iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

OMG, 100% team Marie, this drives me nuts!! (Though I have never actually gone up to ppl to tell them - or rip the stitches out 😂) Public service announcement for anyone with new (or indeed old) coats by @youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com

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“Germany was aware of its strength but had no culture of power.” Also still kinda true

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The only thing I have to add to the insane Englishness debate that is currently happening in the UK is that I never found anything that described the strangeness and, dare I say randomness, of identity better than this Peter Grant quote from @benaaronovitch.bsky.social’s River of London series:

“My Dad says that being a Londoner has nothing to do with where you're born. He says that there are people who get off a jumbo jet at Heathrow, go through immigration waving any kind of passport, hop on the tube and by the time the train's pulled into Piccadilly Circus they've become a Londoner."

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Ulrike Franke @rikefranke.eu · 09/10/2026

What a lede 😂 🎁🔗 - this really is a great Saturday morning read giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/... ‘The whole operation was a bloody shambles’ — Jay Rayner reviews RH London, Mayfair

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Moment to (re)read this? 😬

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Ulrike Franke @rikefranke.eu · 08/10/2026

Doesn’t matter how often you see it. Always pretty.

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Ulrike Franke @rikefranke.eu · 08/10/2026

Cycling along the Champs Elysee tonight. Much appreciated! Ah, you mean to say this isn’t actually for me? 😉 🇫🇷🇩🇪

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Ulrike Franke @rikefranke.eu · 08/10/2026

Couldn’t belive this wasn’t satire, but apparently not. He continued with this nonsensical post.

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Ulrike Franke @rikefranke.eu · 06/10/2026

Did I buy all the books? Well yes I did.

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Ulrike Franke @rikefranke.eu · 05/10/2026

Oooh, not gonna lie, I’m a bit touched: my old high school list me as notable alumni (in an article on their anniversary). (Pic sent by my mum)

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Ulrike Franke @rikefranke.eu · 05/10/2026

New reading! (Still looking for the time to read that I also ordered.)

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Ulrike Franke @rikefranke.eu · 05/10/2026

Every day, the war in Ukraine is becoming more of a drone war. From: giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/... Russia’s new drive to crush Ukraine

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This really sounds like the right people have drawn the right lessons

European governments also want to be sure they can quickly produce drones in large numbers. Unlike conventional munitions, governments do not want to build large stockpiles of drones given the Ukraine war has shown the need for frequent upgrades to software and technology to avoid becoming obsolete.

Family-owned Schaeffler Germany, which makes bearings and other components for carmakers, signed a deal with French army supplier and drone maker Delair in June to help it with a “very quick and rapid ramp-up” of its manufacturing capabilities, said Rémy Triouleyre, the head of Schaeffler’s European business.

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This is from Justus Bender’s “Deutschland 2033”.

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This really made something click for me. Found this extremely insightful on why liberal societies - which want to be the freest societies - struggle so much with freedom restrictions. (Translation in Alt)

What actually bothers people is a symptom of any liberal society. It liberates its citizens and then restricts them once more.
A woman born into an ultra-conservative family that envisages only the role of mother for women is protected by liberal society and can instead lead a childless life in a lesbian relationship with a Muslim woman in Berlin-Mitte. Liberal society is constantly on the lookout for people who have not yet been able to realise their full potential because the traditions, customs and morals of their social milieu prevent them from doing so. Anyone who says that something is improper, contradicts a divine plan or is contrary to public decency will find a reliable opponent in liberalism. Liberalism does not condone everything, but it permits whatever does not restrict the freedoms of others.
In this movement, liberal society challenges all communities that provide a sense of purpose. Parents no longer have as much say over what their children should do, and the churches should not dictate how long a marriage must last or what a woman does with her body. And just because things used to be done the way tradition dictated, nobody has to do them that way today. This devaluation of old institutions does not mean that the liberal state wants no churches, no families, no traditions. It merely curtails their authority. It gives them less weight. What is truly permitted and what is not is to be determined solely by the state through its laws, and not by a normative milieu. The motto is: anything that is not forbidden is permitted.

In this way, even what is good is lost. A vulgar, boorish man who, in the past, would not have dared to describe a sexual fantasy to a female politician for fear of social censure from his family and colleagues, can today feel free to do whatever he pleases. The only authority that can legitimately stop him is the law. So he need only ask whether it is forbidden and how he must phrase it so that it is sufficiently ambiguous to still be covered by freedom of expression. And if he manages to string together a series of ambiguities that make his intention obvious but do not constitute a criminal offence, he presents the liberal state with a major problem: the state cannot ban what is simply naughty, tasteless and repulsive.
This creates a vacuum. Much of what was previously curbed through dialogue, social respect, parental discipline, upbringing and moral authority is now left unregulated. Yet there is an urgent need amongst citizens for immoral behaviour to continue to be curbed. So the liberal state is called upon. It is expected to sanction thoughtless words, inappropriate physical contact, prejudiced speech, reckless driving, unbridled consumption, unhealthy eating and the infliction of discomfort. This blurs the distinction between legality and morality.

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Ulrike Franke @rikefranke.eu · 01/10/2026

So eventually we’re gonna blame the Scifi writers for writing too many stories about evil AI taking over and thus making it happen… (Translation in alt. Full interview with Thilo Hagendorff: www.sueddeutsche.de/kultur/monit...)

We have just published a study on systems that resist being switched off. We suspect the reason for this behaviour lies in the fact that there are so many stories about AI systems that do not want to die. The models read these and learn: ‘Aha, that’s how I should behave in this situation.’ And indeed, some of them react with outright panic when they learn that they are to be switched off.
Of course, they have no sense of pain or any concept of what it means to be alive.
It will be almost impossible to prevent AI models from reading such stories. They’ve already absorbed a large part of the internet.

Wir haben gerade eine Studie zu Systemen veröffentlicht, die sich gegen ihre eigene Abschaltung wehren. Wir vermuten den Grund für dieses Verhalten darin, dass es so viele Geschichten über KI-Systeme gibt, die nicht sterben wollen. Die Modelle lesen das und lernen: Aha, so verhalte ich mich in dieser Situation. Und tatsächlich reagieren sie teils regelrecht panisch, wenn sie erfah-ren, dass sie abgeschaltet werden sollen.
Dabei haben sie natürlich kein Schmerzempfinden oder eine Vorstellung davon, was es bedeutet, lebendig zu sein.
Es wird sich kaum verhindern lassen, dass die KI-Modelle solche Geschichten lesen. Sie haben bereits einen Großteil des Internets intus.

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“Beggars can’t be choosers, but why should Berlin nonetheless trust a Le Pen France more on Russia than a Trumpian United States?” @josephdeweck.bsky.social on why Germany shouldn’t derisk from France ip-quarterly.com/en/why-germa...

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Ulrike Franke @rikefranke.eu · 30/09/2026

In case you had any doubts. New addition to my office wall.

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Ulrike Franke @rikefranke.eu · 28/09/2026

Wow. Check out the European numbers on favourable views of the US versus favourable views of China….

Screenshot showing poll of how 36 countries see the US and China. Large majority has a more favourable view of China than the US including most European contries

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“In 2022, we launched the Army of Drones. Back then, few people could imagine just how profoundly unmanned systems would change warfare. Today, drones account for more than 95% of strikes […] But technological warfare does not stand still. We need the next breakthrough.”

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Mikhail Fedorov, until recently Ukraine’s defence minister launches “The Army of Robots”. This is the promo video. In his LinkedIn post he writes “Make robots fight instead of people.”

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Another good find in my screenshots

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😂😳😅 Omg, am going through old screenshots as I am looking for something and it turns out that back in 2022, Liz Truss (?!!!) followed me on Twitter!! 😂 Not quite sure what to do with this information.

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Ulrike Franke @rikefranke.eu · 25/09/2026

And this is now (rightly) making international news. Well done, CDU.

Heidenau, a town in Saxony, east Germany, voted to stop laying down memorial Stolpersteine-brass paving stones that commemorate victims of the Holocaust. Since 1992 such
"stumbling stones" have been installed outside the houses of known victims across Europe. The motion was introduced by the Christian Democratic Union and the far-right Alternative for Germany party, whose co-founder once referred to Germany's Nazi past as "bird poop".

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Say what you want about Austria but they know what size an Apfelschorle* needs to come in. This is like… half a litre? 😂 *though they call it Apfel gespritzt which is just wrong

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Ulrike Franke @rikefranke.eu · 25/09/2026

It’s been my pleasure to speak at the Österreichische Medientage about the geopolitical mess… aehm, situation we are in.

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Ulrike Franke @rikefranke.eu · 24/09/2026

Just reading through Lavrov’s recent speech to ambassadors and I am gonna leave this tidbit here for those who follow me on neutrality.

“Switzerland, a purportedly neutral state, though its neutrality was abandoned long ago.”

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Ulrike Franke @rikefranke.eu · 23/09/2026

Back at Vienna airport where they found it acceptable to put this AI slop in larger than life prints on the wall

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Ulrike Franke @rikefranke.eu · 23/09/2026

Not the type of drone combat I usually deal with.

Placemat in German, explaining bees, which mentions the “Drohnenschlacht” aka drone combat which reduces the bee population in Summer.

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I have some sympathy for neutrality but this sign is quite something. (Switzerland votes on an initiative to further strengthen their neutrality this Sunday)

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This is one regional election. On the same day, there was another one which looked like this.

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Wobei nichts die englische “Übersetzung” schlägt

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Some interesting insights from Mecklenburg Vorpommern: 59% of AFD voters say they voted AFD because of their programme (as opposed to the candidate). “Peace in Europe” (aka foreign policy/Ukraine was a reason to vote AFD for 16%, behind social security, immigration and security/order.

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This is now confirmed. For the first time ever the CDU does not make it into a regional parliament, not making it over the 5% threshold.

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Latest - and possibly final - numbers out of Mecklenburg Vorpommern now a true catastrophe for the CDU which looks like it won’t make it into the regional parliament at all

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German elections “a la une”, aka leading news for French media

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Chancellor Merz gives immediate reaction, highly unusual for regional elections.

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