Until we get to the point that we no longer need a pound and a half of extra plastic strapped to our faces to see the matrix, I'm fairly certain we aren't living in it- yet.

Oh do they have proof that he was killed?

Do I think the medical examiner and all the other investigators are right and he killed himself, or do I believe in a vast, shadowy conspiracy requiring all those parties plus the prison guards, plus whoever controlled access to the federal prison building to function? A conspiracy whose goals seem to silence him, with the assumption that he had something juicy on powerful people, something that wasn't kept in with the other blackmail materials that law enforcement actually had possession of, and something that he had never decided to use before to save his own neck? And that suicide wouldn't make sense when he was almost certainly going to spend the rest of his life in prison, where he had already been assaulted and was in constant fear?

Yes, I think he killed himself.

Several of the cameras were still working. Not a very effective conspiracy.

"We'll see if he "kills himself in prison at the same time the cameras malfunction". He lost access to all those funds so he isn't able to make protection payments or party donations."

Some of you people need serious psychiatric help.

A 0.04% reduction in fees won't make any meaningful difference to any merchant. If I sell a product for $100, 0.04% equates to 4 cents. On a million dollars it's $400.

Although it's not *literally* nothing, it is so far down in the noise that the chances of it making any difference is close to zero. Just like the actual fee reduction is close to zero.

If they had done something substantial like 0.4%. But not a reduction of 0.04%.

"A decent private school costs anywhere from $2500-8000/year."

Are you on crack?!

Getting kids off of social media is good for them, but it shouldn't be paired with Florida running it's already-pitiful educational system into the ground. The politicians doing this are purely doing it because they can't control social media the way they can the school systems.

various Microsoft tools - such as the setup programs for SQL Server Management Studio - like to lock out the Explorer window

I've not observed that behavior in a long time...and as it happens, Winget is upgrading SSMS as I type this. Everything else continues to work as normal while it does its thing.

MBAs: Let's outsource and cost-cut our way into danger!
Right-wing idiots on Slashdot: Der her look what DEI did!

Are you that easily tricked by stupid right-wing talking points?

And if, as the study shows- the stress of the 9 months of pregnancy is equivalent to two years of life, and the woman only gets back a large portion of that investment with engaging in breastfeeding- then does a late-term abortion also abort the positive portions of birth and breastfeeding?

This reminds me of the sentencing of the "January 6 insurrection" guilty pleas. As I (a non-lawyer) understand it...

Regardless of whether you consider it an insurrection or a protest march petitioning the government for redress of grievances...

In the wake of the events, the fed busted a bunch of the participants and left them rotting in prison for months (over a year), with no end in sight. In many cases this left families with no breadwinner, enormous legal costs, and expectations of losing all their property as part of some eventual conviction.

Then the prosecutors offered some of the defendants a plea deal; Plead guilty to a misdemeanor or short-sentence felony and we'll drop any other charges.

Rule of thumb: a misdemeanor generally is a crime with a max sentence of no more than a year in prison, a felony more than a year - which is why you see "year and a day" max sentences on some crimes. An accused person already in prison for over the max sentence would expect that accepting the deal would result in immediate release with "credit for time served" (and others near the max might expect release much sooner). So some of them went for it.

Came the sentencing some judges applied a two-year sentence enhancements for "substantial interference with the 'administration of justice.'" OOPS! No release for you.

I'd expect them to pull the same sort of thing on Assange if he were foolish enough to plead guilty to anything, no matter how minor.

(By the way: This particular form of the practice, as used on the Jan6 participants, was just recently struck down. But the decision was based on Congress' certification of the presidential election not qualifying as "administration of justice.'" So this wouldn't apply to whatever enhancement trick they might pull on Julian.

I don't know what you heard, but baby cells can only stay baby cells, they can't become mommy cells,

Sez who?

There's been evidence for some time that post-pregnancy mothers often have clones of stem cells derived from the previous foetus. Sure such a clone would likely start out with its epigenitc programming set for whatever function it had in the baby's development (unless, say, some error in its differentiation is what led to it migrating to the woman's body to set up shop). But once established on the mother's side of the placental barrier, and especially after the birth, the stem cell clone can be expected to continue to run its program under direction of the growth factors in the mother's blood.

That amounts to a transplant of younger stem cells which could be expected to produce differentiated cells for tissue growth and replacemtnt,, with the aging clock set farther back and with some genes from the father to provide "hybrid vigor", filling in for defective genes in the mother's genome or adding variant versions of molecular pathways.