@mike@sauropods.win cover
@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. For a complete list of posts, browse on the original instance.

mike , to random
@mike@sauropods.win avatar

Disturbing post on the routine behaviour of British museums and galleries in falsely claiming copyright on digital reproductions of out-of-copyright works, when the law clearly says that no copyright exists.

https://douglasmccarthy.com/2024/06/schrodingers-copyright/

futurebird , to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

I've largely dismissed the strain of AI alarmism based on the notion the a computer will be so smart that the danger it poses to humanity is outsmarting us.

There are real dangers in AI, most of them relate to people using these technologies in improper ways due to having a poor understanding of what they really are... and most important the exploitation & degradation of the human body of knowledge creativity represented by publicly available digital information. 1/

mike ,
@mike@sauropods.win avatar

@futurebird We MIGHT one day have to worry about AIs intelligent enough to pose a threat to humanity by outsmarting it (though I doubt it).

But if it ever happens, it will most certainly not be by LLMs.

mike ,
@mike@sauropods.win avatar

@futurebird TBF, people like @brembs are working on that (admittedly with fruit flies rather than ants).

futurebird , to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

Why do I have to have a cat clinging to my butt behind me in my chair????why?

mike ,
@mike@sauropods.win avatar

@futurebird @BLTpizza … or a therapist who uses cats therapeutically, as a music therapist uses music.

mike ,
@mike@sauropods.win avatar

@futurebird @BLTpizza I am sitting in an airport lounge, and it's not appropriate for me to be laughing this hard. "A cat treating a cat with a cat" 🙂 🙂 🙂

lowqualityfacts , (edited ) to random
@lowqualityfacts@mstdn.social avatar

MAGA people: You just opened Pandora's Box. This means all presidents can be convicted of crimes. Republicans or Democrats. Bet you didn't consider that, did you?

Reasonable people: Yes idiots, that's the fucking point.

mike ,
@mike@sauropods.win avatar

@lowqualityfacts That and: "We plan to get around it by the loophole of not committing any crimes".

mike , to random
@mike@sauropods.win avatar

.@deevybee is in fine form in this sorry tale of how Springer Nature and the Max Planck Institute not only refuse to implement their own open-data policies, but shield the authors who are violating them.

At this stage it looks pretty obvious that the original authors have something to hide.

http://deevybee.blogspot.com/2024/05/are-commitments-to-open-data-policies.html

futurebird , to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

There were once giant aquatic sloths, like seacows... but sloths. (Thalassocnus)

And they lived in fear of the toothy teethed whale dolphins (Acrophyseter) who are the scariest things I've ever seen.

Miocene is one giant uncanny valley. I don't know why it doesn't get more attention for the sheer creep out factor.

mike ,
@mike@sauropods.win avatar

@AmyIsCoolz @futurebird @llewelly It's name WAS Leviathan until I wrote to the journal pointing out that it was preoccupied by a junion synonym of the mastodon Mammut.

mike , to random
@mike@sauropods.win avatar

Can someone help me identify this that I saw crawling on a radiator in our home? The hind legs are noticeable longer than the front two pairs, sort of like a grasshopper (though it's obviously not one). You can get a sense of its size from the bit of AA battery at the top of the photo.

mike OP ,
@mike@sauropods.win avatar

@jencmars Thank you!

drmambobob , to random
@drmambobob@ecoevo.social avatar

So I get that you should use password managers but are there any good ones out there? All those top lists only mention paid services and their free versions are severely limited. I don't want to pay for more things than I am already.

mike ,
@mike@sauropods.win avatar

@drmambobob The one built right into Firefox works pretty well. Otherwise I keep passwords in a local text-file encrypted using ccrypt.

mike ,
@mike@sauropods.win avatar

@claudius @drmambobob All useful stuff, thank you!

But is there anything wrong with just letting Firefox itself remember my passwords?

futurebird , to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

The company that's contracted to do security education has these little multiple choice tests, and it annoys me that they are confusing on purpose ... or they require you to listen to the wording of their videos carefully. eg:

Which URL is suspicious?

a. http : //www.gmail.com
b. https : //www.google.com/email

Um. The domain is valid for both. https is nice, but the later is a google 404... the former will re-load as https:

They wanted you to say the second one? Bad question.

mike ,
@mike@sauropods.win avatar

@futurebird @mkb If this is a pattern, that is exactly why you SHOULD call them out. Why let others walk into the same trap you did?

lowqualityfacts , to random
@lowqualityfacts@mstdn.social avatar

2024: OpenAI releases a free virtual assistant with a weirdly flirty voice.

2025: Millions of men become emotionally attached to the AI.

2026: OpenAI threatens to delete your virtual girlfriend if you don't pay a monthly subscription. You must also buy her digital flowers or she will hate you.

mike ,
@mike@sauropods.win avatar

@lowqualityfacts This is 100% going to happen.

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.

markwitton , to random
@markwitton@sauropods.win avatar

New at ! Here's an image that I'm sure won't cause any upset at all among tyrannosaur fans: giant azhdarchid pterosaurs drive T. rex away from a juvenile Triceratops carcass. High-res version, WIPs and discussion here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/103222863

mike ,
@mike@sauropods.win avatar

@markwitton My gut says no. Tyrannosaur could stomp those beanpoles in a heartbeat.

lowqualityfacts , to random
@lowqualityfacts@mstdn.social avatar

Uncharacteristically high quality post:
Happy 10 years to this gorgeous girl. Thank you for spending the best decade of my life with me.

image/jpeg
image/jpeg
image/jpeg

mike ,
@mike@sauropods.win avatar

@lowqualityfacts Hey! I demand lower quality!

Jgbird , to random
@Jgbird@mas.to avatar

Green heron

mike ,
@mike@sauropods.win avatar

@Jgbird It's just ridiculous how these guys can make their necks disappear. See https://svpow.com/2012/09/21/herons-lie-and-so-do-spoonbills/

mike , to random
@mike@sauropods.win avatar

Help me!

My wife and I are big drinkers. We drink a lot of , and

We have been buying Twinings largely out of habit, but now they've stopped making Lapsang, and their "Distinctively Smoky" substitute is no replacement at all.

So: first, where else can I get good Lapsang Souchong at a reasonable price (ideally as teabags but loose is acceptable).

And second, are there better/cheaper Earl Greys and Lady Greys available elsewhere?

Thank you!

mike OP ,
@mike@sauropods.win avatar

@nathanu @tea Oh, nice, thank you!

mike , to random
@mike@sauropods.win avatar

"In a lot of ways, in fact, “AI” is just the newest iteration of a very old form of colonial capitalism; build a wall around something you didn’t create, call it yours, and charge for access."
https://joshcollinsworth.com/blog/copilot

erinnacland , to AcademicChatter group
@erinnacland@fediscience.org avatar

As a rule, plagarism is bad...

But how do people feel about plagarizing method sections?

For example, in animal research, they often use the same strain of mice and animal facility conditions between many experiments. It is technically self-plagarism to use the same method description over and over.

Are there any established rules or exceptions for this type of text reuse? Or is it pervasive in practice but technically not allowed?

@academicchatter

mike ,
@mike@sauropods.win avatar

@erinnacland @academicchatter "Self-plagiarism" is an idiotic concept.

18+ moritz_negwer , to AcademicChatter group
@moritz_negwer@mstdn.science avatar

Holy cow, this is bad - check out the nonsensical figures in this review: completely generated in Midjourney (!!), not even re-labeling the gibberish text labels (!!!).

This was published by Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology, where the editorial office should have caught this and nuked it from orbit. Wow.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcell.2023.1339390/full

@academicchatter

mike ,
@mike@sauropods.win avatar

@manisha @moritz_negwer @academicchatter Someone (I don't remember who) said recently that the only resource we'll be able to trust in a couple of years is a dump taken from Wikipedia in 2022.

futurebird , to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

You should study ants.

Most of the mass in the universe is anty-matter.

mike ,
@mike@sauropods.win avatar

@futurebird just checking you've seen this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIUG2dNeECY

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