McKinley Valentine
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mckinleaf.bsky.social
McKinley Valentine
@mckinleaf.bsky.social
1.3K followers 470 following 310 posts
Writer/Researcher 🔶 ABC's Hard Quiz 🔶 The Whippet, a newsletter of science, history, language & weirdness: https://thewhippet.org 🔶 she/her
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mckinleaf.bsky.social
I am very sorry about what happened to Scott Adams (going alt right I mean, not dying)

It is extremely not cool to say it, but his workplace cartoons were genuinely helpful (and funny) to me as a 16-19 year old entering the workforce and trying to grapple with the insane things managers say
(1/5)
photo of Scott Adams with Dilbert character in background
January 14, 2026 at 12:59 AM
mckinleaf.bsky.social
publishing something posthumously is the ultimate don't @ me
wikipedia screenshot: E. M. Forster's novel Maurice is a story of love between two men. The first draft was written in 1913 when homosexuality was illegal in England. Homosexual acts were legalised by the Sexual Offences Act 1967 but Forster still did not publish because "He knew the endless fuss and brouhaha it would [lead] to". The novel was finally published in 1971, a few months after Forster's death.
January 7, 2026 at 6:38 AM
mckinleaf.bsky.social
court reporters stop pretending to be psychic!!
you can't lift your chin "defiantly", it's just looking up, and "closing your eyes during a long meeting" means fucking nothing.

you might as well report on her skullshape, it's egregious to do this shit (esp during the actual trial, which they did)
guardian article screenshot "Erin Patterson raised her chin almost defiantly, giving a sense this was all a grave mistake, that she was not supposed to be there. For lengthy periods during her sentencing she even closed her eyes, a woman seemingly at peace with her fate."
September 8, 2025 at 8:05 AM
mckinleaf.bsky.social
ChatGPT was it a good idea to indiscriminately scrape training data from forums?
BPD forum post: It depends on what day or what hour you ask me. lol! Sometimes I am so perfect and I can handle everything and actually get things done and be a positive influence to others. Other days I am a disgrace to this planet. I am a loser that has accomplished nothing, I'm stupid, ugly, mean and I feel bad for anyone that knows me. I'd say I'm more on the low functioning though, as I'm unable to handle much. It took me 2 months to get the courage to make 5 phone calls to companies such as Sprint because I'm so frightened of everything.
August 8, 2025 at 12:34 PM
mckinleaf.bsky.social
The caption 👌

[via The Met Museum open access image library]
Museum-style photo of an bust of Cleopatra with one boob out. The caption reads "Bust of Cleopatra (one of a pair)" (also says French, Rouen, ca. 1720-30)
July 3, 2025 at 7:12 AM
mckinleaf.bsky.social
Sort of expanding while remaining the same size
5-Star Amazon book review. "The book, The Field, was mind-expanding, confirming what I "knew" to be true."
December 17, 2024 at 5:48 AM
mckinleaf.bsky.social
So sick of mainstream media; I get all my news from the Australia Post parcel tracker app
Screenshot of the Australia Post app Greece 19 November 2024: Items sent to and from Greece may experience delays due to planned union strikes on 20 November, which will impact postal operations and delivery services. Ireland 10 November 2024: Items sent to and from Ireland may experience delays, as Storm Darragh is affecting delivery services and postal operations. Italy 4 December 2024: Items sent to and from Italy may experience delays due to cyber attacks impacting the IT systems at Italy Post.
December 12, 2024 at 2:34 AM
mckinleaf.bsky.social
Revelations 21:5 - "This is good shit, is someone getting this down?"

#occultsky
Screenshot from Bible Gateway. 5. He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”
December 6, 2024 at 4:13 AM
mckinleaf.bsky.social
You're probably thinking of GK Chesterton. As far as I can tell, he was serious though, he thought tradition was important
Screenshot of Chesterton quote: Tradition means giving a vote to most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death. Democracy tells us not to neglect a good man’s opinion, even if he is our groom; tradition asks us not to neglect a good man’s opinion, even if he is our father.”
December 3, 2024 at 9:21 PM
mckinleaf.bsky.social
It's from the Xanth books, I'm pretty sure! Xanth was a fantasy land in the shape of Florida, where everyone had magical Talents, and they called our world Mundania and non-magical people Mundanes.
First one published 1977
Old school looking Fantasy book by Piers Anthony titled "Man from Mundania". A dragon menaces a young couple.
December 3, 2024 at 10:04 AM
mckinleaf.bsky.social
Introduce yourself with 4 records
Bob Dylan, Blood on the Tracks Architecture in Helsinki, In Case We Die Skyscraper Stan and the Commission Flats, Last Year's Tune Talking Heads, Stop Making Sense
November 21, 2024 at 7:26 AM
mckinleaf.bsky.social
It's the front cover! But zoomed out
Front cover of Dinotopia
November 21, 2024 at 7:06 AM
mckinleaf.bsky.social
Do you have carpets? This (Context: they are more like robot brooms than robot vacuums, they are all pretty good at hardwood floors and all pretty useless at carpets)

Eg this is the highest rated one Choice and it is still shit at carpets. This cheap one is hardly any worse at hardwood floors
November 19, 2024 at 2:34 AM
mckinleaf.bsky.social
I went to a bronze-making workshop on the weekend! I made this guy out of wax and he's going to get cast in bronze.

From a bunch of different creation stories: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_...

'My name is Heart Girt By a Serpent' // Kardia Periezosmenei Ophin #occultsky
A green wax sculpture sitting on a workbench: an egg with a snake wrapped around it. Scalpel-like tools in background Same sculpture from different angle
November 17, 2024 at 10:55 PM
mckinleaf.bsky.social
Tony Abbott! He was the Prime Minister at the time! And the onion still had the skin on!

Truly, an amazing moment.
Former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, biting into a raw onion with the skin on
November 17, 2024 at 9:46 AM
mckinleaf.bsky.social
Good piece from Ken White on the appointments (context: he's not saying "relax, it'll be fine", he's saying "the world will probably get much worse for a generation or more, but here's some cold comfort")
www.popehat.com/p/refuge-in-...
Appointing Gaetz owns the libs, humiliates the hated Justice Department, elevates someone who is a vulgar elbow-thrower like him, and is a thumb in the eye to the Republicans who hate Gaetz. It’s not a decision reflecting self-control; it’s a decision reflecting unconstrained anger and resentment. It’s like making your horse a Senator. The point isn’t that the horse will vote the way you want it to. The point is to humiliate the senate and show them you can do what you want. It’s bad, but it’s not smart bad. Gaetz is a buffoon. He has absolutely no qualifications to run the Department of Justice. Can he wander around firing everyone? Yes. Does he understand how the Department of Justice works in a way that would allow him to maximize its potential for abuse? No. Is he smart enough to figure it out? Also no. Is he charismatic enough to persuade insiders to help him use it effectively? Very much no. Gaetz as Attorney General will do petty, flamboyant, stupid things in clumsy ways. Some of those things will be very bad. But clown shoes are preferable to jackboots.
November 14, 2024 at 7:21 AM
mckinleaf.bsky.social
broken country obviously, but fucking kudos to the people waiting in line for 6+ hours to vote
from The Guardian: The Pennsylvania chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union is seeking legal action to have voting extended past 8pm in precincts where students have been waiting hours to cast a vote. That includes in Bethlehem, where students have been waiting as many as six-and-a-half hours to cast a ballot.
November 6, 2024 at 1:42 AM
mckinleaf.bsky.social
This is a review of The Heptameron, a grimoire published in the 1400s.

The Heptameron's author was killed by the Inquisition on charges of heresy and atheism, so I guess the amount of Christianity in the text is an "agree to disagree" situation

#occultsky
Amazon review, 2 stars: Though the methodology, when taken at face value, is fairly sound and, generally, informative, [highlight] I find it highly exhausting and, frankly, annoying that Christianity finds it necessary to implant itself and hijack a philosophy and mysticism that is not Christian whatsoever. I blame Jung, [end highlight] and I am not appreciative of it in the slightest bit. For those seeking an authentic truth and teaching in either alchemy or sages' mysticism - this is not it.
November 2, 2024 at 11:24 AM
mckinleaf.bsky.social
From a book on death anxiety, which the author thinks contemporary psychology tends to downplay as underlying cause for other psych issues.
I'm not cool about death now, but there were some helpful ideas in there
"Adults who are racked with death anxiety are not odd birds who have contracted some exotic disease, but men and women whose family and culture have failed to knit the proper protective clothing for them to withstand the icy chill of mortality." Staring at the Sun Irvin D. Yalom
October 22, 2024 at 3:27 AM
mckinleaf.bsky.social
Somewhat counterintuitively, it’s the more trusting people that actually emerge as less gullible. They obviously get fooled, as we all do… but they tend to be very good at learning from those experiences where they have been duped, they tend not to generalize it over everybody and then to start being cynical about everything, which then makes them more effective socially.
October 1, 2024 at 7:30 AM
mckinleaf.bsky.social
From Per Amica Silentia Lunae ("through the friendly silences of the moon")

www.gutenberg.org/files/33338/...
William Butler Yeats quote: If we cannot imagine ourselves as different from what we are, and try to assume that second self, we cannot impose a discipline upon ourselves though we may accept one from others. Active virtue as distinguished from the passive acceptance of a code is therefore theatrical, consciously dramatic, the wearing of a mask.
September 30, 2024 at 7:06 AM
mckinleaf.bsky.social
Every day I wake up, look at my open tabs, and try and figure out what the hell I was on about yesterday
google search with "what are some folded things" typed into the search box
September 26, 2024 at 11:16 PM
mckinleaf.bsky.social
THEY CAN'T KEEP GETTING AWAY WITH THIS
Google result, article from a science website: "How do photons travel so fast? And is there a way to stop them?"
September 26, 2024 at 5:16 AM
mckinleaf.bsky.social
I feel pleased about this. It's a blatant promotional thing, and it has worked on me 👍
Bluesky celebrating 10M users #144,433
September 17, 2024 at 1:13 AM
mckinleaf.bsky.social
Without downloading any new pics, where are you at mentally
Old comic, man in a suit standing outside a store with a sign "Ancient and occult books". Speech bubble: "Perhaps I can find a rare book to take my mind off the grim thoughts which harass me. And the occult world may have an answer to my problem!"
August 23, 2024 at 10:59 AM