Notices by VM (Vicky) Brasseur (vmbrasseur@social.vmbrasseur.com)

"Today, ProPublica is launching Rx Inspector, a first-of-its-kind database that provides answers to what the FDA won’t tell us: where our generics are coming from and the track records of the factories that made them. The information is harder to find than you may think."

https://www.propublica.org/article/rx-inspector-prescription-drug-lookup

#FiberArts festival email: "Please support small businesses! Here's a list of our vendors and sponsors!"

Me, thinking: "Nice! Let's check 'em out!"

And then more than half of the vendors' websites are Instagram. Which I can't see, because I don't have an account. 😔

We've allowed the internet to degrade so badly. I mourn for its wasted potential.

A Pratchett is releasing a new book in the Discworld universe this month!

https://bookshop.org/p/books/tiffany-aching-s-guide-to-being-a-witch-gabrielle-kent/c9c161a6d634c9a4?ean=9780063399907

#SFF

As a job hunter, this, by @anildash, hits home:

"People worry that not being seen as mindless, uncritical AI cheerleaders will be a career-limiting move in the current environment of enforced conformity within tech, especially as tech leaders are collaborating with the current regime to punish free speech, fire anyone who dissents, and embolden the wealthy tycoons at the top to make ever-more-extreme statements, often at the direct expense of some of their own workers."

https://www.anildash.com//2025/10/17/the-majority-ai-view/

Let's be clear here: The law is NOT to blame for cookie banners.

The blame lies with companies that would rather inconvenience you with a banner than respect your privacy by not collecting (and selling) your data..

https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-cookie-law-messed-up-the-internet-brussels-sets-out-to-fix-it/?

“The American authorities have told us – this is the tea industry in its entirety – that if you’ve got tea from China and India in your tea, then its country of origin [is] China or India, and therefore those enormous tariffs apply,” he told the Financial Times.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/17/trumps-tariffs-have-hurt-tea-exports-to-the-us-says-fortnum-mason-boss

"The Pascaline was developed by Pascal at the age of 19 to assist his father, Etienne, who was then president of the Cour des Aides de Normandie (Board of Excise)…Blaise Pascal designed three types of calculating machines to simplify this process for his father: one for decimal calculations (additions, subtractions, multiplications and divisions), one for accounting (monetary calculations), and one for the purpose of surveying (calculating distances)."

https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/christies-auction-first-calculating-machine-blaise-pascal-1234751200/

"If I lay my head on the touchpad she _has_ to pet me, right?"

🙄 #CatsOfMastodon

"In the end, what’s most remarkable about the campaign against Oregon’s wildfire map isn’t that misinformation found an audience. It’s that it worked."

https://www.propublica.org/article/oregon-wildfire-risk-map-rural-homeowners

Perhaps don't launch businesses that rely on breaking the law? Just a thought.

'If the appeals court denies the petition…the emerging company may be doomed. As Anthropic argued, it now "faces hundreds of billions of dollars in potential damages liability at trial in four months"…that involves "up to seven million potential claimants, whose works span a century of publishing history," each possibly triggering a $150,000 fine.'

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/08/ai-industry-horrified-to-face-largest-copyright-class-action-ever-certified/

#copyright #ai

"An international scientific review, published this Sunday in The Lancet, has compiled all the known harms caused by exposure to plastics and issued an important warning: there is now sufficient evidence that living surrounded by these polymers poses 'grave, growing, and under-recognized' risks to humans at all stages of life."

https://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2025-08-04/anatomy-of-the-known-health-damage-caused-by-plastics-grave-growing-and-under-recognized.html

"The Princeton professor, author of ‘Sex is a Spectrum: The Biological Limits of the Binary,’ reflects on human diversity and the ideological impositions that simplify the variety of genes, gonads and genitals"

https://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2025-08-02/agustin-fuentes-bioanthropologist-saying-that-human-beings-are-binary-is-a-failure-its-not-biology-its-philosophy.html

"Established in 1996, the IMLS is the only federal agency that provides resources to museums and libraries…Also under its purview are the Institute of Museum Services and the Library Programs Office…

"As an agency, the IMLS is legally bound to support libraries and report important issues to Congress. Slashing programs that are supported by federal funds and failing to operate as was originally laid out, however, violates these laws."

https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/institute-of-museum-and-library-services-restraining-order-overturned-1234744651/

"The study results showed the co-location of solar farming with sheep grazing is not negatively impacting wool production, even in the case of pre-existing high-quality standards. Some parameters even indicated an improvement in wool quality, although conclusive benefits require further long term measurement.”

https://cleantechnica.com/2025/05/25/agrivoltaics-with-sheep-solar-benefit-all-especially-the-sheep/

“The dark patterns and disregard for consent has been endemic in tech for too many years.”

https://soatok.blog/2025/05/04/tech-companies-apparently-do-not-understand-why-we-dislike-ai/

@evan I did, despite that strict budget. ;-)

• https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691174761/the-usefulness-of-useless-knowledge (the book that lead to my discovery of the sale)
• https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691239392/stellar-english (I'm a sucker for a grammar)
• https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691263564/the-beekeepers-guide (I'm bee curious 🐝)

“Following a request by Pope Francis, the vehicle used during his visit to Bethlehem in 2014 is being refitted with everything needed for frontline care in a war zone, charity organisation Caritas, which is overseeing the project, said.”

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c934r9nw4r9o

@evan Ooh. Those all look like great reads. I'm glad I'm on a strict budget right now. 😅

@evan Oh, fantastic. Which ones did you get? (if you're OK to share)

I'm really (well, kinda; well, actually not at all) sorry to do this to y'all, but Princeton University Press has nearly all their books 50% off right now.

There's a whooooole lotta interesting things to read in there…

https://press.princeton.edu

#Bookstodon