Microsoft should be sued into oblivion for the amount of e-waste it created from perfectly good machines that were not compatible with its latest OS, after it ended official support for its prior OS.

So, why DO people buy Apple? They know it is more expensive. Clearly, they believe they are getting something that is worth that price.

Apple goes to great efforts to protect user privacy. Some of what they do might just be promises and/or lies, but that is still better than the alternatives available, that openly spy on everything they can and sell it to whoever wants to buy it. For people who have the money to afford Apple products, it's worth it.

Of course there are free open source solutions that protect privacy, but they require greater tech knowledge to use and have more compatibility issues (there are always a group of Linux users that get all bent out of shape when someone says this. Too bad. I use Linux a lot and I am very familiar with the issues that crop up that the Linux community likes to pretend don't crop up).

There's also the matter of user experience. When I use windows 11, I fell pushed-around and limited. When I use MacOS, I feel obeyed and empowered. Your mileage may vary, but this was enough for me to buy Apple.

I hate windows enough that my gaming rig runs Linux. I love Apple enough that my "everything serious" machine runs MacOS. Even with these price hikes, I will still go Apple over Windows any day of the week, should I need another machine for any purpose other than gaming.

From the summary:

IOW, they're sticking with their marketing pitch.

That's no longer the American Way (if it ever was).

I suppose the "many worlds" interpretation of quantum mechanics gives us a reason to posit something similar to "alternate realities." Published physicists who have studied the evidence in much greater depth than I have, and understand the math much better than I do, take this seriously. Were it not for them, I would dismiss it as junk science.

But even if we posit many worlds, the theory doesn't predict any means by which taking drugs would cause one to see things that reside in these completely decohered branches, let alone ones that decohered so long ago that evolution took a completely different path, producing tiny people.

I also suspect that humans bodies that are as small as rats wouldn't actually function properly, as the design would produce mechanical failures given normal human proportions. The brain wouldn't be able to contain nearly as many neurons either, meaning that these "people" would not be capable of speech or abstract thought (or really much more than rats or similar-sized animals are capable of).

The idea continues to be wildly implausible, even under the many-worlds hypothesis.

It's not "every" human brain. It's just "most" human brains.

Be that as it may, you might consider asking Gemini such a question. Of course, answers from AI aren't guaranteed to be accurate, but answers from random posters on Slashdot come with even less of a guarantee.

But here, let me save you the effort by posting Gemini's reply:

While researchers are still isolating the exact chemical compound inside Lanmaoa asiatica—which is unique and unrelated to classical psilocybin "magic mushrooms"—neuroscience and psychiatry offer a fascinating framework for why a chemical can cause such a highly specific, repeatable flaw in human perception.

1. The Disruption of "Size Constancy"
To understand why the people are tiny, we look at a neurological concept called size constancy. Your brain continuously performs complex mathematics to ensure that when a friend walks away from you, you perceive them as moving further away, rather than physically shrinking—even though the actual image hitting your retina is getting smaller. This relies on a highly calibrated feedback loop between the primary visual cortex (V1), which processes raw shapes, and the visual association cortices, which interpret depth, distance, and context. When a toxin disrupts this communication channel, it causes a specific sensory distortion called micropsia. If the brain tries to project an object or a memory into the visual field while the size-constancy machinery is offline, the object defaults to a drastically scaled-down size (often measured at exactly 1 to 2 centimeters by patients).

2. The Brain's "Pareidolia" and Object-Recognition Hardware
Why does the brain specifically manufacture human figures instead of just shrinking the existing room? Human brains possess hyper-specialized, dedicated neural architecture designed to recognize faces and bodies, primarily located in the fusiform face area (FFA) and the extrastriate body area (EBA). This hardware is so sensitive that it causes pareidolia—making us see faces in electrical outlets or burnt toast. When a psychoactive compound overstimulates or uncouples these specific regions, the visual system begins firing "spontaneously." Because these circuits are hardwired exclusively to process human attributes, the hallucination cannot be an abstract geometric pattern. The brain is forced to piece together the chaotic neural static using its strongest, most deeply ingrained template: the human form.

3. The "Release Phenomenon" (Deafferentation)
Lilliputian hallucinations are not exclusive to mushrooms; they are also the hallmark of Charles Bonnet Syndrome (where people losing their eyesight see tiny people) and certain stages of Parkinson’s disease. The leading neurological theory for both is the release phenomenon: Under normal conditions, a steady stream of real-world data from your eyes acts as an "inhibitory" brake, keeping your visual association cortices from running wild. If a toxin suddenly blocks or alters this sensory input, the brain's internal dream-generation software is "released" from its brakes. Left to its own devices, the visual cortex starts pulling random information from memory and projecting it into the physical room. Because the interactive physics engine of the brain is still online, 97% of these hallucinations interact realistically with the environment—marching across actual tables or ducking under tablecloths.

The Neuro-Chemical Frontier: Classical psychedelics like psilocybin primarily bind to serotonin $5\text{-HT}_{2\text{A}}$ receptors, causing geometric distortions and emotional shifts. Because Lanmaoa asiatica causes a clinical syndrome completely distinct from a typical psilocybin trip, scientists believe its active compound targets entirely different pathways—likely involving acetylcholine or gabaergic networks, which directly control attention, reality-monitoring, and visual gating.

Is there any other evidence of their existence, such as missing food or other supplies that would be consistent with ongoing need, not to mention unexplained pollution, etc?

No.

Do multiple people report seeing the same people in the same spot at the same time when they take these mushrooms together, under controlled conditions where they cannot hear each other's descriptions?

No.

While we have no logical way to disprove the existence of alternate realities, there is also no good reason to posit their existence, especially when we can objectively determine that these mushrooms are hallucinogens, which are known to produce false sense data. You are free to believe in whatever crazy nonsense you like, but don't try to act like there is any sound philosophical or scientific basis for such belief.

Wind is part of the cause, but the GS itself is an ocean current.

The reported drop ins SpaceX is understandable given the recent IPO.

As for most of the others, is a 2% drop significant?

In a free country, "too big to fail" is to big to be allowed.

I'm not from the future. It's just that time is cyclical.

There are various hypotheses to explain it, such that the universe is cyclical or that we're stuck in a time loop. But the most broadly accepted hypothesis is that a prior civilization collapsed at the end of year 32,767, and it has taken us almost 35,000 years to get back to where we are now.

Of course, our calendar doesn't allow for a year 0, so we may have an off-by-one error. But then again people celebrated the millennium at the end of 1999, so maybe there's a tacit assumption that there was in fact a year 0.
 

Actually, I like watching the stunt men and special effects.

Nah, they're just jealous that other people's fuckups have been dominating the news, and they want some of that old-fashioned media love too.

I haven't been to the cinema since 2917, because everything was already too boring and predictable to watch. Let alone pay for.

Downplaying Godwin's law is literally Hitler.