@mike@sauropods.win
@mike@sauropods.win avatar

mike

@mike@sauropods.win

By day I am a computer programmer with Index Data, where I have been happily and gainfully employed for 20 years.

By night, I am a vertebrate palaeontologist with the University of Bristol, specialising in sauropods: the biggest and best of all dinosaurs.

I am an advocate for open access, open data and open source, and also for open peer-review though I'm beginning to think pre-publication peer-review might be a mistake. I support #LFC.

Email: dino@miketaylor.org.uk
ORCiD: 0000-0002-1003-5675

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

mike, to random
@mike@sauropods.win avatar

Minor programming-in-2024 irritant #3,456: remember which of the many many git repos I interact with daily have a master branch and which have main.

TheDinosaurDave, (edited ) to Wyoming
@TheDinosaurDave@sauropods.win avatar

#Dinosaurs in #Doctor #Who, who would have guessed...
Lets take a look at what they show, and break down what we can see.
They say they are 150m years in the past, in #Wyoming

In this image we can clearly see a #Brachiosaurus.
As far as I know, its been found in #Colorado which is close enough for it to migrate there.

It also looks fairly accurate for a #Giraffatitan adjacent species.

In the background, although harder to see are probably #Apatosaurs, or #Diplodocus.

Over all 10/10

mike,
@mike@sauropods.win avatar

@TheDinosaurDave Woah! Massive spoiler!

Oh well. There was little chance of my not finding out somehow.

mike,
@mike@sauropods.win avatar

@TheDinosaurDave Oh, fair enough!

mike,
@mike@sauropods.win avatar

@llewelly @TheDinosaurDave And a metacarpal referred to Brachiosaurus comes from Oklahoma: https://sauroposeidon.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/bonnan-wedel-2004-oklahoma-brachiosaurus.pdf

john, to Trains
@john@sauropods.win avatar

This thread mirrors my experience of in Europe and the UK. Pleasant when it's working, but very expensive, unreliable, and confusing as hell.

I'd love to know what's wrong and if the situation can be meaningfully improved.

https://mathstodon.xyz/@albertcardona/112407848484071304

mike,
@mike@sauropods.win avatar

@john Obvious, innit? The whole thing needs to be nationalized and run in a coherent way for the benefit of citizens — not (as it is now) split into a dozen separate little isolated fiefdoms, each run for the beneft of shareholders.

mike, to stackoverflow
@mike@sauropods.win avatar

"I don’t know why anyone would willingly submit more unpaid answers (or questions!) to Stack Exchange forums under these conditions. After all, huge pools of people in Africa and South America are being paid to write code examples for model-training companies right this minute. Why should I do it for free?"
https://newsletter.goodtechthings.com/p/closed-as-unhelpful-an-elegy-for

mike,
@mike@sauropods.win avatar

@john I hate this, because despite its pedantic culture, Stack Overflow had build something amazing and useful. Now they're going to burn it all down.

mike,
@mike@sauropods.win avatar

@john I don't really agree. LLM are much better at making an attempt to answer your question rather than coming back at you with gatekeeping. But they're not as good at actually giving correct answers.

mike, to random
@mike@sauropods.win avatar

I like Neil Young's album After The Gold Rush, and I like the song Oh Lonesome Me from that album. But there is absolutely no excuse to rhyme "arms" with "charms" in any song later than the Gershwins.

mike,
@mike@sauropods.win avatar

@john It's just such a cliché. Old-timey songwriters were obsession with "hold you in my arms" and suchlike, and the ONLY rhyme they ever came up with for it was "charms". Always sounds contrived.

mike,
@mike@sauropods.win avatar

@john Yep. Not a whole lot of choices, I admit, but it's just so lazy to always go the same way.

john, to random
@john@sauropods.win avatar

When I’m browsing artist's bios, I see #NoAI a lot, but there's still a lot number with #NoNFT. It's been an exhausting couple of years, huh?

On the other hand, NFTs turned out to be a bunch of nothing in the end, and I feel like just ignoring the whole thing would have worked.

I feel like maybe this is true of AI ‘art’. It's boring. It doesn't even need a backlash.

mike,
@mike@sauropods.win avatar

@futurebird @john I strongly agree with this. The whole reason NFTs and then LLMs got huge was a deliberate hype cycle aimed at capturing investment. The whole reason NFTs collapsed was people pointing and laughing at them. We need to do the same with LLMs.

mike,
@mike@sauropods.win avatar

@john @futurebird If enough people believe a stupid investment is clever, it is a clever investment.

mike, to random
@mike@sauropods.win avatar

It seems my University of Bristol account for some reason doesn't have access to The Paleontological Society Special Publications. Can anyone please email me a PDF of this one?

https://doi.org/10.1017/S2475262200009436

dino@miketaylor.org.uk

mike,
@mike@sauropods.win avatar

You can all stand down — Sci-Hub saw me right. Sorry to have bothered you.

mike,
@mike@sauropods.win avatar

@gay_ornithischians If they cut off its head, seven more will spring up.

kcarruthers, to random
@kcarruthers@mastodon.social avatar

🙄 Pelvic pain treatments 'outdated' anaesthetists told: women with chronic pelvic pain are routinely told by doctors they should get pregnant or have a hysterectomy despite a lack of evidence either would help, a review of pelvic pain treatment guidelines has found.

https://au.news.yahoo.com/pelvic-pain-treatments-outdated-anaesthetists-043832746.html

mike,
@mike@sauropods.win avatar

@kcarruthers Side-peeve: I hate when something that is simply wrong is described as "outdated", as though it used to be just fine but doesn't quite work any more.

orsinium, to security
@orsinium@fosstodon.org avatar

Which one would you choose?

  1. Make sure you correctly handle user input in SQL queries to prevent SQL injection, or

  2. Make a standard banning any punctuation in geographical places and force local authorities to rename streets and reissue all street signs.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-68942321

mike,
@mike@sauropods.win avatar

@orsinium It really is astonishingly feeble. And heaven help them if someone ever names a street after One Of Those Foreigners They Have Now and there's an accent in the name.

mike, to random
@mike@sauropods.win avatar

How on EARTH have conceded two goals in a game they have so comprehensively bossed?

mike, to random
@mike@sauropods.win avatar

I don't think I've ever seen Harvey Elliott have a bad game. Sometimes I think we don't take him seriously because he's short (5'7") but really he has everything else but height. Speed of thought, speed across the ground, tenacity, creativity, shooting. Reminds me, more than anyone else, of Kevin Keegan. (Yes, I AM that old.)

mike,
@mike@sauropods.win avatar

Called it!!! 🙂

gay_ornithischians, (edited ) to random
@gay_ornithischians@sauropods.win avatar

who is better at being a sauropod?

mike,
@mike@sauropods.win avatar

@gay_ornithischians I voted other, for "no-one but sauropods and some advanced non-sauropod sauropodomorphs".

mike,
@mike@sauropods.win avatar

@gay_ornithischians It gets the highly prized Least Inadequate prize.

mike, to random
@mike@sauropods.win avatar

@colin @ernie @jessamyn @mem_somerville @RustyBertrand Sorry bother you all, but I noticed each of you mention newspapers.com which I don't have access to and can't make an account on for some reason. I am trying to get this article about a Wyoming dinosaur from the St. Louis Globe-Democrat on 27 November 1898: https://www.newspapers.com/image/571391078/?match=1&terms=dinosaur

If anyone could email it to me I would be very grateful!
dino@miketaylor.org.uk

mike,
@mike@sauropods.win avatar

@ernie @colin @jessamyn @mem_somerville @RustyBertrand Perfect! Thank you so much! (and the rest of you can stand down 🙂)

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