Mike Taylor 🦕

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 I'm beginning to think pre-publication peer-review might be a mistake. I support #LFC.

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

#fedi22

Public Key

npub1pmq3hrjtd8xsnfdfvkwdc8zf6dtwnj2n5w4qjl9pxcwdfruzjl3s2dx8dk

NIP-05 Address

mike@sauropods-win.mostr.pub

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsqasgm3e9knngf5k5kt8xur3yax4hfe9f682sf0jsnv8x537pf0ccpz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerfw36x7tnsw43qm4lnln

Publishing to

relay.ditto.pub

Author Public Key

npub1pmq3hrjtd8xsnfdfvkwdc8zf6dtwnj2n5w4qjl9pxcwdfruzjl3s2dx8dk

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Last Notes

2026-05-31 12:48:56 UTC

"The truth is, tech doesn’t have an image problem. It doesn’t have a message problem. It has an intention problem. […] When you launch a product that’s designed to put millions of people out of work, block access to sources of verifiable truth, replace human creativity with slop, and lower the barriers to every sort of atrocity, the problem isn’t that you haven’t told the public a good story about those things. The problem is that you are trying to do them."
https://www.theringer.com/2026/05/28/tech/pope-leo-xiv-ai-encyclical-tech-industry-problems

2026-05-29 12:22:28 UTC

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@nprofile…j0g8 I can't help but think of this:
"The most important single aspect of software development is to be clear about what you are trying to build.
— Bjarne Stroustrup.

2026-05-05 20:45:52 UTC

The Lego Natural History Museum, and the question of scale
For my birthday this year, my wife bought me the newish Lego kit Natural History Museum 10326. (Well: actually she bought me a Chinese knock-off for 1/3 the price, but that's not the point.) It's a lovely kit and I had a great time building it. One of the exhibits that you build for the museum is a sauropod skeleton — recognizably a brachiosaur.
http://svpow.com/2026/05/05/the-lego-natural-history-museum-and-the-question-of-scale/

2026-05-01 16:44:53 UTC

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@nprofile…jhwj @nprofile…ud26 @nprofile…q4tx @nprofile…26hz For what it's worth, my sense is that when they say "AI" now, people almost always mean LLMs; and that no-one objects to the built-in translation.

2026-05-01 15:18:22 UTC

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@nprofile…ud26 @nprofile…q4tx @nprofile…jhwj @nprofile…26hz I'm sure your account of the technical details is correct.
But that's really not the issue.
It's the loss of trust. The narrative that "Firefox is determined to push AI at me even after I repeatedly tell it not to".
That's what you need to address. IMHO.

2026-05-01 15:04:47 UTC

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@nprofile…ud26 @nprofile…q4tx @nprofile…jhwj @nprofile…26hz You're right, I shouldn't keep complaining about this: "don't punish the behaviour you want to see."
But here's a thing: I didn't know that the AI-settings-revert-on-update behaviour had gone away until you told me just now.
Maybe the best thing Firefox people could do would be a big public apology for the old behaviour and explanation of the new?

2026-05-01 14:58:55 UTC

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@nprofile…ud26 @nprofile…q4tx @nprofile…jhwj @nprofile…26hz It's great that you have this done right now, genuinely. But surely you can understand the trust erosion? It takes time to build trust, and almost none to annihilate it.

2026-05-01 14:50:01 UTC

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@nprofile…q4tx @nprofile…jhwj @nprofile…26hz Interesting. But then I assume the area without sidewalks didn't keep turning sidewalks back on every couple of weeks.

2026-05-01 10:54:54 UTC

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@nprofile…jhwj @nprofile…26hz All I know is I have yet to hear one single person say "Yes, I want AI features baked into Firefox". I've heard a few people, like you, saying that OTHER people might want that. But everyone I've heard express an opinion of their own has been quite happy to go off to ChatGPT or Claude when they want an AI's thoughts.

2026-05-01 08:51:15 UTC

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@nprofile…twk8 Everybody thinks that what everybody else does is a "routine task", because no-one understands a tenth of the complexity of anyone else's job. This is why AI bros are all convinced AIs can replace everyone else.

2026-05-01 07:02:21 UTC

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@nprofile…jhwj @nprofile…26hz Maybe "universal" was a slight overstatement. But reading the comments on https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/discussions/building-ai-the-firefox-way-shaping-what-s-next-together/m-p/109922#M42303 it's clear that the sentiment is roughly 100 negative comments to each positive one. And some suspicion that the tiny number of positive comments were themselves AI-generated.
So. "Near-universal", then.

2026-04-30 09:51:14 UTC

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@nprofile…26hz Your stance would have more credibility if Firefox was not also leaping so enthusiastically onto the AI hype train, in the teeth of near-universal opposition from users.

2026-04-29 11:45:55 UTC

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@nprofile…v4kd ... I need only implement the parts of a library that I need. `uuid` has an API of a dozen functions (plus some exported constants), of which I need one. Most likely this security issue is in one of the eleven that I don't care about. But figuring out whether I "need" to upgrade the library because of this vulnerabilty is cognitive overhead that I can't sustain.
[2/2]

2026-04-29 11:43:55 UTC

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@nprofile…v4kd You're kind of right, obviously. But also wrong for two important reasons.
First, visibility: is `uuid` is a widely used package (and is it, there are 76,941 dependents!) there's lots of incentive for bad actors to look for and exploit security holes, and much less for anyone to specifically target my own program.
But more importantly ...
[1/2]

2026-04-29 11:09:02 UTC

This fills me with rage. `uuid` is an NPM module that generates random UUIDs. Somehow it was already on major version nine(!) when we started using it. Now a security issue has been found in it (how?!), and to "resolve this" I have to just to major version 14 (fourteen!)
This is why Zero Dependencies is the way to go in 2026 — at least in the ES6 ecosystem.
https://cdn.masto.host/sauropodswin/media_attachments/files/116/487/673/030/449/060/original/ea43f983804db7f8.png

2026-04-22 13:37:12 UTC

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@nprofile…lx3s It's nice every now and then to devote some cycles to the actual subject of our research, rather than all the stupid ways the world impedes it!

2026-04-21 10:10:29 UTC

The following items are NOT permitted in cabin baggage
* Blunt Instruments
* Sharp Objects
Isn't that ... everything?
https://cdn.masto.host/sauropodswin/media_attachments/files/116/442/150/873/120/721/original/b8f671b1d6a4d955.png

2026-04-18 20:19:36 UTC

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@nprofile…fd3p Hi, Marrtin. All of this just sounds unbearabl,. Yet you bear it with such grace.
I don't usually reply to your health updates because, well, what is there to say? But I do want you to know I read them all, and feel for you.

2026-04-17 10:18:11 UTC

This is a perfect example of when an automatically generated alt-text is both 100% accurate and 100% useless.

2026-04-15 13:00:35 UTC

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@nprofile…fd3p I get it. I use Markdown for my (rare) sole-authored papers, but trying to get someone to collaborate on a Markdown manuscript? Fuggedaboudit.

2026-04-15 12:51:01 UTC

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@nprofile…fd3p One more argument for normalising Markdown as the language of scholarly publishing.

2026-04-13 14:12:52 UTC

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Why would Robbo go to team that's heading for relegation? He can do better than that!
#LFC
https://sportsfeed.me/@BBC_LFC/116397795090770013

2026-04-11 17:17:30 UTC

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@nprofile…fd3p That would be a great outcome, especially if they fix it for their other subscribers.

2026-04-11 16:57:40 UTC

So weird that we've all just accepted the ridiculous term "technical area".
Also, what was wrong with "linesman"?
#LFC

2026-04-11 16:40:58 UTC

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@nprofile…fd3p Cancel, then. Don't reward bad behaviour.

2026-04-08 20:59:29 UTC

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@nprofile…27wa Indeed.

2026-04-08 20:41:37 UTC

One of the most unsatisfactory parts of this match is how often we clear from our penalty area, but it doesn't even leave our third before they're back on it.
#LFC

2026-04-08 19:53:31 UTC

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@nprofile…y9gt Oh, this stuff is out of my league. I'm a put-up-a-shelf level craftsman. I love it and admire it, but there's no way I have to time to get up to a level to participate.

2026-04-08 19:44:31 UTC

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@nprofile…y9gt Oh, I like that!

2026-04-08 19:33:46 UTC

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@nprofile…y9gt What makes it Anarchist's?

2026-04-08 12:21:16 UTC

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@nprofile…49d7 How very wrong you are.

2026-04-07 20:48:59 UTC

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@nprofile…wy2f I think that We'll Always Need Plumbers is a well-established trope. (And it's not wrong.)

2026-04-05 22:05:01 UTC

"I'm busy these days. Busy with things I love for the most part, yes, but there's something bittersweet in not having the time to love more things."
https://ludic.mataroa.blog/blog/reflecting-on-years-of-runescape/#fnref:8

2026-04-04 13:38:17 UTC

Here is the really weird thing about that match. The stats https://www.fotmob.com/matches/man-city-vs-liverpool/2f48yd#5231047:tab=stats say City were only 1.07 xG better than us. A "fairer" scorline would have been 2-1 or maybe 3-2. Both teams had 11 shots; City put 7 on target to our 5.
Don't get me wrong. There's no possible denying City were the better team, and earned the win.
But the gap was not as big as the raw scoreline suggests.
Now we just have to win the UCL.
#LFC

2026-04-04 12:26:11 UTC

"The real threat [is] quieter, and more boring, and therefore more dangerous. The real threat is a slow, comfortable drift toward not understanding what you're doing. Not a dramatic collapse. Not Skynet. Just a generation of researchers who can produce results but can't produce understanding."
https://ergosphere.blog/posts/the-machines-are-fine/

2026-04-03 16:51:57 UTC

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@nprofile…ekwd It's occurred me more than once that we may have to find a new word for what we are, since "Christian" has become so co-opted.

2026-04-02 20:53:14 UTC

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@nprofile…yw7z Not sure what it's meant to be (Kaatedocus?) but the head needs to be tilted well down! See Figure 4c at https://www.app.pan.pl/archive/published/app54/app54-213.pdf

2026-03-31 12:30:55 UTC

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@nprofile…fd3p And let's not forget The Cost To Maintain. That and that alone is why I now favour Go over Node.

2026-03-28 17:19:45 UTC

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@nprofile…ekwd Here’s what G. K. Chesterton had to say about Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy: https://reprog.wordpress.com/2013/02/18/g-k-chesterton-on-peter-jacksons-tolkien-films/

2026-03-28 17:15:41 UTC

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@nprofile…74l7 Current U21 player?!

2026-03-28 17:15:08 UTC

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@nprofile…ekwd I'm off to see this myself in a couple of hours. Having LOVED the book, I am very nervous about the film. Your comment is encouraging.
To be fair, the Martian film was much much better than I expected it to be.
That said, Jackson's LotR films are the best films, despite their flaws. They're the ones I'm taking to my desert island.

2026-03-26 17:02:24 UTC

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@nprofile…lx3s Such a good beginning.
Hey, you know, we really picked a great time to isolate ourselves from Europe, huh?

2026-03-26 16:59:14 UTC

This is great, great news!
… for European researchers.
Of course, UK ruled itself out of this. Because, y'know, Take Back Control.
I am LOVING these sunlit uplands.
#Brexit

2026-03-25 14:23:56 UTC

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@nprofile…t8sc Because US spyware is the BEST spyware, dammit!

2026-03-24 10:57:47 UTC

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@nprofile…fd3p (Narrator: "the OpenAI acquisition of astral messed this up.")

2026-03-23 10:55:07 UTC

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@nprofile…m43q @nprofile…y9gt @nprofile…6q4p And we know they will: the contempt with which they've treated robots.txt leaves no room for uncertainty on this point.

2026-03-23 09:37:36 UTC

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@nprofile…fd3p So, a semi-success?

2026-03-21 17:20:47 UTC

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@nprofile…mm9s Agree with all that.
"Missing out on Guehi disastrous." Yes, but also season-ending injury for Leoni disastrous, and selling Quansah in the expectation of having both Leoni and Guehi has also turned out to be disastrous.

2026-03-21 14:24:14 UTC

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@nprofile…mm9s Yeah ... but when has Mitoma ever not had a great game when playing us?

2026-03-21 14:07:16 UTC

Hinshelwood, totally out of control, foot off the ground, slides into Jones and takes his shin out with his studs.
This is the kind of foul they show trainee referees as a textbook straight red.
#LFC

2026-03-21 13:34:50 UTC

We're getting a lot of joy from long balls down the right for Frimpong to chase. I like this. It's what we used to with Mo, but not for the last year or two.
#LFC

2026-03-20 20:39:42 UTC

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@nprofile…6e37 My word, yes. Very hard to forgive the museum for that.

2026-03-20 20:36:36 UTC

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@nprofile…6e37 Did Fitter Happier go to number one?!

2026-03-20 20:36:00 UTC

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@nprofile…6e37 Whay, the Carnegie Diplodocus? On TOTP?

2026-03-19 08:02:02 UTC

"However, we added the cookie banner because our legal auditors said we're at risk, better to have it."
This is why we can't have nice things.
Legal auditors have zero incentive to make things nice for users, or even to increase user trust in the service they're auditing. They incentive is simply to avoid laying themselves open to liability — so they will ALWAYS recommend whatever seems safest to them with no other criteria.

2026-03-18 22:16:25 UTC

Looking forward ... I do think PSG are the best team we've played in the last few years, and I regret having drawn them for the quarter finals. That said, they will not be pleased to be facing us, either.m We will need to be 100% on it against them.
#LFC

2026-03-18 22:10:34 UTC

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@nprofile…mm9s My word, yes. The league-wide players' and writers' Player of the Year awards always go to someone from the team that wins the league, but I don't think any one individual in English football has been better than Dom this year.

2026-03-18 22:09:36 UTC

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@nprofile…74l7 You don't remember? It was the night after LFC 4-0 Barcelona, and a truly amazing game.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35_G6R6rD94

2026-03-18 22:04:38 UTC

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@nprofile…74l7 Good enough! Now do it to PSG.

2026-03-18 22:04:22 UTC

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@nprofile…mm9s All true ... except the bit about Szobo not being even better.

2026-03-18 22:03:32 UTC

I see that Tottenham are out, but I am glad they went out in style, with a 3-2 win at home to Atletico Madrid.
(I have some affection for Spurs in Europe, ever since that ridiculous pair of semi-finals when we came from 3-0 against Barca, and the next night they can back from 2-0 down at half time. Best ever two nights of football)
#LFC

2026-03-18 21:29:55 UTC

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@nprofile…n0jn And while I'm dreaming, let's have one for Rob Jones 🙂

2026-03-18 21:27:28 UTC

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And to keep the clean sheet.
#LFC

2026-03-18 21:27:09 UTC

All we need now is a Joe Gomez goal to round things off.
#LFC

2026-03-10 18:12:52 UTC

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@nprofile…n0jn He usually plays on the left, but I do hope he gets a decent run-out.

2026-03-10 18:05:27 UTC

Mo Salah has not merely "lost a yard". He's now positively slow by the standards of Premier League/UCL players. So much of what we do breaks down on his inability to get away from defenders.
I love him, but we have to start doing something different. I would much rather see, for example, Harvey Elliot on the right wing.
#LFC

2026-03-10 12:56:31 UTC

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@nprofile…l662 Yes! Lord, yes. I ran out of space and didn't even mention my academic experience. The day someone sends me an LLM-generated "peer review" of one of my papers is the day I will finally go nuclear.

2026-03-10 12:40:43 UTC

A genuinely interesting idea. What would be the down sides?

2026-03-10 12:16:15 UTC

There is no aspect of my life that Generative AI is not taking a giant dump on. My professional life as a programmer infested with it. My leisure on the Web is infested with it. Music is infested with it. Emails are infested with it, including somewhat sophisticated spam.
Then there's the second-order effects. e.g. Gmail's spam filter has been made tighter due to all the AI spam — and as a result, I am seeing lots of legit emails being wrongly spammed.
I hate it all so much.

2026-03-09 14:44:55 UTC

Controversial opinion. We have been conceding goals this seems at a rate way about our xG conceded. Some of it just luck, yes, and some is unsustainably good shooting, but could some of it be bad goalkeeping? Is Alisson, who has been amazing for us, no longer the keeper he was? Might we even do better with Marardashvilli?
#LFC

2026-03-06 20:13:29 UTC

There's no doubt Rio makes things happen. Very encouraging so far.
#LFC

2026-03-05 11:12:05 UTC

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@nprofile…wy2f Yes, exactly! I think that 90% of what we saw of Japanese culture when I was growing up was either this sort of profound mysticism of giant monsters. It was always obvious to the rational mind that Japanese people did Regular Stuff as well, but someone that never made it across to 1980s UK. (I wonder how distorted 1980s Japanese perception of the UK was, come to think of it. All high tea with the Queen?)

2026-03-05 10:52:48 UTC

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@nprofile…wy2f This was an interesting experience for me: pasting your message into Google Translate and getting a regular sort of pop-culture comment.
Like most Westerners, I think on some level I see Eastern writing inherently profound and poetic, so I sort of expected your message to translate to something like
The blossom falls on the mountain
The mountain falls on the blossom
All things fall
(Which I KNOW is stupid, but it's the truth and I think maybe an interesting one.)

2026-03-05 10:50:42 UTC

"These were not professional circles. You didn’t need a CS degree. You needed curiosity and stubbornness and a tolerance for reading things that were too long and trying things that didn’t work on the first ten attempts. The culture valued that and passed it down. … The knowledge propagated because the culture treated knowledge as worth propagating."
https://fireborn.mataroa.blog/blog/the-slow-death-of-the-power-user/

2026-03-04 13:45:53 UTC

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@nprofile…nhqk To be fair, he is describing Green OA *as he initially conceived it*, which really was to be done by the authors themselves. Obviously it didn't work out that way.

2026-03-04 12:59:07 UTC

One positive from the Wolves game (yes really) is that once more Konate was impeccable. Earlier in the season I was ready to write him off. But (and this is horrible but it's true) since his dad died, his mind has been back in the game and he's hardly put a foot wrong.
#LFC

2026-03-04 11:43:53 UTC

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@nprofile…n0jn Neal Morse has been in Spock's Beard with his brother Alan Morse, and in Flying Colors with Steve Morse (no relation). He should really get all three of them together in a supergroup called Morse, Morse and Morse.

2026-03-04 11:33:08 UTC

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@nprofile…n0jn Nope, it's the standard NMB line-up:
Eric Gilette: guitar
Randy George: bass
Mike Portnoy: drums
Bill Hubauer: keyboards
Neal Morse: everything
You might be thinking of Flying Colors?

2026-03-03 23:38:10 UTC

.@nprofile…7vgm is being much too generous here:
"In failing to call Mr Musk to account over his actions and in repeatedly declining to explain why they believe he has not fallen foul of their code, our national academy gives the very strong impression of having abandoned its values."
It's not "giving a very strong impression". It HAS abandoned its values.
https://occamstypewriter.org/scurry/2026/02/11/year-of-inaction-royal-society-hollowed-out-musk/

2026-03-03 23:35:09 UTC

"The leadership of the Royal Society is now also in breach of its own code of conduct."
— Stephen Curry at https://occamstypewriter.org/scurry/2026/02/11/year-of-inaction-royal-society-hollowed-out-musk/
#RoyalSociety

2026-03-03 23:13:56 UTC

The new Neal Morse Band album L.I.F.T arrived on Friday and I've been listening to it obsessively since then. No surprise that it's outstanding: to me, a big step up from Innocence and Danger back up to the level of Similitude and the Great Adventure. There's a unity and coherence to it that I love. And, needless to say, it's endlessly inventive and virtuosic.
#NealMorse #NealMorseBand #Prog #ProgRock #NeoProg

2026-03-03 21:53:56 UTC

Rio onto the post!!
Brilliant save, to be fair.
#LFC

2026-03-03 21:09:54 UTC

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I think the smart move is Gomez on at right back, and Frimpong moved up into Mo's slot. More energy and conviction. Also I think Jones for Grav, in light o the yellow card. But the real change we need is in attitude, not personnel. That big snappier.
#LFC

2026-03-03 21:08:20 UTC

Half-time thoughts: by the eye test, nothing much has happened. And the stats bear it out: we've had six shots, two on target but long-rangers, for a total of 0.21 xG. Wolves have had no shots, none. We're dominating possession of course, and not looking in any danger except maybe from corners. But also not looking especially likely to score.
Something needs to change in the second half.
#LFC

2026-03-03 21:00:19 UTC

The inswinging corners are very poor today, compared with the West Ham game. Most of them are hitting the first defender.
#LFC

2026-03-03 20:24:36 UTC

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@nprofile…74l7 Sad to see, really. The pass and run were superb, but Mo just doesn't have this extra something any more to make anything of it.

2026-03-03 20:16:34 UTC

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@nprofile…74l7 Wasn't it you who predicted 4-1 vs. West Ham?

2026-03-03 17:20:17 UTC

Why is it "fourteen" (with a "u") but "forty" (without)?

2026-03-03 17:16:41 UTC

Tonight we go to Wolves — who may be rock bottom of the league, but in their last match beat Villa, who are still three points ahead of us, by two goals.
Thoughts on tonight's match?
#LFC

2026-02-28 16:31:27 UTC

Haha, nice work Cody!
This is one of those where you keep working at it and sometimes the dice roll right.
QUIZ: when was the last time we scored two deflected goals in a game?
#LFC

2026-02-28 11:20:36 UTC

Do we know WHY the USA and Israel have attacked Iran? Or at least, what reason they are giving?

2026-02-27 14:47:35 UTC

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@nprofile…ekwd Hmm. I have been running a WordPress blog for 19 years (https://svpow.com/) and another for 16 years (https://reprog.wordpress.com/), with 1208 and 865 posts on respectively. I really hope that ToS change was not as onerous as you're implying. I missed it at the time.

2026-02-27 12:24:55 UTC

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@nprofile…ekwd Good!

2026-02-27 11:21:08 UTC

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@nprofile…ekwd I've added your RSS feed to my reader and caught up on the as-yet small number of posts. Nice.
No commenting, though 😠

2026-02-27 11:12:49 UTC

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@nprofile…ekwd Why did you do that?

2026-02-26 18:47:24 UTC

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@nprofile…yw7z Well, with that clue, it has to be Baryonyx. But I can't give high marks to a model that omits the thumb claw!

2026-02-26 18:46:19 UTC

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@nprofile…ekwd I absolutely cannot figure why Die Another Day is so poorly regarded. I'd have it into my top half dozen.
(Now that I think of it ... Skyfall, Casino Royale, Goldfinger, The Spy Who Loved Me, Die Another Day, You Only Live Twice.)

2026-02-26 18:27:21 UTC

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@nprofile…ekwd I do find it incomprehensible that he is so many people's favourite. I'd honestly put him fifth at best. (Craig, Connery, Brosnan, Dalton, and then either of Moore and Lazenby.)

2026-02-26 18:16:51 UTC

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@nprofile…ekwd This reminds me of my comments on Live And Let Die, when I reviewed all the pre-Craig Bonds.
"A film that in many places is an embarrassment — it seems to think that having black people on the screen is itself exotic enough to constitute a spectacle, and the constant grotesquely patronising racism of the “comic” sherriff J. W. Pepper is enough to make you cringe. At times it feels more like it was made in 1933 than 1973."
https://reprog.wordpress.com/2012/11/22/james-bond-movies-part-3-roger-moore/

2026-02-26 10:53:24 UTC

Artificial Intelligence at work, my friends! This the customer support bot for Next clothing. Enjoy.
https://cdn.masto.host/sauropodswin/media_attachments/files/116/136/545/458/199/102/original/c9826da7faff5834.png