames were used.

    Just to get the technical out of the way.

    Canon AE-1 Program:

    • Fujifilm Superia 200 film, 24 frames
    • 50mm f/1.8 lens

    Canon 5D Mark II:

    • RAW and JPG
    • Kodak Portra 160 NC picture profile for the JPGs
    • 50mm f/1.4 lens
    • ISO 200 to match the film speed on the AE-1

    Regarding the picture profile; the Kodak Portra 160 is from the 158 pack of picture profiles from Cinescopophilia. I have written about picture profiles earlier.

    In the images below I have only used the RAW files and applied both the picture profile that was set in camera and the standard picture profile that comes with the camera using Canons Digital Photo Professional program.

    I chose these images because of the colors. I do not believe they are masterpieces on their own.

    Analog on the left, or top. Digital images on the right, or bottom.

    50mm, 1/500 @ f/8 — Analog to the left, Kodak Portra 160 NC picture style on the right
    50mm, 1/500 @ f/8 — Analog to the left, standard picture style on the right

    I tried some of the picture profiles in the 158 pack, but none of them got close to the colors produced by the Fujifilm Superia.

    It’s quite distinct, no doubt about it.

    50mm, 1/250 @ f/16 — Analog on top, Kodak Portra 160 NC picture on the bottom
    50mm, 1/250 @ f/16 — Analog on top, standard picture style on the bottom

    Once again it is easy to spot the difference.

    The analog picture seems brighter, even thought the settings are identical. So either the film is a bit more sensitive, it has been processed slightly differently, or the light meter is a bit off1.

    Since I took the images in RAW, I could try to push the exposure a bit to see if I can get a better match. However, I still don’t think it will match the colors. Especially on the blue in the first picture.

    I also tried to do a double exposure, but that failed twice.

    First, the double exposure was way off. Not even worth showing the image, it’s just a mess.

    Secondly, I was not able to align the frame correctly, so the double exposure was both on the frame I intended to double expose, and part of the next frame, as show in the image below.

    An attempt at a double exposure on the previous frame continued to the next

    I think the Fujifilm Superia 200 has the “look and feel” of the 90s. It also handles overexposure a lot better than its digital counterpart.

    Is this image taken in 1996 or 2026? It certainly feels like the 90s.

    The next film I will be shooting is the Kodak Gold 200. I will try to do the same exercise where I take the same shots with the Canon 5D Mark II with the same settings and compare them.

    I’m also thinking about getting my hands on the Kodak Portra 160 since I have at least 3 picture profiles that claim to be close to that film.

    1. After I had published, it occurred to me that it could also be the timing of the shutter that is slightly “off” on the Canon AE-1 Program. If I adjust the exposure on the digital image by +0.75 it seems to match much better. ↩︎