@dinogami@sauropods.win
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dinogami

@dinogami@sauropods.win

Vertebrate paleontologist & ichnologist. All posts & opinions my own.

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dinogami, to random
@dinogami@sauropods.win avatar

Some bird photos I took on our safari in 2016 in Botswana, Namibia, and Zambia. #BirdsOfMastodon

Ground hornbill.
White-browed robin-chat.
White-fronted bee eaters.

dinogami, to random
@dinogami@sauropods.win avatar

One of the voracious, yet absurdly adorable, little monsters that lives in our backyard and loves to devour the plants in my wife's garden...seen here munching on a seed dropped from our bird feeder.

dinogami, to Utah
@dinogami@sauropods.win avatar

#silentsunday #utah

krkmp, to random

Found a nice pebble on shore. Fossilized sea urchin maybe? Anyone on here with #fossils knowledge to help out? North Sea coast. #FossilFriday #seaside #fossil

dinogami,
@dinogami@sauropods.win avatar

@krkmp Definitely a fossil urchin, but I couldn't tell you the species or anything more specific. Rather water-worn, but might be identifiable to a specialist in echinoderm fossils. Nice find!

mcnees, to random
@mcnees@mastodon.social avatar

Elf -> Elves
Dwarf -> Dwarves
Smurf -> Smurves

dinogami,
@dinogami@sauropods.win avatar

@nf3xn @mcnees
Carf -> Carves
Varf -> Varves
Curf -> Curves

futurebird, to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

Can some real biology people weigh in on how you feel about calling a stem group, now extinct "evolutionary dead ends" or "dead branches on the tree of life" etc?

To me it's clear and evocative, but it also feels like the kind of glib phrase that is perpetuating some misconception about how evolution works.

dinogami,
@dinogami@sauropods.win avatar

@futurebird "Descendant-free taxa." Makes 'em sound happy-go-lucky (e.g., "carefree").

dinogami, to random
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dinogami, to random
@dinogami@sauropods.win avatar

And more fun shadows.

dinogami, to random
@dinogami@sauropods.win avatar

Fun shadows...

dinogami, to random
@dinogami@sauropods.win avatar

We all know Google's search has gone to hell, but using social media as replacements seems bizarre to me...

https://www.businessinsider.com/nearly-half-genz-use-tiktok-instagram-over-google-search-2022-7

dinogami,
@dinogami@sauropods.win avatar

@john Agreed, but I wondered if it branched into them searching for reliable information about, say, science or politics, and being limited to searching videos in which people spout a lot of unsupported, even irrational, opinions rather than supported, factual information... Frightening thought.

dinogami,
@dinogami@sauropods.win avatar

@john I hear what you're saying, and agree, but even a degenerated Google search will bring up accurate, factual information at some point...though whether or not a non-specialist would recognize it amidst all the noise is another issue. I'm sure factual information also exists on IG and TikTok, but the presentation there (video) is going to more heavily be about the presentation and charisma, which I think makes it MORE difficult for the average person to discern the facts amid the trash...

grammargirl, to random
@grammargirl@zirk.us avatar

My computer failed tonight, and I lost the entire hard drive. Fortunately, I have everything doubly backed up: once on a local hard drive and once on a cloud service. It's still stressful, but it could be a lot worse.

Consider this your reminder to back up your computer.

dinogami,
@dinogami@sauropods.win avatar

@grammargirl I've been backing things up in multiple places religiously for at least a couple of decades, ever since one of my fellow grad students had his laptop stolen and he lost 6 months of work on his dissertation! I have so much stuff, though, that free cloud service account limits are too small for my stuff, so I predominantly use hard drives.

georgetakei, to random

Kudos to Macy’s which went ahead with plans to have the Broadway cast of & Juliet perform in its annual Thanksgiving Parade in NYC. The so-called “Millions Moms” had protested the presence of two out trans performers and had threatened a boycott of the broadcast. I’m glad no one paid those shrill voices of censorship any heed.

dinogami,
@dinogami@sauropods.win avatar

@LexiGirl @freemo @georgetakei I'm sure it's about control: they want their beliefs enforced at all costs, and they do it under the guise of "saving" people. It may not even be conscious for many of them--they don't see "saving" as power & control; they just crave the fulfillment of "saving" people, which equals exerting power. Their self-worth is tied wholly to the ability to control others. But they'll never understand that about themselves--they're incapable of that degree of self-awareness.

annaleen, to random
@annaleen@wandering.shop avatar

I cannot be the first to notice that Canvas is the worst of every possible communications platform, mooshed into one. It's like the frayed edges of Squarespace glued themselves to some leftover pieces of Slack and then stained themselves with Facebook Spaces.

dinogami,
@dinogami@sauropods.win avatar

@annaleen Canvas is wonderful late 1990s-early 2000s-level technology, and they refuse to do anything to make it better, more modern, or more flexible (rather the opposite, really). Even their process for making user-requested features reality is bizarre: you post your suggestion in a forum that hardly anyone uses, and only if it gets enough up-votes from other users will they consider it. Glad I'm retiring soon and won't ever have to use it again.

dinogami,
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@annaleen Maybe I'm old-fashioned in my approach, but my syllabi are PDFs, and I don't use modules in Canvas. Yes, the courses are broken into subject sections, but I do not see the point of the modules function at all. My uni is pushing hard to force all faculty to do EVERYthing on Canvas (supposedly so accreditors can see if what I do meets learning outcomes), even though a lot of how I teach involves things Canvas is too primitive and limited to handle. It means a loss of my academic freedom.

john, to random
@john@sauropods.win avatar

Journalists and bloggers seem to have rediscovered the word “ouster” (meaning ousting) recently, and they freakin' LOVE it. I do not and would like them to stop.

Just say ousting, or, you know, some other word so you don't sound like a parrot.

dinogami,
@dinogami@sauropods.win avatar

@john Just wait until one of 'em forgets that the verb "oust" is at the root of "ouster" and tries to coin a new, stupid word such as "oustering" or "ousterizing." 🙄

gay_ornithischians, to random
@gay_ornithischians@sauropods.win avatar

friends w reading comprehension is this abstract saying that there were 3400 genera of dinosaur if you add up the number of genera that existed troughtout the mesozoic? or is it saying that there were times during the mesozoic in which there were 3400 genera at the same time?

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10292389509380510

dinogami,
@dinogami@sauropods.win avatar

@john @AmyIsCoolz @alcootatooter @gay_ornithischians @llewelly I think biologists need a "fundamental unit" of biology because they need a point at which to say "evolution happens here." Individuals do not evolve. Populations evolve, but then it's a question of "populations of a what?" I'm not saying that breeding makes for the best definition of "species," & of course there's a reason why ~150 definitions of "species" are argued! (Not claiming I have a solution here!)

futurebird, to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

If you made me a dictator of everything. It'd be pretty good for civil rights. But there WOULD be exponentially increasing fines for incorrectly labeling insects on the internet. (I can forgive a species error, but genus? noooo)

dinogami,
@dinogami@sauropods.win avatar

@futurebird Can we please add fines for calling pterosaurs, plesiosaurs, mosasaurs, ichthyosaurs, and various other Paleozoic and Mesozoic tetrapods "dinosaurs," too?

Private
dinogami,
@dinogami@sauropods.win avatar

@DrLinguo @academicchatter May steal this for next year... 🤣

dancinyogi, (edited ) to random
@dancinyogi@mastodon.sdf.org avatar

I'm ambidextrous. What are you?

#poll

Please boost for a wider audience😉

dinogami,
@dinogami@sauropods.win avatar

@dancinyogi As far as I can tell, my left arm is there pretty much just to give my body symmetry. And maybe occasionally awkwardly hold something.

futurebird, to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

Starting two new notebooks today for calculus and geometry. Been hoarding these blanks for years. Time to fill ‘em up! I’m delighted with how perfect the “arthropod angle” stickers by @KetrinaDrawsALot look on the marbled paper!

dinogami,
@dinogami@sauropods.win avatar

@futurebird Between the sticker and the chaotic pattern, that image is positively Lovecraftian!

Okanogen, to random
@Okanogen@mastodon.social avatar

#Mercury? Seriously? IT'S NOT A MINERAL!!!!!
HOW CAN IT BE WINNING AGAINST AN ACTUAL #MINERAL???????

Come on people, if this is the only time you've ever voted, do it now and vote for #Sepiolite over that imposter. Even before the event started I made my views clear.
MERCURY IS NOT A MINERAL!
#MinCup23
https://www.mineralcup.org/2023/campaigns/round-1-match-9

dinogami,
@dinogami@sauropods.win avatar

@BoredomFestival @Okanogen Why isn't ice a mineral? It meets all the criteria...?

CatherineFlick, to random
@CatherineFlick@mastodon.me.uk avatar

Any fossil experts know what I found on the beach in Suffolk? #fossil #rock

dinogami,
@dinogami@sauropods.win avatar

@CatherineFlick Looks like a partial bivalve fossil, or an impression of one (can't quite tell in the photo). Cool!

idoubtit, to random
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    dinogami,
    @dinogami@sauropods.win avatar

    @idoubtit Interests can go extinct as new ones evolve.

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