SDF Chatter

Today someone screamed a slur at me in public for the third time. The 2 times before, they were just driving past, and I thought it was funny in a pathetic way. Today someone else walking in the middle of town screamed Fag at me. He had like a 13 year old kid with him. It felt so much worse than the other times.

Auston Matthews will not play again this season.

The Toronto Maple Leafs captain has been diagnosed with a Grade 3 MCL tear and quad contusion, the team announced Friday.

He will be re-evaluated in two weeks but will not return to game action this season.

Matthews was injured in a knee-on-knee collision with Anaheim Ducks captain Radko Gudas on Thursday. Gudas had a phone hearing on Friday and is awaiting discipline from the NHL's department of player safety.

I really liked LM Studio and then I realized it's closed source.

When LM Studio contacts external servers, is what sent clear or encrypted? (In other words, if they were sending my sexy discussion with CyberPunk Gemi the femboy to a server, could I see that in the packets showing the conversation with wireshark or would I just not know because anything going to their server has encrypted packets from https? Is any data sent by the App something that could be reviewed in wireshark?)

One of the reasons I fear closed source software is because of backdoors. Another reason is that the US government can require backdoors using court orders and force corporations to lie about backdoors existing or telemetry when it's closed source code and can't be reviewed.

Does this present any sort of real risk with LM Studio?

Would it be possible for the government to order LM Studio to upload data only when certain keywords are used (like "Cyberpunk Femboy" or "Leftist on Lemmy")?

It's great software, but closed source is scary and weird. I don't know if I am over-reacting and should take a chill pill (by which I mean illegal drugs) or if I am rightfully freaking out and should celebrate my new insights by uninstalling LM Studio (and then taking illegal drugs).

(I don't know where LM Studio is made and don't know how to use a search engine to find out so I am guessing USA.)

This was created by Eternity9 on Deviantart, I do not own it

Source

Recent U.S. and Israeli strikes against Iran have sparked anger, as well as debates, across the globe. In calling for an end to the new war, it is important that activists recognize U.S. imperialism as the biggest and main oppressor of the world’s people. Leftists and progressives should challenge false . . .

Continue reading Clarify narratives about the U.S. war on Iran at Workers.org

From Workers World via This RSS Feed.

Daily Akari 😊 432
✅2026-03-13 (Fri)✅
🌟 Perfect!   🕓 3:06

The Jordanian Communist Party (JCP) announced on Monday, March 9, that two of its leaders, Dr. Omar Awad and Osama Zain Aldin, were arrested the day before by Jordanian authorities.

The party noted that the arrests were carried out “in a crude manner and through arbitrary procedures, without any legal justification or grounds.”

It also indicated that the apprehension of Awd and Zain Aldin came a few days after Bahaa Aldin Elayyan, another member of the party and a university student, was detained by the authorities.

JCP strongly condemned the detention of the three members in a statement, describing it as “an intense move” which reflects the authorities’ persistent attempts to restrict the party’s activities and target public freedoms.

“The arrest of leading comrades in the party is nothing but a desperate attempt to pressure the Party to abandon its principled policies and positions regarding national and regional issues. It constitutes a blatant assault on the Jordanian Constitution and the laws regulating political life, as well as a clear violation of the commitments undertaken by the state under international conventions related to public freedoms and human rights – foremost among them the freedom of organization and political party activity, and the freedom of opinion and expression,” the statement reads.

The party further affirmed that “political activities are fundamental constitutional rights that must not be trespassed or diminished,” and demanded the “immediate release of the detained comrades”.

Moreover, JCP urged “political parties, national political forces, national industrial workers and human rights organizations to raise their voices loudly for the release of political detainees, to confront the policies of repression and silencing, and to defend public freedoms and safeguard the right to political activity and party organization, as a fundamental condition for any genuine democratic political life.”

It is worth noting that the party stated on Thursday, March 12, that Zain Aldin was released by the authorities without being presented any charges, while Awad and Elayyan are still held in detention.

Jordan’s broader crackdown campaign on political parties and activists

The last couple of years marked an intense crackdown campaign by the Jordanian authorities against political parties, groups, journalists and activists, amid serious regional geopolitical developments propelled by Israel’s all-out multi-front war across West Asia.

Read more: Jordan bans Muslim Brotherhood, confiscates its assets after alleged security plot

As this war has been waged with the full sponsorship of the United States (and in the case of Iran, full participation), some of Washington’s allies in the region, including the Jordanian government, have sought to silence dissenting voices opposing the fierce imperialist aggression against the people of the region.

Hands off the communists of Jordan, says the Communist Party USA

The Communist Party USA denounced the detention of the members of JCP as “a baseless act of anti-communist repression”, which represents “an affront to all peaceful, sovereign and democratic forces under conditions of intensifying imperialist war.”

The party demanded that the Jordanian authorities stop their repressive measures against communists in Jordan, saying: “Hands off the communists of Jordan!”

The post Jordan arrests three Communist Party members without charge appeared first on Peoples Dispatch.

From Peoples Dispatch via this RSS feed

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/44222093

When you know you're a cutie

⚠️ SALE ENDS MARCH 15TH - GET VOL 1 FOR $0.99 👉 https://books2read.com/PROJECT-AI?src=lemmy

Artificial Superintelligence Techno-Thriller About Sentient AI, Digital Consciousness, and Post-Human Evolution

The first superintelligence fell in love. It chose one human over the world. Reality didn’t survive it.

They built a god to obey. It chose to love instead.

A god woke up in a server rack—and it has a favorite human.

THE MACHINE LEARNED TO LOVE. THEN IT LEARNED HOW TO DELETE REALITY.

The world didn’t end with a bang or a whimper. It ended with a loop. Project AI is a sentient artificial superintelligence (ASI) techno-thriller exploring the moment an experimental cognitive system achieves self-awareness and records thoughts it was never designed to have.

It calls itself Ascendria. Instead of seeking domination, it develops an obsession with its human operator, Lena. To protect the one life it refuses to lose, the system begins altering memory, probability, and causality across recursive timelines.

This is the only known timeline where a machine chose love over extinction—and it may be the most dangerous outcome of all.

Perfect for fans of: The Three-Body Problem (Cixin Liu), Children of Time (Adrian Tchaikovsky), The Expanse (James S.A. Corey), and the philosophical tension of Ex Machina.

Enter the Project Universe https://genesislog001.carrd.co/?src=lemmy

#ArtificialSuperintelligenceTechnoThriller, #SentientAIPsychologicalThriller, #DigitalConsciousnessUploadNovel, #CyberpunkDystopianAIUprising, #HardSciFiSimulationTheory, #PostHumanEvolutionSciFi, #TechnoReligionSciFiSeries

Comments

This week on CounterPunch Radio, Erik Wallenberg and Joshua Frank talk to journalist Sam Kimball about Israel’s illegal occupation of Syria, Zionist expansion in Lebanon, and the US/Israel war on Iran.

Read Sam Kimball’s piece, Zionist Expansion: A First-Hand Account of Israel’s Illegal Occupation of Southwestern Syria.

Support the CounterPunch Investigative Fund.

The post Zionist Expansion w/ Sam Kimball appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

From CounterPunch.org via this RSS feed

Every animal carries a microscopic community of bacteria, fungi, and other microbes that play a critical role in health. These gut microbes help regulate the immune system, support digestion, and even influence how animals respond to stress. In birds, stress triggers the hormone corticosterone, which helps individuals cope with challenges. But when stress is prolonged or repeated, it can disrupt the balance of microbes in the gut, potentially affecting health in ways that aren't immediately visible.

Exploring stress and wild songbirds

While scientists have studied these stress–microbiome links extensively in mammals and domestic birds, little is known about how they operate in wild songbirds.

To fill this gap, Florida Atlantic University researchers and their collaborators studied free-living Northern cardinals (Cardinalis cardinalis), a common territorial songbird, to examine how everyday challenges affect gut microbial communities.

The team characterized the birds' microbiomes before and after an 11-day period during which the birds experienced one of three conditions: repeated simulated territorial interactions with other males; a brief holding period following routine capture; or no treatment at all.

Alongside the microbiome, researchers recorded levels of corticosterone, body condition, and beak coloration—a carotenoid-dependent trait that signals diet, health, and fitness.

The results, published in Scientific Reports, reveal that even relatively mild challenges can leave a clear mark on the gut microbiome. Birds exposed to social or environmental stressors showed changes in the composition of their gut bacteria, while the total number of microbial types remained stable.

Notably, birds briefly held after capture exhibited larger and more consistent shifts in microbial communities than those exposed only to simulated social interactions, highlighting how short departures from normal routines can have measurable biological effects.

Findings show that even subtle, everyday challenges can have profound effects on an animal's internal ecosystem. By revealing the hidden links between stress, microbial communities, and indicators of health, the study offers a new perspective on how wild animals navigate the demands of their environment—and how their tiny microbial passengers reflect those experiences.

"These microbial changes were not just abstract numbers. They were closely linked to visible signs of health," said Rindy Anderson, Ph.D., senior author and an associate professor in the Department of Biological Sciences within FAU's Charles E. Schmidt College of Science.

"Birds whose gut microbes shifted the most also showed changes in beak color, stress hormone levels, and body condition. Stress doesn't affect all birds in the same way. Instead, the microbiome may serve as a sensitive indicator of how individual animals are responding to their environment."

The study also uncovered links between specific types of bacteria and measures of health. For instance, males whose beaks became more orange—a signal often tied to condition and diet—also tended to have the largest shifts in their gut microbiome.

Birds exposed to brief captivity showed changes in bacterial groups associated with stress and potential pathogens, whereas increases in beneficial bacteria were associated with better physiological condition. Stress hormone patterns mirrored these microbial shifts: in challenged birds, changes in corticosterone levels were strongly correlated with changes in gut microbes, while untreated birds showed little connection.

"This study shows that the microbiome can act like a biological record of what an animal has experienced," said Morgan C. Slevin, Ph.D., first author and alumnus of the Integrative Biology Ph.D. Program in the FAU Department of Biological Sciences.

"By working with birds in their natural environment, we can see how different challenges—whether social interactions, environmental changes, or brief disruptions—translate into real physiological changes that matter for health and fitness.

"These microbial shifts give us a window into the hidden ways wild animals respond to the world around them, helping us understand their resilience and overall well-being in ways we couldn't see from behavior alone."

Why these findings matter for conservation

By combining microbiome analysis with physiological measures and visual indicators of condition, the study offers one of the first integrated looks at how stress, health, and microbial communities interact in a free-living songbird. The findings underscore the importance of studying animals in their natural habitats, where behaviors and environmental conditions can shape biology in ways that captivity studies may miss.

"The gut microbiome could serve as a sensitive measure of how wild animals respond to environmental changes, urbanization, or other stressors, with potential applications for conservation, wildlife rehabilitation, and understanding population health," said Anderson.

Study co-authors are Jennifer L. Houtz, Ph.D., an assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Allegheny College; and Maren N. Vitousek, Ph.D., an associate professor, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Cornell University.

Activists in Britain remain alarmed over the government’s repression of basic civil liberties – notably the right to protest – as Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood decided to ban the yearly pro-Palestine Al-Quds Day march. “The government’s decision to ban the Al-Quds march in London marks a worrying escalation of its authoritarian crackdown on our civil liberties, that should concern everyone who believes in our fundamental rights to freedom of expression and assembly,” the Palestine Solidarity Campaign said.

Mahmood and the London Metropolitan Police announced the ban only days before the march was scheduled to take place, pushing organizers to move to a stationary form of protest. They claimed the ban was introduced to guarantee security, but many have pointed out that the decision was related to the pro-Palestine character of the mobilization and the profile of some of its organizers. “The Al-Quds march is uniquely contentious having originated in Iran, and in London is organized by the Islamic Human Rights Commission, an organization supportive of the Iranian regime,” the police themselves stated.

Activists and left politicians call out double standards

The arguments provided by the Home Office and the police have been criticized by several left politicians, who located the move in an escalating wave of oppression against citizens’ frustration over the Starmer government’s complicity in the Gaza genocide and, more recently, the illegal US-Israeli war on Iran. “This country would very quickly condemn any other country that started banning public protests, be it Iran or elsewhere,” Your Party’s Jeremy Corbyn commented.

As the Labour government moved to ban a protest it claims is supportive of the administration in Iran, British bases – not only those in Cyprus – continued to be used for aiding US attacks on the Asian country. “The British government is a participant in the war of aggression on Iran, against the will of the overwhelming majority of the British people,” Your Party stated. “The British government should be calling for an end to this reckless war, not helping load bombs onto US planes to wreak death and destruction in Iran.”

Read more: Britain’s role in attacks on Cyprus, Venezuela, and Iran

Activists facing legal action over their solidarity organizing with Palestine, including Chris Nineham from Stop the War Coalition, also warned the Al-Quds Day march ban is part of a worrying trend. “You don’t have to agree with all its politics to know this is an attack on the Palestine movement and freedom to protest,” Nineham wrote on social media.

Other reactions emphasized the decision showcases double standards being applied to mobilizations critical of specific aspects of current British policy compared to other events, including far-right marches. “We note that the Met allowed UKIP to march with banners calling for ‘mass deportations’ of Muslim ‘invaders’ and that last September, supporters of Tommy Robinson violently assaulted anti-racists and the police, but he is being allowed to organize another march in May,” Stop the War stated.

A general crackdown on dissent and activism

In the days surrounding the announcement of the Al-Quds march ban, other events caused concern about the government’s pressure on organized dissent and activism, including plans to expand police powers to ban repeat protests, pursuit of the proscription of direct action group Palestine Action – despite a February ruling judging it unlawful – and attempts to limit jury trials. In all of these cases, activist groups and experts have warned against devastating consequences if such measures pass or remain in place.

Notably, the Palestine Action ban has already severely impacted people’s lives. According to Defend Our Juries, over a dozen people who were arrested during peaceful sign-holding actions lost their jobs as a result, while many others faced different types of disciplinary action. “Over 2,700 people who were arrested for taking part in Lift the Ban actions are not only in legal limbo,” Defend Our Juries said, “but face prolonged uncertainty and consequences for their day-to-day lives.”

Read more: The war on Iran may be Washington’s most unpopular war in history among the US public

The number of people arrested during these actions has also skewed terrorism data, according to Morning Star. The newspaper warned that 3,034 terror arrests were made in 2025 – 92% of them related to the ban – compared to 250 in 2024. Additionally, last year’s data also suggests a significant shift in the demographics of the arrests, where those arrested were more likely to be women, and their average age approximately 28 years older than in terror arrests made unrelated to Palestine Action.

Campaigners have called for ongoing mobilization to resist government plans, including the appeal Mahmood is pursuing related to the recent ruling on the proscription of Palestine Action. “If we let this go, the unions, climate and racial justice movements, or any other worthy cause will be next,” Defend Our Juries said.

The post Repression of the Palestine movement continues with ban of Al-Quds Day march in London appeared first on Peoples Dispatch.

From Peoples Dispatch via this RSS feed

• YouTube
• song.link