Notices by Brian Vastag (brianvastag@sciencemastodon.com)

For people still wearing N95s and the like: The federal office that ensured masks met the N95 or KN95 standards has been destroyed. So any masks sold in the US could well be counterfeit or inadequate.

https://www.ems1.com/public-health/hhs-cuts-eliminate-niosh-respirator-certification-staff

Welp #measles has returned to #Hawaii.

Watching civilization slam the stick shift into reverse is fun.

https://health.hawaii.gov/news/newsroom/measles-case-confirmed-in-child-on-o%CA%BBahu-doh-notifies-public-of-measles-exposure-locations/#:~:text=HONOLULU%20%E2%80%94%20The%20Hawai%CA%BBi%20Department

Finished migrating my stuff off of Google drive and onto pCloud, based in Switzerland. Not as many features, sure, but lower price per GB and one less gross Google tentacle in my life.

pCloud automates Google photos migration so that part was easy.

@erininthemorning.com Fund managers:

Sen. #Booker now decrying cuts to NIH funding, repeating the oft-cited statistic that $1 in basic biomedical research funding leads to $5 in economic gains.

Compares the decimation of US research to Chinese cultural revolution.

#USpol

Applause in the Senate as Sen. Schumer tells Sen. Booker he now has the longest filibuster in US history, besting a racist shitbag.

#USpol

The US Men's National Team just lost to Canada. Lol. 👍👎

#sports

Hmmm....my financial institution is making me call them to short #Tesla. Won't let me do it electronically. Fuck that.

@adamshostack @inthehands Oh yeah I was trying to buy TSLQ and Citibank is making me call....

On a day when a volcano resumed erupting, we get news that the Hawaii Volcano Observatory - relied on by residents of Hawaii Island to stay safe from lava and vog - will have its HQ closed by Elon fucking Musk.

https://www.civilbeat.org/2025/03/hawaiian-volcano-observatory-is-being-evicted-amid-federal-cuts/

@heidilifeldman Wonder what the judge does when they inevitably shirk the orders.

I get so incensed at all of the security theater for fucking banks, medical providers and the like when these monopolistic corporations are constantly hemorrhaging our data.

Oh, the burden is on me to jump through these hoops..make new passwords... type in fucking 12 digit 2-factor codes...endless catpchas....& when THEIR TERRIBLE FUCKING SECURITY leads to terabytes of personal data getting posted for LULZ & profit, I will get $22, which was my share of the Equifax settlement.

#rant

@atomicpoet In Nov. '22 I saw many people on the fediverse tell journalists to leave and several servers de-federated from journo.host. Journalists who tried it here took the hint and most did leave as far as I can tell.

Physicians may be surprised to learn that there have been *dozens* of potential biomarkers (blood tests, saliva tests, etc, basically) identified for ME/CFS and #LongCovid. These never get turned into working, widely-available tests because no one funds the studies needed to validate them in large cohorts. Here's a new story from The Sick Times & a page from MEPedia that lists many potential biomarkers.

#medicine #ChronicIllness

https://thesicktimes.org/2025/01/21/finding-an-accepted-long-covid-biomarker-will-be-complicated-this-blood-test-could-give-us-answers/

https://me-pedia.org/wiki/Diagnostic_biomarker

Interent search has become so useless...try googling "The X-Files season 12" and see what you get. It's impossible to tell from the first few pages of results if there will be a season 12 or not.

#TV #search #Google

If your company tries to disinvest its retirement plans from oil & gas, a GOP judge will tell you that's illegal.

#climate

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/litigation/american-airlines-held-liable-for-esg-investing-in-401k-plan?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub

Cartoonist Ann Telnaes leaves WaPo after someone above her killed a cartoon - the first that's happened in 16 years, she says.

The cartoon shows a bunch of oligarchs kneeling before and handing sacks of money to #Trump

#news #media

https://anntelnaes.substack.com/p/why-im-quitting-the-washington-post

This looks like an interesting alternative hypothesis to dark energy to explain the accelerated expansion of the universe we observe.

The 'timescape' model posits that what we're really seeing is time moving faster in empty space vs inside galaxies. This would mean the cosmic voids are spreading apart more rapidly.

Theorists in New Zealand who came up with it say current and future space telescopes can test their idea.

#physics #cosmology

https://ras.ac.uk/news-and-press/research-highlights/dark-energy-doesnt-exist-so-cant-be-pushing-lumpy-universe-apart

Thank goodness for Ted Goia, who suspected Spotify was spiking playlists with musak, essentially, and now an investigation has proven him correct. Fake artists who produce cheap tracks and give up all rights to it are now proliferating. He calls it war on the music biz.

#music

https://www.honest-broker.com/p/the-ugly-truth-about-spotify-is-finally

I want to highlight this interview with the lawyer who won my #disability case against Prudential. Barbara Comerford has been taking on the insurance industry for a long time. @tomkindlon brought to my attention this interview by Betsy Ladyzhets for The Sick Times.

Excerpts: "And I can tell you that 38 years ago, these [disability claims] were not problem cases. I used to do them for free for my litigation clients…"

https://thesicktimes.org/2024/12/03/we-talked-to-a-veteran-lawyer-about-applying-for-disability-insurance-with-long-covid-and-me

1/