iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Michael Valkenberg @critical-thinking.de · 19/09/2026

There, WaPo, I fixed it for you. Someone who calls for the deportation of Native Americans is not a “nativist”. (www.rawstory.com/bo-french/) This guy is too racist for an openly racist party in an openly racist country. You should at least attempt to use the correct description.

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Michael Valkenberg @critical-thinking.de · 19/07/2026

Took a whale and puffin watching tour today with O‘Brien‘s boat tours in Bay Bulls, Newfoundland. As a German, I can very much appreciate their efficiency.

Open ocean. In the top left corner you see the fluke of a diving humpback whale, in the bottom right there are two puffins swimming on the water.

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Michael Valkenberg @critical-thinking.de · 12/07/2026

I guess the cocktail menu is ok. For a flight.

Cocktail Menu for a Discover Airline flight, with about 25 drinks

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Michael Valkenberg @critical-thinking.de · 12/06/2026

Whatever you have to say about the world‘s first paper trillionaire, if this is not the picture you illustrate it with, I won‘t read it.

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Michael Valkenberg @critical-thinking.de · 07/06/2026

Still sore that his side lost, I guess…

Screenshot: „Hegseth attacks Europe over migration in D-Day speech“

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Michael Valkenberg @critical-thinking.de · 03/05/2026

Art should make you think. This room makes me think „Is my measles shot up to date?“

A room covered in multi-colored dots, part of the Yayoi Kusama exhibition in Cologne

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Michael Valkenberg @critical-thinking.de · 01/05/2026

It is the time of the year where I have to leave the house for an hour every day, so that when I come back home I can show my wife something she can say „Ooooh!“ about…

A female duck surrounded by eight fluffy ducklings on water.

A group of about six goslings (from Egyptian geese) huddling together in the grass

An Eurasian coot with two chicks on water

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Michael Valkenberg @critical-thinking.de · 12/04/2026

It took me embarrassingly long to understand why the expensive restaurant we were at last night had such cheap looking decoration standing around…

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Michael Valkenberg @critical-thinking.de · 22/03/2026

Caught a bee and a willow very much in flagranti…

A bee in a willow aglet. The bee‘s body is covered in pollen.

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Michael Valkenberg @critical-thinking.de · 09/03/2026

Bei uns sieht der Frühling anders aus…

Close-up of willow blooms with a bee near one of the blooms

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Michael Valkenberg @critical-thinking.de · 04/03/2026

While that looks amazingly photogenic, I think I prefer Germany, where spring has definitely sprung.

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Michael Valkenberg @critical-thinking.de · 20/11/2025

Reporting the first without mentioning the second seems like journalistic malpractice. Of course Trump gets good job numbers. They just don’t mean anything at all.

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Michael Valkenberg @critical-thinking.de · 01/11/2025

What I imagine it looks like every time somebody mentions an interview with Stephen Miller…

The Voight Kampff test scene in Blade Runner

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Michael Valkenberg @critical-thinking.de · 19/10/2025

Who robbed the Louvre? Right answers only.

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Michael Valkenberg @critical-thinking.de · 28/09/2025

Today’s „things I do for fun on holiday“: Oh, a bridge.

Ponte tibetano in Castelsaraceno from below. You can only see a small band with two people on it against a blue sky with a few clouds.

Ponte tibetano in Castelsaraceno from the start, the bridge in the center and the village at the left side

Two feet, standing on Ponte tibetano in Castelsaraceno, from above. The steps are as wide as the feet, far below are tree tops.

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Michael Valkenberg @critical-thinking.de · 27/09/2025

The lengths I go to just to jump off a cliff…

Me, face blacked out, wearing a helmet, a large apron-like thing and holding a metal contraption, all for the Volo dell‘Angelo zipline

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Michael Valkenberg @critical-thinking.de · 30/06/2025

Yeah, this bis what the results look like for a vegetarian like me. Also, a lot of it looks like stuff that middle class people believe upper class people eat.

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Michael Valkenberg @critical-thinking.de · 12/04/2025

Congratulations to the United States for successfully reaching the Finding Out stage of international relations. Now fuck off.

Screenshot of a CNN post. Headline „Trump is scrambling for allies in his trade war with China“

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Michael Valkenberg @critical-thinking.de · 11/04/2025

This is on the side of the building where the tourist information of my hometown is. Yes, it says „Built in 1344-1345.“ I still think they only put the tourist office there to fuck with American tourists.

Metal plague saying „Haus Löwenstein - Erbaut 1344-1345“

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Michael Valkenberg @critical-thinking.de · 20/03/2025

Every single person who reads the news: „Because they are not the USA!“ worldwildschooling.com/usa-cut-from...

Screenshot: „20 countries that are happier than the USA - here‘s why“

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Michael Valkenberg @critical-thinking.de · 15/03/2025

She thinks she‘s won, because she just licked my nose, proving that she’s a mighty hunter. I think I win, because i get to post the mlem.

A serious looking tabby Norwegian cat with the tip of her tongue showing.

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Michael Valkenberg @critical-thinking.de · 08/02/2025

Go home, satnav, you’re drunk.

A satnav route that looks like a weird squiggle, in one place the route crosses itself

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Michael Valkenberg @critical-thinking.de · 15/12/2024

Totally normal cat being totally normal. #proofofcat

Lilu, a tabby Norwegian cat, lying on her back in a cat bed atop a large scratching post.

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Michael Valkenberg @critical-thinking.de · 05/11/2024

Good idea. Latest picture on my camera roll.

Pixel, a tortoiseshell cat, and Lilu, a tabby Norwegian cat, sleeping in a cat bed atop a scratching post. Lilu is lying on her back and has her head pushed into Pixel‘s chest.

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Michael Valkenberg @critical-thinking.de · 15/08/2024

„Performance monkey mode“, you call it? 😁

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Michael Valkenberg @critical-thinking.de · 12/08/2024

Yes, she’s really funny, and very much a cat person. With a strong preference for Maine Coon, but we can‘t all be perfect. (Says my cat. (Who is a Norwegian forest cat.))

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Michael Valkenberg @critical-thinking.de · 11/08/2024

Looks like we are not the only ones who want to watch the Hugo’s… (Queue continues in both directions…)

People queuing around the armadillo. That a building. Don’t blame me, I didn’t name it.)

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Michael Valkenberg @critical-thinking.de · 09/08/2024

Never seen so many nerds storm the dance floor so fast. Well done, @scalzi.com

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Michael Valkenberg @critical-thinking.de · 08/08/2024

Ah, #Worldcon in Glasgow. Now I can finally get close to all my favorite authors…

Authors at a table. In the far distance.

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Michael Valkenberg @critical-thinking.de · 25/04/2024

„Judgmental?“ That’s not judgmental…

A way more judgmental cat. Also much fluffier.

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Michael Valkenberg @critical-thinking.de · 09/03/2024

I just found out that it doesn’t have to be the end:

Beer bottles with the appetizing name „Urine“

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Michael Valkenberg @critical-thinking.de · 28/02/2024

Huh, that happened, and then my Mastodon feed throws up this meme:

Lord of the Rings meme:
- Hand holding up the one ring which is labeled „FASCISM“.
- Elrond (LEFTISTS): CAST IT INTO THE FIRE. DESTROY IT!
- Isildur (LIBERALS): NO. I CAN INTERVIEW IT.

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Michael Valkenberg @critical-thinking.de · 10/01/2024

Can‘t find the Neuromancer one, but here are the ads from „Cyerspace“ (= Burning Chrome) and „Biochips“ (= Count Zero. Don‘t ask me why they translated the titles like that.) Cc. @greatdismal.bsky.social

Scanned text and soup ads from German translations of Burning Chrome and Count Zero

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Michael Valkenberg @critical-thinking.de · 29/12/2023

One of the things I always find slightly annoying about Sci-Fi movies playing on alien planets is their attempt to display amazing and weird landscapes, but not too amazing or weird, because then they would be implausible. Compared to the stuff nature throws up one our planet, NOTHING is too weird.

Red sandstone cliff in the foreground, red sandstone landscape behind it. On the left a spherical hoodoo - a boulder balancing on a spike a tenth its diameter.

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Michael Valkenberg @critical-thinking.de · 22/11/2023

I didn‘t know we had cat pic threads here. Oh well…

A tabby Norwegian cat doing her best impression of either Superman flying downwards or a spider plant.

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