Browse our complete collection of questions and answers.
Three distinct entitlements with different lengths, different pay and different eligibility rules — and the interaction between them, particularly shared parental leave, is where most of the
Statutory Sick Pay is a legal minimum, paid by your employer, not a benefit from the state — and it is considerably less than most people assume, which is why the difference between statutory and
Almost everyone in work is entitled to a statutory minimum of 5.6 weeks' paid holiday a year — and the confusion comes from the fact that this is expressed in weeks, not days, which is what makes
An experimental physicist whose 1956 experiment overturned a law of physics that had been assumed universal — and whose collaborators received the Nobel Prize for the theory her work confirmed, while
A British secret agent of Indian descent who worked as a wireless operator in occupied Paris during the Second World War — the most dangerous role in the network — and who was executed at Dachau in
An Indian mathematician of extraordinary and largely self-taught ability, who produced thousands of results — many previously unknown, some still being proved a century later — with almost no formal
A Black American woman whose cancer cells, taken without her knowledge or consent in 1951, became the first human cell line to survive and multiply indefinitely in culture — and which have since
The physicist who, with Otto Frisch, worked out the theoretical explanation for nuclear fission and gave it its name — and who was then excluded from the Nobel Prize awarded for the discovery, in
He was extremely effective at appearing fearsome, which was the point — and the striking thing about Edward Teach is that there is no confirmed record of him killing anyone before the battle in which
No — but he was a real person, a genuine sanitary engineer, and the coincidence of his name is one of the better accidents in the history of language. The story is wrong in almost every particular
He designed a great many things and built almost none of them, and several of the most famous attributions are either not his ideas or would not have worked. The gap between designing and inventing
Probably not as a single person — the evidence points instead to a name that became a label, applied to outlaws generally, which then accumulated a legend around it. The strongest piece of evidence,
Almost certainly not as described — and the honest position is that there is no contemporary evidence for him at all, while there may be a much smaller historical kernel buried under a thousand years
Betting with in-game cosmetic items rather than money — on casino-style games, on esports matches, or on item openings — using items that have real-world value because they can be traded and sold.
Good value for many players, genuinely mixed for developers, and the effects on the wider market are contested — with the honest answer differing sharply depending on the size and type of studio. The
QA looks for things that are broken; playtesting looks for things that are working as designed and still failing. They are different disciplines answering different questions, and conflating them is
Designs the spaces players move through and what happens in them — which is a discipline of pacing, communication and psychology far more than of decoration. The visual appearance is usually someone
Through several distinct disciplines that are frequently confused: sound design, music composition, implementation and mixing — and the one that makes game audio genuinely different from film is
Because publishers set regional prices rather than converting one price at the exchange rate — and the reasoning is a mix of genuine economics and market strategy, with the result that a game can
Through storefront policies that sit on top of your statutory rights — and the two are different things, which is why a refund can be refused under a policy and still be owed to you in law. Typical
Mostly people, over a long period — and the second largest figure is frequently marketing, which for large releases can approach or exceed the cost of making the game. The development side: Salaries
Far more than translation. Localisation adapts a game so that it works for a different market, which involves text, audio, art, interface, legal compliance and frequently gameplay itself — and the
Through a staged process in which money is released against evidence, rather than a single meeting where someone says yes. Each stage exists to reduce the risk of the next, and most projects die at
Usually not by itself — but it depends heavily on the course, and a small number of highly competitive subjects treat resits explicitly and unfavourably, which is why the answer must be checked
A two-year pre-university programme taken in schools worldwide, structured around breadth where A-levels are structured around depth — which is the essential difference and determines who each suits.
A teacher's professional judgement of the grade a student is most likely to achieve, used by universities to make conditional offers before results exist. They are estimates, not promises, and their
Broadly, presenting AI-generated work as your own, and failing to declare AI use where the institution requires declaration — but the specific rules vary by institution and by assignment, and that
Because qualifications in England are delivered by competing awarding organisations rather than by the state — a market structure, overseen by a regulator whose job is to ensure that the same grade
An Access to Higher Education Diploma is a qualification designed specifically for adults without the usual entry qualifications, taken in a year full-time, and accepted by universities in place of
It is far more common than people assume, and the consequences depend heavily on when you do it — the financial position in particular changes at specific points in the year, and acting before those
By a formula set by each university individually, weighting modules by level and credit — which is why two students with identical marks at different institutions can receive different
Adjustments to how an exam is taken — extra time, a reader, a scribe, a separate room, rest breaks, assistive technology — intended to remove a disadvantage without giving an advantage. That
Through one of several routes to qualified teacher status, which differ mainly in whether you train mostly at a university or mostly in a school, and in whether you are paid while training. The
Almost always because of deliberate content protection — the system is preventing you from capturing something, and a black frame is what that prevention looks like. It is a feature, not a fault,
Because something is running continuously that should not be — and the sudden onset is the useful clue, since hardware degrades gradually while software problems appear overnight. The most common
Because backup systems fail silently far more often than they fail loudly — and the failure is usually discovered at the only moment it matters, when you try to restore. A backup you have never
Power it off, do not charge it, and dry it slowly — and the most widely repeated piece of advice, putting it in rice, is ineffective and actively risky, which is worth knowing before you need it. The
Because ownership and permission are different things, and the account you are logged in as may not be the account the system associates with that file — which happens far more often than people
Because an update changes a component other things depend on — and the thing that breaks is frequently not the thing that was updated. Understanding that relationship explains both why it happens and
Work through the recovery routes in order of reliability — and the critical insight is that account recovery almost always runs through something else you control, which means the real problem is
Because extensions have deep access to the pages you visit — they can read, rewrite, block and inject content — so an extension doing its job can easily interfere with a site doing its job. The
Frequently yes — because deleting a file usually does not erase it. The system marks the space as available for reuse and removes the pointer to it; the data stays until something writes over it.
Disconnect from the network, then work through a sequence — because the instinct to start deleting things immediately can destroy evidence, spread the problem, or do nothing at all while the real
Generally yes, and flying is not considered harmful in an uncomplicated pregnancy — but airlines impose their own limits, and those limits exist mainly because they do not want a birth on board
Entirely country-specific, changing frequently, and in several places strict enough that arriving with a drone causes it to be confiscated at customs — so this is one of the few travel questions
Most of them exploit the same three vulnerabilities: you do not know local prices, you do not know what is normal, and you are reluctant to appear rude. Recognising the structure matters more than
It varies enormously, and the variation is structural rather than cultural politeness — it depends on whether service staff are paid a full wage, which determines whether a tip is a bonus or a
Deep vein thrombosis is a blood clot forming in a deep vein, usually in the leg. Long-haul travel raises the risk modestly, and the mechanism is better understood than the folklore around it
Usually yes — but medicines legal at home can be controlled or banned at your destination, and travellers are arrested for this every year while carrying entirely ordinary prescriptions. The general
A legally enforceable right to free assistance through the airport and onto the aircraft, plus obligations on airlines around equipment and refusal — and the rights are considerably stronger than