stefmalawi

Those buttons aren't really for sharing. But they allow your social media / google account to track the sites you visit and provide data (such as user demographics) to the website. You don't have to click the button for this to happen if you're already signed into the account elsewhere.

This is how porn sites can know for instance, which videos are popular with which genders, without users providing this information directly themselves.

There are a few reasons for this:

• A smaller die size chip is simply cheaper to manufacture (once the process has matured, at least) as it requires less silicon, so you can fit more on a single wafer. Larger chips are also more difficult to fit onto a wafer without wasting silicon. The fact that process technology has evolved at such a fast rate is a big part of why computers fall in price so quickly; consider what something of similar power to your laptop (or whatever) would have cost just 5 or 10 years ago.

• The technology world is quickly transitioning to mobile - from desktops to notebooks to phones. Smaller chips are necessary for certain form factors; you couldn't have such a large die size in a device like a phone.

• There are other benefits to a smaller process node (ie 22nm). Generally, transistors on a smaller node switch faster, and leak less energy and so are more efficient. A similar design chip on a newer/smaller process (shrinking) is usually faster, more efficient and produces less heat - and is cheaper!

• There are many additional design considerations. For example, there is a close relationship between die size and interconnect. Because your chip can be at higher density on a smaller process, you can fit more logic than before and make a more complex design at the same size.

• New process technology usually has other benefits besides simply shrinking the components. For example, features such as high-k metal gate or new designs for transistors, like the FinFET.

Just a few things off the top of my head, I'm sure there are many more.

Source: ECE student.

TL;DR - New process technology allows chips to be faster, more efficient, cooler and more capable, all whilst eventually becoming cheaper. It also allows for new form factors.

A parachute container (or rig) uses several closing pins to secure the main and reserve parachutes, yet make it easy to open when intended.

A pin check isn't so much a specific checking of those pins IMO, rather just something you would do as a general check of the equipment. More specifically you would check that your AAD is on and set correctly, your altimeter is at zero before take off, etc.