Question: What is plasma? (as a state of matter)

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 What is plasma? (as a state of matter)

Matter in solid, liquid or gaseous form is made up of atoms. Atoms are made up of protons and electrons, and nearly always neutrons as well. It's useful but not entirely accurate to think of protons and neutrons clumped together at the center of each atom (the nucleus) and the electrons whizzing around the center in a type of orbit. In a plasma, the electrons are "free" - they separate from the rest of the atom and travel more or less freely. This bestows certain properties on plasma that the same substance in a solid, liquid or gaseous form may not have. Plasma is a higher-energy state than gas, which is higher than liquid, which is higher than solid. So to take a substance from the solid phase to the liquid phase to the gaseous phase, just keep adding energy. The element mercury is solid at common room temperature, but if you add some heat, it becomes liquid. Add more heat, and it becomes gaseous. At each of these phases however, a mercury atom consists of 80 protons and 80 electrons (plus 121 neutrons), all more or less bundled together. The difference in each phase is that these bundles of protons, neutrons and electrons, while staying bundled, zip around faster on average than in the prior phase. Keep adding heat (energy), and the electrons eventually separate from the atoms and while you'll still find clumps of 80 protons and 121 neutrons bundled together, electrons whiz about without regard to what used to be electron orbits around each atom. This is a plasma. As They Might Be Giants succinctly put it, "Plasma, electrons are free. Plasma, a forth state of matter. Not liquid, not solid, not gas." (TMBG, The Sun is a Miasma of Incandescent Plasma)


Question: I've seen businesses not accepting cash because of a "shortage". What exactly is causing this shortage?

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 I've seen businesses not accepting cash because of a "shortage". What exactly is causing this shortage?

It isn't so much a _cash_ shortage as it is a _coin_ shortage. The short answer is the pandemic. The long answer is that it is a combination of the US Mint not producing coins at the normal rate, consumers not paying cash for transactions (keeping coins out of circulation), businesses trying to avoid accepting cash at all, and consumers not going to places where they normally exchange their coins for larger domination bills (like CoinStar machines).


Question: Why does every website seem to want me to register a username and password to use the search bar and other features? Even when signing up doesn't really accomplish anything other than waste everyone's time?

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 Why does every website seem to want me to register a username and password to use the search bar and other features? Even when signing up doesn't really accomplish anything other than waste everyone's time?

1. More accounts = more ad companies willing to pay 2. More registered subscribers = more people that can be contacted/sent messages about promotions 3. It can benefit you-if you have an account you can keep track of your activity on the site as well as get notifications 4. Identification - you can communicate with other users and save progress for yourself 5. Bragging rights - websites and companies like to compete with each other to have more followers/members 6. Organization - it is just easier for website admins if they have a record of who visits (as in how many unique visits) as well as accountability for different posts or actions 7. It can deter robots and spam if there is a required registration, especially if the website involves commenting or threads and chat rooms


Question: Iron is Nuclear Ash. What does this mean?

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 Iron is Nuclear Ash. What does this mean?

So, when you think of a campfire, what is ash? Ash is what's left when all the combustion is finished, and what you're left with is dead stuff that you can't burn anymore. Similarly, iron is the "ash," if you like, of nuclear fusion. Once you start producing iron, it takes way too much energy to fuse it into the next element -- more than you get back, so fusion stops.


Question: Why do we enjoy music much more when we hear it multiple times?

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 Why do we enjoy music much more when we hear it multiple times?

Humans have a familiarity bias. We like things more the more times we have experienced them. We believe statements more the more times we hear them. Humans favor the known and fear the unknown. So simply liking things better because of repeated exposure made us want to stick to the known and avoid the unknown. When humans evolved there was no advertising. People were not trying to gaslight you in your tribe. What you saw and heard was what was there. Now telling the same lie repeatedly or other manipulation is done to exploit this logical fallacy.


Question: what's the difference between caviar and the fish eggs you find on a California roll? Is there a difference?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.
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 what's the difference between caviar and the fish eggs you find on a California roll? Is there a difference?

Caviar traditionally comes from sturgeon, whilst [tobiko]( URL_1 ), the colorful little fish eggs you find on some sushi like a California roll is from flying fish. The translucent little red/orange balls you also find in some sushi is [ikura]( URL_0 ) which is salmon roe. Yes, they're all essentially the same in that they're fish eggs, but it's like comparing salmon and tuna, or chicken and duck: the taste and texture is noticeably different.


Question: Why is it if I look at my monitor in different angles, it seems like the pixels or the screen gets darker?

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 Why is it if I look at my monitor in different angles, it seems like the pixels or the screen gets darker?

Could be the panel technology being used, for example TN (Twisted nematic) and VA (Vertical alignment) monitors and TVs can colorshift either a lot or slightly depending from the Angle you're viewing them because of the positioning of the crystals inside the panel. I am no expert though, feel free to pitch in.


Question: Why do code systems have to be "maintained"? What happens that part of it suddenly doesn't "work" anymore? What causes a "bug" in the system?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.
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[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 Why do code systems have to be "maintained"? What happens that part of it suddenly doesn't "work" anymore? What causes a "bug" in the system?

Code, unlike physical objects, does not rot or "go bad" What typically happens is that software needs to change. Reasons for change include things like, we need a new feature, or we need to change how something works. When adding new or changing old features, it is very common to "miss" some aspect of how the original code works - this leads to bugs. A bug can be as simple as hey we forgot to carry over the decimal part of this number, or hey, this button needs to be lit up under these conditions, etc. In the case of systems written poorly it is often hard for a person to get a good enough grasp of how things work to avoid these sorts of bugs. In more dastic cases, maybe no one can make heads or tails of how things work. In these cases you Might need a really good programmer - or the original (bad) programmer to make sense of things.


Question: How do we always know when someone is watching us?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.
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</answer>
 How do we always know when someone is watching us?

There are several things at work in this impression people have that they know when people are watching them. First of all, there’s no extra sensory perception that tells anybody they are being watched. That’s just magical thinking. Sometimes people detect clues to something subconsciously. They may notice people acting differently or even the weird behavior of a pet, who knows. But things like this make people feel like something is amiss, they look around and spot somebody watching, and then conclude that what they felt was “being watched.” Other times, people think something is amiss without evidence. All the time, actually. But they look around and find nothing, so they forget about it. However, after doing this a hundred times and forgetting every time, they may actually discover a person watching them once, and wonder “how did I know they were watching?” But really, they just make note and remember the time they were right while forgetting the multitude of times they were wrong.


Question: Why can't you refreeze food that has already been frozen and thawed?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.
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[Your final detailed answer goes here]
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 Why can't you refreeze food that has already been frozen and thawed?

because if you refreeze it, the small ice crystals that form inside the food destroy its tissues. So when you defrost it for the second time it will lose a lot of water and change its consistency. It also increases the bacterial load and oxidizes faster due to damage caused by the cold. Some foods can be burned by the cold and refreezing facilitates this process


Question: How did television studios make words like show titles appear on screen before computers?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.
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[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 How did television studios make words like show titles appear on screen before computers?

I actually worked in TV before computers. We would make the titles with press-on letters (I forget the brand name) and shoot them with a camera. The title camera would be combined with the live camera in a device called a "luma key" that would switch the live camera off and the title camera on everywhere that the lettering appears, based on the brightness. This was with monochrome cameras. With color cameras there was a device called a "chroma key" that would switch based on hue, usually tuned to blue. The same device was used for example to put graphics behind the weather man. You had to be careful the talent didn't wear any blue clothing. EDIT: found a web page that shows a switcher with built-in luma key, and explains how it works: [Switchers]( URL_1 ). Scroll down to "Keys - Internal, External, Matte." EDIT 2: I remembered what the letters were called; Tactype. You can buy a sheet of it here: [VINTAGE TACTYPE Lettering 12 x 8 Sheet Dry Transfer 5514 Futura Medium]( URL_0 )


Question: How do roses that last for years work?

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 How do roses that last for years work?

Not sure how those exact roses are preserved, but one way of creating eternal roses it is to take a recently cut rose, submerge it in a mixture of glycerine and water, the rose will gradually replace its sap with the liquid and after a couple of days you have a flower that will last forever (or at least a couple of years..)


Question: Why is California such a magnet for people?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.
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 Why is California such a magnet for people?

For one thing, it is pretty big. If there was a gold rush in South Dakota followed by a mass migration to Minnesota, we wouldn't be talking about one place being a magnet. But mostly it is a lot of little things: * the weather is nice * it is on the coast * lots of natural resources * good agricultural land * the Spanish left some good infrastructure * adequate water is many places, most of the time * lots of open space and room to grow In addition to all of that, it is *new*, and has embraced a culture of newness. Things on the East Coast can be very traditional, and while that has its benefits, it can also be an impediment to innovation. People come to California so they can be free to do things that have never been done before.


Question: How my body (in case of dying of natural cause) is aware of when is time to lay down and pass out?

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 How my body (in case of dying of natural cause) is aware of when is time to lay down and pass out?

Until you actually die, your body is still reflexively trying to do its best to stay alive. When it comes down to the body marshaling it's last resources and keeping the heart beating as well as possible, your body will either strongly suggest you lie down (you feel light headed and or sleepy) or it will make you lie down (you faint or pass out). Any time your body is trying to protect the heart, it will make you lie down. Sometimes it's a fairly mild issue that passes once the body has some time to right things. In some cases though, death comes anyhow.


Question: In USA, of the top 100 pharma companies by sales, 64 spent twice as much on marketing and sales as on research and development. 58 spent three times as much, 43 spent five times as much and 27 spent 10 times the amount. Why do they spend so little on research and so much on ads?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.
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Factual Accuracy: The answer must be factually correct and does not contradict the reference answer.
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<answer>
[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 In USA, of the top 100 pharma companies by sales, 64 spent twice as much on marketing and sales as on research and development. 58 spent three times as much, 43 spent five times as much and 27 spent 10 times the amount. Why do they spend so little on research and so much on ads?

The obvious answer is, that advertising creates more revenue by the dollar spent. The more complex answer is, that no matter how much you research, if you cannot convince people, doctors, pharmacies to buy your products, you cannot make any more money to keep researching. The cynical answer is that buying Doctors and Lobbying in politics simply costs a real ton of money these days while slapping a new label on old medicine does not need a whole lot of research.


Question: Why do animals have two nostrils?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.
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Factual Accuracy: The answer must be factually correct and does not contradict the reference answer.
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Depth and Insight: The answer should provide thoughtful analysis or context, going beyond superficial details.
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<answer>
[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 Why do animals have two nostrils?

Nostrils were originally used to sense smells of small molecules dissolved in water. They didn't even connect with the inside of the mouth, but instead each one was a little u-shaped loop that water could flow through (many fish still have nostrils like this). A nostril on each side of the head lets these animals tell what direction a scent is coming from, which is pretty useful if you want to follow it or avoid it.


Question: How does a certain currency value rise or fall relative to other currencies?

The user asks a question, and the Assistant answers it. The assistant provides the user with the answer that strictly follows the following guidelines. The answer should be enclosed within <answer> </answer> tags, respectively, i.e., <answer> ANSWER HERE </answer>.
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Factual Accuracy: The answer must be factually correct and does not contradict the reference answer.
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Clarity and Organization: The answer should be well-structured, coherent, and easy to follow.
Depth and Insight: The answer should provide thoughtful analysis or context, going beyond superficial details.
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<answer>
[Your final detailed answer goes here]
</answer>
 How does a certain currency value rise or fall relative to other currencies?

Copied from Quora, not my explanation, but sums it up pretty much: The same way any other price is determined: supply and demand. There's an important caveat that we'll get to, but let's start with the basics. Many of the world's currencies "float." Their value isn't specifically tied to anything, so they're worth what people say they're worth. Examples of this include the US dollar (USD), the UK's pound (GBP) and the euro (EUR). Let's say I live in the US and I want to buy a German car. I can't just purchase the car using the money in my bank account, because I only have dollars and the German seller will only accept euros. So what I have to do is exchange my dollars for euros, then buy the car. The exchange process, however, is a sale pretty much like any other - I'm looking to buy euros with the dollars I possess. In other words, I demand euros and I'm looking to supply dollars. If enough people act the same way I do, then dollars are going to be more easy to purchase on the foreign exchange market than euros are, and thus the price of euros will go up. This is why poor countries tend to have fairly weak currencies: nobody outside of those countries generally needs them for purposes of trade, so there's no demand outside of those countries. What this also means is that when these poor countries start manufacturing loads of goods, those goods are initially much cheaper than those produced in richer countries, which means more people will buy. In turn, that means more people need the currency of that poorer nation, which in turn will strengthen that country's currency. All currencies have their exchange rates set this way, but here's where we get to the caveat: some countries "peg" their currencies. They've decided in advance that there is some ideal exchange rate between their currency and some other currency (or some other basket of currencies) and they'll try to maintain that. So, for example, the Nepalese government has pegged its exchange rate so that 1.6 Nepalese rupees equals one Indian rupee. What this means is that the governments in question must always be willing to counteract the flow of currency. So, let's say that one day, there's a tremendous urge in India to buy massive amounts of Nepalese goods. Normally, this would mean that the exchange rate would change so that it would take fewer Nepalese rupees to equal one Indian rupee. What the Nepalese government must then do is start exchanging Nepalese rupees for Indian rupees (buying Indian rupees with Nepalese rupees) at a rate of 1.6 Nepalese rupees per 1 Indian rupee. Similarly, if buying Nepalese goods suddenly becomes really unpopular in India, the exchange rate would make it so that even more Nepalese rupees would be needed to equal one Indian rupee. In that case, the Nepalese government would need to start exchanging Indian rupees for Nepalese rupees using a previously-existing stockpile of Indian rupees kept on hand for just a scenario. This is also called a "fixed exchange rate." This was the norm from the end of the Second World War until the 1970's, when the global system of fixed exchange rates (called "Bretton Woods") collapsed. These days, you can find both floating and fixed exchange rates throughout the world, and a couple of variants that fall somewhere between the two extremes.


Question: How are video game AIs programmed? Is it a just a long series of "If Then" statements? Why are some AIs good and others terrible?

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 How are video game AIs programmed? Is it a just a long series of "If Then" statements? Why are some AIs good and others terrible?

There are multiple ways to do it. Generally your if-then statement is close to reality. (Often it's Event based, to allow changes when new information is available rather than static checking what to do once previous commands are finished). Having lists of priorities is also common, to let the AI take the most important of the currently available options. AI skill is hard to get correct depending on the game. Strategy games are notorious for having terrible AI because it lacks creativity to adjust to any strategy the player might choose. In other games a good AI easily outclasses even pro players when not carefully reduced to human reflexes/perception Making a very good AI without allowing it to cheat (having more information than the Player for example) is a lot of Work and rarely done because just cranking up the numbers also makes the game harder for the Player without any effort for the programmers.


Question: Why does friction work differently on wheels than on normal surfaces?

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 Why does friction work differently on wheels than on normal surfaces?

It doesn't. It's not that wider wheels have better grip, but that wheels with better grip are made wider. Soft compound tyres are required to be wider in order for the side-wall to support the weight of the car. softer tyres have a larger coefficient of friction, therefore better traction. A narrow, soft tyre would not be strong enough, nor would it last very long, since the rate of wear is inversely proportional to the contact area. Harder compound tyres wear much longer, and can be narrower. They do, however have a lower coefficient of friction, therefore less traction. Among tyres of the same type and composition, here is no appreciable difference in 'traction' with different widths. Wider tires, assuming all other factors are equal, commonly have stiffer side-walls and experience less roll. This gives better cornering performance.


Question: Is PI proven to be a "mathematically random" number?

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 Is PI proven to be a "mathematically random" number?

You actually *can* calculate any arbitrary digit of pi using [this]( URL_0 ) formula. Another question that you might be interested in is "is pi a normal number?" A normal number is one where any string of digits is equally likely to appear. We know that pi is irrational, but not all irrational numbers are normal - 0.10110111011110... Is irrational but clearly not normal - a 2 will never appear. We *think* that pi is normal, but it hasn't been proven yet.


Question: animals that express complex nest-building behaviours (like tailorbirds that sew leaves together) - do they learn it "culturally" from others of their kind or are they somehow born with a complex skill like this imprinted genetically in their brains?

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 animals that express complex nest-building behaviours (like tailorbirds that sew leaves together) - do they learn it "culturally" from others of their kind or are they somehow born with a complex skill like this imprinted genetically in their brains?

It's instinctual. Birds reared in plastic containers build their own nests just fine. They need not ever see a nest to build one. Further, the nests they build don't necessarily model the nests their parents built. If a researcher provides a bird with only pink building materials, the chicks reared in that pink nest will choose brown materials over pink for their own nests, if they have a choice. There is an instinctual template, thank god. Imagine being compelled to build something but having no idea of what or how. Torture! That's not to say that birds are slaves to their instinctual templates. They gain experience over successive builds and make minor changes to the design and location.


Question: How do humans maintains constant body temperature of 98.6°F when we have no fur and such thin skin compared to other Mammals?

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 How do humans maintains constant body temperature of 98.6°F when we have no fur and such thin skin compared to other Mammals?

Imagine your body is a car, the car has a combustion engine that burns its gas to produce Kinetic Energy to move the car's wheels among other thing. The thing about burning fuel is that it produces this other thing besides Kinetic Energy. Namely heat, sound and light. This causes the car to heat up. You eat food, your body turns that into energy, which in turn also creates heat. Your body likes to stay at 98.6 because it evolved to work best at that Internal Temperature. If it gets below that, it burns more food, if it gets higher it burns less. Hair in general is a form of insulation. But humans are such active creatures that we naturally lost the need to have a form of insulation. Its because our bodies burn so quickly. Some other mammals don't have this feature though so they require this insulation to maintain the needed body temperature. You will notice that the smaller a mammal is the less thick a coat it seems to have. Compare a Hamster to a Water Buffalo to see what I mean.


Question: What effect does sodium have on us and why is it bad?

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 What effect does sodium have on us and why is it bad?

It isn’t bad. Too much is bad. Sodium is very important in helping nerves work correctly. But, too much sodium can be a strain of your kidneys and also have you retain water. Retaining water can result in high blood pressure. Do this for decades and you get strokes and kidney disease.


Question: Why does a lot of retro tech have a “thousand” at the end of their names?

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 Why does a lot of retro tech have a “thousand” at the end of their names?

To make the name sound more futuristic and high-tech. That the technological breakthrough in the product was so significant that it was worthy of bumping up the version to some multiple of 1000. Alternatively, in the decades before the turn of millennium, adding 2000 to something sometimes implied it incorporated technology ahead of its time that would fit in with the latest and greatest of the future.


Question: Why were hostile takeovers so popular in the 1980s and why do we hear less about them now?

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 Why were hostile takeovers so popular in the 1980s and why do we hear less about them now?

Depends what you mean by a "hostile" takeover. In its broadest sense, any takeover bid, i.e., an offer by one company to purchase all of the shares in another company is "hostile" if it was unsolicited and opposed by the target company's current management/board. So-called hostile "tender offers," in which one company makes a public offer to buy all of another company's shares at a premium above the current market price, are just as popular as they ever were. There are regulations in place for this sort of thing, and it's not at all uncommon to hear about "unsolicited bids" from one company to buy out another. But because they're regulated and public, they're not particular controversial. If company A wants to pay 120% of the market price for company B, B's shareholders may well go for that, and the current management/board of B can just go pound sand. But there's a specific *kind* of "hostile takeover," the so-called "[corporate raid]( URL_0 )" which has very much fallen out of favor since approximately the 1990s. This involves the buyer acquiring a significant stake in a target company (usually *not* a majority!) and employing a variety of tactics to temporarily boost the share price at the cost of hollowing out the target company's core assets. *This* kind of "hostile takeover" has largely disappeared. One reason is that publicly-traded companies have mostly adopted various legal devices that prevent the kind of tactics employed by corporate raiders. There are a variety of moves here, but the specifics aren't important. Suffice it to say that the management and boards of large companies have various ways of making corporate raids *very* difficult, and that most companies who perceive some risk that they might be the target of a hostile takeover have adopted a number of these tactics, But a really important reason for the decline in corporate raids may well be that stock market prices have gone up *significantly*, across the board, since the early 1990s. This one is a little more technical, but I'll try to explain as simply as possible. If you want to understand how corporate raids *work*, you need to understand what a company's "price-to-book ratio" ("P/B") is. P/B is the comparison of the total value of all a company's outstanding shares ("market capitalization") to the value of its current assets ("book value"). Share prices are thought to be based on the market's expectation as to a particular company's future profitability, over time, so the P/B ratio is usually quite a bit higher than one. Google currently has a price-to-book ratio of about 4.4:1, while Amazon's is in excess of 21:1. After all, if I could make $100 by selling an asset now, but that asset could produce $20/year in profit, indefinitely, it is a better long-term investment to hang on to it, yes? But if that same asset could be sold for $1,000, while still only producing $20/year in profit. . . maybe I should take the $2,000 and find some place else to invest my money. What corporate raiders do is target companies perceived to have an unusually or unreasonably low P/B ratio. Such a situation suggests that it's possible to make a pretty penny doing either of two things: either making management changes (sometimes *highly* dodgy ones) to temporarily boost the share price, or simply sell off the company's major assets for their book value, gutting it as a going concern. *That* is why this particular type of hostile takeover is characterized as a "raid": the hostile investor is actually *hollowing out the business* rather than merely taking it away from the existing management/board. In any case, the fact of the matter is that stock prices have risen, pretty much across the board, since the early 1990s. I don't have the specific figures in front of me, but the aggregate P/B ratio of the market as a whole has gone *way* up. This means that there are fewer and fewer companies out there that are attractive targets for corporate raids. Acquiring an equity stake large enough to deploy raider tactics is so expensive now that there's no real point.


Question: How are games ported to other platforms, e.g. PC to PS5?

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 How are games ported to other platforms, e.g. PC to PS5?

# What's A Platform? A "platform" can be roughly defined by a combination of hardware and software. The hardware (e.g., CPU, GPU, chipset(s), ...) mostly defines the performance as well as what computing features are available (you may have heard of hardware assisted ray tracing, it's the new shit). The software (OS, DirectX, OpenGL, Vulkan, other Frameworks) provides the primitives to *access* these features. So, in order for your code to run on "all platforms" it must be runnable on all the given hardware and also support all the various different ways the platform's softwares work with said hardware. # Hardware Platforms **Hardware-wise**, the current Sony and Microsoft consoles are quite close to a regular PC you could buy. Specifically, they use a (slightly customized) x86 CPU defining the ISA, the set of instructions the CPU can execute. This means, from a pure CPU perspective all programs running on a current PS/XBox run on your average PC. In fact, the PS/XBox are so similar to a PC that quite some have taken up to install Linux as an OS on them. Android phones *mostly* use ARM CPUs and also work a bit differently inside, more akin to a console than a PC. # Software Platforms **The Software**, however, is quite different on all these platforms. While most PCs run Windows, with Linux trailing (and Apple currently taking a completely different route), the XBox runs a modified version of Windows and the PlayStation runs a modified version of FreeBSD. While on Windows, the dominating graphics framework was/is DirectX, on Linux and BSD as well as macOS this was/is OpenGL^(1). Vulkan was created as an alternative to both, supporting all^TM platforms^(2). So while there is some convergence, even accessing a file works drastically different in Windows compared to *almost* any other platform out there^(3). Luckily, you don't need to directly access the OS as many people have built another layer of abstraction which gives you a simple interface to, e.g., open a file, and translates that into the diverse OS specific ways to do precisely that. Pretty much any modern engine gives you such a layer, enabling comparatively easy cross-platform development. # Issues with Porting So, what's the **issue with porting**, if the engines do all the heavy lifting and even out the differences between the platforms? Well, there are bugs and design faults in all of these layers. We have a "technology stack" reaching from CPU+GPU+Chipset, to OS, to OS Frameworks, to the Engine. A bug at the lowest layer can send all the above tripping. And the Engine, hopefully, accounts for all that, knows that in Windows 10 Build xyz the function `FooBarW()` cannot be called andsoforth. So, in order to ensure compatibility, nowadays one of the most important things after choosing the right engine is to *test*, i.e., Quality Assurance. The best but also **most expensive** way is to test on all platforms, continuously, while developing the game. This includes game testers. That way, you are likely to find every bug, but also quite many double or thrice as they occur on all platforms -- this will lead to many internal bug reports someone has to deal and categorize. The **cheap** way is to develop on one platform, often either Windows PC, XBox or PlayStation first and, when it's (almost) done, trying to get the game run on the other platforms. This will reduce the number of bugs found as the tests on the other platforms aren't as thorough, but you will also have less duplicate bug reports and need less testing time (hopefully). However, if you are unlucky, the fine print of your engine says that feature X that you direly depend on is only supported on platform Y -- and you notice that a few weeks before release. Often enough, companies go route 2, but some at least have "that one developer" who constantly builds and runs the game on the other target platforms, ironing out the gravest problems. # Other Platforms What about **other platforms**? You mentioned you want to cover them "all". Bear in mind that this is a rather big list: * Android (ARM + x86) * iOS, iPadOS (ARM) * Windows + XBox (x86) * macOS (x86 + ARM) * Linux (x86 + ARM, supports a bunch more) * many BSDs (same as above) * PlayStation (x86) * Browsers (WebAssembly, JS) * Stadia (basically as Linux) * Nintendo Switch (ARM) So you should make yourself clear what *kind* of game it is, what *controls* does it require? Is controller play actually sane? Is the performance of the Switch feasible? Then you should decide on the platforms. # Build Portably Finally, I want to encourage you to **build on different platforms**, even *if* you don't really look at, say, Linux sales. While porting seems daunting, having a portable program doesn't only have business benefits. Usually, when testing on not just one stack, you uncover bugs in your code that *might* bight you on your other platform as well but just haven't occurred yet. Say, you have a bug which triggers under so specific circumstances, you could call it "randomly". However, the probability is greatly higher, for some reason, on platform Y than on X. So now, having run/tested your code on Y, you uncover that bug and are able to fix it comparatively easily while on X you'd have a hard time even reproducing the bug. Good code is portable code! ------ ^1 While OGL had it's pitfalls, it was *fine*, however MS crippled the OGL implementation on Windows making it rather slow there... . ^2 Vulkan started out as AMD Mantle. DX12 and Metal are pretty much just MS/Apple branded versions of Vulkan. ^3 macOS as well as BSD and Linux (mostly) implement an industry standard for **Portable** Operating System Interfaces, POSIX. This makes it quite easy to program, s.t. your code can be trivially built and run on "all" platforms. Windows XP even implemented some parts of it due to US Govt. demanding POSIX as they didn't want to depend on one vendor.


Question: What are the "Degrees" of Crimes?

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 What are the "Degrees" of Crimes?

It's going to depend on the crime and jursidiction, but generally the lower the degree the worse the crime, the harsher the punishment and the more elements required to prosecute it in court. For example, 1st degree murder is intentional and premeditated while 2nd may just be intentional, in the moment.


Question: how would copyright affect fan made content using images from online?

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 how would copyright affect fan made content using images from online?

You can't take images you don't have a right to use, put them on something, and then sell it. This isn't a fair use situation. > the other side argues that as long as he doesn't claim ownership, and doesn't include the title, he would be fine, and that other people at conventions do the same(pulling things off the internet, making things from them, selling them). It's not about claiming ownership. Copyright gives you control over how things are distributed. You can't just scrub the title and sell things when everybody else would have to pay for a license. Those people at conventions are likely infringing on copyright. Everybody downloads music for free off the internet, but that doesn't make it legal to share music. It's one thing if your friend made an homage to an anime character by himself. It's another if he just copied and pasted images off the internet.


Question: What is the difference between methamphetamine and amphetamine salts (Adderall)? What makes amphetamine salts so much safer/less addictive?

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 What is the difference between methamphetamine and amphetamine salts (Adderall)? What makes amphetamine salts so much safer/less addictive?

Many of the answers here are very close to being correct. Methamphetamine is (nearly) chemically identical to amphetamine except for an extra methyl group (a carbon atom with hydrogen attached). This addition makes methamphetamine more hydrophobic (ELI5 term: oil-like). This makes a drastic difference in how the drug reaches the brain to do its work. For any chemical to reach the brain from the blood stream, it has to get past the blood brain barrier, which is designed to stop large, hydrophilic (ELI5: water-like, the opposite of hydrophobic) molecules from reaching the brain (such molecules are often toxins enountered in nature, so this barrier is the body's natural way of shielding valuable brain tissue from any mistakes your mouth makes/eats). In general, when it comes to chemicals like psychoactive drugs (chemicals that affect the brain), more hydrophobic molecules cross the blood brain barrier more easily, and are more effective at altering brain function at lower doses. This means its takes a lower dose of methamphetamine to achieve the same effects as a given amount of amphetamine. But this isn't really the reason why meth has a greater stigma and isn't more widely used as a medical treatment. The real reason is more practical, and has to do with how meth is produced in trailer-park kitchens. Now, most people are aware that a type of decongestant (ELI5: stuffy nose medicine), Sudafed, is widely used to produce meth. This use has resulted in stricter control over the sale of pseudoephedrine (the active chemical in Sudafed), much to the annoyance of sick persons everywhere. The reason why meth cooks are so hell bent on getting their hands on pseudoephedrine is that it is VERY similar, chemically to methamphetamine. The only difference between the molecules is--and tell me if this sounds familiar--a methyl group. The difference here is that pseudoephedrine is the molecule with the extra methyl group, and it's attached to a different part of the molecule than in the methamphetamine/amphetamine comparison. Anyways, this similarity makes things easy; all a meth cook needs to do is grind up some Sudafed pills, dissolve the active ingredient to extract it from the powder, and set up a reaction that will take off that methyl group. This reaction is pretty easy, as chemical reactions go, as it doesn't require much in the way of exotic ingredients or lab equipment--just the right conditions to make that methyl group fall off (usually, this involves a very reactive metal, like the lithium found in computer batteries). Put these things together, do some purification, and voila: meth. (BTW: this is a VERY simple reaction familiar to people with more than four weeks of organic chemistry under their belts, which is why I'm not very worried about accidentally teaching any aspiring meth cooks any valuable chemistry lessons. I've left out enough detail that no one without some college chemistry experience would be able to fill in the blanks.) It is the simplicity of this chemical reaction that makes meth a much more common target of backyard/trailer park/Walmart bathroom chemists than amphetamine. There isn't a commonly available chemical out there that would make amphetamine in a similarly easy reaction. Due to the ready availability of products containing pseudoephedrine, meth became the go-to "amphetamine" for recreational cooks, giving it the common association with street drugs, rotten teeth, and Bryan Cranston (well, maybe that last one isn't such a stigma). Amphetamine, on the other hand, has most always been primarily a medical drug--often abused, but nearly universally produced by a pharmaceutical company, rather than Jimmy Cooks-A-Lot and his shake n' bake. As someone else mentioned, methamphetamine can and is prescribed medically for the same reasons as amphetamine. Under the name Desoxyn, it is a potent, last-string treatment for stubbonly difficult ADHD cases. In fact, as Desoxyn is pound for pound, milligram for milligram, more potent than amphetamine/adderall, it can accomplish the same therapheutic results with fewer side effects for the rest of the body.


Question: Why does night vision have a greenish tint?

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 Why does night vision have a greenish tint?

The image created by night vision is black/white. Human eyes are most sensitive to green light. Since you're in the dark and it takes your eyes time to adjust to light/dark, you only want to make the image as bright as necessary. So the image is given in green to make it more comfortable to view in the dark, possibly for long periods.


Question: why does our immune system accept drugs and not treat it as a threat to the body?

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 why does our immune system accept drugs and not treat it as a threat to the body?

In order to trigger an immune response, you need one of two things. There are certain kinds of molecules that only show up in disease-causing organisms like bacteria or viruses. These are called pathogen-associated molecular patterns, or PAMPs. There are also certain molecules that only become "visible" to the immune system if cells or tissue become damaged. These are called damage-associated molecular patterns, or DAMPS. There are special receptors on immune cells that can detect PAMPs or DAMPs, and for the most part, one of these signals needs to be present in order to form a robust immune response. That isn't to say that you can't have an immune response without them, and there are other factors I'm not going to get into like MHC presentation. But to summarize, there needs to be a reason for your body to think something is dangerous.


Question: How Are Radioactive Rocks Formed?

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 How Are Radioactive Rocks Formed?

Do you mean the kind of rocks that we can determine an absolute age for using radiometric dating methods? They naturally contain certain isotopes (isotopes are the name given to atoms of the same element that differ in mass due to varying numbers of neutrons in their nucleus) which are radioactive, and we can exploit this in certain cases to calculate how long since those isotopes were sealed off in a 'closed system' ie. how long since the mineral they are in cooled off enough to stop exchanging any atoms with melt or solid rock (solid state diffusion is a thing - slow, but exchange of atoms between two solids is perfectly possible). Anyway, like I said some isotopes just happen to be unstable, which means they will radioactively decay into certain other elements. We can measure the difference between the amount of parent isotope left and the amount of daughter isotope present and use it to back calculate a date. As well as being based on fundamental physics and mathematics, what can really make such calculated ages so reliable (within the error bars given), is that you can often run this sort of test on the same rock unit or even the same mineral within a rock for more than one different radiogenic system - there are many, and no, carbon-14 is pretty useless to geologists as that's barely scratching the surface in terms of how far back it can be used for. The gold standards are pretty much te different uranium-lead decay systems or the potassium-argon decay system for certain samples. To bring this back a bit, the point is that our planet has a certain set of ingredients in the form of the different chemical elements, and a certain proportion of them happen to exist in a variety of isotopes, some of which are radioactive. Let's take potassium (K) as an example as it is a relatively common element on Earth, particularly in the crust, and therefore it's in all the surface rocks and environments we know and love. Most potassium consists of the stable isotope ³⁹K, but about 0.01% of it today is the radioactive isotope ⁴⁰K which has one more neutron than ³⁹K, and whose decay to argon is much used in radiometric dating. It has a half life of ~1.2 billion years, which is quite handy for geologists who study the whole of Earth's 4.6 billion year history. Note that we can make calculations based on several half-lives, so that we are not just limited to 1.2 billion years (about 7 or 8 half-lives is the limit before measurements start getting unreliable). Radioactivity is a natural aspect of life on Earth then, and we have evolved to live with a certain amount of background radiation. I'm sure you've also heard that bananas are a source of potassium, so every time you eat a banana, a very small percentage of the potassium being consumed will be those radioactive isotopes.


Question: Is the probability of rolling one of 2 numbers on a dice with a certain amount of attempts higher than rolling just one specific number with double the attempts?

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 Is the probability of rolling one of 2 numbers on a dice with a certain amount of attempts higher than rolling just one specific number with double the attempts?

The chances of rolling exactly a six with two rolls is 11/36. The chances of rolling a five or a six with one roll is 1/3 or 12/36. So to answer your question, yes, the probability of rolling one of two numbers with a certain amount of attempts is higher than rolling just one specific number with double the attempts? Disclaimer: I don't know the formula for working it out, I just drew a little 6 by 6 chart of all of the 36 possible outcomes for rolling two dice and counted the number of outcomes where at least one dice was a 6.


Question: What causes that indescribable scent when it first starts to rain?

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 What causes that indescribable scent when it first starts to rain?

It’s called “petrichor”, and it’s a scent that’s created when rain hits dried soil. Plant oils soak into absorbent dirt over time, and are then released into the air when the dirt starts getting wet. The scent has been isolated and is commercially available as a fragrance material called “geosmin”. The human sense of smell is *ridiculously* sensitive to geosmin, and you can smell it in concentrations as low as just a few parts per *trillion* - one single drop of geosmin in an Olympic-size swimming pool is detectable.


Question: Question about developing and genitals ?

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 Question about developing and genitals ?

Oof. This is gonna be some weird Google searches, eh? Development of male genitalia is dependent upon the production of the testosterone enzyme dihydrotestosterone, which is produced by the testes. As the various types of genital tubing is elongating and growing to form the penis, the penis organ system (both the reproductive and unitary system) should contain folds. The folds lie on either side of the membrane that will begin to form the organ system, and move towards each other while they form a groove, this is known as the urethral groove. The urogenital folds fuse together on the ventral side of the developing penis, enclosing what will now become the urethra. With a boy, the genital tuber will form the penis gland (the head). The body of the penis will be formed by the fusion of the urogenital folds, this fusion is not yet completely finished. The scrotum is formed by the fusion of the labioscrotal folds, the midpoint of which corresponds to the zone of fusion of the labioscrotal folds. Female development is pretty much the same, however at the point where the penis would form, a vagina forms instead since the folds on a female fetus will not fuse as well. Because of this, the tubes that would form the penis shaft will now form the labia. The genital tuber will form the clitoris. So yes, more-or-less, where a clitoris would be is where the base of a penis would be, and vice versa.


Question: Why does our body have such self destructive temperature regulation when we contract something and how does it work?

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 Why does our body have such self destructive temperature regulation when we contract something and how does it work?

It's extremely rare for a fever to drive the human body temperature to its lethal limit outright, in fact most fevers barely break 102F. Certainly the brain is capable of doing it, but it wouldn't make evolutionary sense to have a lethal kill switch that turns on whenever we get sick. 107F and beyond is when brain damage is considered to begin, but an endogenously initiated fever won't even come close to this in almost all cases. As far as initiating a fever, it's easy- your brain turns up the thermostat. As a result, your body thinks it's cold since your core temperature of say, 98F is way below the new setpoint of 100F. So your body begins shivering, which generates a lot of waste heat from your large muscles contracting. This drives the temperature up.


Question: Why do some surgeries take as long as 24 hours or more to perform? What are the reasons why it make take more than a few hours?

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 Why do some surgeries take as long as 24 hours or more to perform? What are the reasons why it make take more than a few hours?

How many things have to be done, and how complicated they are. The deeper you get the more dire it is that things have to be done right, as well as; often you have to tear things apart to get to the main surgery, then do a bunch of other surgeries to put everything else back together as well when you're done with what you tore all the other shit apart to get to. Very complicated surgeries, like brain surgery, take a whole lot of careful calculations, special precision tools, and equipment. These all take time to calculate and use. That and also, different medications have to often be administered for various different surgeries, sometimes in the middle of them, and they can take varying levels of time to reach full effect before the surgeon can proceed. Also, sometimes in surgery you have to delivery pace it instead of doing it in one shot, so the body doesn't have a meltdown and die.


Question: - Has there always been the same amount of water on earth and if yes, where is the water when there is drought in certain areas?

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 - Has there always been the same amount of water on earth and if yes, where is the water when there is drought in certain areas?

Apart from some very minor inputs and losses to and from space, yes the total amount stays the same. Over geological time water moves around between various “reservoirs” in the oceans, atmosphere, ice caps, deep aquifers, living organisms etc. For example, during Ice Ages, more water is locked up in ice and so sea levels drop. During warm periods, more water is in the atmosphere so there’s less in the ground. So the water isn’t really added or subtracted from the earth as a whole, it’s just redistributed into different parts of the earth’s systems.


Question: How it can be written in the DNA of animals and plants the need to reproduce and preserve the species?

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 How it can be written in the DNA of animals and plants the need to reproduce and preserve the species?

All we are is bits of dna trying to replicate itself. Once it found that trick the game is on. All of life if just that - dna proteins doing its best to replicate again and again. Each version in evolution is just a better way for DNA to replicate. There is no actual point to it all - the need to reproduce is just to continue the drive of DNA replicating. It sounds down - but thats not what I meant. I think that life in all forms is amazing - but ultimately it has no need or want other than just keep producing DNA. Read the "selfish gene" by Dawkins or even better "the extended phenotype" although that one is a full on science text rather than popular science easy reading stuff.


Question: Why is some cheese always cut in squares and some in circles?

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 Why is some cheese always cut in squares and some in circles?

This is the answer to a previous ELI5 asking the same question. When it comes to deli-style cheeses that are made to be sliced and used on sandwiches, the round shape of certain cheeses is strictly a perception/expectation thing. Provolone is traditionally made in a log shape, from small-ish 10 lb logs up to 80 lbs or more. It's entirely possible to make deli-style provolone in a square block, but it wouldn't sell very well because people expect their provolone to be round. I'm not entirely sure about the round deli-style gouda. Gouda is normally made in wheel form, and anywhere in size from a couple of pounds up to 25 lbs. It's typically cut in full-height wedges, so if I had to guess I'd say the round shape of the deli gouda is just to differentiate it from the square cheeses. Deli-style Swiss cheese is modeled after Swiss Emmenthaler, which is made in wheels up to 300 lbs in size. A wedge of cheese from a wheel this size isn't something most people would be willing to buy, so it's usually cut into large rectangular blocks for sale to retailers, who then cut it into smaller rectangular or square blocks for sale to the public. Because there's no real expectation of a particular shape with Swiss cheese, the most economical shape is square. Deli Swiss is made in the same format as mass-produced cheddar. Cheddar, like most other aged cheeses, used to be made exclusively in wheel format. The round shape promotes even aging, ripening and moisture loss across the entire surface of the cheese. When factory cheesemaking hold in the U.S. in the late 19th century, the wheel format began to be abandoned in favor of large block format, which was easier to make in a mechanized assembly line system, took up less space in storage and shipping, and left almost no waste when dividing into smaller blocks for retail sale.