iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Mike Taylor 🦕

@mike.sauropods.win.ap.brid.gy

456 followers 7 following 4.5K posts

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 […] 🌉 bridged from ⁂ sauropods.win/@mike, follow @ap.brid.gy to interact

Posts Replies Media

Mike Taylor 🦕 @mike.sauropods.win.ap.brid.gy · 02/10/2026

"The idea that outright racists who shout slurs at brown people in the street can be placated by lowering the number of small boat arrivals this quarter is absurd." iandunt.substack.com/p/the-return-o…

Mike Taylor 🦕 @mike.sauropods.win.ap.brid.gy · 02/10/2026

"This week, Suella Braverman — who was born in Harrow, educated at Cambridge, and lives in Hampshire — took to the internet once again to insist that she is not English - ostensibly because of her ancestry, but in reality because of her race. It’s like watching a wounded animal feast on its own […]

Original post on sauropods.win

Mike Taylor 🦕 @mike.sauropods.win.ap.brid.gy · 01/10/2026

So, so important to understand: "The model is not lying to you. Lying would require it to have a concept of truth. It is bullshitting you. It produces plausible-shaped text with total indifference to whether the world matches. When it’s right, it’s right as a side effect of its training data […]

Original post on sauropods.win

Reposted by Mike Taylor 🦕

Dmitry Grozoubinski @explaintrade.com · 25/09/2026

More broadly I think "how much time do you spend affirmatively championing your cause versus using it as a permission structure to abuse those you disagree with," is a revealing question well beyond the statue pfp bros.

Mike Taylor 🦕 @mike.sauropods.win.ap.brid.gy · 24/09/2026

"You treated visitors to your website with the same respect that a restauranteur would treat patrons who had sat down to eat a meal; it would be exceedingly weird and creepy if you were to film them eating, or if you wrote down every word they said to each other and sold them to a stranger, or […]

Original post on sauropods.win

Mike Taylor 🦕 @mike.sauropods.win.ap.brid.gy · 24/09/2026

"You didn’t read the terms of service. You didn’t agree to accept cookies. I didn’t consent to having my site pulled into the training model for that AI system that’s going to use to sell the fruit of my labor for profit. I didn’t agree to have my activity tracked across all these different […]

Original post on sauropods.win

Reposted by Mike Taylor 🦕

llewelly @llewelly.sauropods.win.ap.brid.gy · 24/09/2026

1/2 satellite experts: uh, if you put computers in space they'll suffer rad damage ... investors: rad damage! That sounds so cool! Let's go for it!

Mike Taylor 🦕 @mike.sauropods.win.ap.brid.gy · 24/09/2026

RE: code4lib.social/@dltj/1173261707987… #InternetOfShit #FridgesShouldNotBeSmart #TheresNothingDumberThanASmartAppliance

code4lib.social

Mike Taylor 🦕 @mike.sauropods.win.ap.brid.gy · 24/09/2026

RE: floss.social/@kde/117325540933831236 "If you believed otherwise, our apologies for not communicating more clearly to begin with." I love this. They're actively taking on the blame for what might have been the reader's misunderstanding. It's the opposite of the kind of nonpology […]

Original post on sauropods.win

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Reposted by Mike Taylor 🦕

Martin Paul Eve @mpe.hcommons.social.ap.brid.gy · 23/09/2026

There's a service here called Patients Know Best that lets you monitor all of your medical tests. I wish it was called Experts Know Lots, Which Is Why Patients Consult Them, But Patients Should Be Able To Know Things About Themselves.

Reposted by Mike Taylor 🦕

Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

The difference between the performance of immigrants in England and Western Europe is staggering. (20 pts equals a year of learning.) I looked at this in detail in the post - it can't be explained away by language or relative advantage of different immigrant communities. There is a policy factor.

Mike Taylor 🦕 @mike.sauropods.win.ap.brid.gy · 23/09/2026

I woke up this morning and the name Beth Orton was in my mind for some reason. I didn't even know who she was — author, actor, musician, whatever. (I know. I'm ignorant.) Well, she's a musician, and I picked an album of hers more or less at random to listen to: Sugaring Season […]

Original post on sauropods.win

Reposted by Mike Taylor 🦕

llewelly @llewelly.sauropods.win.ap.brid.gy · 22/09/2026

RE: aus.social/@PossumTV/11731323406120… WHEN DINOSAURS RULED THE EARTH

Reposted by Mike Taylor 🦕

John Mark Ockerbloom @jmarkockerbloom.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 22/09/2026

Be forewarned if you're thinking of updating your MacOS to the latest version (or getting a new Mac): Apparently the latest version will turn on various "AI" systems and overhead processes whether you want it to or not: dbushell.com/2026/09/22/apple-intel… More details about […]

mastodon.social

Original post on mastodon.social

Reposted by Mike Taylor 🦕

Tomáš @prahou.merveilles.town.ap.brid.gy · 22/09/2026

@tante normalize using finished software

Reposted by Mike Taylor 🦕

tante @tante.tldr.nettime.org.ap.brid.gy · 22/09/2026

Open Source hot take: A software project is allowed to be *done*. Not everything needs to add features or rewrite things. You can just be happy with functionality and focus on just maintainance. "Maintenance mode" is not always bad but can just show a mature product.

Reposted by Mike Taylor 🦕

Bart Penders @penders.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Back of the envelope calculations: 3600 years of research time went into the collective application process. The research will fund 3200 years of research. We are 400 research years poorer as a result of this. 1/2

Reposted by Mike Taylor 🦕

Ian Dunt @iandunt.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Lots of talk of growth ahead of the Budget, as if it were a baroque puzzle. Our problem is basic. It's that we no longer support the things which facilitate growth: Europe, immigration, higher education, tax simplification, policy stability. These are all choices and could stop making them anytime.

Reposted by Mike Taylor 🦕

Martin Paul Eve @mpe.hcommons.social.ap.brid.gy · 21/09/2026

2.7 million hours of time spent writing applications for an extremely scarce resource - and failing. There were a total of 21,627 applications. Then add on top the time to evaluate all of these. This is what we accept to enforce the ideology of meritocratic, market-based competition in […]

hcommons.social

Original post on hcommons.social

Mike Taylor 🦕 @mike.sauropods.win.ap.brid.gy · 21/09/2026

RE: fediscience.org/@petersuber/1173037… #ShareGoodNewsToo

Reposted by Mike Taylor 🦕

Ada Palmer @adapalmer.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

The world’s largest battery-electric aircraft flew for the first time on the 12th of August, a 27-minute test flight over upstate New York that cost about five dollars in electricity. Heart Aerospace’s 30-seat prototype is a big step toward a commercial version. buff.ly/i3f0PhR #ShareGoodNewsToo

The largest all-electric plane ever flew for 27 minutes, on $5 of electricity

Heart's X1 demonstrator flew for 27 minutes from a regional airport in upstate New York, running on battery power the entire time. The aircraft reached 1,100 feet...

Reposted by Mike Taylor 🦕

Dmitry Grozoubinski @explaintrade.com · 20/09/2026

I don't think we disdain the center-right enough. First, they rode nativist populist tigers to power to get their tax cuts and deregulation; Then, they lost control of their own parties to those tigers; Now, they sit in lucrative jobs as columnists writing about how it's all the left's fault.

Mike Taylor 🦕 @mike.sauropods.win.ap.brid.gy · 20/09/2026

"This steers me to ask whether dark archives can be justified. Yes, we can computationally check checksums and run as many automated tests as we like, but the only way truly to know whether an item remains usable is by actually letting someone use it." — @mpe at […]

Original post on sauropods.win

Reposted by Mike Taylor 🦕

Myk @notsle.kzoo.to.ap.brid.gy · 18/09/2026

oh this is fun. Who wants to go first? #ssh #itmeme #humor

Reposted by Mike Taylor 🦕

Dan Gillmor @dangillmor.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 18/09/2026

The AI panic looks like an orchestrated con: The bosses of these rapacious, sleazy, and infinitely sloppy companies are angling for government permission to be a cartel. This would be followed, as certain as day follows night, by the bailout they all know they'll need when their bubble deflates.

Mike Taylor 🦕 @mike.sauropods.win.ap.brid.gy · 18/09/2026

"A tech story that I think has been underplayed: Google’s collapse into incompetence." social.ayjay.org/2026/09/18/a-tech-… He's not wrong. Aside from the abandonment of Don't Be Evil, Google is just ... not that good any more.

social.ayjay.org

Mike Taylor 🦕 @mike.sauropods.win.ap.brid.gy · 18/09/2026

RE: mastodon.green/@davidallengreen/117… It's astonishing to me that anyone feels the need to ask this question.

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Reposted by Mike Taylor 🦕

George Monbiot @georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

In these cases, they clearly believe our concerns are illegitimate. So illegitimate that they often associate us with – or even proscribe us as – terrorists. Care about Palestinians? Terrorist. Want to burn and kill asylum seekers? We might not like your methods, but you have legitimate concerns.

Mike Taylor 🦕 @mike.sauropods.win.ap.brid.gy · 18/09/2026

RE: mastodon.social/@farside_bot/117288… Saw this and thought of Andy Farke. palaeo-electronica.org/2004_1/horn/…

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Mike Taylor 🦕 @mike.sauropods.win.ap.brid.gy · 17/09/2026

Here end my thoughts on Chris Chibnall's work as Doctor Who showrunner.

Mike Taylor 🦕 @mike.sauropods.win.ap.brid.gy · 17/09/2026

"Poor Chris Chibnall continues to give the impression of someone who has had Doctor Who described to him, poorly, but has never actually seen an episode. He has heard someone say “The Doctor can go anywhere in time and space”, and leapt — with admirable agility but lamentably poor judgement — to […]

Original post on sauropods.win

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Mike Taylor 🦕 @mike.sauropods.win.ap.brid.gy · 17/09/2026

"The specific problem here is that Chibnall’s idea of what a Doctor Who story can be is terribly reductive. He knows there have to be aliens. He knows there has to be a moment when the Doctor does A Clever Thing. He knows there has to be a chase. He knows there has to be a moment when the Doctor […]

Original post on sauropods.win

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Mike Taylor 🦕 @mike.sauropods.win.ap.brid.gy · 17/09/2026

"Poor Chris Chibnall just doesn’t get it at all. He’s watched the kinds of things Russell T. Davies and Stephen Moffat do, and he thinks that if he does similar things but more and louder then he’ll be even better than them. But at no point has he understood what any of RTD’s or Moffat’s work […]

Original post on sauropods.win

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Mike Taylor 🦕 @mike.sauropods.win.ap.brid.gy · 17/09/2026

"I found myself considering how Jaws — 50 years old this year — would have worked out in Chibnall’s hands. We’d see the shark in the first minute, and it would be on screen more often than not. About 20 minutes in, it would turn up on land. Chief Brody would be cooking breakfast, and turn round […]

Original post on sauropods.win

Reposted by Mike Taylor 🦕

ploum @ploum.mamot.fr.ap.brid.gy · 16/09/2026

"Ploum, you should stop being an extremist! You see all in black and white but you have to grow up, accept compromises and see the other facet of things. If some people want to burn the planet, enslave people, commit genocides, promote dangerous ideologies, destroy education and eradicate […]

Original post on mamot.fr

Mike Taylor 🦕 @mike.sauropods.win.ap.brid.gy · 16/09/2026

"Big AI believes they are the only ones who can protect against the risks that their products create. But this narrative isn’t believable unless the threat is believable. So Big AI has a huge incentive to talk up AI risks, but no incentive to invest in commensurate security practices." […]

Original post on sauropods.win

Mike Taylor 🦕 @mike.sauropods.win.ap.brid.gy · 16/09/2026

"The public overwhelmingly back the public ownership of water—in my view, with good reason. Public ownership would mean that the £22 billion earmarked for shareholder returns and interest over the next five years would go instead towards repairing our broken water infrastructure." — Paul Davies […]

Original post on sauropods.win

Mike Taylor 🦕 @mike.sauropods.win.ap.brid.gy · 16/09/2026

"In 1989, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher sold off our then publicly owned water and sewerage industry for £5.2 billion. … Private companies have paid out, in 2024 prices, around £83 billion—an average of £2.4 billion a year—as dividends, while loading the companies in debt. Often, those loans […]

Original post on sauropods.win

Mike Taylor 🦕 @mike.sauropods.win.ap.brid.gy · 15/09/2026

So this is how HMRC's moronic "Making Tax Digital For Income Tax" works. (Jeez, even the NAME is brain-hurtingly stupid.) I pick at random one of 80+ products that are able to submit my data for me. Then I give it permission to read and modify all my […] [Original post on sauropods.win]

Screenshot of giving some random vendor permission to screw with my financials.

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Mike Taylor 🦕 @mike.sauropods.win.ap.brid.gy · 15/09/2026

"You need the Ryanair App to access your digital boarding pass. You must download the Ryanair App. This is the only way to access your digital boarding pass, paper boarding passes are no longer issued or accepted." Can this really be true? Even at Ryan Air? […] [Original post on sauropods.win]

Screenshot of the page I am quoting.

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Reposted by Mike Taylor 🦕

ploum @ploum.mamot.fr.ap.brid.gy · 15/09/2026

Just want to remind people that when Anthropic installed an "AI soda vending machine" in the Wall Street Journal office, it ended as stupidly as you could imagine. Anthropic said it was the future and when the journalist managed to have a moment of lucidity and genuinely asked if it wasn’t a […]

Original post on mamot.fr

Mike Taylor 🦕 @mike.sauropods.win.ap.brid.gy · 15/09/2026

"That Truth Social post above, in which Trump declares himself perfectly able to manage this wild new technology because he is a “STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT”, is like a textbook illustration of the Dunning-Kruger effect." paulkrugman.substack.com/p/why-is-t…

paulkrugman.substack.com

Why Is Trump Still Boosting AI?

Because it’s the only thing he has left

Reposted by Mike Taylor 🦕

Martin Paul Eve @mpe.hcommons.social.ap.brid.gy · 15/09/2026

"The Hugging Face attack was dangerous, reckless and somebody should go to prison for it. If a regular person used massive amounts of compute capacity to hack something, they’d be arrested." www.wheresyoured.at/ai-is-already-i… "we need to start arresting people for […]

hcommons.social

Original post on hcommons.social

Reposted by Mike Taylor 🦕

Antï Dïsease 🗿😷💉×9 @anti-disease.zeroes.ca.ap.brid.gy · 07/06/2026

#CovidIsNotOver #CovidIsAirborne #KeepMasksInHealthCare #maskup #WearAMask #VaccinesPlus #covid19 #covid #SARSCov2 #DavosSafe #BringBackMasks #CovidConscious #CleanAir #CovidCautious

A cartoon depicting a wolf speaking to a group of sheep. The wolf is questioning why the sheep aren't scared of it, while the sheep make humorous replies about herd immunity and the myth that only old or sick animals are at risk.

“Only old and sick are attacked by a wolf.”

“A healthy well-trained body survives a wolf-bite.”

“We rely on herd immunity.”

“There are no wolves.”

Mike Taylor 🦕 @mike.sauropods.win.ap.brid.gy · 15/09/2026

"Rules aimed at limiting pollution from coal and gas power plants are being scrapped, the head of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced." Sure, sure. This is normal. This is what you'd expect an environmental protection agency to do […] [Original post on sauropods.win]

Screenshot of the linked story on BBC News.

Mike Taylor 🦕 @mike.sauropods.win.ap.brid.gy · 14/09/2026

RE: hcommons.social/@cameronneylon/1172… We are so far through the looking glass.

hcommons.social

Mike Taylor 🦕 @mike.sauropods.win.ap.brid.gy · 14/09/2026

"That these private armies have developed while ministers and the police have been criminalising peaceful protesters under terrorism laws indicates warped political and operational priorities. Anti-terrorism is topsy-turvy because ministers and the police prefer easy targets under sweeping laws […]

Original post on sauropods.win

Mike Taylor 🦕 @mike.sauropods.win.ap.brid.gy · 14/09/2026

RE: mastodon.social/@YesterdaysWiki/117… Does anyone have any idea why this unremarkable 1993 Maldivian film was the most-viewed Wikipedia page yesterday? Maybe just the work of one very very very badly written AI crawler?

mastodon.social

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Reposted by Mike Taylor 🦕

Anne Applebaum @anneapplebaum.wsocial.eu · 14/09/2026

Your regular reminder: If the Russians stop fighting, the war ends. If the Ukrainians stop fighting, their land will be occupied, their leaders will be killed, their history and language will be erased, their children will be kidnapped to serve Russia.

Reposted by Mike Taylor 🦕

`Da Elf @elfin.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy · 13/09/2026

Timeline cleanser of a parrot that found a traffic cam to ham it up for.