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

Your doctor called. They said you’re not getting enough beans in your online diet. Here, have a serving of pinks.

#Caturday

This is a _very_ cool project that just landed on @crowdsupply. Had I not been laid off last week (hire me! #GetFediHired) I'd definitely order one.

"Using its high-quality sensors, Air Lab measures CO2, temperature, relative humidity, air pollutants (VOC, NOx), and atmospheric pressure. The device can record measurements for multiple days, which you can analyze directly on-device—no computer or smartphone required.”

https://www.crowdsupply.com/networked-artifacts/air-lab

“Here’s the headline stat: a single 5-megawatt community solar project can generate around $14 million in local economic activity and support nearly 100 local jobs. And when scaled up? The potential impact is massive.”

https://cleantechnica.com/2025/04/15/community-solar-is-booming-and-bringing-big-economic-benefits-with-it/

“Paper receipts from major retailers in the US are so laden with bisphenol S that holding one for 10 seconds can cause the skin to absorb enough of the highly toxic chemical to violate California’s safety threshold, new research has found.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/14/paper-receipt-chemical-bisphenol-s

Timeline rest stop.

Pause to boop the snoot.

#CatsOfMastodon #Catstodon

Another terrible blow struck to science.

https://www.404media.co/open-source-genetic-database-opensnp-shuts-down-to-protect-users-from-authoritarian-governments/

Dear conference organisers,

Please stop hosting your events in Texas (yes, even Austin).

It's become far too dangerous for a lot of people to attend the event, and many of the rest of us will avoid it to support our besieged LGBTQA+ colleagues.
https://masto.ai/@n0m0time/114150270163428794

At my yearly checkup yesterday, I asked my dr for a measles serology test & learned that I really need a refresher to that vax. Which I'm getting this afternoon. 💪💉🥰

This post is a public service announcement that if it's been a while since you got ‘em, you, too, can ask for serology tests for your vaccinations.

“Food waste starts at the very source: the farm. Up to 16 percent of a crop can be wasted due to factors completely out of a farmer’s control.”

https://grist.org/food-and-agriculture/gleaning-the-ancient-practice-fighting-modern-food-waste/

@itgrrl 🥰 Thank you!

@kyle “We stick by our values, like keeping known toxic people on our board, so give us money."

No, thanks.

So…what happened that the #FSF founders/board felt the need to publish this rambling, back-patting, perplexing post?

It reads rather like a CYA.

https://www.fsf.org/news/anchoring-the-fsf-in-its-values

This is going to be life changing for sooooo many people. 🥰

“The vice-president, Kamala Harris, announced early on Tuesday that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) was removing $49bn of existing unpaid medical bills from the credit reports of 15 million Americans and will ban the inclusion of medical debt on credit reports.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/07/biden-ban-medical-debt-credit

“The research reveals that ancient hunter-gatherers relied heavily on plant foods, particularly starchy plants, as a major energy source.”

https://phys.org/news/2025-01-archaeological-paleo-diet-narrative-ancient.html

Covid surges across US after holidays amid low booster uptake

Test positivity, emergency room visits, hospitalizations and deaths are increasing as expert warns: ‘It’s still dangerous’

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/03/covid-surges-us-low-booster-uptake

😷

“My latest research as a psychologist and educational researcher unveils a major roadblock to achieving a more representative workforce, however: tech stereotypes that emerge remarkably early in children’s development. In research published this month, my colleagues and I found that by age six, kids already see girls as worse than boys at computer science and engineering.”

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/tech-stereotypes-discourage-girls-from-computing-and-engineering-as-early-as/

“Key findings from the GAO highlight the surge in textile waste over recent decades, fueled by fast fashion’s rapid production cycles and disposable culture. Nearly 17 million tons of textile waste were generated in 2018 alone, with only 15% recycled or reused. The remaining textiles are incinerated or sent to landfills, exacerbating greenhouse gas emissions, microplastic pollution, and contamination from chemicals like PFAS.”

https://fibershed.org/2024/12/12/u-s-government-releases-landmark-report-on-textile-waste-and-fast-fashions-environmental-toll/

“Over the past two decades museums and archives have raised and spent billions of dollars to digitize their holdings, to say nothing of the countless individual citizen archivists painstakingly assembling digital collections on their own. Our hardware and software infrastructure is not built for this reality. It is tailored to the short term, without any concern for its long-term durability.”

https://lil.law.harvard.edu/century-scale-storage/

"The long-term use of these agroecosystems contributed to continuous, shallow groundwater availability, which is essential for agricultural production and local food security in arid regions. These systems, which include advanced soil-enrichment techniques and groundwater harvesting methods, show the resilience of traditional agricultural practices and their potential for modern adaptation in water-scarce regions.”

https://phys.org/news/2024-12-ancient-agricultural-modern-day-scarcity.html

Europol was in touch with The Reg overnight to ensure no one imagined the "Matrix" app had any connection to the open protocol for secure decentralized comms of the same name, saying: "The Matrix protocol ( @matrix ) is by no means connected to the Matrix secured communication service that was targeted in OTF Continental."

https://www.theregister.com/2024/12/04/eurocop_crack_matrix/