Nick @internic@social.cleverlibre.org

The American Red Cross is fundraising to help Maui after their devastating wildfires, but they're wholly incompetent at responding to these emergencies. After the Haiti earthquake, for instance, they raised half a billion dollars and built 6 houses https://skepchick.org/2023/08/give-blood-but-not-money-to-the-red-cross/

Hey pals, I finally found my login for this account! Ha ha...I also have mastodon.social/@rebeccawatson and am wondering, should I stay here at mstdn.social or post on main? IDK where things are these days. Is there a way to redirect people from there to here?

We've been considering shutting down our Mastodon instance due to the level of hate directed towards us on the platform including harassment and fabricated stories targeting our project members. We've decided to import the minimal FediNuke blocklist to cut down on some of this from reaching us.

https://writer.oliphant.social/oliphant/the-oliphant-social-blocklist

However, this is far from sufficient as much of the harassment comes from mainstream Mastodon instances. Support for the harassment is pervasive in many open source communities.

City of Hope in Duarte, California, has maintained masking requirements, and this has prevented hospital-acquired #COVID19 there entirely, according to Vijay Trisal, MD, chief medical officer at City of Hope.

“Our policies enabled us to achieve zero nosocomial infections, zero outbreaks.”

https://www.cancertherapyadvisor.com/home/cancer-topics/general-oncology/mask-mandates-have-kept-one-cancer-center-free-from-covid-19-others-have-lifted-masking-requirements-despite-patient-concerns/

Huh. Full text searches seem to be working now on mastodon.online. At least, I’m seeing results that aren’t hashtagged.

This is still one of the greatest ever put downs of Mastodon, to be fair.

Malware found on the Rust package repo (Crate)

https://blog.phylum.io/rust-malware-staged-on-crates-io/

Back in December 2022, #Rackspace got hit with ransomware on their Hosted Service, via exploitation of ProxyNotShell - as I reported at the time.

Rackspace have so far spent north of $10m on incident response. This excludes ongoing legal and professional services costs.

Outside of the $10m there are other costs listed. I think it's safe to say the Microsoft Exchange incident cost Rackspace... a lot. https://www.expressnews.com/business/article/rackspace-expenses-ransomware-attack-18331049.php

YIKES.

Following Elon Musk’s lead, Big Tech is surrendering to disinformation

Facebook and YouTube are receding from their role as watchdogs against conspiracy theories ahead of the 2024 presidential election

"The evolution of the companies’ practices was described by more than a dozen current and former employees... The new approach marks a sharp shift from the 2020 election."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/08/25/political-conspiracies-facebook-youtube-elon-musk/

Well, that's a switch. A guy in a diner in NH on ABCNews tonight...

Diner asks Tim Scott: "If you can't stand up to Trump, how are you gonna stand up to the President of China and Russia.?"

Good question.

#USPol

Way to go, Ireland! All employers are legally obliged to conduct risk assessments & implement control measures to address indoor air quality, and this includes schools according to their new Codes of practice for Indoor Air Quality:

https://www.hsa.ie/eng/publications_and_forms/publications/codes_of_practice/code_of_practice_for_indoor_air_quality.pdf

#CleanTheAir #covid19 #CleanAir IsAHumanRight

So now the deadbird site, formerly known as Twitter, is inviting developers to come back and "build what's next" with the much abused API.

Twitter (and Reddit)'s greed-infused API restrictions wrecked a project we (ASU News Co/Lab) were doing to help journalists send corrections down the same social media pathways as the original journalism.

The idea what we'd ever work with them again is a sick joke.

Global COVID monitoring is crashing as BA.2.86 variant raises alarm

"This is on the shoulders of governments right now."

https://arstechnica.com/health/2023/08/global-covid-monitoring-is-crashing-as-ba-2-86-variant-raises-alarm/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

On August 25, 1991, Linus Torvalds, introduced the world to Linux through an online post. Linus Torvalds developed the kernel, initially shared as source code, and later as bootable floppy disk images.

Early distributions included Torvalds's "Boot-Root" images, MCC Interim Linux, Softlanding Linux System (SLS), H.J. Lu's "bootable rootdisks," and Yggdrasil Linux/GNU/X, a commercial distribution.

#Tech #Linux #TechHistory #August #OS

Do you want "smart" cells for customizable treatment?

Research into creating cells from scratch not only teaches us about the fundamental building blocks of life, but also opens up opportunities to innovate and make life function in new ways

University College London scientists have reproduced the protein scaffolding holding up the structures of cells using not proteins, but DNA, forming strands of oligonucleotides with mutable thicknesses

#Science #Biology #Scicomm

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-36875-5

Wow. This is actually pretty big news.

The first RCT trial for immediate access to HRT--testosterone to transmascs--has published its findings. In it, 52% of those given immediate access to testosterone had an **IMMEDIATE CESSATION** of their previously-present suicidal ideation, compared to 5% of those given a placebo. A treatment being *ten times* more effective than placebo is pretty much as decisive as it gets.

#FTM #Trans #HRT #Science

https://www.miragenews.com/testosterone-treatment-boosts-mental-health-of-1029278/

I don't care what Trump's height and weight is. At all. I care that he was allowed to lie on his prison intake form.

We just can't stop giving him special treatment. Even for things as silly and inconsequential as this.

Great news: Free KN95 masks are now available from public health vending machines in NYC.

This is amazing work! Not everyone can afford to buy high quality masks regularly. If we want more people to wear masks, high quality masks should be available for free everywhere. Having them in public health vending machines in NYC is a great first step!