What the heck are tectonic plates and what they do?

The crust of the Earth is, more or less, just where it is so cold that the molten rock has gotten a chance to freeze over. This crust of frozen rock (as in it is now solid again instead of flowing around like it does further down) helps insulate the interior of the Earth.

Thin layer of solid rock up on top where it is cold. A lot of hot molten stuff below. The further down you go, the hotter it gets.

Hot things tend to expand and become less dense than when they are cold. This means that molten rock near the core of the Earth gets really hot and floats up towards the solid rock crust. There it cools off again and, eventually, drops.

This means there is a current. Much like the ocean. Except these currents move really slowly. Rock is a lot denser than water and it takes a lot longer for the flow to happen.

All this movement just below the crust causes it to fracture. In some places the hot stuff even pushing its way out. This is where we get volcanoes. But, let's get back to the crust being broken apart.

The crust, that is the solid part near the surface, is being pulled and pushed in different directions as this hot current moves underneath it and tries to drag the solid part along with it. This means that the crust of the Earth is separated into several huge plates and they are bumping into each other.

But it is taking place incredibly slowly.

Now let's move away from ice and talk about cars. Two cars hit each other with a head on collision. Their bumpers aren't the same height. What happens? When they hit the car with the higher bumper tends to go up. The one with the lower bumper tends to go down.

Okay. Now two cars with the bumper in the same place hit. What happens? Depends on how they hit, really. Sometimes it creates a push upwards and the front of both cars lift. Sometimes it causes a push downwards and both cars bend towards the road.

Similar things happen when plates collide. But it is much, much, much slower. How slow? Slow enough that the impact doesn't cause the rocks to shatter. Instead the rock faces of the plates keep pushing at each other until the rock actually bends.

Yes, solid rock will bend. It just takes a lot of constant force taking place over a long, long time.

When two plates collide into each other they don't always hit evenly. Sometimes one gets shoved under the other. Sometimes both sides go up. Sometimes both sides go down. It depends on how they collide, at what angle, and how the plates are matched.

When the force is directed upwards the rock is bent up to become mountains. When it is bent downwards it can form valleys or trenches.

Because the places between the plates offer a natural connection to the hot magma below, most volcanoes occur along the plate boundaries. Earthquakes happen along the plate boundaries (fault lines) and that is due to the fact that these rocks that are moving past one another aren't that well lubricated. Even though the movement is slow, there is still a lot of energy needed to move something the size of a continent. If you press the palms of your hands together tightly and slide them across one another you'll notice a lot of slipping. It will move, the bumps on your hands will catch one another causing it to stop, and then the steady pressure causes you to push past this and it moves faster all at once as the energy is released. Same idea. The movement gets stuck or slowed down by something. Once it gets past this obstacle a lot of energy is released all at once and there is a lot of movement right there along the fault line. Something that was moving at an inch a year suddenly moved a foot or so. That releases a lot of energy at once and earthquakes are the shock waves from this.

Rock goes from liquid to solid because its too cold where we are for rock to stay a liquid. Still, there is a lot of movement down below at it causes the crust to break up a bit and twist, turn, and crash together in places.

If water damage is so bad, how come houses can be doused by rain during construction?

Mold doesn't grow IN wood. It grows in warm, damp and, importantly, dark places. Having water leak into your climate-controlled house, in between the walls or in crawl spaces is how you get mold infestations.

It's also important to note that just splashing some water on your wall will not cause mold to grow. If you soak the timber making up the frame of the house, but then you put the roof on, and the sheathing on the walls, the house dries up pretty quick, which makes it unsuitable for mold growth. As long as the spaces between the walls stays reasonably dry, even if mold spores ended up there at one time, they will die off.

To recap, in order to get mold in your house:

• Relatively warm
• Regularly damp
• Reasonably dark

How do celebrities keep their cell numbers and personal emails so locked down?

Aliases. This is a big part of their lives. They use aliases whenever they travel or go to a restaurant. They usually stick with the same one, but some have three or four they use in rotation.

Account holders. A lot of celebrities, especially the wealthier ones, don't have many accounts in their actual names. Some things might be registered to a corporation or LLC. Some items might be addressed to lawyers, agents or accountants, depending on the situation.

Different contact information. Some celebrities have a work email or work cell, which they don't often use but they give out when they need to. This is typically handled on a day-to-day basis by an assistant, and is the most common way to get a hold of a celebrity. If you want to call them, you have to go through an assistant who will then forward you to a private line-- and you'll never know that number. They also might have personal email or cell that they only give to very select individuals-- truly close friends and family.

Premium accounts. A lot of services offer VIP accounts for celebrities. This helps give them preferential treatment and services that limit access from the general public.

All this requires a lot of juggling. And, yes, it gets compromised… all the time. That means abandoning old emails or cell phone numbers with great frequency. That means getting calls from strangers or fans in the middle of the night. That means losing important email in a flood of fan spam when you have to throw away an account over the weekend.

It means getting hacked and having your personal information stolen by a concerted effort or brute force attack. Having you privacy invaded, and your personal photos distributed across the internet. Then later getting blamed by the general online community because you didn't do enough to protect yourself.

Then trying to protect yourself, but realizing no matter what you do, someone-- maybe a fan, maybe some blackhat pervert, maybe a stalker with a very dark ulterior motive-- is actively trying to gain access to your life and will at some point succeed.

Why does breast cancer awareness receive more marketing and fund than prostate cancer?

Only 12% of women (~1 in 8) will develop invasive breast cancer.

Compare that to men (65+ years): 6 in 10 will develop prostate cancer (60%).

• Prostate cancer is generally only in older men (I was kind of off the end of most charts at the age of 40), whereas breast cancer strikes women at earlier ages on average, often when they still have young families at home.
• Prostate cancer is a slow killer. Most men who have prostate cancer do not die of prostate cancer. That is not so for breast cancer.
• Men do not like talking about having prostate cancer, principally because even the treatment options attack masculinity. There is a high chance that the treatment will leave you impotent or incontinent or both. Since they don't talk about it, they don't engage as much in support groups or awareness movements, compared to women with breast cancer.
• Before the 1980s, people didn't talk a lot about breast cancer, and likely for similar reasons (it's personal, it's dealing with our naughty bits, it makes people feel like less of a man/woman), but there was a women's health movement during the 1980s and '90s that really helped create awareness around breast cancer. No one has done the same for prostate cancer. OP is asking "why is X given more attention to Y," and part of the answer is "because someone went to the effort to create awareness for X, and if someone wanted to, they could do the same for Y." It didn't happen overnight. It was a long campaign that took a lot of time and effort, and we haven't seen many men becoming advocates for prostate cancer in the same way that women were willing to be advocates for breast cancer.

Where does the weight go when burning calories?

Body fat becomes CO2 and H2O. You get rid of CO2 through breathing and H2O through peeing or sweating. If you don't go to toilet and drink the amount of water you lost through perspiration you won't loose 1kg but you won't stay the same weight either. Because H2O stayed in your body but CO2 left.

Does sending more data to my phone actually cost my carrier more money?

They did spend more energy, although that's a very small cost.  What you did is consume a greater share of the bandwidth. Building bandwidth capacity is very expensive. In order to keep up with increases in average data usage by all customers, they have to spend tons of money.

When a multi-billion dollar transaction occurs between two companies, how are the funds transferred/managed?

Typically by Wire Transfer.  Wire Transfers, unlike checks or regular electronic bank payments (known as ACH transactions in the US), are irrevocable once final -- even in the case of fraud. (That is, if someone authorized to make a wire transfer makes one, even if defrauded or illegally embezzling funds, the accountholder are still liable for the payment. If someone at the bank who isn't authorized to make a wire transfer illegally makes one, the accountholder is not liable.)

The idea is that businesses need finality when they receive payments, they can't just have money disappear from their accounts like if a "chargeback" or "stop payment" is done. If a wire transfer is made and you need your money back, you have to sue the recipient -- you can't just ask the bank to reverse the charge. For transactions between businesses, it's assumed that the need for finality outweighs the fraud protections that checks and nonwire electronic payments provide. (In the US, wire transfers are rarely used by consumers. Also why scamsters try to get you to wire money to them - people wrongly assume that wire transfers have the same protections as consumer payment systems.)

Source: The Uniform Commercial Code Article 4A.

How do ships keep time when traveling?

They use the same principle as countries that move the clocks forward or back in the middle of the night for Daylight Saving. Ships move relatively slowly so that helps for a start. Even going quickly across timezones, the ship's time would only need to be reset at most every other night. The crew will know that their local time is going to change before they go on watch. Some sentries will get lucky and have an overnight watch that's an hour shorter, some an hour longer. As the ship moves around, they can decide whether or not they need to tweak their time accordingly.

On submarines, it's common to switch to your destination time zone shortly after you leave the pier. Doesn't really matter, since the sun doesn't really affect us except when we come up once or twice a day en route, reporting sunrise/sunset at odd times until it eventually adjusts as we get closer.

What is RAM, Video RAM and Dedicated RAM etc and what are their difference?

RAM is fast, short-term memory.

It's quick - the whole point of using it is that you can throw information into it and take information out of it really fast and efficiently.

This makes it ideal for applications where being able to access information quickly important.

But it sucks for long term storage - when your computer shuts down, the RAM isn't designed to hold onto data. Long-term data storage toes to the Hard Drive.

Most RAM is dedicated RAM. Video RAM (often referred to as GDDR) is just RAM, but specifically designed for use with a video card.

In between Dedicated RAM and Video RAM sits Shared RAM - meaning that part of your RAM that is normally used for the system, is used instead by the video card. This is usually used with integrated systems, and is slightly better than nothing at all, but still not as good as a video card.

Dedicated	Shared	Video
RAM is only used by the system	RAM is shared between System and Video Card	RAM is only used by the video card
In most systems, can be easily upgraded	In most systems, can be easily upgraded, but the amount that can be 'shared' is limited by the Integrated Card	Not easily upgraded, usually what you buy is what you get
Usually referred to as DDR RAM. DDR4 is the newest standard.	Ditto	Usually referred to as GDDR RAM. GDDR5 is the newest standard

When you lose weight, where does it go?

When you burn fat, your body is combining the fat molecules with oxygen to convert it into water, carbon dioxide, and energy. You then breathe out the CO2, and sweat/pee out the water.

Why do shows use laugh tracks?

Laughter is 'contagious'. Hearing laughter makes you think something is funny.

Why the US has the highest total health expenditure (PPP) per capita

US spends 7,400$ per capita per annum for health-care, being the most expensive system in the world, seconded by Norway paying 4,300$ per year. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_system#International_comparisons[1] )

US has the highest spending in terms of %-of GDP in the world as well.

Generally, it is argued that one of the reasons the US system is so expensive, is because of - "all the middlemen" if you want. Before a person can see a doctor for treatment, a system of "payers" (i.e. the insurance companies) have to verify that you are eligble for treatment, that they will pay for it, and that you are indeed sick. At the same time, the providers can be private companies (or associations of doctors) who are, besides making you well, interested in making money.

These two incitaments are argued to create an effective market, where you get what you need, at the cheapest price (The effective market theory). However, what is argued, with respect to the expensive health care system in the US, is that another incentive (that of profits) trumphs the effective-market effect. In other words:

1) The payors are not interested in paying for your health care unless you really need it, leading to postponement of early-detection and preventive heath care, which means in turn, that most diseases are not treated before its 'too late and too expensive'. As an example: its better to identify and prevent futher development of say Diabetes, than wait until people have gangrene and need surgery to have toes removed, then training and asissted livign. This leads to too little prevention and too little treatment of people without proper insurance.

2) The doctors are not interested in 'just' treating you, they are interested in making money, which means 'overservicing' you. a light example is you getting medication when you dont need it (think of getting penicilun when you have the flu.. it doesnt work, but you might be prescribed it anyways; or getting 3 kinds of painkillers when you really only need one). Worst case; you will receive surgery when you dont need it, in order for the doctor to make more money in his/her private company (story sample:http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/06/18/unnecessary-surgery-usa-today-investigation/2435009/[2])

In countries with single-payer (the state) healthcare systems, where the doctors are public or semi-privately owned, the market might be less effective (i.e. they pay more for a drug than they need to) but on the other hand, they wont' get the two abovementioned drawbacks, meaning it might seem more 'bureaucratic' that the state runs it, but it is in fact, more cost-effective and less risky to patients and citizens. Preventive medication and early identification is at the focus of a single-payor system, whereas profits and high-cost/high-margin treatments are the focus of a multi-payor (insurance-paid) system.

From Wikipedia - estiamte of savings is 350 billion or roughly 10% of the total federal budget (incl. army).

An analysis of the bill by Physicians for a National Health Program estimated the immediate savings at $350 billion per year.[21] Others have estimated a long-term savings amounting to 40% of all national health expenditures due to preventative health care.[22] Preventative care can save several hundreds of billions of dollars per year in the U.S., because for example cancer patients are more likely to be diagnosed at Stage I where curative treatment is typically a few outpatient visits, instead of at Stage III or later in an emergency room where treatment can involve years of hospitalization and is often terminal.[23] Recent enactments of single-payer systems within individual states, such as in Vermont in 2011, may serve as living models supporting federal single-payer coverage.[24]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-payer_health_care#United_States

What's the difference between a disease, a disorder and a syndrome?

• SYNDROME: this term is applied to a constellation of symptoms that occur together or co-vary over time. The term carries no direct implications in terms of underlying pathology.
• DISORDER: like a syndrome, refers to a cluster of symptoms, but the concept includes the idea that the set of symptoms is not accounted for by a more pervasive condition. There is no implication of cause or origin.
• DISEASE: a disorder where the underlying cause or origin is known.

If one day we have the biggest earthquake/rift under Pacific Ocean and somehow create a new continent, what is the legal process of claiming an ownership?

There's no real treaty for this.

It's not entirely hypothetical. We are in a time where discovering things of great value to multiple parties in International Waters is plausible. Undersea mining... oil/nat gas fields that could never be mapped or drilled before are becoming more plausible to exploit.

Also similar, the arctic was pointless to claim before, so no one argued claims to it. Now, it's got some value and promise of ever-increasing value and lots of countries are arguing ownership.

Space exploration, too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_the_Sea_Convention[1]

Exclusive economic zones extend 200NM from the low-water mark on the shore.

In International Waters, the seabed floor is "controlled" by International Seabed Authority[2] , but it's kind of a joke. It's a small body which meets infrequently and doesn't carry a lot of authority. The US wants the ISA dropped.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_heritage_of_mankind[3]

Is the principle that says the Moon cannot be claimed or exploited by any one country. That really wouldn't hold up if something of significant commercial value showed up there.

Common Heritage of Mankind definitely wouldn't hold if a new, usable continent showed up.

Basically a clusterfuck. I expect the following:

1. We made the first landing there and own the whole thing
2. No, a fisherman of your nationality, not your government, landed there first. Actually we landed there 2 days before that you just didn't hear about it. Basically it will be a claim no one respects, except for the person claiming the flag-planting.
3. Country A is closest point to a shore, we own the whole thing.
4. No, Country B owns the half facing its country
5. We should all divide it up to ALL COUNTRIES EQUALLY based on existing country size (hurray Russia)
6. No, we should divide it up based on population (hurray China)
7. Most countries: well when we say "divide it up", we don't actually want to USE it and have territory next to you. We'll SELL our claim to another country. So, like, the US or Russia or China should just give us a boatload of $$$ to ALL these little guys who never set foot on the place, just because they exist.
8. Some minority offended in the past: Native Americans should occupy it since you took our country. It's a new Jewish homeland, it's Zion but we never really knew what that meant until now.

On point #7... let's say someone finds a way to get a valuable resource off the Moon. But only one country has the tech to TAKE it. Maybe it's such a specific product only that country can even use it. Still, other countries would demand payment for their rights to it. Not necessarily cash, they would more likely use it as a political pawn- "if you want to mine the lunar regolith for Helium-III to make fuel to go to Mars, then China demands you recognize our rightful claim to the Diaoyu Islands and we will not stop you." "But you don't have any interest or ability to mine that Helium-III!" "And you have no interest in colonizing the Diaoyu Islands, nor does Japan. So back China's claim and that works out nicely." Then Japan backs off and says "well we WERE going to greenlight your Moon-mining plan because it made sense, but now we see that's a mistake. No, WE will block it unless Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands are recognized as JAPAN'S claim!"

Why is earths core molten? What keeps it warm? Where does the energy for the heat come from?

Only the Outer Core is molten, the Inner Core is solid. There are several contributing factors that keep the Outer Core liquid…

The first is primordial heat which is the heat produced by the accretion of the Earth as billions of tiny pieces crashed into one another, their gravitational energy was converted to heat;

The second is that there are radioactive isotopes dissolved in the Core which are continuing to produce energy. There isn't much agreement on which isotopes they are however as uranium and thorium are most common in the Crust rather than at depth;

Then there is energy released by the gradual unmixing of the Earth with the dense Core separating from the rocky material;

There is also an enormous amount of energy being released by the gradual crystallization of the Inner Core;

And finally, you have tidal energy released by the interaction.

The core remains hot because the overlying 2900km or so of solid rock in the Mantle is an incredible insulator.

What is Communism? And why are so many Americans afraid of Communism and Socialism?

Communism is an economic system originally invented by a German named Karl Marx in the middle of the 19th century, based on ideas that had been floating around Germany for the last hundred years or so. Remember, the mid- to late-19th century was a time of very great income inequality; the "robber baron" period in the United States, when men like Vanderbilt and Carnegie and JP Morgan built huge fortunes on the backs of large masses of workers. Today our billionaires are mostly the beneficiaries of technology; Bill Gates, for example, primarily benefitted from inventions that are fundamentally of the mind. The rich men of the 19th century, conversely, built their fortunes mostly on resource extraction and heavy industry (coal, steel, railroads). That meant there was a huge workforce making what we could consider to be nearly slave wages today.
Marx's basic idea was that unfettered capitalism would continuously result in the rich getting richer. And, until certain philanthropically-minded men (most notably Henry Ford) decided to basically govern themselves, Marx was right. His political philosophy, "communism" was based on resource redistribution through a planned economy. Instead of letting people do whatever they felt like and letting the "cream rise to the top," in a Marxist society people would be assigned tasks that best suited their skillset. In theory this would better capture the economic potential of all humanity and the rising tide would lift all boats.
In 1918 the Bolsheviks (a working class political party/terrorist group) in Russia overthrew their King (Czar Nicholas II) and put Marx's theories to the test. They were led initially by Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky, as well as several others. Over time, Lenin accumulated what amounted to absolute power, assisted by other powerful revolutionaries who he appointed to the Politburo, which was the governing body responsible for essentially allocating all resources in the new, planned economy of the Soviet Union. A "soviet" was originally meant to be a small council of local officials, kind of like a city council, that would allocate resources more efficiently at the local level. Thus in theory the Soviet Union was just a large mass of small councils each acting both independently and in concert to help humanity achieve its potential by maximizing the best use of economic resources, kind of like an ant hive.
The experiment did not go well. While the planned economy is a great idea on paper, humans do not act like perfectly rational automatons. As men at the top accumulated power through their control over the economy, they grew corrupt. Dissenters--men with ideas different than those on top--were purged; either killed outright or sent to work camps in Siberia. Leon Trotsky wound up fleeing to Mexico after he fell out with the Soviet leadership; he was assassinated there.
When Lenin eventually died, power fell into the hands of Josef Stalin, who was a classic dictator wielding the doctrine of Marxist-Leninism as a mere facade, to cover up his murderous campaigns. Stalin killed more "undesirables" (mainly an ethnic group called Cossacks) in the Soviet Union than Hitler did Jews. And Stalin's economic planning was poor; he set a series of "5 Year Plans" throughout the 1930s and 1940s which generally failed. Millions starved to death. Millions more died fighting World War II, which ironically propped up the Soviet system and alleviated some of the economic stress by reducing the numbers of mouths to feed after the war.
People hate Communism today because it is a pernicious philosophy. It is founded on a fundamental belief in the goodness of man, and on very respectable rational ideas about the best use of our human resources. But like all Utopian philosophies, it fails to account for human nature. While it has some very good ideas, Communism historically has ended up in dictatorships in every single country where it was implemented. (Cuba, North Korea, China, Romania, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Poland, and the USSR itself).
Socialism meanwhile is essentially a less extreme version of communist philosophy; a hybrid, if you will, of pure capitalism (where the market dictates people's action and the "cream rises to the top" while people on the bottom sweep streets), and of communism. Socialism or some variant thereof is the predominant government system in Europe today, and arguably even in the United States. The "social safety net" programs like Social Security and Medicaid, along with the graduated income tax (where the rich pay more because they can afford to contribute a greater proportion of their income to help run our government) are socialist ideas and programs.
Finally, most of the pejorative words like "pinko" or "socialist" or "communist" that you hear tossed around by people like Rush Limbaugh are just that: pejoratives. Name-calling. Limbaugh certainly knows all of this stuff. He is a very smart man. His audience, on the other hand, is going to range from people who know it cold down to people who have no idea but just know it's a bad thing to be.

Does my body benefit from being in a resting state when I'm lying awake trying to sleep?

Being in a resting state has benefits, such as relaxing muscles and organs, but sleep is something that we evolved to have specifically because it rests the brain. When we're awake, resting or not, our neurons are firing and our brain isn't resting, but when we sleep they aren't (as much), allowing our brain to rest.

Why do things seem so much funnier when we're "over-tired"?

Your brain releases bursts of dopamine when it's sleep deprived. This causes euphoria, but can also cause reckless decision making. The euphoria is why you get so giggly and delirious, basically your brain is getting a bath in happy chemicals.

What exactly is Obamacare and what did it change?

Already in effect:

• It allows the Food and Drug Administration to approve more generic drugs (making for more competition in the market to drive down prices) ( Citation: An entire section of the bill, called Title VII, is devoted to this, starting on page 766 )
• It increases the rebates on drugs people get through Medicare (so drugs cost less) ( Citation: Page 235, sec. 2501 )
• It establishes a non-profit group, that the government doesn't directly control, PCORI, to study different kinds of treatments to see what works better and is the best use of money. ( Citation: Page 684, sec. 1181 )
• It makes chain restaurants like McDonalds display how many calories are in all of their foods, so people can have an easier time making choices to eat healthy. ( Citation: Page 518, sec. 4205 )
• It makes a "high-risk pool" for people with pre-existing conditions. Basically, this is a way to slowly ease into getting rid of "pre-existing conditions" altogether. For now, people who already have health issues that would be considered "pre-existing conditions" can still get insurance, but at different rates than people without them. ( Citation: Page 49, sec. 1101, Page 64, sec. 2704, and Page 65, sec. 2702 )
• It forbids insurance companies from discriminating based on a disability, or because they were the victim of domestic abuse in the past (yes, insurers really did deny coverage for that) ( Citation: Page 66, sec. 2705 )
• It renews some old policies, and calls for the appointment of various positions.
• It creates a new 10% tax on indoor tanning booths. ( Citation: Page 942, sec. 5000B )
• It says that health insurance companies can no longer tell customers that they won't get any more coverage because they have hit a "lifetime limit". Basically, if someone has paid for health insurance, that company can't tell that person that he's used that insurance too much throughout his life so they won't cover him any more. They can't do this for lifetime spending, and they're limited in how much they can do this for yearly spending. ( Citation: Page 33, sec. 2711 )
• Kids can continue to be covered by their parents' health insurance until they're 26. ( Citation: Page 34, sec. 2714 )
• No more "pre-existing conditions" for kids under the age of 19. ( Citation: Page 64, sec. 2704 and Page 76, sec. 1255 )
• Insurers have less ability to change the amount customers have to pay for their plans. ( Citation: Page 47, sec. 2794 )
• People in the "Medicare Part D Coverage Gap" (also referred to as the "Donut Hole") get a rebate to make up for the extra money they would otherwise have to spend. ( Citation: Page 398, sec. 3301 )
• Insurers can't just drop customers once they get sick. ( Citation: Page 33, sec. 2712 )
• Insurers have to tell customers what they're spending money on. (Instead of just "administrative fee", they have to be more specific).
• Insurers need to have an appeals process for when they turn down a claim, so customers have some manner of recourse other than a lawsuit when they're turned down. ( Citation: Page 42, sec. 2719 )
• Anti-fraud funding is increased and new ways to stop fraud are created. ( Citation: Page 718, sec. 6402 )
• Medicare extends to smaller hospitals. ( Citation: Starting on page 363, the entire section "Part II" seems to deal with this )
• Medicare patients with chronic illnesses must be monitored more thoroughly.
• Reduces the costs for some companies that handle benefits for the elderly. ( Citation: Page 511, sec. 4202 )
• A new website is made to give people insurance and health information. (I think this is it: http://www.healthcare.gov/ ). ( Citation: Page 55, sec. 1103 )
• A credit program is made that will make it easier for business to invest in new ways to treat illness by paying half the cost of the investment. (Note - this program was temporary. It already ended) ( Citation: Page 849, sec. 9023 )
• A limit is placed on just how much of a percentage of the money an insurer makes can be profit, to make sure they're not price-gouging customers. ( Citation: Page 41, sec. 1101 )
• A limit is placed on what type of insurance accounts can be used to pay for over-the-counter drugs without a prescription. Basically, your insurer isn't paying for the Aspirin you bought for that hangover. ( Citation: Page 819, sec. 9003 )
• Employers need to list the benefits they provided to employees on their tax forms. ( Citation: Page 819, sec. 9002 )
• Any new health plans must provide preventive care (mammograms, colonoscopies, etc.) without requiring any sort of co-pay or charge. ( Citation: Page 33, sec. 2713 )

1/1/2013

• If you make over $200,000 a year, your taxes go up a tiny bit (0.9%). Edit: To address those who take issue with the word "tiny", a change of 0.9% is relatively tiny. Any look at how taxes have fluctuated over the years will reveal that a change of less than one percent is miniscule, especially when we're talking about people in the top 5% of earners. ( Citation: Page 837, sec. 9015 )

1/1/2014
This is when a lot of the really big changes happen.

• No more "pre-existing conditions". At all. People will be charged the same regardless of their medical history. ( Citation: Page 64, sec. 2704, Page 65, sec. 2701, and Page 76, sec. 1255 )
• If you can afford insurance but do not get it, you will be charged a fee. This is the "mandate" that people are talking about. Basically, it's a trade-off for the "pre-existing conditions" bit, saying that since insurers now have to cover you regardless of what you have, you can't just wait to buy insurance until you get sick. Otherwise no one would buy insurance until they needed it. You can opt not to get insurance, but you'll have to pay the fee instead, unless of course you're not buying insurance because you just can't afford it. (Note: On 6/28/12, the Supreme Court ruled that this is Constitutional, as long as it's considered a tax on the uninsured and not a penalty for not buying insurance... nitpicking about wording, mostly, but the long and short of it is, it looks like this is accepted by the courts) ( Citation: Page 164, sec. 5000A, and here is the actual court ruling for those who wish to read it. )

Question: What determines whether or not I can afford the mandate? Will I be forced to pay for insurance I can't afford?
Answer: There are all kinds of checks in place to keep you from getting screwed. Kaiser actually has a webpage with a pretty good rundown on it, if you're worried about it. You can see it here.
Okay, have we got that settled? Okay, moving on...

• Medicaid can now be used by everyone up to 133% of the poverty line (basically, a lot more poor people can get insurance) ( Citation: Page 198, sec. 2001 ) (Note: The recent court ruling says that states can opt out of this and that the Federal government cannot penalize them by withholding Medicaid funding, but as far as I can tell, nothing is stopping the Federal government from simply just offering incentives to those who do opt to do it, instead)
• Small businesses get some tax credits for two years. (It looks like this is specifically for businesses with 25 or fewer employees) ( Citation: Page 157, sec. 1421 )
• Businesses with over 50 employees must offer health insurance to full-time employees, or pay a penalty. ( Citation: Page 174, sec. 4980H )

Question: Can't businesses just fire employees or make them work part-time to get around this requirement? Also, what about businesses with multiple locations?
Answer: Yes and no. Switching to part-time only won't help to get out of the requirement, as the Affordable Care Act counts the hours worked, not the number of full-time employees you have. If your employees worked an equivalent of 50 full-time employees' hours, the requirement kicks in. Really, the only plausible way a business could reasonably utilize this strategy is if they currently operate with just over the 50-employee number, and could still operate with under 50 employees, and have no intention to expand. Also, regarding the questions about multiple locations, this legal website analyzed the law and claims that multiple locations in one chain all count as a part of the same business (meaning employers like Wal-Mart can't get around this by being under 50 employees in one store - they'd have to be under that for the entire chain, which just ain't happening). Independently-owned franchises are different, however, as they have a separate owner and as such aren't included under the same net as the parent company. However, any individual franchise with over 50 employees will have to meet the requirement.
Having said that, the ACA only requires employers to offer insurance to full-time employees, so theoretically they could get out of this by reducing all employees to 29 hours or fewer a week. However, if any employees' hours go above that, their employer will have to provide insurance or pay the penalty. And also, this is putting aside how an employer only offering part-time work with no insurance will affect how competitive they are on the job market, especially when small businesses with 25 or fewer employees actually get that aforementioned tax credit to help pay for insurance if they choose to get it (though they are not required to provide insurance).

• Insurers now can't do annual spending caps. Their customers can get as much health care in a given year as they need. ( Citation: Page 33, sec. 2711 )
• Limits how high of an annual deductible insurers can charge customers. ( Citation: Page 81, sec. 1302 )
• Health insurance cannot discriminate against women on pricing or plan availability ( Citation: Page 185, sec. 1557 )
• Reduce costs for some Medicare spending, which in turn are put right back into Medicare to increase its solvency. Most notably, this bill reduces the amount that Medicare Advantage pays to be more in line with other areas of Medicare ( Citation: Page 384, Sec. 3201 and Page 389, Sec. 3202 ), and reduces the growth of Medicare payments in the future ( Citation: Page 426, Sec. 3402 ). The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that between 2012 and 2022, this will amount to $716 Billion in reduced spending ( Citation: CBO Estimate ). Also being cut is $22 Billion from the Medicare Improvement Fund, most likely because the PPACA does a lot of the same stuff, so that spending would be redundant ( Citation: Page 361, Sec. 3112 ).
• Place a $2500 limit on tax-free spending on FSAs (accounts for medical spending). Basically, people using these accounts now have to pay taxes on any money over $2500 they put into them. ( Citation: Page 820, sec. 9005 )
• Establish health insurance exchanges and rebates for the lower and middle-class, basically making it so they have an easier time getting affordable medical coverage. ( Citation: Page 107, sec. 1311 )
• Congress and Congressional staff will only be offered the same insurance offered to people in the insurance exchanges, rather than Federal Insurance. Basically, we won't be footing their health care bills any more than any other American citizen. ( Citation: Page 100, sec. 1312 )
• A new tax on pharmaceutical companies.
• A new tax on the purchase of medical devices.
• A new tax on insurance companies based on their market share. Basically, the more of the market they control, the more they'll get taxed.
• Raises the bar for how much your medical expenses must cost before you can start deducting them from your taxes (Thanks to Redditor cnash6 for the correction!).

1/1/2015

• Doctors' pay will be determined by the quality of their care, not how many people they treat. Edit: a_real_MD addresses questions regarding this one in far more detail and with far more expertise than I can offer in this post. If you're looking for a more in-depth explanation of this one (as many of you are), I highly recommend you give his post a read.

1/1/2017

• If any state can come up with their own plan, one which gives citizens the same level of care at the same price as the PPACA, they can ask the Secretary of Health and Human Resources for permission to do their plan instead of the PPACA. So if they can get the same results without, say, the mandate, they can be allowed to do so. Vermont, for example, has expressed a desire to just go straight to single-payer (in simple terms, everyone is covered, and medical expenses are paid by taxpayers). ( Citation: Page 117, sec. 1332 )

2018

• All health care plans must now cover preventive care (not just the new ones).
• A new tax on "Cadillac" health care plans (more expensive plans for rich people who want fancier coverage). ( Citation: Page 812, Sec. 9001 )

2020

• The elimination of the "Medicare gap"

How do pirates crack games without access to the source code?

'Most' DRM schemes used to protect games work by scrambling (encrypting) the actual game program. The program that you run therefore isn't the game itself merely a stub that performs the following:

1. Check that this is a genuine game and the user is allowed to run it
2. Decrypt the actual game program
3. Run the actual game

There are many methods crackers use to break the protection but one is similar to the following:

1. Install a genuine, licensed copy of the game
2. Run the game allowing it to decrypt itself in memory
3. Use a software tool to 'save' the unencrypted program code from memory to a file
4. Make the program executable and remove all the software 'tendrils' that the DRM leaves behind

No. 4 tends to be the hardest part and can often be a cause of controversy within The Scene. Sometimes cracks will be nuked because they fail to meet the required standard by cracking groups.