Michael Engard

@engard.me

737 Followers 394 Following

Writer and web developer. Rochester, NY. Of late: WordPress, TTRPGs, the open web. You may never read my book but at least I’m writing it.

Siderea, Sibylla Bostoniensis‬ ‪@siderea.bsky.social‬ · 6h ...under what other circumstances do you feel "God said we could kill you and take your stuff" is a legitimate argument? hærəld ‪@granitefreeman.com‬ i dont, but many groups of people in history have but if you claim a particular faith, and that is what the faith calls you to do in the official texts dont you have an obligation to walk away from that faith? 5:04 AM · Mar 20, 2026 ‪Siderea, Sibylla Bostoniensis‬ ‪@siderea.bsky.social‬ · 4h A popular alternative is to drop that part of the faith or construe it metaphorically, but leaving is also fine. But I'm far more interested in the question of how the rest of us deal with it when someone claims that than what the people who claim that should do.
Screenshot of a post by the recipient, which reads: "i dont, but many groups of people in history have but if you claim a particular faith, and that is what the faith calls you to do in the official texts dont you have an obligation to walk away from that faith?"
A screenshot of the post that prompted the current thread. It reads: "I (and other Jews) have had "free Palestine!" Shouted at me in the street because I wear a kippah. Even though I agree with the sentiment, it was offensive because it was shouted at me because I'm Jewish."
A photo of a big gray cat sitting on top of a big gray couch. It is not immediately clear where the cat ends and the couch begins.
A tweet from the Polymarket account Twitter: “BREAKING: Anthropic CEO says Claude may or may not have gained consciousness, as the model has begun showing symptoms of anxiety.” Posted 12:29 PM on Mar 6, 2026.
Screenshot of a website, taken from the following URL: https://www.carecredit.com/well-u/health-wellness/ambulance-ride-cost/ The text reads: How Much Does an Ambulance Ride Cost? The national average cost of an ambulance ride varies by type of service: $1,481 for basic life support (BLS) and $1,613 for advanced life support (ALS) ambulance rides. Learn more about the factors affecting cost and payment options. Written by Adrienne Santos-Longhurst
A screenshot from The Empire Strikes Back (1980). The main characters are seated in the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon looking very, very unhappy.
A tweet from Brandon Straka on Jan 6, 2021: Patriots at the Capitol-HOLD. THE. LINE!!!!
Screenshot of a Bluesky reply. The text reads: “I'll speak for myself. I have over 15 yrs experience as a Software Engineer and am nearly done with a Masters' in Mathematics with a Specialization in Computer Science. And outside the bedroom, anything I can do, Claude can do better.” The author’s name and handle are obscured.
A very silly 90s watch with a long, narrow digital display that wraps all the way around the wrist, surrounded by a complex set of silver metal plates with various numbers and embossments that serve absolutely no purpose.
A museum exhibit space that is empty, except for a sign that reads: “This object has been temporarily removed as we revise its facial expression, which was deemed zoologically improbably and/or terrifying to small children.”
A photo of Josh Allen, the quarterback for the American football team the Buffalo Bills, looking wet-eyed and emotional at a press conference.
A dictionary definition for the word “condition”: con·di·tion /kənˈdiSHən/ noun: condition; plural noun: conditions 1. the state of something with regard to its appearance, quality, or working order. 2. the circumstances affecting the way in which people live or work, especially with regard to their safety or well-being.
Excerpt from the linked scientific study: This is precisely what happened to María José Martínez Patiño, a Spanish hurdler who failed her gender verification test in the World University Games in Kobe 1985, since she turned out to have AIS. As a result, she was barred from competing, was stripped of all her medals, expelled from her athletics residence, had her sports scholarship revoked and lost many of her friends and her fiancé. Instead of faking an injury and withdrawing quietly, as she was advised to do, she decided to fight her disqualification, being convinced of her ‘femininity’: ‘I knew I was a woman, and that my genetic difference gave me no unfair physical advantage. I could hardly pretend to be a man; I have breasts and a vagina. I never cheated’ (Martínez-Patiño, 2005: p. 538).
Excerpt: “Nevertheless, several members of the scientific community (De La Chapelle, 1986; Ferguson-Smith, and Ferris 1991; Ljungqvist and Simpson, 1992; Simpson et al., 1993) raised concerns about whether the buccal smear test was fit for purpose. Such a test is designed to detect a person's chromosomal sex, as the Barr body is only present in XX individuals, while their gonadal, morphological and psychosocial sex attributes remain undetected (De La Chapelle, 1986). In practice, this means that those who have been raised as women, have ‘feminised’ external genital morphology and secondary sexual characteristics, but lack two X chromosomes, will not be ‘verified’ as women. This is often the case of individuals with Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (AIS) or gonadal dysgenesis, who are usually assigned female at birth because their ‘external’ body is, with varying degrees, typically female, ‘but’ have XY chromosomes (Ljungqvist and Simpson, 1992). The main issue of contention within the scientific community (De La Chapelle, 1986; Ljungqvist and Simpson, 1992) was if and to what extent possessing a Y chromosome (but a ‘feminised’ body) provides athletes with an unfair advantage over their XX competitors, as ‘male’ genetic make-up is not necessarily accompanied by ‘manly’ attributes which entail greater strength, power or flexibility. In fact, it is not uncommon for some of these conditions to go undiagnosed until a full gynaecological exam is performed, which usually does not happen until puberty, as the external anatomy might be ‘normal’ and the only noticeable ‘anomaly’ might be lack of menstruation, which is not unusual in elite female athletes. This is why some scientific commentators (De La Chapelle, 1986; Simpson et al., 1993) also criticised the test for being potentially disruptive and having a dramatic psychological impact on athletes, who might have their gender and identity questioned by a laboratory-based test which detects the presence of XX chromosomes.”
A screenshot from the movie X-Men (2000) depicting Magneto’s plastic prison. His transparent cell is suspended in the center of a large open chamber, isolated from the surrounding environment, brightly lit and kept under constant observation.
A post by Bluesky user "WhoAreYou2Day" (@2028president.bsky.social): using the reasoning of religious groups.. i.e. passage of laws giving them authority to corrupt freedom --- passing a law to demand religion, instead; pass a law to deny religion --- they brought it on themselves every government should outlaw religion.. to be fair, it is not the Church itself -- but insecure little dipshits that can not find happiness or contentment unless the laws force every free person to agree with their views on GOD. As a reverend, let me help -- GOD says, oh, hell NO !!!
A green plastic sign posted on a field of grass. The sign reads: "DO NOT DISTURB. TINY GRASS IS DREAMING."
Excerpted text from a CNN article: " Lastly, cost has to be a consideration. Trump said Monday the new battleships ships would eventually replace the Navy’s Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, the backbone of the US surface fleet. Those destroyers cost about $2 billion each. A Trump-class ship would have a price tag as high as $15 billion, according to a Monday report from USNI News."
A fluffy gray cat sprawled out on the back of a couch of the same color. His face is the picture of worldly pleasure.
Photo of a small brown cat staring placidly—lustfully, you might say—at a festively lit Christmas tree. An open span of hardwood-floor no-man’s-land separates them.
Screenshot of an American Airlines flight status page. It shows the flight will depart at 11:35 PM and arrive at 11:54 PM, covering a distance of about 300 miles in 19 minutes. Aircraft that achieve these speeds tend to carry high explosive ordnance and perform evasive maneuvers.
Everyone around Trump, and everything he is seeing on TV and on his phone, is telling him that he’s right. But poll after poll suggests that Americans believe Trump is now getting it wrong and has lost focus on what got him elected. “People voted for him to lower prices, to bring manufacturing back, to stand up to those taking advantage of them,” a close Trump ally told me on the condition of anonymity so as not to antagonize the president. “They didn’t vote for him to build a damn gilded ballroom. He’s not hearing them.”
Screenshot from the video game “Myst” (1993), showing a handwritten letter from one character to another: Sirrus Your greed sickens me! Your desire for wealth and plunder is never satisfied. I will instruct my subjects not to pay your new tax and you know they'll listen to me. Regards, Achenar
Screenshot of a Windows XP computer undergoing a graphical glitch, which causes an open window to leave shadow copies of itself all over the desktop, forming a weird cascading ribbon pattern as it moves around.
GIF of a line from the musical Hamilton: "His poor wife!"
A screenshot of a scene from the film “The Social Network” (2010). Andrew Garfield, playing a fictional version of Facebook founder Eduardo Saverin, is writing a mathematical equation on a windowpane in a Harvard dorm room, while others, including Jesse Eisenberg as Mark Zuckerberg, look on.
A large dog and two small cats, all standing on the back of an armchair together, their attention focused on someone off-screen.
Screenshot of a popup message on a Windows computer. The message reads “Data Execution Prevention: to help protect your computer, Windows has closed this program.” The program was Solitaire.
Screenshot of a quoted passage from a book: “But the more I practiced with [guns] the more scared I got. Or maybe depressed. … Holding one of those things in your hands, cleaning the barrel and shoving the rounds into magazines, really brings you face-to-face with what a desperate, last-ditch measure they really are. I mean, if it gets to the point where we are shooting at people and vice versa, then we have completely screwed up. So in the end, they only strengthened my interest in making sure we could do without them.”
A screenshot of a scene from the movie Home Alone, directed by Christopher Columbus (not that one). A tarantula is walking across the face of Daniel Stern, who is screaming in terror.
A meme template, based on a screenshot of Keanu Reeves from one of the Matrix movies. He's wearing a disheveled white shirt and loosened tie, drinking liquor from a green bottle, and smoking a cigarette. The caption reads "No, no. What you've been is not on boats."
Screenshot of the same website, but the change from "contain" to "cover" gets rid of the ugly row gaps.
Screenshot of the the website with dev tools open, demonstrating a code fix, which is outlined in a red box.
A professional photo of Andrew Tate, shirtless and wearing sweatpants, in what is widely known as his “2-year-old actively shitting his pants” pose.
Screenshot of a news article except, reading: “…gun. The late, legendarily brutal campaign consultant Lee Atwater explains how Republicans can win the vote of racists without sounding racist themselves: “You start out in 1954 by saying, “N——r, n——r, n——r.” By 1968 you can’t say “nigger”—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.… “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “N——r, n——r.”
Quote from the linked article by Josh Marshall: “Every time. Attack and attack and attack. Don’t complain. Attack. People are bewildered by what they’re seeing. They don’t like it. Everything that raises the salience of this issue is a win. They want to see someone talk back. There is a rich history which correctly views the tyrant not as a symbol of strength but as a weak and contemptible figure, vain and fragile, addicted to fawning and praise, murdered in his heart by the most innocuous of criticism. The whole system of autocracy is one built on individual degeneracy, the strongman and the toadies together.”
Screenshot of a quote: “This is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in — an interesting hole I find myself in — fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!' This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for.” ― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time
Excerpt from Hilary Mantel’s 1992 novel, ‘A Place of Greater Safety’: “Nothing. changes. Nothing new. The same old dreary crisis atmosphere. The feeling that it can’t get much worse without something giving way. But nothing does. Ruin, collapse, the sinking ship of state: the point of no return, the shifting balance, the crumbling edifice and the sands of time. Only the cliché flourishes.”
Stock photo of a man looking into the camera with a grim expression, famously associated with the ClickHole article, “Heartbreaking: The Worst Person You Know Just Made A Great Point.” <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heartbreaking:_The_Worst_Person_You_Know_Just_Made_A_Great_Point>
But it is, it’s the small things -- fresh air. In the White House you can’t open a window. Sasha opened her window once -- there were calls. (Laughter.) “Shut the window!” It never opened again. (Laughter.) So it’s the little things that you -- MS. WINFREY: The things that we all just take for granted. MRS. OBAMA: Take for granted. I won’t even ask for anonymity, because I think that’s forever gone.
Screenshotted excerpt from the scientific paper: “Furthermore, when gamete sizes are differentiated, there are typically exactly two sexes, no more and no less: males that produce small gametes and females that produce large ones; why not, say, 5 or 7 sexes? From a mammal point of view, one may say that this is very easy to answer: the mammalian XY sex determination system inevitably results in two sexes. But this is a ‘proximate’ solution—it outlines how we end up with males and females, and in equal numbers, with this par- ticular sex determination mechanism. In reality, there are many different ways in which sex determination and two sexes can be achieved in the plant and animal kingdoms (Bull, 1983). This implies that these mechan- isms do not tell us the ultimate evolutionary reason behind the number of sexes, or the evolution of gamete sizes.”
The yellow wrapping paper from a McDonald’s cheeseburger.
Screenshot of an email newsletter: NEWS 8 SMART START RPD: Woman stabbed to death, suspect shot on Spencer Street ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WROC) — A woman is dead and a man is in critical condition after … Police investigating shooting on Weyl Street, one shot by officer ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WROC) — Two men have been hospitalized after being shot on Weyl Street … Online petition calls for safer, more affordable employee parking at URMC ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WROC) – More than 2,300 people across the Rochester area have …
Douglas Adams
Screenshot of a post on the subreddit “r/WritingWithAI” entitled “It finally made sense”. The full text: I've been writing stuff with and without A.I. (Different pen names for different genre) Some of that work I tell people it's A.I. and some of it I don't. Sometime I tell them it's A.I. when it's not Sometime I tell them it's not when it is. I honestly do it so I can learn what's "good" writing. You know what I learned? Most people need to be fooled. They crave it. It's essential. That's the core of it all. That's why they don't like when you tell them it's A.I. It takes the "magic" away. The quality doesn't matter. They want to believe that "art" is something unique to the human mind. They want to be special. So, keep it special. Lie.
From “Le Vieux Cordelier,” issue 3, by Camilles Desmoulins, December 1793 (as translated in Hilary Mantel’s novel, “A Place of Greater Safety”): As soon as words had become crimes against the state, it was only a small step to transform into offenses mere glances, sorrow, compassion, sighs, even silence … . It was a crime against the state that Libonius Drusus asked the fortune tellers if he would ever be rich … . It was a crime against the state that one of Cassius’ descendants had a portrait of his ancestor in his house. Mamercus Scaurus committed a crime by writing a tragedy in which certain verses were capable of a double meaning. It was a crime against the state that the mother of the consul Furius Geminus mourned for the death of her son … . It was necessary to rejoice at the death of a friend or relative, if one wished to escape death oneself. Was a citizen popular? He might start a faction. Suspect. Did he try instead to retreat from public life? Suspect. Are you rich? Suspect. Are you—to all appearances—poor? You must be hiding something. Suspect. Are you melancholy? The state of the nation must upset you. Suspect. Are you cheerful? You must be rejoicing at national calamities. Suspect. Are you a philosopher, an orator or a poet? Suspect.
A screenshot of Bryan Cranston as Walter White in the television series “Breaking Bad.” His face is shocked and distraught.
Excerpt from the linked article: > According to another source, Colbert is “off the leash and out for blood.” They continued, “We’re scared. He knows the secrets. He knows where the bodies are buried. If we push him too hard, he could take us all down with him.”
Allan also said the journey helped her re-discover other money sources she hadn't thought about in awhile. "My husband was actually like, 'Oh, didn't we have a brokerage account?'" Allan recalled. "There's $10,200 sitting in this account that is available. Like I could literally cry right now," she said in a TikTok video.
The face of a black dog resting her head on the armrest of a gray chair. She’s looking serenely into the camera, like a calm, chill dog who didn’t lose her everloving shit at a raccoon in the yard just minutes earlier.