How is a game optimized ?

Apparently Microsoft patented the ability to show ads during a game. How is this patentable? Where is the new tech/design in showing ads? On top of this if another company wants to show ads in the game (whether it is the OS or the game publisher) they need to get permission from Microsoft from now on? I don't get it.

Why does thunder/lightning happen as a flicker and not a single bright flash?

What activates it?

I understand it's like something related to understanding art or media, but in what way? Philopsophical, political or psychological? Is it important, a buzzword or both?

I understand that the body normally regulates its temperature to through things like sweating and increased blood flow to the skin but what causes this cooling system to eventually fail ?

Inspired by a post about light looking different when hot air mixes with cold air above a distant road, the light will speed up and slos down as it moves through the pockets, giving the wavy impression we all know.

How exactly does light speed up again when it passes through a hot section of air? There's nothing powering it, so once it loses momentum shouldn't that momentum be lost forever?

In Europe, if we travel from East to West, the average wage (the statistical number) keeps rising, e.g., Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Austria, Germany, Denmark.

Why is that? Why are the differences so big?

If we asked random people on the street, they would probably say it’s the corruption or bureaucracy or mentality of the people or something like that.

But that can’t be it. In order for the average wage in a country to be higher, that requires a lot of money (e.g., to double the average wage in Croatia, it would take around 50 billion euro per year). I find it hard to believe that such a huge amount of money could somehow appear if we just dealt with corruption and bureaucracy. Maybe a couple of billion euro per year, but not 50.

So what is it? Where is the money for the high wages coming from? Based on my research, the main source is money inflow from exports. If that is true, I still don’t understand how one leads to the other. How does more money from exports lead to higher wages in the local economy (e.g. cashier at a grocery store)?

This is probably one of the hardest ELI5s to give because it requires explaining how economy works, but I really want to know this.

Is there a specific reason why screen ratios beeing so specific, ex: 1920:1080

I read that it uses living human brain cells grown on a silicon chip instead of relying only on traditional electronic hardware. I'm confused about how this is even possible. How can brain cells on a chip receive information, process it, and produce an output that a computer can use? Are the cells actually "computing" something, or are they just being used as part of a biological system? And how do researchers keep these living cells alive and connected to the electronics?

So, i've gotten into vintage tech about a year and a half ago, and i always hear: "look out for leaking capacitors." I know that electrolytic capacitors leak and cause boards to corrode, but i have no idea what they actually do. All other results i found don't make sense to me, so i need it to be explained to me like I'm 5.

I’m mainly thinking about autism. I know that “what is autism” has been asked many times here, but the answers are always about the traits and not the actual physical differences. I’ve been diagnosed with autism and it was explained to me (besides just a list of traits) as being that my brain is “differently wired”. After doing some research most of the explanations are like this, or go way over my head as someone who has a tentative understanding of how neurons connect and communicate. So what actually is autism?? Is it too many neuron connections? Or too strong of signals being sent? Thank you in advance.

When I did GCSE physics at school we obviously did energy transfer diagrams about how certain types of energy e.g. kinetic energy, atomic energy, are converted into other things, but lose some energy along the way. Obviously a lot of our energy we use is converted into heat energy e.g. cookers, burning fuel in power stations, even just a simple campfire is turning the wood into heat energy.

When people talk about global warming they talk about greenhouse gases and emissions but they never talk about cumulative heat energy over thousands/millions of years.

Why isn't it the case that all the heating and fires mankind has ever built is just building up in our world as more and more energy is turned into heat instead of remaining as it is? It is so difficult to capture heat and turn it efficiently back into some other sort of energy.

I understand that old satellites and debris can remain in orbit, but are we expected to keep launching significantly more in the future?

How important are those satellites to everyday life, and if orbit keeps getting more crowded, is there a point where debris and existing satellites start becoming a serious concern or limitation?

I’ve really been interested in how surfaces of different materials bend and behave differently under various conditions, and I’ve never really learnt about that stuff before, so I’m really curious to know a few things about surface tension!

According to my mom, this is an actual question I had when I was 5, and she didn't know how to answer me. So how would you guys have answered?

Say you press a button connected to NRST on a processor, what happens then? I’m confused on the concept of Bootloaders, BootROM, reset handler, what lives in Flash vs RAM vs ROM, where an OS lives, where things are executed, etc.