zuckerberg has set billions of dollars on fire on gibberish and copycat garbage, can't competently manage the scale of his primary business, has zero ethics or original ideas, and can't innovate his way out of a paper bag

yet U.S. "business journalism" never makes any of that clear

My new website www.archaeopteryx.nl is up. Among other things, you can download my book about Otto Jaekel's art (paleontological, geological and otherwise) for free (go to the "Books" page). It's in German (with an English translation to follow this year) but the images largely speak for themselves.

Our (though most of all Mike’s) paper on every conceivable aspect of the Carnegie Diplodocus is out! svpow.com/2025/05/08/e...

Next is Ilja Nieuwland @hydrarchos.bsky.social on Mix! And Match?, on the interpretation of the supposed fossil sea-serpent Hydrarchos, famously composed of at least 5 combined fossil whales skeletons...

Some historic palaeomodelling from early-20C Sweden: a little Pterosaur made of bath-sponge, wire and wax paper, used to illustrate posture. It's apparently about 20cm from nose to tail, and still in the Museum of Evolution in Uppsala

From Ebbestad 2016 (£): www.lyellcollection.org/doi/abs/10.1...

Browsing the architecture section of any bookstore is a somewhat surreal experience. Firstly, nothing pre-Bauhaus. Moreover, most books treat architecture biography. It's really weird. And inconvenient if you want to get an idea of the longer history of the field.

"Palaeontology in Public: Popular Science, Lost Creatures and Deep Time" is out today, and is freely downloadable as an open access pdf, published by @uclpress.bsky.social !

uclpress.co.uk/book/palaeon...

🎺🦕🦕🦕⚒️🎥🦖🦖🦖📖📰🦣🦣🦣🎺

How a non-existing Synapsid made it to stardom - and beyond! My chapter in the new Palaeontology in Public book looks at the international career of Naosaurus. It's a free download from UCL UP, edited by @chrismanias.bsky.social: bit.ly/4hsQ5hu

We binged the Lord of the Rings trilogy just after Christmas. Conclusions:
1. A lot of that didn't age well. Storytelling in moving picture has come a long way since.
2. Most of the Sam and Frodo stuff from the 2nd and 3rd films should be skipped.
3. LotR+photo copier+boarding school = Harry Potter

... Only slighly undermined by this Monument to the Unknown Cuttlefish.

Natural history on the wall in Setúbal, Portugal.

The Bells! The Bells! #NotreDame #Sorry

Doing research for a book about (among others) Lisboa's Estaçao do Sul e Soeste, possibly the weirdest #railway #station in the world. While it offers access to a boat, there are neither tracks nor trains. Much more to follow.

Finished proofreading yesterday, so I’m pretty sure that my book about the lost railway stations of Berlin is actually going to go on sale on November 4th! More info: https://www.degruyter.com/document/isbn/9783111381213/html?lang=en

Blog back up! (sorta). A while back I accidentally deleted my blog at hydrarchos.org. Instead of re-creating it in its old form, I'm instead porting my contributions to Medium. You can soon find them all at medium.com/@8termini .

A big "YES!" to this upcoming workshop at Birkbeck on "Cursed Objects in Museum Shops:"

www7.bbk.ac.uk/museum-cultu...

I have a new (open access!) review article out, thinking about how histories of the earth sciences can connect with African history, especially focussing on histories of mining and palaeontology: link.springer.com/referencewor...

Out in the Fall of 2024: my cultural history of the lost railway termini (terminuses?) of Berlin. A book about architecture, experiences, and panicky urban planning.