Mastodawn

Tom Magnanimous Mar 26, 2024

Happy #InternationalCotylorhynchusDay everyone!

You probably have some questions.

1. What?

Cotylorhynchus was a synapsid from the Permian era, a tetrapod ancestral to mammals. They look somewhat like dinosaurs but are actually not related (the other major clade at the time were the sauropsids, which gave rise to birds and reptiles). He is notable for his head too small for he got damn body.

2. Why his head too small for he got damn body?

It seems likely that the enormous barrel shaped torso was needed to house voluminous intestines. This would be a crude solution to the need to eat large quantities of low quality forage and then ferment it to get usable nutrients, the same way that ruminants do today with their four chambered stomachs.

3. Why is today International Cotylorhynchus Day?

Two years ago, I discovered this delightful dumbass and posted about him. Completely coincidentally, so did @checkervest. We decided this guy deserves his own holiday, and thus it began.

Eitan Mar 10

I designed a replacement wristband for my childhood Casio watch. I think you should know. https://www.printables.com/model/1630544-casio-strap

#3dprinting #casio

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Eitan Feb 1

@mattmay we met at a Seattle "scripting enabled" meetup, and hung out at CSUN occasionally. Many years ago. I have a vivid memory of a Karaoke bar in San Diego with taps of sticky slushies.

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Eitan Feb 1

@mattmay I don't know what that means but yes. You can't go wrong: Any thoughtful gadget or event tickets I can easily resale are welcome.

Eitan Feb 1

#seattle is in the #superbowl and I couldn't think of a more perfect birthday present than a personalized item, unique experiences, or a practical item tailored to my specific hobbies and interests.

Eitan Jan 19

"When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered."

#mlk #mlkday #mlkjrday

Eitan Jan 16

This is the worst Fargo plot by far

Eitan Jan 12

I wrote about a new MacOS accessibility library, pyax. It's a cool little tool you can use to inspect the accessibility API of apps. #a11y #macos #firefox #accessibility

https://blog.monotonous.org/2026/01/12/macos-accessibility-with-pyax/

MacOS Accessibility with pyax | monotonous.org

In our work on Firefox MacOS accessibility we routinely run into highly nuanced bugs in our accessibility platform API. The tree structure, an object attribu...

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Eitan Dec 19

Is it because someone misspoke and wrote "opt-in" instead of "opt-out"? I get it those are opposite things. We are all red with rage.

Eitan Dec 19

Why is everyone mad at #mozilla I don't understand.

#firefox is about to release one of the best #ai features and I couldn't be more excited: a kill switch.

This is a big deal and marks a change of sentiment. After years of tech scrambling to reinvent itself with user hostile #ai features, Mozilla is offering something different - turn it off.