iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Brian Vastag @brianvastag.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 29/06/2025

Wondering if someone can help me move accounts. Instructions say to create an alias on your new server. When doing this, the form says, **"**Specify the username@domain of the account you want to move from." So I did that, specifying "brianvastag@sciencemastodon.com" as the account I want to […]

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Brian Vastag @brianvastag.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 29/06/2025

Trying to log into mastodon.social on chrome: Error page ("Something has gone wrong on our end.") But I can log in with other browsers. I have no idea why but it is thwarting my plan to transfer my account there. #fediverse

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Brian Vastag @brianvastag.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 28/06/2025

I have a mastodon.social account from like 2018 I never used and I was going to migrate this account (server is shuttering) to that one but when I logged onto mastodon.social I got this so I guess I won't.

Mastodon mascot saying "We're sorry but something went wrong on our end."

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Brian Vastag @brianvastag.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 28/06/2025

@aarbrk Well there's general overlap with the entire psychedelics scene but I can't say much beyond that for kratom.

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Brian Vastag @brianvastag.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 28/06/2025

And there have been quixotic attempts to develop it into an FDA-approved therapy, including a grassroots movement...possibly the only grassroots drug-development movement in history. Anyway, it's a fascinating story and I'm sorry I'll never get to finish the book. No one else has tackled the […]

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Brian Vastag @brianvastag.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 28/06/2025

From 2005-2010 or so I spent quite a bit of time in this subculture and developed a book project. I had an agent ready to go, and then WaPo offered me a job and I took that instead of write the ibogaine book. Then while at the Post I developed a disabling chronic illness, so the book never got […]

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Brian Vastag @brianvastag.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 28/06/2025

This is absolutely wild. Rick Perry (THAT Rick Perry) is now championing studies of ibogaine for treatment of addiction. Ibogaine is a weird drug derived from a West African shrub. I spent quite a bit of time developing a book about it; it's being used in an unregulated fashion in Mexico, Costa […]

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Brian Vastag @brianvastag.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 27/06/2025

Rights in the US are supposed to be like the laws of physics - they apply everywhere all the time. Not anymore, thanks to SCOTUS. Someone born to non citizens, in say, Arkansas, may not be a US citizen but if they're born in California they are a citizen. That's the kind of thing this ruling […]

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Brian Vastag @brianvastag.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 27/06/2025

@rjblaskiewicz Ideologues advancing a project don't GAF about anything else.

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Brian Vastag @brianvastag.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 27/06/2025

A day with a dip in the ocean is better than one without. Also, this rock says hello.

A bleach in Hawaii with a prominent lava rock in the foreground.

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Brian Vastag @brianvastag.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 26/06/2025

Every time I open my Scrabble app it asks me if I want to start a game with Beth, who died in Dec. 2023. I'd thought with the amount of work her brother and I have done to remove her profiles, accounts, etc, this would stop happening some day but I guess the digital afterlife is forever. Also […]

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Brian Vastag @brianvastag.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 26/06/2025

I see people getting pre-angry at Democrats for what they won't do when they are back in power. Sure, let's have some fantasy anxieties because there aren't enough real ones. @USpol

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Brian Vastag @brianvastag.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 25/06/2025

She's just trying to spectate a cat fight in the yard below. Pretty good yowly slap fight going on with the neighborhood furballs.

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Brian Vastag @brianvastag.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 25/06/2025

I kept going to work too for 6 months after getting sick and then I was bedbiind for two years.

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Brian Vastag @brianvastag.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 25/06/2025

Article from May: '"It’s led to him having energy zaps and stamina ebbs and flows over the last couple of months, and he felt that he had actually turned the corner right as the playoffs started in mid-April,” Charania said. “But in his own words, he had a crash right before Game 1 of this […]

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Brian Vastag @brianvastag.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 25/06/2025

In NBA circles, there's talk of a player having long covid. He recently missed time with an unspecified illness and was just traded from Boston to Atlanta. I sure hope he doesn't, but if he does, willful societal blindness to the often permanent (or very long term) nature of long covid could […]

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Brian Vastag @brianvastag.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 25/06/2025

Evergreen #Hawaii tourism discourse: - We must diversify away from tourism! - But no astronomy. - And only traditional agriculture. - Oh god there are fewer tourists nooooooooooo. www.sfgate.com/hawaii/article/hawai…

sfgate.com

Hawaii tourism is 'significantly down,' and experts are worried

Hawaii is seeing a decline in summer travelers during peak season.

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Brian Vastag @brianvastag.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 24/06/2025

@ckr Is....Hotel Harrington somehow not a heap of lumber and masonry splayed on the ground yet?

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Brian Vastag @brianvastag.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 24/06/2025

Filed an insurance claim with USPS which means...nothing. I will get nothing. (If they actually honor the claim I will eat this post.)

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Brian Vastag @brianvastag.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 23/06/2025

If I disappear it's because my instance closed and I didn't bother making a new account. Probably not dead.

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Brian Vastag @brianvastag.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 24/06/2025

Some gluten-free bread is getting so good that I am very suspicious. OTOH if I inadvertently eat wheat I start to itch everywhere in 30 seconds so I will continue to rely on the bioassay.

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Brian Vastag @brianvastag.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 24/06/2025

You know what I'd like to see journalists do? When the admin ignores their Qs and sends propaganda-laden statements, WRITE THAT. Say, "The CDC did not answer our questions but instead sent us an anonymous statement that contained falsehoods, so the Post is not printing it." But they won't […]

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Brian Vastag @brianvastag.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 24/06/2025

Got a press release from #MEAction today saying the only #LongCovid clinic in North Carolina, at UNC, is closing. The clinic has seen 3500 people, 70% women, and 43% had stopped working. Dire.

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David Roberts @volts.wtf · 23/06/2025

"The latest cancellations – including battery, electric vehicle and solar panel factories in West Virginia, New York, Alabama, Arizona and Washington – mean $15.5 billion in new factories and electricity projects have been cancelled since January 1." $15.5B, 12,000 new jobs -- wiped out. For what?

e2.org

Businesses Cancel $1.4 Billion In New Factories, Energy Projects in May as Congress Pushes Forward on Tax Increases | E2

Cancellations now total $15.5 billion since January; nearly 12,000 jobs lost GOP districts see $9 billion in investments; 10,000 jobs disappear due to cancelled or delayed projects so far $444 million...

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Flipboard Science Desk @sciencedesk.flipboard.social.ap.brid.gy · 23/06/2025

Cancer experts told @BBCNews's "Panorama" that anti-medicine conspiracy theories are becoming more mainstream in their field, and this could be endangering lives. The show focuses on 23-year-old Paloma Shemirani, who was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a type of cancer, and told she had a […]

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Brian Vastag @brianvastag.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 23/06/2025

If I disappear it's because my instance closed and I didn't bother making a new account. Probably not dead.

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Brian Vastag @brianvastag.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 23/06/2025

Is it wrong that I call Timm from Andor "Timmmeeeeee"?

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Brian Vastag @brianvastag.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 22/06/2025

Bezos made a perfect Heidi-sized box give him all the world's money.

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Brian Vastag @brianvastag.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 22/06/2025

@davidho People on Kauai are protesting this because they think the mosquitoes are GMO. 🤦‍♂️

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Brian Vastag @brianvastag.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 22/06/2025

This is like her 12th day in this box, she's never loved a box so much. Thanks Bezos, you deserve a trillion dollars. #cats

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Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 22/06/2025

Just a reminder that one lesson of JAWS is that you should listen to scientists when they warn you about a danger www.nature.com/articles/d41... 🧪

nature.com

Happy birthday Jaws! How the movie changed shark science

Half a century after its cinematic release, Jaws is still shaping how we view — and protect — the ocean’s top predators.

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Brian Vastag @brianvastag.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 22/06/2025

Voggy on Kona side of Big Island today. Recent lava fountains of 1000+ feet.

Screenshot from Purple Air showing high PM2.5 readings on wear side of Hawaii island.

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Brian Vastag @brianvastag.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 22/06/2025

I'm glad I bought an EV last year because gas in Hawaii is going to cost $20 a gallon.

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Brian Vastag @brianvastag.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 22/06/2025

Oh it's mastodon I need to add /s or else someone will think the thumb's up is an endorsement.

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Brian Vastag @brianvastag.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 22/06/2025

A fundamentalist Christian state attacking fundamentalist Shiites at the behest of fundamentalist Jews. 👍

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Brian Vastag @brianvastag.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 21/06/2025

Starting a USPS claim for some artwork they damaged and all uploaded files must be smaller than 2 mb because it's still 2004 or something.

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Brian Vastag @brianvastag.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 21/06/2025

I first wrote about early trials of stem cells for type 1 diabetes in....2007. Medical research is so freaking slow and requires constant large investments for real progress. But this is good news. #medicine […]

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Brian Vastag @brianvastag.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 21/06/2025

Got a message from Amazon saying there's a service outage so I can't turn on my lightbulb. The future is awesome.

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Brian Vastag @brianvastag.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 21/06/2025

Wendy Benchley, widow of novelist Peter, is big into ocean and shark conservation, as Peter was before his death in 2006. I once had the pleasure of attending a book launch party at Wendy's DC home for my colleague Julie Eilperin's book "Demon Fish," about shark conservation. The Benchleys […]

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Brian Vastag @brianvastag.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 20/06/2025

Listening to Stephen King's afterword of his latest book, "Never Flinch," and he talks about how during the winter of '23-'24 he thought it was terrible and that he'd never finish it. Yep, that Stephen King is just like every other writer that way.

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Brian Vastag @brianvastag.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 19/06/2025

The only South American team in the North American soccer federation, Suriname, is holding its own against Mexico. I don't know why Suriname is in CONCACAF but maybe S. America was too strong for this tiny little jungle country. #soccer #futbol #sports #GoldCup

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Brian Vastag @brianvastag.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 19/06/2025

I remember having a brief discussion with my editor about how we were going to refer to Ride's partner, as they hadn't been out about their relationship. I think we landed on "life partner" after taking to her (Tam O'Shaughnessy).

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Brian Vastag @brianvastag.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 19/06/2025

I had the great honor of writing Sally Ride's obituary at WaPo but I would've done a better job if we had gotten the news before 3pm that day. Daily journalism is about doing what you can before the clock strikes doom. Anyway this documentary looks good […]

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Brian Vastag @brianvastag.sciencemastodon.com.ap.brid.gy · 19/06/2025

Airplane ears as an airplane flies over the house. Imitation? #cats

A gray cat lying on a sofa making airplane ears.

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