John Mashey
@johnmashey.bsky.social
1.4K followers 2.2K following 1.7K posts
Semi-retired computer scientist, ancient UNIXer, "Big Data" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Mashey Last 20 yrs: chasing anti-science disinfo, esp. on climate or tobacco, helping defend scientists. Supporter of UCSF, CSLDF, NCSE, CSI, member AAAS, AGU.
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johnmashey.bsky.social
1/ Given CDC evisceration, attacks on climate science, NASA... here's a short tale of worrisome prescience from 2014.
I attended an early showing in San Francisco of the fine film "Merchants of Doubt". It has book's foci of climate denial/tobacco, but adds more.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRWE...
Merchants of Doubt (2014) with Naomi Oreskes, Jamy Ian Swiss, Frederick Singer Movie
YouTube video by hos Ben
www.youtube.com
Reposted by John Mashey
Reposted by John Mashey
wildweatherdan.bsky.social
Yup. China isn’t buying next year either.
bluevoter24.bsky.social
He's right. Those markets aren't coming back. Gone. Gone. #fascism #economics
Reposted by John Mashey
prasad.bsky.social
basic research on wacky things like Gila monster venom are what gave us GLP-1 drugs that are treating diabetes, obesity, & addiction in new ways

this piece from @whyy.org is great

an analogy: navigation apps are great but don't tell you how to climb Mt. Everest & survive

whyy.org/segments/oze...
Reposted by John Mashey
ryanmarino.bsky.social
NHANES runs mobile clinics that travel the country measuring height, weight, & blood pressure while collecting blood and urine samples. These samples are our only national source for tracking everything from blood sugar to hormones, heavy metals, and more.

The entire operation has been eliminated.
kcklatt.bsky.social
Everyone across biomedicine should be very loud about this so this team's RIF status gets reversed. Nhanes has been key for tracking obesity & diabetes rates, identifying high blood lead levels in kids in the 70s, tracking progress on cholesterol lowering, guiding nutrient fortification programs etc
johnmashey.bsky.social
Once again, engineering dreams suffer the same fate as some scientific hypotheses:
“ the great tragedy of Science—the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact” -T H Huxley, 1871
but oft said in various versions, in some cases, like here, there is a mob of facts.
Reposted by John Mashey
brenttoderian.bsky.social
Just watched a smart, persuasive interview with @michaelemann.bsky.social & @peterhotezmdphd.bsky.social on US media.

They were asked if “naming names” about liars & their motivations risks coming across as “partisan.”

I think about that a lot as I do similar things in the city-building arena. 1/2
Book cover for “science under siege.”
Reposted by John Mashey
mcopelov.bsky.social
The entire first two months of the Biden administration were taken up by obsessive complaining about how he wouldn't do press conferences & wasn't taking policy questions (bsky.app/profile/mcop...).

This? Gone tomorrow. Totally different set of standards applied to two totally different parties.
atrupar.com
Trump: "I don't take questions from ABC fake news after what you did with Stephanopoulos to the vice president of the United States."
johnmashey.bsky.social
I’m sure you know, these, but always worth recalling:
Hearst: News is something somebody doesn't want printed. All else is advertising.”
Reposted by John Mashey
janrosenow.bsky.social
Grid scale batteries are changing our electricity system. Excellent new visual story on batteries in FT today shows just how far this technology has evolved.

Fasten your seatbelts, this is just the beginning.

ig.ft.com/mega-batteri...
Reposted by John Mashey
rbreich.bsky.social
Trump claims ICE’s reign of terror in Chicago is targeting the “worst of the worst.”

But out of the 1,000 undocumented immigrants that have swept up, the agency has only cited 10 men with a criminal background.

Don’t believe his lies for a second.
www.msnbc.com/msnbc/news/t...
Trump says migrants drive violent crime in Illinois. But ICE can’t find many violent criminals.
Masked ICE agents and other federal forces showed up in Chicago to go after gangsters. Instead, they keep catching people who are just living their lives.
www.msnbc.com
Reposted by John Mashey
amandajean.bsky.social
CDC had worked for decades to overcome the fear of government research created by the US Public Health Service's participation in the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis. Robust protections for human subjects for the basis of that effort. Gutting the CDC IRB is dangerous in so many different ways.
johnmashey.bsky.social
The Shockwave Rider(1975)‘s ~2015 dystopia featured USA surveillance state run by organized crime.
bsky.app/profile/john...
johnmashey.bsky.social
My sign for *Palo Alto* NoKings day might be related.
johnmashey.bsky.social
In Fall 1973, Moody Blues tapes were all I had when finishing dissertation, so recall fondly.
Reposted by John Mashey
corybooker.com
It is “the right of the people to peaceably assemble.”
Reposted by John Mashey
ketanjoshi.co
This is a great, detailed piece of work. There is really no secret here: OpenAI fully intend to use fossil gas to power their data centres.

All the crap about fusion, dyson spheres etc is misdirection. This is what they're *actually* doing:

www.desmog.com/2025/10/13/o...
John McCarrick, the company’s new head of Global Energy Policy, was a senior energy policy advisor in the first Trump administration’s Bureau of Energy Resources in the Department of State while under former Secretaries of State Rex Tillerson and Mike Pompeo.
 
As deputy assistant secretary for Energy Transformation and the special envoy for International Energy Affairs, McCarrick promoted exports of American liquefied natural gas to Europe in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and advocated for Asian countries to invest in natural gas.

The choice to hire McCarrick matches the intentions of OpenAI’s Trump-donating CEO Sam Altman, who said in a U.S. Senate hearing in May that “in the short term, I think [the future of powering AI] probably looks like more natural gas.”
 
 It also aligns with the company’s early moves toward powering new data centers, huge warehouses full of linked-up computers that require enormous quantities of water and electricity, to run with gas. OpenAI’s U.S. Stargate Project site in Texas, which is slated to become one of the largest data center sites in the world, is already installing off-grid gas turbines to power its operations.

“Big Tech’s collusion with the Trump administration’s fossil fuel agenda for artificial intelligence is evident in their massive investment in methane gas power infrastructure — as well as pro-gas political operatives like McCarrick,” Tyson Slocum, director of consumer advocacy organization Public Citizen’s Energy Program, said.
 
The “solution” of powering AI with gas is part of Trump’s AI energy policy platform.  In a July speech to announce a $96 billion AI and energy funding package, Trump lauded fossil fuel and coal-powered data center development while flanked by oil and gas executives.
johnmashey.bsky.social
Mine from last one is a bit more subtle, but in my old town, Palo Alto, is Peter Thiel’s company Palantir…
bsky.app/profile/john...
The Shockwave Rider(1975): ~2015 dystopia, USA surveillance state run by criminals. Most people worried that powerful others controlled their personal info.
johnmashey.bsky.social
My sign for *Palo Alto* NoKings day might be related.
Reposted by John Mashey
Reposted by John Mashey
rmcarpiano.medsky.social
Make America Healthy Again--like last year, please...

At least 153 unvaccinated students from 2 South Carolina schools under quarantine for 21 days due to measles exposures

*at least 1,563 measles cases in US this year--highest since 1992
*44 measles outbreaks reported this year vs. 16 last yr. 🛟😷
Over 150 unvaccinated students in South Carolina quarantining after measles exposure
The outbreak has grown to at least eight measles cases, officials said.
abcnews.go.com
johnmashey.bsky.social
John Brunner’s “The Shockwave Rider” is 50 years old, set ~2015, surveillance society run by criminal gov’t, computer worms (origin of term) running in the network.
bsky.app/profile/john...
For decade+ only scifi book on display at @computerhistory.bsky.social, joined recently by I, Robot.
johnmashey.bsky.social
My sign for *Palo Alto* NoKings day might be related.
Reposted by John Mashey
celestelabedz.bsky.social
A lot of comments on Mars rovers or Moon landings, but it's important to remember that the planet NASA studies most is Earth. This is less about cutting flashy things like moonwalks and more about keeping communities in the dark on climate, weather, agriculture, pollution, natural hazards, and more.