This spy ain’t spy enough for the spy of us!

I don’t really have any personal intrinsic issues with Palantir, but every time I see it, it still boggles my mind that they chose that name. Like, from a branding standpoint, just why?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBMiyEzOJmI&t=110

Gandalf: “You know this?”

Saruman: “I have seen it.”

Gandalf: “A palantír is a dangerous tool, Saruman.”

Saruman: “Why? Why should we fear to use it?”

Gandalf: “They are not all accounted for, the lost seeing stones. We do not know who else may be watching!” He throws a sheet over the palantír, catching a momentary glimpse of Sauron’s eye and recoiling.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palantír

The stones were an unreliable guide to action, since what was not shown could be more important than what was selectively presented. A risk lay in the fact that users with sufficient power could choose what to show and what to conceal to other stones: in The Lord of the Rings, a palantír has fallen into the Enemy’s hands, making the usefulness of all other existing stones questionable.

<img alt="1000009382" src="https://lemmy.today/pictrs/image/de2deb2b-6f2f-4400-ad9c-07f67626a2d5.jpeg">

I mean, yes, I like Tolkien too, but for fuck’s sake. Just pick some sort of suitably-bland name that, oh, alludes to “insight” or “data” or “analytics”, like “Deepsight” or something like that.

Wouldn’t be surprised to hear Palantir was scraping data from the French spy service while they worked for them.