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The problem is that for the entire fourth quarter of 2025, she raised just $822,000 in small contributions. That would mean that, after raising more than a half million in one day from regular people, she raised just $287,000 more over the next two and a half months. As a candidate, some drop off after launch day is expected, but to drop that far and that fast raises major concerns about how much momentum there is behind her bid, especially considering that the Democratic Party in Washington has turned on its small-dollar fundraising program for Mills. The party has carpet-bombed inboxes on her behalf, but people seem not to be responding.

The Mills campaign did not respond when asked to clarify these day-one fundraising issues.

I'm aware of what end-to-end encrypted means in a technical sense, but does the lack thereof guarantee the messages are just plaintext readable to whoever's manning the machine?

My guess is yes but I've been known to have wildly incorrect guesses so I want to double-check.

Someone was abducted at 10 AM by ICE on Central Ave. Their coworker says they’ve lived here for over 20 years, are documented, and have 3 kids who were born here. Don’t be fooled by headlines when they’ve been lying to us the whole time. We still need you out patrolling until every agent is gone

Source

European leaders divided over how far to accommodate Trump’s ‘wrecking ball’ politics and foreign policy

US Democrats will use a security summit this weekend to urge European leaders to stand up to Donald Trump, with the continent divided over how to keep the unpredictable US president on side.

Democrats at the annual Munich Security Conference will include some of Trump’s most outspoken critics, such as the governor of California, Gavin Newsom, the New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Arizona senator Ruben Gallego and the Michigan governor, Gretchen Whitmer.

Newsom has already urged Europeans to realise that “grovelling to Trump’s needs” makes them “look pathetic on the world stage”, telling reporters at the World Economic Forum in Davos last month he “should have brought a bunch of knee pads”.

MBFC
Archive

One of them is the increased number of people caring for mental status, but the other one is, we are living in an era that requires long hours of computer usage which is against the living way of an ADHD person. We need to walk, go out, spend energy, but nowadays we have to stay in an office, look at a screen, which is so boring.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/43120463

TLDR (I’m very long-winded): this YT video took measurements of three different audio cables, including a 200€ one, and found differences where there should be none. My physics knowledge (and general consensus among the scientific community) says the measurements of the different cables should be identical or near-identical — or I am, at least, under that impression. My own measurements, because the channel does provide the files, confirm that the expensive 200€ cable does measure differently from the others. But surely something else must be causing this? Please help me find out what that is, Lemmy!

Edit: see this and this other excellent comment.

Below, I go into a little more detail and context, and I go through what I have tried, etc.; I tried splitting everything up into chunks to make it easier to read, but I was never good at being succinct. Sorry about that 😬 :P

Context: What Am I Talking About?

Firstly, I should clarify that this isn’t relevant to most people, only really physics and audio-technology nerds. But I’m desperate. This question has been tormenting me for days...

I should provide some context. For some reason, YouTube gave me a rather odd video suggestion. I am very interested in audio technology, mixing, and mastering, but I’m not a snake-oil audiophile type. I guess you could call me a lover-of-audio, e.g., audiophile, but I don’t attach myself to that community. So you can imagine my confusion when this video was suggested to me on YouTube.

For anyone unwilling to click on an ambiguous YT link like that, here is a brief description: audiophile guy (who believes that cables affect sound) compares three cables, two of which are "cheap" (e.g., approx. 50€) and one of which is expensive (like 200€ — for a cable). His conclusion is ultimately (yes, I watched that far) that they don’t really affect sound, because they’re just interconnects (so RCA cables), and not speaker or power cables. But he actually records each cable and provides those music files — which means I can compare them as well...

By "records each cable," I mean that he used each cable to connect a CD-player to a pre-amp (for some reason) and then an analogue-to-digital convert (ADC) into his computer, where he can record the output; this way he gets just the supposed difference the cables make. I realize that the CD-player might have some inconsistencies, since CDs are a moving medium, but jitter compensation and stuff like that is very advanced these days, so this is getting pretty close to an accurate measurement of the cables, I think (correct me if I’m wrong!).

In the video, this guys claims that the measurements show a difference between the cables. This debate around cables is something I thought was quite contested, so I naturally decided to download the tracks (which he provides in the description) and compare them myself. Here’s what happened.

My Own Testing: They Don’t Null

So I downloaded his recordings, phase-aligned (which they weren’t already) everything and normalized to peak (which, again, was necessary, and creates the lowest delta compared to LUFS, etc.), and then null-tested. That means I inverted the phase of one, played two of the files at the same time, and thus got the delta between them.

The Mogami and Belden cables (the cheap ones) are nearly identical; there is a slight difference in the null-test, but it is statistically small enough, that I attribute it to measurement inconsistency (e.g., CD-player, DAC, or ADC performance, but also maybe natural conditions, etc.). I especially suspect — given that most differences occur at higher frequencies but aren’t really audible when listening — a jitter related issue, causing the timing to be just a little off, thus creating a delta in the higher frequencies. This could be due to the CD-player, but I have no idea.

...the Neotech (the expensive one), however, is significantly different.

---

Firstly, he provides the file for the Neotech cable with a significant phase delay compared to the others, of about 50 ms, and it is also about 0.02 db louder than the others. That is rather suspicious on his part. This alone makes it sound better, but when I correct this volume and phase difference — it still sounds better, and the null-test confirms that it is still quite different (we're talking differences up to -40 db here, which should definitely be audible).

It turns out, the volume difference actually changes throughout the song; meaning that in some places the difference is 0.01 db, and in others 0.03 db. But I can correct for that! I don’t know why it happens (someone smarter than me, please explain), but I can correct for it... And yet, the null test still shows a clear difference (especially when the singer makes s-sounds, i.e., sibilance).

Please Help Me

What is going on? My physics knowledge tells me this should be impossible. ~~I can only imagine that for some reason the Neotech is more conductive, or something like that, and therefore recreates the harsh and very fast dynamics of sibilance more accurately.~~ (edit: crossed out because this is a little too ridiculous) But the difference in conductivity should not be enough to cause that... I really am confused. Someone with more expertise please explain this!

For context, I cannot blind test ABX the Neotech. (edit: meaning, I cannot hear any difference whatsoever.) This is very subtle stuff here. But I can see a difference, the null test shows differences as high as -45 db when the singer does those s-sounds and everything has been normalized. So clearly something is happening (and again, this is phase aligned and normalized and everything). So what could it possibly be?

---

Edit: here, for clarity, screenshots of the null test at different moments in the tracks from the youtube vid (here nulling between the magomi and neotech).

Normal part of song, no sibilance or cymbals, but otherwise singing, piano, bass guitar, drums, etc.:

When the singer creates sibilance with an s-sound:

The null test was performed in the Reaper DAW with Voxengo SPAM and Reaper’s built-in phase align, normalization, and phase inversion.

---

Lemmy, please show me what I have missed! Show me the obvious error I or the video creator made. Sorry to make such a long post on c/asklemmy, but I don’t know where else to ask.

Basically he doesn't want to end up on tv doing something stupid being out of his mind. He is thinking proactively to put up road block just the option to get a gun?

Not sure if this goes here or if this post will be hated upon? but i want to host ai like llms and comfyuis newer models locally but im not sure what type of setup or parts would work best on a possible slim budget? im not sure either if now is the time with inflation and such.

I dont have a price in mind yet but im wondering how much it would cost or what parts i may need?

If you have any questions or concerns please leave a comment.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/43119723

Feb. 12, 2026
[from weekly newsletter about Cuba from the Belly Of The Beast news/video collective. Their videos can be found at: https://peertube.world/c/cuba_botb_videos/videos]

Donald Trump said on February 1: "We're talking to the people from Cuba, the highest people in Cuba, to see what happens. I think we’re going to make a deal." But according to Drop Site News, no such talks are taking place.

Meanwhile, in Cuba, the U.S.’ de facto oil blockade has already led to a shutdown of some essential services. Belly of the Beast spoke with Cubans about the fuel crisis and their concerns for the future.

Also:

• Interview With Cuban Jazz Legend Arturo O'Farrill
• With Jet Fuel Scarce, Canada and Russia Cancel Flights
• Mexico Sends Food — But Not Oil
• US Offers Cuba “Aid” While Crushing its Economy
• Guatemala Sends Cuban Medical Mission Packing
• UN Warns of Humanitarian Collapse

404 Media previously reported kids said they were using photos of Trump and G-Man from Half Life to bypass the age verification software in the popular VR game Gorilla Tag. That game uses the service k–ID, which is the same as what Discord is using.

Everyone looking to stop Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) today has a lot to learn from the explosive mass movement that culminated in the “Day Without an Immigrant” on May 1, 2006. The spark was H.R. 4437, the Sensenbrenner bill, which passed the House of Representatives on December 16, 2005. Former representative Jim Sensenbrenner’s bill would have made it a felony for immigrants not to have papers, while also criminalizing acts of support and solidarity.

The threat was clear and the response spread fast. As one Los Angeles protest sign put it, “You’ve kicked a sleeping giant.” In the spring of 2006, between four and five million people marched in over 160 cities. And on May 1, over a million people walked out and poured into the streets across the country. Ports slowed; classrooms emptied; restaurants, shops, and job sites went short-staffed or dark. Chris Zamora, a marcher in Los Angeles, described what that collective power felt like on the ground: “It gives me chills to be a part of it. Thirty years from now, I’ll look back and say, ‘I was there.’”

The mass marches and economic disruption worked: Sensenbrenner’s bill was killed by the Senate in late May. It was a historic victory for the immigrant rights movement and the American working class.

Staley is openly asserting here what many on the Left have long feared: that workers in rich societies are too bought off to overthrow capitalism. But among many other revelations in Epstein’s emails is the glaring fact that the ruling elite are not as uniquely bright as they’d like us to think. For all their wealth and power, these are no Übermenschen — they’re just average men with lurid sexual impulses and atrocious spelling. Their money and influence do not testify to their exquisitely developed personalities or intellects, only to the arbitrary injustice of the system that elevates them.

In other words, just because the former CEO of Barclays thinks American workers are too lulled by consumerism to come for his crown someday doesn’t mean it’s true.

“We have a master plan … There is no Plan B,” remarked Jared Kushner last month, during a Board of Peace (BoP) presentation about Gaza reconstruction at the World Economic Forum (WEF) at Davos. What has become apparent is that no coherent Plan A exists either.

Although Kushner’s father-in-law, US President Donald Trump, was granted the legitimacy to build what he calls the BoP on the back of pledges to implement his “20-point peace plan” and Gaza ceasefire, the BoP’s charter is notably absent of any reference to Gaza...

Stuff like this makes me think maybe my country (the UK) would be better off back in the EU. Europe together can create great technology like rockets. The UK alone can't.

US spy agency’s outreach, depicting a disillusioned mid-level officer, risks unsettling fragile calm before April’s Trump-XI summit

I really hope they die soon, this is unbearable…

The incident was not the first undersea sabotage in the Baltic, and it won’t be the last. That shallow body of water has become a hotspot for targeting critical undersea infrastructure. Over the course of the past decades, major Western economies have become increasingly dependent on the flow of data and energy along the seafloor. Russia has begun to weaponize that dependency, and China looks set to follow suit. The West is belatedly rebuilding its capacity to patrol and protect its undersea infrastructure but still hasn’t adequately grappled with how to deter the growing risks below the waves.

Archive.

During the Super Bowl, Anthropic ran a dystopian AI ad about dystopian AI ads featuring an AI android physical trainer hawking insoles to a user who only asked for an ab workout. Not to be outdone, Amazon ran a commercial for its AI assistant Alexa+ in which Chris Hemsworth fretted over all the different ways AI might kill him, including severing his head and drowning him in his pool. Equally bleak, the telehealth company Hims & Hers ran an ad titled “RICH PEOPLE LIVE LONGER” in which oligarchs access such healthcare luxuries as facelifts, bespoke IVs, and “preventative care” to live longer than the rest of us. It was an anti-billionaire ad by a multibillion-dollar healthcare company.

Turn on the TV today, and you will drown in a sea of ads in which capitalists denounce capitalism. Think of the PNC Bank ads where parents sell their children’s naming rights a la sports stadiums for the money to raise them or the Robinhood ads where a white-haired older man, perhaps meant to evoke Bernie Sanders or Jeremy Corbyn, curses the “men of means with their silver spoons eating up the financial favors of the one percent” from the deck of a yacht.

After years of ingesting the mainstream discourse around surveillance capitalism, Occupy Wall Street, and democratic socialism, corporations are regurgitating and even surpassing the rhetoric of the modern left. Naturally, it’s all a winking sleight of hand meant to corral us back into engaging with the same capitalism they portray as a hellscape — but with new and improved privatized solutions. In another widely reviled Super Bowl ad, the video doorbell company Ring tells us that every year, 10 million family pets go missing, and by opting into a web of mass surveillance, the company has reunited “more than a dog a day” with their families.

Modern advertisers descend from those ad men of the 1960s who first perfected the art of channeling our angst with society writ large into buying more junk. As historian Thomas Frank wrote in his book “The Conquest of Cool,” midcentury advertisers constructed “a cultural perpetual motion machine in which disgust with the … everyday oppressions of consumer society could be enlisted to drive the ever-accelerating wheels of consumption.”

The machine has hummed on ever since, retrofitting capitalism’s reprimands into its rationales. It churns out commercials reframing the precariat’s pain not as the product of plutocracy but as the product of buying the wrong products. Advertisements pitch that the good life is to be secured by procuring high quality goods, by curating the right combination of AI assistants, locally crafted beer, paraben-free dryer sheets, Jimmy Dean breakfast biscuits, Capital One Venture X points, BetMGM spreads, Coinbase crypto wallets, on and on.

It’s lunacy. Buying Levi’s won’t give you deep pockets. Brand promises, like all promises, are made to be broken. As AI anxiety fueled fears of mass layoffs, Coca-Cola soothed American workers’ worries about “AI coming for everything” with a glossy 2025 Super Bowl ad, featuring Lauren London, where the gleaming actress flexed her dimples and told us everything would be all right. Ten months later, Coke automated its advertising with generative videos, replacing the actors they’d paid to soothe our worries about being replaced by AI with AI itself.