iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Michael Engard

❀°。Der Siebenschläfer *.ﾟ✿ ⋆ @sababausa.bsky.social · 2h

How much more absurd could lethal injection protocols be than “at this juncture we aren’t sure whether we should kill the subject or get life-saving medical treatment for the subject”?

219719

Michael Engard @engard.me · 3h

Do you feel that way when people talk about, say, “Americans?”

0160

Michael Engard @engard.me · 3h

It is not unlikely that the historical narrative about our era is that the fascists squandered their greatest opportunity for a comeback in decades because they were just too stupid and lazy to commit.

140

Michael Engard @engard.me · 3h

Oh, sure, we wouldn’t want to be some kind of anti-rape EXTREMIST, now would we *screaming into a pillow*

050

Michael Engard @engard.me · 4h

There is so, so much less profit in trying to steal the election than there is in going on Rogan to complain about Democrats stealing the election.

190

Michael Engard @engard.me · 6h

JKR always did this same style of smug-snarky-pseudo-clever-smackdown shit and I can’t help but see it as a red flag in others now.

010

Michael Engard @engard.me · 28/09/2026

It’s also really hamstrung by the ever-present chance of hallucinatory results, which by the nature of these LLMs cannot ever be reduced to zero. So using it to answer questions is always going to carry a danger proportional to the stakes of getting the right answer.

2191

Reposted by Michael Engard

Iris shitting in your brains @irisofigb.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

I am a plant physiologist and it's more of a threat coming from me because I am touching grass in novel and risky ways.

1154

Michael Engard @engard.me · 28/09/2026

A good person I know is heading to rehab for alcoholism. His best-case scenario is walking out with his life, his health, and only $40,000 in medical debt. There are people who choose for us to live this way. They have names.

010

Michael Engard @engard.me · 27/09/2026

I missed the first half but I love that I can always learn everything I need to know from your watch thread.

140

Michael Engard @engard.me · 27/09/2026

And it’s not even about whether the movies will be any good (though the benefit of the doubt is long past). They’ve just worked so hard to take what was special and exciting about it and ground that feeling into dust. It needs to just go hibernate for a decade at minimum.

040

Michael Engard @engard.me · 27/09/2026

Speaking as a fan since childhood: kinda same.

150

Michael Engard @engard.me · 26/09/2026

You would think even from a purely heartless financial perspective there was a case for planning out your movies a little bit before you commit $1.3 billion to making them. But who can say

020

Reposted by Michael Engard

Butt teeth! Butt teeth! Butt teeth! @panic.gay · 26/09/2026

I just feel like if you design a piece of technology and you're like "wow! This technology doesn't do what we want a lot of the time and we aren't really sure how it works!" that isn't a brag that's just a sign you're really bad at your job

26216

Michael Engard @engard.me · 25/09/2026

Among other things, I think the price of buying out Madison Square Garden for your celebrity-studded wedding to a football star at age 36 is that the credibility behind your “party life/boy trouble/friend drama” songs takes a big hit.

010

Michael Engard @engard.me · 25/09/2026

Companies are desperate for good dependable workers. Workers are desperate for good stable jobs that treat them well. Are we really out here letting a cup of coffee get between us?!

031

Michael Engard @engard.me · 25/09/2026

There is a certain type of Guy™ that loves The Sopranos, The Wire, Breaking Bad and (for some reason) Chernobyl, and to this day will not shut up about them. Every clip of those shows on YouTube is pages of those same dudes posting the same decade-old memes in a nearly-audible drone.

030

Reposted by Michael Engard

Butt teeth! Butt teeth! Butt teeth! @panic.gay · 25/09/2026

THIS. AI isn't "going rogue" any more than those exploding Samsung galaxy phones from 2016 went rogue. Human engineers poorly deployed a technology and there were negative consequences. The responsibility falls entirely on humans.

6330107

Michael Engard @engard.me · 25/09/2026

There will definitely be some number of those (as there always are), but this also aligns with other evidence coming out anecdotally, in polling, and in all the Republican political operatives shitting bricks right now.

010

Michael Engard @engard.me · 25/09/2026

While not counting chickens before they hatch, I hope congressional Democrats are starting to prepare themselves psychologically for the responsibility they will have to quite literally restore and defend constitutional governance. No friendly chopper ride home for Nixon. This has to be real.

2192

Reposted by Michael Engard

Pookleblinky @pookleblinky.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Reminder that in Canada upon becoming an engineer you get an iron ring made of a collapsed bridge, purposely designed to be uncomfortable, to remind you that your ethics demand you give a fuck even about the boring grudgework of such as double-checking your math. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Ring

en.wikipedia.org

Iron Ring - Wikipedia

2073102279

Michael Engard @engard.me · 24/09/2026

Yeah I’ve been very uncomfortable about this all the way back to the first wave of “it’s ok to punch Nazis now.”

111

Reposted by Michael Engard

Anthony Moser @anthonymoser.com · 21/09/2026

8. often, when people say LLMs "can do" something they mean LLMs can produce output that looks like the output of doing something 9. producing something that looks like the output of doing something is not the same thing as doing it

4447111

Michael Engard @engard.me · 23/09/2026

It’s remarkable to think that one of the likely historical narratives of our era is that western fascists blew their greatest opportunity in generations because they were just too lazy and stupid to put in the work.

130

Michael Engard @engard.me · 23/09/2026

Most of us here on Bluesky find the conservative brand of “patriotism” to superficial and performative. But for all that, it’s also sincere. And it has to be galling for them to realize, at last, that Trump and even most congressional Republicans kind of don’t give a shit after all.

1140

Michael Engard @engard.me · 23/09/2026

I have to wonder whether the 250th made it start to sink in for tribal Republican voters that this crop of conservative leaders does not actually care about the same things that they do.

1100

Michael Engard @engard.me · 23/09/2026

my god, I’ve read entire textbooks that do not distill the essence of municipal politics as neatly as this post.

150

Michael Engard @engard.me · 23/09/2026

statistically guaranteed that some of your fellow passengers have seen this plane for the last time

010

Michael Engard @engard.me · 23/09/2026

That's so much better than the person on here who was dead certain that in WW2, the US didn't land troops in Europe until after the Soviets had conquered Berlin. (Because we were too Nazi-friendly, you see.)

090

Michael Engard @engard.me · 22/09/2026

Likewise, I remember a certain Republican candidate who was treated as an absolute joke by everyone in politics and media until he started sweeping primaries. Let’s not pretend electing an incredibly capable woman is stranger than what we’re still actively living through.

000

Michael Engard @engard.me · 22/09/2026

At this point that would be a less embarrassing excuse than his annual (and admittedly very relatable) “I have pages guys, I swear I have pages, they go to school in Canada” blog post.

020

Reposted by Michael Engard

TekknoNerd - Commissions open @tekknonerd.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Voyager, walking on those tiny legs.

13868582166

Michael Engard @engard.me · 22/09/2026

It can’t be overstated how identical he has become, in both style and substance, to a preteen boy playing with action figures.

010

Michael Engard @engard.me · 22/09/2026

My mental health improved noticeably when I started (for the first time in my adult life) taking month-ish breaks from social media and rediscovered that reality is largely indifferent to what we’re talking about here on any given day. I recommend it to anyone and everyone.

130

Reposted by Michael Engard

lauren @lauren.rotatingsandwiches.com · 22/09/2026

there are so many amazing, life-changing things you can do with computers and i think it's a serious problem the companies that make them keep trying to sell them by saying "do you hate everyone in your life? are you less of a person than a hollow automaton waiting to be told what to do by me?"

958161

Michael Engard @engard.me · 21/09/2026

I keep wondering when people will be ready to hear this about the Lord of the Rings Extended Editions as well.

010

Reposted by Michael Engard

Thomas Lecaque @tlecaque.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

I'm French. I will vote for bad people to stop fascists. But I will be mad as all hell doing it and I won't contribute a single fucking dime. And I will criticize them every god damn step of the way with the lone exception of the polling place itself, and then only because it is illegal.

510623

Reposted by Michael Engard

Dilek Sayedahmed @dileksayedahmed.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

I truly, deeply, sincerely do think the guy flipping burgers at McDonalds should be able to afford rent, bills, and groceries with his paycheck alone. That's kind of the whole point of having a job and I can't believe this is considered a radical position.🤷🏽‍♀️

159167184682

Reposted by Michael Engard

Puff the Magic Hater @mskellymhayes.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

The OpenAI "breaking containment" story stems from the company's own failure to build a secure sandbox. They relied on a single local proxy to "contain" the program. They could have air-gapped the thing. It's not like they lack resources. It was advantageous to them for the agent to "get loose."

380578

Reposted by Michael Engard

Seth Masket @smotus.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

My hot take: We are not arguing about SSRIs. Some of us are using them as prescribed by our doctors to treat mental health difficulties. This administration has decided that's a problem based on no actual research.

552157347

Michael Engard @engard.me · 17/09/2026

(And, in fairness, I know that lots of people who didn’t grow up in the height of middle-class suburban Pax Americana came to that realization a lot quicker than I did.)

0141

Michael Engard @engard.me · 17/09/2026

We all so wanted to believe that the post-WW2 order was an enlightenment that was at last gradually banishing the violence that was so utterly normal for the first first 300,000 years of human history. Now we see that even a comfortable, successful, civilized life is no cure for rank bloodthirst.

3556

Reposted by Michael Engard

Michael Engard @engard.me · 17/09/2026

What makes my skin crawl is that I could almost handle it better if they were competent. Like, amoral, greedy, bloodthirsty, etc., but with some philosophy, some half-coherent sense of geopolitics behind it. But they’re not. They don’t even understand what they’re destroying. They can’t *see* it.

3123

Reposted by Michael Engard

Michael Engard @engard.me · 17/09/2026

We can’t have a conversation with them, we can’t “debate” them, the things we love and value and depend on in the world are meaningless to them, they’re just mouth sounds. It’s 80 years too late to explain to Donald Trump that other humans are real.

1111

Michael Engard @engard.me · 17/09/2026

1111

Michael Engard @engard.me · 17/09/2026

3123