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: [email protected]
ORCiD: 0000-0002-1003-5675

#fedi22

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Last Notes

2026-07-17 15:42:37 GMT

This is genuinely shocking.
From Paul Krugman's post https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/trump-cant-get-no-respect
https://cdn.masto.host/sauropodswin/media_attachments/files/116/936/071/055/532/437/original/e81edc80162c04f7.png

2026-07-06 02:17:53 GMT

Quansah's sending off — I think you can argue it either way, but it is at least not a terrible decision.
I think that this game now ends 2-1. Which I am more than fine with.

2026-07-06 00:55:09 GMT

All right — who else has stayed up for the game?
#England #WorldCup

2026-07-01 15:57:45 GMT

I cannot understand how Madueke is getting picked ahead of Saka.
#England #WorldCup

2026-06-27 21:14:09 GMT

I do seem to literally the only person on Mastodon watching the Panama-England game — or at least, the only one using the #PANENG hashtag.
(I assume that can't be literally true, and that I have a propagation problem. Any hints?)

2026-06-03 11:22:50 GMT

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@nprofile…fd3p That's always welcome news! How many of these do you have now?

2026-06-03 11:14:44 GMT

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@nprofile…fd3p Bookmarking where you'd got to is without doubt 100% the one feature I really really want in the Mastodon Web UI.
CC @nprofile…5dxw

2026-06-03 11:13:52 GMT

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@nprofile…rj6m Sure; but isn't much of what is called intelligence in reality no more than cleverness?

2026-06-03 10:07:41 GMT

And so it begins.
#ChatGPT #OpenAI #ads #adverts #advertisements #enshittification
https://cdn.masto.host/sauropodswin/media_attachments/files/116/685/617/817/472/361/original/6caa313e404823db.png

2026-05-29 12:22:28 GMT

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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.

2026-05-28 11:32:25 GMT

"The definition of a “good business” has changed from one that makes good products at a fair price to a sustainable and loyal market, to one that can display the most stock price growth from quarter to quarter."
This is the source of the rot, as well as sign of it.
https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-era-of-the-business-idiot/#:~:text=which%20is%20a-,symptom,-of%20a%20bigger

2026-05-28 10:32:45 GMT

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@nprofile…qrg7 Yeah, that's poor. But I guess from the Malice perspective, it's to their advantage that they avoid doing work to make Linux more acceptable to you.

2026-05-28 10:16:57 GMT

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@nprofile…qrg7 ... Oooohhhh ... You're saying Microsoft has crippled Outlook on Linux so it's worse than the "same" program on Windows?

2026-05-28 10:15:59 GMT

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@nprofile…qrg7 I can't reconcile "The absolute state of outlook" with "Outlook on Windows is pretty close".

2026-05-28 09:41:11 GMT

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@nprofile…qrg7 Does the Platonic idea email app exist in your mind?

2026-05-28 08:47:16 GMT

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@nprofile…qrg7 I thought the other day you were saying how much better it is than Thunderbird?!

2026-05-27 08:54:31 GMT

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@nprofile…93tu And yet at the same time they are recruiting. https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/4404223143/

2026-05-26 16:06:54 GMT

Marshall Breeding's annual report on library tech is out: Library Perceptions 2026: Results of the nineteenth International Survey of Library Automation
https://librarytechnology.org/PerceptionsReport
To me, the standout finding is this:
"No libraries mentioned interest in AI technologies."
That's based on a survey that received responses from 2,220 #libraries.
And the number that are interested in #AI is zero.

2026-05-22 10:56:53 GMT

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@nprofile…lnrt I'm not sure this a smart move. Marie Curie has name recognition. That shouldn't be thrown away lightly.

2026-05-21 13:30:57 GMT

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@nprofile…r06c Honestly, I don't think I was especially aware of technical constraints in the way that we think of them now. 11.5 Kb was just the amount of memory computers had, and there was no reason for me to expect it to be different.

2026-05-21 10:08:33 GMT

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@nprofile…r06c I can't remember why it went the way it did, but after making my third game "Heaven and Hell" much too difficult and unfair, I went hard the other way with my fourth "Stairway to the Stars".
At least, that's my impression. Maaaybe your impressions will be different when you get to them.

2026-05-18 13:49:36 GMT

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@nprofile…fd3p But why is it better to have a would on the thigh than on the calf?

2026-05-18 12:24:39 GMT

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@nprofile…fd3p Doesn't your thigh need it, too?

2026-05-17 21:25:40 GMT

PLEASE HELP!
I need the image of an old Houston Chronicle page from 1969: https://houstonchronicle.newspapers.com/image/1196648331/
Can anyone with a newspapers.com subscription help? Please email [email protected]
(Boosts for coverage are appreciated.)

2026-05-15 16:59:29 GMT

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@nprofile…74l7 How do you install Kodi?

2026-05-10 20:26:21 GMT

Great Western Railways have redesigned their website, and now it is (so far as I can find out) impossible to buy two tickets — for example, and outbound and its corresponding return journey — in a single transaction.
Why is using railways always such a depressing grind?

2026-05-07 18:42:59 GMT

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@nprofile…fd3p A pub is always.a safe bet. I think you have some good castles in your neck of the woods, if you're able to navigate them. Chinese takeaway. Turn off all the lights, lie on the floor, and listen to Steven Wilson's "The Overview". Watch a murder mystery on your laptop in bed with your wife. Perfect day, right there.

2026-05-03 14:19:06 GMT

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@nprofile…fd3p Oh, I thought you looked really good in the befuzzed version!

2026-05-01 16:44:53 GMT

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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 GMT

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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 GMT

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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 GMT

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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 GMT

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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 GMT

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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 07:02:21 GMT

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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 GMT

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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 12:51:38 GMT

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@nprofile…wcug @nprofile…v4kd "Why do you need to figure anything out?"
Becsuse they released FIVER MAJOR VERSIONS, each one with one or more backwards incompatible changes, in the mean time.
Your workflow is OK when Dependabot is suggesting a patch-level dependency bump, from 3.0.4 to 3.0.5.

2026-04-29 11:45:55 GMT

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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 GMT

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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 GMT

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

2026-04-21 11:23:39 GMT

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@nprofile…26hz What is with every release being a new major version?

2026-04-21 10:10:29 GMT

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 GMT

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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.

2026-04-16 08:21:41 GMT

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… and then when I DO go through the process again, it tells me:
"Successful application already completed
This vehicle has been taxed or notified as off the road within the last 5 days."
So is my car taxed or not? I guess it exists in a superposition of quantum states until it's observed by a traffic cop.
*sigh*

2026-04-16 08:20:19 GMT

And then there's https://vehicletax.service.gov.uk/
Usually UK government websites are good for usability. This one, when it failed to verify my card payment, kicked me back to the start of the whole process, so I have to once more enter the reference number from the V11 reminder form, my email address, etc.
Really not good enough.

2026-04-15 13:02:46 GMT

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@nprofile…5ds9 @nprofile…fd3p That's not bad. When I think of a somewhat simplified word processor like the one in Google Docs, it's easy enough to imagine (almost) all its output being expressible as Markdown. But I bet people would complain about all the missing features they're used to from MS-Word.

2026-04-15 13:00:35 GMT

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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 GMT

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

2026-04-11 17:18:35 GMT

Here's my occasional reminder to my followers who are NOT interested in football: I try to remember to use the #LFC tag when commenting on Liverpool games, so you can mute that hashtag and not see those posts.

2026-04-11 17:17:30 GMT

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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 GMT

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 GMT

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

2026-04-08 20:59:29 GMT

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@nprofile…27wa Indeed.

2026-04-08 20:41:37 GMT

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 GMT

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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 GMT

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@nprofile…y9gt Oh, I like that!

2026-04-08 19:33:46 GMT

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@nprofile…y9gt What makes it Anarchist's?

2026-04-08 19:14:23 GMT

Was that a deflection?
#LFC

2026-04-05 22:05:01 GMT

"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 GMT

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 GMT

"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/

2026-03-31 12:30:55 GMT

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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 17:19:59 GMT

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@nprofile…n0jn Ah, right!

2026-03-28 17:19:45 GMT

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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 GMT

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@nprofile…74l7 Current U21 player?!

2026-03-28 17:15:08 GMT

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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 GMT

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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 GMT

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 GMT

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

2026-03-24 10:57:47 GMT

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

2026-03-23 10:55:07 GMT

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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 GMT

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@nprofile…fd3p So, a semi-success?

2026-03-21 21:36:57 GMT

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@nprofile…crnc Oh, I would FAR prefer an Arsenal win over the PR department of the UAE buying another title.

2026-03-21 21:33:46 GMT

*If* Liverpool win all their seven remaining matches *and* Arsenal lose all theirs *and* other results go our way, we can still win the league on goal difference!
#LFC

2026-03-21 17:20:47 GMT

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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 14:37:13 GMT

Bizarre yellow card for Chiesa. I can't make it out at all.
#LFC

2026-03-21 14:24:14 GMT

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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 GMT

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 12:53:41 GMT

Hugo's off. This is terrible.
As a reminder: Isak's out with a broken leg and Salah with a muscle injury. Those would be out three top scorers.
#LFC

2026-03-20 20:39:42 GMT

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

2026-03-20 20:36:36 GMT

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

2026-03-20 20:36:00 GMT

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

2026-03-19 08:02:02 GMT

"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 GMT

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 GMT

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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 GMT

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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 GMT

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

2026-03-18 22:04:22 GMT

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

2026-03-18 22:03:32 GMT

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 GMT

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

2026-03-18 21:27:28 GMT

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And to keep the clean sheet.
#LFC

2026-03-18 21:27:09 GMT

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

2026-03-10 18:12:52 GMT

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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 GMT

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 12:40:43 GMT

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

2026-03-10 12:16:15 GMT

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 GMT

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 GMT

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

2026-03-05 11:12:05 GMT

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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 GMT

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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.)