Mastering can involve making a new transfer from original tapes (in hopes of getting a better starting point than the last transfer), but mainly it is sonic enhancements: noise reduction, EQ, and dynamic compression/expansion. Judicious use of these tools (not just turning all knobs to "11") can result in a more polished, modern sound that makes each song sound as good as it can (in the engineer's opinion); and it can smooth out inconsistencies from song to song (so everything on an album sounds like it belongs together). *Re-*mastering is just when someone does all this work again, often just for the sake of being able to market the same music again as "improved".

The ELI5 version is more like:

You know how your audio player has an "equalizer" or "tone controls" where you can change the volume of, say, just the bass and treble pitches in the music? When you mess with those settings, you are, in effect, "remastering" the audio as it plays. Well, someone did that (and a few other things) on every piece of recorded music you've ever heard, after it was created, to make sure it sounded really "good", in their opinion. This was "mastering" the audio. At some point, when the record company wanted to sell more copies, they got someone else to do that work again, and they marketed the result as "remastered", implying it sounds even better now. Whether it sounds different, and whether it is actually better, is often a matter of taste.

Source: I have done mixing and remastering work professionally.

Agreed.

When defending his ad-hoc approach to the prequels and tinkering with the original trilogy, Lucas said something about these stories being retellings of the same myth. So I think we can't even read too much into the episode numbers. Each trilogy is a different way of telling the same story, and each episode has some myth-retelling within it, as well. It's supposed to be all mixed up and ambiguous and repetitive, because that's how legends are. Thus, the fact that the events of one trilogy must precede the events of another doesn't mean they are perfectly accurate, in-universe continuations of the same story. The lines between canon and non-canon are intentionally blurred.

The same thing happens in the Zelda video game series.

Looking at it this way is the only thing that keeps me from getting too bent out of shape about things like "...another world-destroying space station that needs to be sabotaged by scrappy rebels? really?"

The Guardian is authwalled. To summarize:

An engaged couple, who were popular on Instagram, posted a video of themselves dancing together in public, and the woman did not have a head covering. Dancing in public is forbidden. A woman dancing with a man in public is especially forbidden. The woman not covering her head in public is forbidden. Oh, and they did this dance in front of a national landmark which is a symbol of the regime and whose designer lives in exile because his religion is forbidden. The name of the landmark? The Freedom (Azadi) Tower, of course.

The couple was convicted without access to lawyers and bail was denied. The charges were “encouraging corruption and public prostitution” and “gathering with the intention of disrupting national security”.

The woman was sent to Iran's squalid, overcrowded prison for women.

For the benefit of the OP, slightly more ELI5: “by definition” here means that the people who invented the kilogram intentionally said that a kilogram is whatever 1 litre of distilled water weighs (or rather, its mass) at sea level. Basically. So yes, the weight of the soda bottle in kg must be pretty close to it’s volume in litres, assuming it’s filled with mostly water and assuming you’re on the surface of the earth.

Good to know; thanks.

I'm sure the $12B they got in 2008 didn't hurt, either.

Anyway, I like the use of the gradient to differentiate the expenses from the profit.

The building won't last that long. Eventually it will need to be replaced. That day might come sooner than expected if future fundraising is hindered by the inability to change the name.