Here is a longish article that explains your question and why certain items are sometimes removed. Basically there are some items that are more volatile and can mask other issues. In many cases, supplementary data is also available that tracks the excluded items and this gives economists a better idea of what are the underlying trends and account for the more price volatile items later.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/qai/2023/01/23/supercore-inflation-excludes-food-energy-and-housing/?sh=31aaee353328

It is a measure of the economic activity (production of goods and services) within a country. It isn't necessarily very precise if a country has a large black market or barter trade. It can be used to gauge the size of an economy and is somewhat indicative of how productive and the potential income levels of the citizens.

Method of calculation is complex - broadly it can be calculated by adding the income of all the participants or alternatively by measuring the expenditure of all the participants - netting out exports and imports.

Is it important - yes as a broad macroeconomic indicator. It is a simple measuring stick but any deep analysis of an economy requires much better economic data (GDP is too broad and simple). But it isn't super important otherwise and certainly not much importance for everyday people doing everyday things.

Partly tradition, partly the hardware and partly the software.

For computing devices data is moved around, operated and stored in bytes consisting of 8 bits. (although modern ones operate just as well in double bytes of 16 bits) So the byte became the default means of designating the fundamental data element. Therefore the size of "stuff" is conveniently expressed in the number of bytes.

For transmission, however, most modern communications and networks operate on a single line transmission. There are parallel communication methods but they tend to be local. But things like USB, wi-fi, internet have hardware that send data in a stream of bits. Therefore the speed of transmission is conveniently measured in bits per second

The idea of "powerful" is complex and sophisticated. In today's global situation - power is both soft (influence, economic power, building alliances and dependencies) and hard (military, threat of force).

It is also crucial to know what government debt means on a macroeconomic level rather than trying to gain an intuition of it through personal debt. Although it sounds the same "borrow and pay back", the nature and how debt works at a national level versus personal level is not even vaguely comparable.

None of this is really even approachable as an entire topic in a reddit post. Suffice to say that if there is a default on national debt, a nation loses soft power very quickly. A large part of the notion that the US is powerful is the fact that other countries/people want to hold US debt because it is safe and the US is seen as a reliable economic power. The US has used this power to build a global economic order consisting of trade. Threatening the functioning of this order diminishes the US significantly and defaulting on US debt is a very sure way of destabilizing the global order.

The reason this is a "paradox" is that the logic seems irrefutable although our common sense tells us otherwise. It isn't a true paradox because it isn't a logical contradiction but rather the reasoning seems to go against common sense.

To actually show why this isn't a true paradox involves understanding infinite series. We can build an infinite series out of the sequence 1, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8... Now every term of the sequence is positive. "Logically" adding all the terms would result in "infinity" as there are an infinite number of positive numbers added together.

It actually isn't obvious to a person not familiar with infinite series, why this "logic" isn't true.

His work isn't going to be for everyone.

Tolkien's work embodies his expertise which is the study of languages. There is a formality and structure in his approach that would not be as easily accessed for modern readers. Think of it like Shakespearian language. Unfortunately, if you come from the movie, that would make the transition to the book even more jarring since the use of language is very much modernized in the movie.

Linear doesn't mean the scale is 1:1. Visually, if you plot the corresponding C and F measurements (say the C on the horizontal axis and F on the vertical), you get a straight line. This is a "linear" relationship between F and C.

It does not mean that 0C = 0F nor does it mean a 1 degree difference in F equals a 1 degree difference in C. It means a proportional change in one results in an identical proportion change in another.

Perhaps you meant instrumental rather than jazz or take a rather wide interpretation of what jazz is. (another debate altogether).

Thing is that, for quiet/fancy restaurants, the music needs to be somewhat in the background. Enough to distract away from random noises but not so loud that it drowns out conversation.

The thing about music is that we (humans) are quite attuned to the sound of voice. We tend to zero in on the vocal line and the instrumental accompaniment is less prominent (although it can be "jazzy") So loud vocals and accompaniment are unlikely to be played in a restaurant.

For instrumentals, the instrument (or instruments) has to carry that "main" melody but few instruments can replace a voice. So the instrumentalist will have to introduce harmonies and variations that hold attention without being "cheesy". Imagine someone playing the piano that exactly mimics a vocal line and it'll very quickly sound like children's nursery rhyme music (not what most people want to hear in a fancy restaurant).

So the instruments get to play a more prominent and varied role and that perhaps sounds "jazzy".

Same or similar pronunciation is not unique to any language. The words cannot be interchanged nor do they come close to meaning.

"then" is used in the context of timing or sequence. "Do this first then that" "I went to the movie then I went to the restaurant"

"than" is used in the context of comparison, choice and preferences. "A is larger than B". "I'd prefer to go to a movie than to go to a concert"

They don't. It is how science works.

There are gaps in our theories where they don't meet up to suggest that these current models are incomplete or insufficient. There is no clear signpost that ever says "you've got it all". So new models and theories are developed and new experiments are made.

Some theories we definitely don't have the experiments to test (today). So they might remain unconfirmed for a while yet.

And even if a "next step" is ever found, there is no guarantee that these next steps don't point out even more things to discover.

It is low but not that low (fraction of a fraction etc). The four largest economies in the world

US 1.3%

China 22% (expected since it is still developing compared to others)

Japan 1.2%

Germany 1.2%

Adding UK (5th or 6th) ~1% and India 45%

There a many old buildings that have been repaired and restored (churches, mosques etc). Broadly speaking, these might have some CURRENT cultural relevance and use. Expensive though. Very expensive.

But there are some sites that are historically significant but are not really "useful". The Parthenon and Colosseum are not going to be of much use even if they were restored. And it would pretty much destroy their historical value. So the benefits of a full restoration certainly don't seem to be worth the cost.

Resources. These constructions represent somewhat of a pinnacle of entire empires. So there is this vast foundation that is needed for any society to build stuff like this.

If a society expends 95% of their effort merely to give basic food and shelter to their populace, they won't have resources left over to build or maintain such structures. Apart from a few notable empires (and in historic times, it TOOK the resources of an empire), most of the time humanity could basically only get by.

So underlying these things are conquests, slavery, and much looting etc. Once an empire collapses, it basically cannot afford the resources.

This was mostly true until the Industrial Revolution when humanity started to use a lot of non-muscle based energy on demand (not like wind energy for sails, windmills etc). Think of it this way, until the mid 1800s the vast majority of humanity had to engage in agriculture and livestock rearing just to feed itself. Today, modern economies have less than 10% of their human population engaged in agriculture. This frees up a lot more resources to build and do stuff.

Inhaling high temperature steam through the nose is NOT safe. It will likely result in scalding and damage.

At room temperature (20C), water vapor becomes saturated in air at around 2.3%. So in any sort of "normal" situation, even if the air contains a lot of water vapor, it is relatively low percentage and you can continue to breathe fairly normally with no issues as it will still be mostly normal air.

You cannot breathe liquid water because human lungs are not designed to extract dissolved oxygen from water. And of course, liquid water replaces the atmosphere which has the oxygen that the human body requires to survive. If you do end up breathing liquid water, this will eventually result in drowning.

Having said that, at elevated but still survivable temperatures (around 50C+), breathing air saturated with water is dangerous. Because the lungs operate at around 38C, water will condense out of the air and eventually fill the lungs. This will eventually result in drowning but slower (maybe a few hours). This situation can occur in certain caves (like the caves in Naica, Mexico also known as the Crystal Caves)

Pedantic post here. It isn't "copy-written".

Most artistic and literary work is secured by copyrights.

Most products and innovations are protected by patents.

Copywriting is something that happens a lot in advertising.

It generally costs too much for any sort of additional utility it creates.

A quick calculation. An average EV would have about 50 Kwh battery, that is 50,000 Watt hours of battery. The average solar panel produces 200 Watts/m^2 and even optimistically, there wouldn't be more than 4 sq meters of space on a typical car for solar panels. So the panel would charge at 800 Watt hours per hour of charging. A typical solar panel parked in most places on a sunny day achieves about 4-5 hrs equivalent of "full sun". So this means around 4,000 Watt hours if the car is parked an entire day, charging. This is less than 10% of the battery capacity.

In practice (not so sunny days, parked in garage, temperature, shade etc) a solar panel mounted on car would be lucky to achieve even 25% of this. So this amounts to 2.5% charge on a typical car battery.

This is simply not worth the cost of the panels and electronics since just the additional weight of the panels and electronics probably increases the electrical usage by 1-2% (the car now has to carry the panels etc). So the net result is minimal and would just never justify the cost.

Once the brake locks the wheel (or ABS comes on), that is the limit of traction between tire and ground. Engine braking has to go through the tires (it doesn't brake by increasing air drag or anything). Since any modern car brake system has enough power to lock the wheels, engine braking does not slow down the car any faster than simply slamming on the brakes (with ABS) or threshold braking (non ABS).

If you are noticeably slowing down the car more through engine braking while applying FULL pressure on the brakes - your brakes are likely defective.

In pretty much any modern vehicle, the limiting factor in slowing down a car (other than crashing into something) is the traction between the tires and the road. The brakes in a modern car can always reach this limit and engine braking cannot help.

In any sort of real situation manually downshifting in an emergency braking situation is not recommended. Unless the road situation is hopeless (eg ice), the driver should be concentrating on steering and avoidance.

99.9% of drivers cannot heel-toe and rev match a manual transmission while doing 100% braking. That is not a skill anyone other than track or race drivers develop over many hours of practice.

Assume you're talking about major stores (Walmart etc).

The US supply chain for these stores are some of the most sophisticated and efficient in the world. Waste is fairly minimal. These are stores with very low profit margins.

The US supply chain is an early adopter of many technologies. Well before anyone had wi-fi or laptop computers, stores used barcodes, wireless telecommunications and very sophisticated planning and inventory systems. Major stores use very advanced logistics and computer models in their supply chains.

Well, they probably didn't is the answer.

The problem is fear and distrust. A significant part of the economy functioned through the use of slaves. If you are used to treating something as property and that thing is essential for your wellbeing, it is hard to now rethink this attitude.

In any society, the idea of comparison and threats are the worst in the poorer parts of the community. It is easy to think of every situation as a win-lose proposition - someone else's gain is your loss and vice versa. If you're starving, having someone else compete with you for food can generate existential fear.

We tend to underestimate the size of the world and overestimate (due to fear etc) the capability of humans.

The atomic bombs dropped on Japan were powerful FOR THEIR TIME. But it didn't even destroy a single (not very large) city. It certainly did not kill the entire population of that city, not even close. The immediate blast radius was something in the region of a few miles.

Even a bomb a thousand times more powerful (today) would not be capable of destroying a large city. Things work exponentially so we could perhaps get a blast radius of ten miles (depending on how it was exploded) with some of the larger hydrogen bombs of today.

The earth has a circumference of 25,000 miles (give or take). As a point of reference, a major volcanic eruption or earthquake releases far more energy than even our largest bombs.

These weapons are massively destructive but are no where close to where a few of them could wipe out a small region.

To the seller.

If the seller is a developer, then it goes to the developer (who might be the construction company). The developer pays for the construction and land.

If the seller is an individual owner, it goes to them instead. They may have to use some of it to repay outstanding mortgage etc.

In that sense, buying a home is not fundamentally different from buying something from a store. Buyer pays seller.

Frankly, doesn't even sound like much. If we assumed 1kg per clothing article made of plastic, that amounts to 37,000 tons per year. Even in Sub-Saharan Africa, it is estimated that waste produced is approximately 1kg per person per day for a total of 60 MILLION tons per year.

It isn't good to send unusable trash to Africa but this hardly scratches the surface percentage wise and that assumes that non of these plastic articles of clothing are usable which is rather unlikely.

Of course the other odd thing is that clothes with some polyester, rayon etc are normal so labelling them as "plastic" is kind of misleading at best. (it is likely that any clothes with elastic band will contain some form of rubberized plastic materials, for example)

No it won't. The average GDP per capita of Africa is $2000 per year. It would make life better for awhile (if it even could be done practically speaking) but it does not solve any long term issue. Of course, there are several countries where this would make an immense difference (the poorest of the poor) but it wouldn't lift all of Africa out of poverty by any stretch.

The really wealthy are really wealthy by the standards of any one individual but there is this misunderstanding that this compares in any way to the long term economic output of a country or region.

To the masses, not really very much. One estimate of the wealth of the 0.01% is around 50 trillion dollars. Divided over (for ease of math) 10 billion people, this is $5,000 per person. Not an insignificant amount of money but hardly life changing for an average income earner even in a relatively poor country (presumably this is a one time deal)

Economically, in any real sense, it would be a disaster. Most of the wealth for the very rich are held in assets (property, ownership of companies, etc). It would be pretty much impossible to liquidate it quickly without causing markets to crash and companies to fail.

For another perspective, total global GDP per year is estimated at 100 trillion. So the amount you're discussing is 6 months worth of global economic activity. Certainly substantial but not exactly "everyone could live in luxury for the rest of their lives" substantial.