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History of computing hardware (1960s–present)

The history of computing hardware starting at 1960 is marked by the conversion from vacuum tube to solid-state devices such as transistors and then integrated circuit (IC) chips. Around 1953 to 1959, discrete transistors started being considered sufficiently reliable and economical that they made further vacuum tube computers uncompetitive. Metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) large-scale integration (LSI) technology subsequently led to the development of semiconductor memory in the mid-to-late 1960s and then the microprocessor in the early 1970s. This led to primary computer memory moving away from magnetic-core memory devices to solid-state static and dynamic semiconductor memory, which greatly reduced the cost, size, and power consumption of computers. These advances led to the miniaturized personal computer (PC) in the 1970s, starting with home computers and desktop computers, followed by laptops and then mobile computers over the next several decades.

Second generation
For the purposes of this article, the term "second generation" refers to computers using discrete transistors, even when the vendors referred to them as "third-generation". By 1960 transistorized computers were replacing vacuum tube computers, offering lower cost, higher speeds, and reduced power consumption. The marketplace was dominated by IBM and the seven dwarfs:

 * IBM
 * The BUNCH
 * Burroughs
 * UNIVAC
 * NCR
 * Control Data Corporation (CDC)
 * Honeywell
 * General Electric
 * RCA.

Some examples of 1960s second generation computers from those vendors are:

 * the IBM 1401, the IBM 7090/7094, and the IBM System/360;
 * the Burroughs 5000 series;
 * the UNIVAC 1107;
 * the NCR 315;
 * the CDC 1604 and the CDC 3000 series;
 * the Honeywell 200, Honeywell 400, and Honeywell 800;
 * the GE-400 series and the GE-600 series;
 * the RCA 301, 3301 and the Spectra 70 series.

However, some smaller companies made significant contributions. Also, towards the end of the second generation Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) was a serious contender in the small and medium machine marketplace.

Meanwhile, second-generation computers were also being developed in the USSR as, e.g., the Razdan family of general-purpose digital computers created at the Yerevan Computer Research and Development Institute.

The second-generation computer architectures initially varied; they included character-based decimal computers, sign-magnitude decimal computers with a 10-digit word, sign-magnitude binary computers, and ones' complement binary computers, although Philco, RCA, and Honeywell, for example, had some computers that were character-based binary computers and Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) and Philco, for example, had two's complement computers. With the advent of the IBM System/360, two's complement became the norm for new product lines.

The most common word sizes for binary mainframes were 36 and 48 bits, although entry-level and midrange machines used smaller words, e.g., 12 bits, 18 bits, 24 bits, 30 bits. All but the smallest machines had asynchronous I/O channels and interrupts. Typically binary computers with word size up to 36 bits had one instruction per word, binary computers with 48 bits per word had two instructions per word and the CDC 60-bit machines could have two, three, or four instructions per word, depending on the instruction mix; the Burroughs B5000, B6500/B7500 and B8500 lines are notable exceptions to this.

First-generation computers with data channels (I/O channels) had a basic DMA interface to the channel cable. The second generation saw both simpler, e.g., channels on the CDC 6000 series had no DMA, and more sophisticated designs, e.g., the 7909 on the IBM 7090 had limited computational, conditional branching and interrupt system.

By 1960, magnetic core was the dominant memory technology, although there were still some new machines using drums and delay lines during the 1960s.

Magnetic thin film and rod memory were used on some second-generation machines, but advances in core technology meant they remained niche players until semiconductor memory displaced both core and thin film.

In the first generation, word-oriented computers typically had a single accumulator and an extension, referred to as, e.g., Upper and Lower Accumulator, Accumulator and Multiplier-Quotient (MQ) register. In the second generation, it became common for computers to have multiple addressable accumulators. On some computers, e.g., PDP-6, the same registers served as accumulators and index registers, making them an early example of general-purpose registers.

In the second generation there was considerable development of new address modes, including truncated addressing on, e.g., the Philco TRANSAC S-2000, the UNIVAC III, and automatic index register incrementing on, e.g., the RCA 601, UNIVAC 1107, and the GE-600 series. Although index registers were introduced in the first generation under the name B-line, their use became much more common in the second generation. Similarly, indirect addressing became more common in the second generation, either in conjunction with index registers or instead of them. While first-generation computers typically had a small number of index registers or none, several lines of second-generation computers had large numbers of index registers, e.g., Atlas, Bendix G-20, IBM 7070.

The first generation had pioneered the use of special facilities for calling subroutines, e.g., TSX on the IBM 709. In the second generation, such facilities were ubiquitous. In the descriptions below, NSI is the next sequential instruction, the return address. Some examples are:
 * Automatically record the NSI in a register for all or most successful branch instructions
 * The Jump Address (JA) Register on the Philco TRANSAC S-2000
 * The Sequence History (SH) and Cosequence History (CSH) registers on the Honeywell 800
 * The B register on an IBM 1401 with the indexing feature

 * Automatically record the NSI at a standard memory location following all or most successful branches
 * Store P (STP) locations on RCA 301 and RCA 501

 * Call instructions that save the NSI in the first word of the subroutine
 * Return Jump (RJ) on the UNIVAC 1107
 * Return Jump (RJ) on CDC 3600 and CDC 6000 series

 * Call instructions that save the NSI in an implicit or explicit register
 * Branch and Load Location in Index Word (BLX) on the IBM 7070
 * Transfer and Set Xn (TSXn) on the GE-600 series
 * Branch and Link (BAL) on the IBM System/360

 * Call instructions that use an index register as a stack pointer and push return information onto the stack
 * Push jump (PUSHJ) on the DEC PDP-6

 * Implicit call with return information pushed onto the stack
 * Program descriptors on the Burroughs B5000 line
 * Program descriptors on the Burroughs B6500 line

The second generation saw the introduction of features intended to support multiprogramming and multiprocessor configurations, including master/slave (supervisor/problem) mode, storage protection keys, limit registers, protection associated with address translation, and atomic instructions.

Third generation
The mass increase in the use of computers accelerated with Third Generation computers starting around 1966 in the commercial market. These generally relied on early (sub-1000 transistor) integrated circuit technology. The third generation ends with the microprocessor-based fourth generation.

In 1958, Jack Kilby at Texas Instruments invented the hybrid integrated circuit (hybrid IC), which had external wire connections, making it difficult to mass-produce. In 1959, Robert Noyce at Fairchild Semiconductor invented the monolithic integrated circuit (IC) chip. It was made of silicon, whereas Kilby's chip was made of germanium. The basis for Noyce's monolithic IC was Fairchild's planar process, which allowed integrated circuits to be laid out using the same principles as those of printed circuits. The planar process was developed by Noyce's colleague Jean Hoerni in early 1959, based on the silicon surface passivation and thermal oxidation processes developed by Mohamed M. Atalla at Bell Labs in the late 1950s.

Computers using IC chips began to appear in the early 1960s. For example, the 1961 Semiconductor Network Computer (Molecular Electronic Computer, Mol-E-Com),  the first monolithic integrated circuit   general purpose computer (built for demonstration purposes, programmed to simulate a desk calculator) was built by Texas Instruments for the US Air Force.

Some of their early uses were in embedded systems, notably used by NASA for the Apollo Guidance Computer, by the military in the LGM-30 Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile, the Honeywell ALERT airborne computer, and in the Central Air Data Computer used for flight control in the US Navy's F-14A Tomcat fighter jet.

An early commercial use was the 1965 SDS 92. IBM first used ICs in computers for the logic of the System/360 Model 85 shipped in 1969 and then made extensive use of ICs in its System/370 which began shipment in 1971.

The integrated circuit enabled the development of much smaller computers. The minicomputer was a significant innovation in the 1960s and 1970s. It brought computing power to more people, not only through more convenient physical size but also through broadening the computer vendor field. Digital Equipment Corporation became the number two computer company behind IBM with their popular PDP and VAX computer systems. Smaller, affordable hardware also brought about the development of important new operating systems such as Unix.

In November 1966, Hewlett-Packard introduced the 2116A minicomputer, one of the first commercial 16-bit computers. It used CTμL (Complementary Transistor MicroLogic) in integrated circuits from Fairchild Semiconductor. Hewlett-Packard followed this with similar 16-bit computers, such as the 2115A in 1967, the 2114A in 1968, and others.

In 1969, Data General introduced the Nova and shipped a total of 50,000 at $8,000 each. The popularity of 16-bit computers, such as the Hewlett-Packard 21xx series and the Data General Nova, led the way toward word lengths that were multiples of the 8-bit byte. The Nova was first to employ medium-scale integration (MSI) circuits from Fairchild Semiconductor, with subsequent models using large-scale integrated (LSI) circuits. Also notable was that the entire central processor was contained on one 15-inch printed circuit board.

Large mainframe computers used ICs to increase storage and processing abilities. The 1965 IBM System/360 mainframe computer family are sometimes called third-generation computers; however, their logic consisted primarily of SLT hybrid circuits, which contained discrete transistors and diodes interconnected on a substrate with printed wires and printed passive components; the S/360 M85 and M91 did use ICs for some of their circuits. IBM's 1971 System/370 used ICs for their logic, and later models used semiconductor memory.

By 1971, the ILLIAC IV supercomputer was the fastest computer in the world, using about a quarter-million small-scale ECL logic gate integrated circuits to make up sixty-four parallel data processors.

Third-generation computers were offered well into the 1990s; for example the IBM ES9000 9X2 announced April 1994 used 5,960 ECL chips to make a 10-way processor. Other third-generation computers offered in the 1990s included the DEC VAX 9000 (1989), built from ECL gate arrays and custom chips, and the Cray T90 (1995).

Fourth generation
Third-generation minicomputers were essentially scaled-down versions of mainframe computers, whereas the fourth generation's origins are fundamentally different. The basis of the fourth generation is the microprocessor, a computer processor contained on a single large-scale integration (LSI) MOS integrated circuit chip.

Microprocessor-based computers were originally very limited in their computational ability and speed and were in no way an attempt to downsize the minicomputer. They were addressing an entirely different market.

Processing power and storage capacities have grown beyond all recognition since the 1970s, but the underlying technology has remained basically the same of large-scale integration (LSI) or very-large-scale integration (VLSI) microchips, so it is widely regarded that most of today's computers still belong to the fourth generation.

Microprocessors
The microprocessor has origins in the MOS integrated circuit (MOS IC) chip. The MOS IC was fabricated by Fred Heiman and Steven Hofstein at RCA in 1962. Due to rapid MOSFET scaling, MOS IC chips rapidly increased in complexity at a rate predicted by Moore's law, leading to large-scale integration (LSI) with hundreds of transistors on a single MOS chip by the late 1960s. The application of MOS LSI chips to computing was the basis for the first microprocessors, as engineers began recognizing that a complete computer processor could be contained on a single MOS LSI chip.

The earliest multi-chip microprocessors were the Four-Phase Systems AL1 in 1969 and Garrett AiResearch MP944 in 1970, each using several MOS LSI chips. On November 15, 1971, Intel released the world's first single-chip microprocessor, the 4004, on a single MOS LSI chip. Its development was led by Federico Faggin, using silicon-gate MOS technology, along with Ted Hoff, Stanley Mazor and Masatoshi Shima. It was developed for a Japanese calculator company called Busicom as an alternative to hardwired circuitry, but computers were developed around it, with much of their processing abilities provided by one small microprocessor chip. The dynamic RAM (DRAM) chip was based on the MOS DRAM memory cell developed by Robert Dennard of IBM, offering kilobits of memory on one chip. Intel coupled the RAM chip with the microprocessor, allowing fourth generation computers to be smaller and faster than prior computers. The 4004 was only capable of 60,000 instructions per second, but its successors brought ever-growing speed and power to computers, including the Intel 8008, 8080 (used in many computers using the CP/M operating system), and the 8086/8088 family. (The IBM personal computer (PC) and compatibles use processors that are still backward-compatible with the 8086.) Other producers also made microprocessors which were widely used in microcomputers.

The following table shows a timeline of significant microprocessor development.

Supercomputers
The powerful supercomputers of the era were at the other end of the computing spectrum from the microcomputers, and they also used integrated circuit technology. In 1976, the Cray-1 was developed by Seymour Cray, who had left Control Data in 1972 to form his own company. This machine was the first supercomputer to make vector processing practical. It had a characteristic horseshoe shape to speed processing by shortening circuit paths. Vector processing uses one instruction to perform the same operation on many arguments; it has been a fundamental supercomputer processing method ever since. The Cray-1 could calculate 150 million floating-point operations per second (150 megaflops). 85 were shipped at a price of $5 million each. The Cray-1 had a CPU that was mostly constructed of SSI and MSI ECL ICs.

Mainframes and minicomputers
Computers were generally large, costly systems owned by large institutions before the introduction of the microprocessor in the early 1970s—corporations, universities, government agencies, and the like. Users were experienced specialists who did not usually interact with the machine itself, but instead prepared tasks for the computer on off-line equipment, such as card punches. A number of assignments for the computer would be gathered up and processed in batch mode. After the jobs had completed, users could collect the output printouts and punched cards. In some organizations, it could take hours or days between submitting a job to the computing center and receiving the output.

A more interactive form of computer use developed commercially by the middle 1960s. In a time-sharing system, multiple teleprinter and display terminals let many people share the use of one mainframe computer processor, with the operating system assigning time slices to each user's jobs. This was common in business applications and in science and engineering.

A different model of computer use was foreshadowed by the way in which early, pre-commercial, experimental computers were used, where one user had exclusive use of a processor. Some of the first computers that might be called "personal" were early minicomputers such as the LINC and PDP-8, and later on VAX and larger minicomputers from Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), Data General, Prime Computer, and others. They originated as peripheral processors for mainframe computers, taking on some routine tasks and freeing the processor for computation.

By today's standards, they were physically large (about the size of a refrigerator) and costly (typically tens of thousands of US dollars), and thus were rarely purchased by individuals. However, they were much smaller, less expensive, and generally simpler to operate than the mainframe computers of the time, and thus affordable by individual laboratories and research projects. Minicomputers largely freed these organizations from the batch processing and bureaucracy of a commercial or university computing center.

In addition, minicomputers were more interactive than mainframes, and soon had their own operating systems. The minicomputer Xerox Alto (1973) was a landmark step in the development of personal computers, because of its graphical user interface, bit-mapped high-resolution screen, large internal and external memory storage, mouse, and special software.

Microprocessor and cost reduction
In the minicomputer ancestors of the modern personal computer, processing was carried out by circuits with large numbers of components arranged on multiple large printed circuit boards. Minicomputers were consequently physically large and expensive to produce compared with later microprocessor systems. After the "computer-on-a-chip" was commercialized, the cost to produce a computer system dropped dramatically. The arithmetic, logic, and control functions that previously occupied several costly circuit boards were now available in one integrated circuit which was very expensive to design but cheap to produce in large quantities. Concurrently, advances in developing solid state memory eliminated the bulky, costly, and power-hungry magnetic-core memory used in prior generations of computers.

Micral N

In France, the company R2E (Réalisations et Etudes Electroniques) formed by five former engineers of the Intertechnique company, André Truong Trong Thi and François Gernelle introduced in February 1973 a microcomputer, the Micral N based on the Intel 8008. Originally, the computer had been designed by Gernelle, Lacombe, Beckmann and Benchitrite for the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique to automate hygrometric measurements. The Micral N cost a fifth of the price of a PDP-8, about 8500FF ($1300). The clock of the Intel 8008 was set at 500 kHz, the memory was 16 kilobytes. A bus, called Pluribus was introduced and allowed connection of up to 14 boards. Different boards for digital I/O, analog I/O, memory, floppy disk were available from R2E.

Altair 8800 and IMSAI 8080
The development of the single-chip microprocessor was an enormous catalyst to the popularization of cheap, easy to use, and truly personal computers. The Altair 8800, introduced in a Popular Electronics magazine article in the January 1975 issue, at the time set a new low price point for a computer, bringing computer ownership to an admittedly select market in the 1970s. This was followed by the IMSAI 8080 computer, with similar abilities and limitations. The Altair and IMSAI were essentially scaled-down minicomputers and were incomplete: to connect a keyboard or teleprinter to them required heavy, expensive "peripherals". These machines both featured a front panel with switches and lights, which communicated with the operator in binary. To program the machine after switching it on the bootstrap loader program had to be entered, without error, in binary, then a paper tape containing a BASIC interpreter loaded from a paper-tape reader. Keying the loader required setting a bank of eight switches up or down and pressing the "load" button, once for each byte of the program, which was typically hundreds of bytes long. The computer could run BASIC programs once the interpreter had been loaded.

The MITS Altair, the first commercially successful microprocessor kit, was featured on the cover of Popular Electronics magazine in January 1975. It was the world's first mass-produced personal computer kit, as well as the first computer to use an Intel 8080 processor. It was a commercial success with 10,000 Altairs being shipped. The Altair also inspired the software development efforts of Paul Allen and his high school friend Bill Gates who developed a BASIC interpreter for the Altair, and then formed Microsoft.

The MITS Altair 8800 effectively created a new industry of microcomputers and computer kits, with many others following, such as a wave of small business computers in the late 1970s based on the Intel 8080, Zilog Z80 and Intel 8085 microprocessor chips. Most ran the CP/M-80 operating system developed by Gary Kildall at Digital Research. CP/M-80 was the first popular microcomputer operating system to be used by many different hardware vendors, and many software packages were written for it, such as WordStar and dBase II.

Many hobbyists during the mid-1970s designed their own systems, with various degrees of success, and sometimes banded together to ease the job. Out of these house meetings, the Homebrew Computer Club developed, where hobbyists met to talk about what they had done, exchange schematics and software, and demonstrate their systems. Many people built or assembled their own computers as per published designs. For example, many thousands of people built the Galaksija home computer later in the early 1980s.

The Altair was influential. It came before Apple Computer, as well as Microsoft which produced and sold the Altair BASIC programming language interpreter, Microsoft's first product. The second generation of microcomputers, those that appeared in the late 1970s, sparked by the unexpected demand for the kit computers at the electronic hobbyist clubs, were usually known as home computers. For business use these systems were less capable and in some ways less versatile than the large business computers of the day. They were designed for fun and educational purposes, not so much for practical use. And although you could use some simple office/productivity applications on them, they were generally used by computer enthusiasts for learning to program and for running computer games, for which the personal computers of the period were less suitable and much too expensive. For the more technical hobbyists home computers were also used for electronically interfacing to external devices, such as controlling model railroads, and other general hobbyist pursuits.

Microcomputer emerges

The advent of the microprocessor and solid-state memory made home computing affordable. Early hobby microcomputer systems such as the Altair 8800 and Apple I introduced around 1975 marked the release of low-cost 8-bit processor chips, which had sufficient computing power to be of interest to hobby and experimental users. By 1977 pre-assembled systems such as the Apple II, Commodore PET, and TRS-80 (later dubbed the "1977 Trinity" by Byte Magazine) began the era of mass-market home computers; much less effort was required to obtain an operating computer, and applications such as games, word processing, and spreadsheets began to proliferate. Distinct from computers used in homes, small business systems were typically based on CP/M, until IBM introduced the IBM PC, which was quickly adopted. The PC was heavily cloned, leading to mass production and consequent cost reduction throughout the 1980s. This expanded the PC's presence in homes, replacing the home computer category during the 1990s and leading to the current monoculture of architecturally identical personal computers.


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Ray Kroc

Raymond Albert Kroc (October 5, 1902 – January 14, 1984) was an American businessman. He purchased the fast food company McDonald's in 1961 from the McDonald brothers and was its CEO from 1967 to 1973. Kroc is credited with the global expansion of McDonald's, turning it into the most successful fast food corporation in the world by revenue.

Kroc was born in Oak Park, Illinois, and worked a variety of jobs, including as a paper cup salesman and a musician, before eventually becoming a milkshake mixer salesman. In 1954, he visited a hamburger restaurant in San Bernardino, California, owned by Richard and Maurice McDonald. Kroc was impressed with the efficiency and speed of the restaurant's operations, and he convinced the brothers to allow him to franchise the concept.

Under Kroc's leadership, McDonald's grew rapidly, and he implemented several key innovations, including the creation of a standardized menu and the development of a highly efficient assembly-line system for food preparation. Kroc also focused on aggressive expansion, opening new restaurants across the United States and eventually in other countries as well. He became the owner of McDonald's Corporation in 1961 and was credited as its founder.

After retiring from McDonald's, he owned the San Diego Padres of Major League Baseball (MLB) from 1974 until his death in 1984.

Early life
Kroc was born on October 5, 1902, in Oak Park, Illinois, near Chicago, to Czech-American parents, Rose Mary [née Hrach] (1881–1959) and Alois "Louis" Kroc (1879–1937). Alois was born in Horní Stupno, part of Břasy near Rokycany. Rose's father Vojtěch was from Ševětín and her maternal grandfather Josef Kotilínek was from Bořice. After emigrating to America, Alois made a fortune speculating on land during the 1920s, only to lose everything with the stock market crash in 1929.

During World War I, Kroc lied about his age and became a Red Cross ambulance driver at the age of 15. The war ended shortly after he enlisted. During the Great Depression, Kroc worked a variety of jobs selling paper cups, as a real estate agent in Florida, and sometimes playing the piano in bands.

McDonald's
After World War II, Kroc found employment as a milkshake mixer salesman for the foodservice equipment manufacturer Prince Castle. When Prince Castle mixers sales plummeted because of competition from lower-priced Hamilton Beach products, Kroc was impressed by Richard and Maurice McDonald, who had purchased eight of his mixers for their restaurant in San Bernardino, California, and visited them in 1954.

After finalizing a franchise agreement with the McDonald brothers, Kroc sent a letter to Walt Disney. They had met as ambulance attendant trainees in Old Greenwich, Connecticut during World War I. Kroc wrote, "I have very recently taken over the national franchise of the McDonald's system. I would like to inquire if there may be an opportunity for a McDonald's in your Disney Development". According to one account, Disney agreed but with a stipulation to increase the price of fries from ten cents to fifteen cents, allowing himself the profit. Kroc refused to gouge his loyal customers, leaving Disneyland to open without a McDonald's restaurant. Writer Eric Schlosser, writing in his book Fast Food Nation, believes that this is a doctored retelling of the transaction by some McDonald's marketing executives. Most probably, the proposal was returned without approval.

Kroc has been credited with making a number of innovative changes in the food-service franchise model. Chief among them was the sale of only single-store franchises instead of selling larger, territorial franchises which was common in the industry at the time. Kroc recognized that the sale of exclusive licenses for large markets was the quickest way for a franchisor to make money, but he also saw in the practice a loss in the franchisor's ability to exert control over the course and direction of a chain's development. Above all else, and in keeping with contractual obligations with the McDonald brothers, Kroc wanted uniformity in service and quality among all of the McDonald's locations. Without the ability to influence franchisees, Kroc knew that it would be difficult to achieve that goal. By granting a franchisee the right to only one store location at a time, Kroc retained for the franchise some measure of control over the franchisee, or at least those desiring to someday own the rights to another store.

Kroc became frustrated with the McDonald brothers' desire to maintain a small number of restaurants. The brothers also consistently told Kroc he could not make changes to things such as the original blueprint, but despite Kroc's pleas, the brothers never sent any formal letters that legally allowed the changes in the chain. In 1961, he bought the company for $2.7 million, calculated so as to ensure each brother received $1 million after taxes. Obtaining the funds for the buyout was difficult due to existing debt from expansion. However, Harry Sonneborn, whom Kroc referred to as his "financial wizard", was able to raise the required funds.

At the closing, Kroc became annoyed that the brothers would not transfer to him the real estate and rights to the original San Bernardino location. The brothers had told Kroc they were giving the operation, property and all, to the founding employees. In his anger, Kroc later opened a new McDonald's restaurant near the original McDonald's, which had been renamed the Big M because the brothers had neglected to retain rights to the name. The Big M later closed. It is alleged that as part of the buyout Kroc promised, based on a handshake agreement, to continue the annual 1% royalty of the original agreement, but there is no evidence of this beyond a claim by a nephew of the McDonald brothers. Neither of the brothers publicly expressed disappointment over the deal. Speaking to someone about the buyout, Richard McDonald reportedly said that he had no regrets.

Kroc maintained the assembly line "Speedee Service System" for hamburger preparation that was introduced by the McDonald brothers in 1948. He standardized operations, ensuring every burger would taste the same in every restaurant. He set strict rules for franchisees on how the food was to be made, portion sizes, cooking methods and times, and packaging. Kroc also rejected cost-cutting measures like using soybean filler in the hamburger patties. These strict rules also were applied to customer service standards with such mandates that money be refunded to clients whose orders were not correct or to customers who had to wait more than five minutes for their food.

By the time of Kroc's death in 1984, McDonald's had 7,500 outlets in the United States and in 31 other countries and territories. The total system-wide sales of its restaurants were more than $8 billion in 1983, and his personal fortune amounted to some $600 million.

Baseball
Kroc retired from running McDonald's in 1973. While he was looking for new challenges, he decided to return to baseball, his lifelong favorite sport, when he learned the San Diego Padres were for sale. The team had been conditionally sold to Joseph Danzansky, a Washington, D.C. grocery-chain owner, who planned to move the Padres to Washington. However, the sale was tied up in lawsuits when Kroc purchased the team for $12 million, keeping the team in San Diego. In Kroc's first year of ownership in 1974, the Padres lost 102 games yet drew over one million in attendance, the standard of box office success in the major leagues during that era. Their previous highest attendance figure was 644,772 in 1972. The San Diego Union said Kroc was "above all, a fan of his team".

On April 9, 1974, while the Padres were on the brink of losing a 9–5 decision to the Houston Astros in the season opener at San Diego Stadium, Kroc took the public address microphone in front of 39,083 fans. "I've never seen such stupid ballplaying in my life," he said. The crowd cheered in approval. In 1979, Kroc's public interest in future free agent players Graig Nettles and Joe Morgan drew a $100,000 fine from Commissioner Bowie Kuhn. Frustrated with the team, he handed over operations of the team to his son-in-law, Ballard Smith. "There's more future in hamburgers than baseball," Kroc said.

After his death, the Padres in 1984 wore a special patch with Kroc's initials: RAK. They won the NL pennant that year against his hometown team Chicago Cubs and played in the 1984 World Series, which they lost to the Detroit Tigers. Kroc was inducted posthumously as part of the inaugural class of the San Diego Padres Hall of Fame in 1999.

Personal life
The Kroc Foundation supported research, treatment and education about various medical conditions, such as alcoholism, diabetes, arthritis and multiple sclerosis. It is best known for establishing the Ronald McDonald House, a nonprofit organization that provides free housing for parents close to medical facilities where their children are receiving treatment.

In 1973, Kroc received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.

A lifelong Republican, Kroc believed firmly in self-reliance and staunchly opposed government welfare and the New Deal. Kroc donated $255,000 to Richard Nixon's reelection campaign in 1972, and was controversially accused by some, notably Senator Harrison Williams, of making the donation to influence Nixon to veto a minimum wage bill making its way through Congress.

Kroc's first two marriages to Ethel Fleming (1922–1961) and Jane Dobbins Green (1963–1968) ended in divorce. Kroc and Fleming met in 1919, soon fell in love before getting married in 1922, and then moving to Chicago, Illinois. Their daughter Marilyn was born in 1924. His third wife, Joan Kroc, was a philanthropist who significantly increased her charitable contributions after Kroc's death. She donated to a variety of causes that interested her, such as the promotion of peace and preventing nuclear proliferation. Upon her death in 2003, her remaining $2.7 billion estate was distributed among a number of nonprofit organizations, including $1.5 billion donation to The Salvation Army to build 26 Kroc Centers, along with a $200 million donation to National Public Radio as she believed deeply in the power of public radio. In addition to that, she also donated to community centers serving socially-deprived neighborhoods throughout the country.

In 1980, following a stroke, he entered an alcohol rehabilitation facility. He died four years later of heart failure at a hospital in San Diego, California on January 14, 1984, at the age of 81 and was buried at the El Camino Memorial Park in Sorrento Valley, San Diego.

In popular culture
Kroc's acquisition of the McDonald's franchise as well as his "Kroc-style" business tactics are the subject of Mark Knopfler's 2004 song "Boom, Like That".

Kroc co-authored the book Grinding It Out, first published in 1977 and reissued in 2016; it served as the basis for a biographical movie about Kroc.

Michael Keaton portrayed Kroc in the 2016 John Lee Hancock film The Founder. The film's depiction of Kroc's franchise development, nationwide expansion, and ultimate acquisition of McDonald's, offered a critical view of his treatment of the founding McDonald brothers.

Kroc is featured in the documentary series The Food That Built America on the History channel.

Kroc is featured in Tim Harford's BBC World Service radio show 50 Things That Made the Modern Economy in the episode, "Fast food franchise", which depicts the boom that his franchisee model provided for the fast food industry.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Ray Kroc


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Talk:Naïve physics

Centrifugal Force does not belong on this list
Well meaning but confused science teachers tell their students that the centrifugal force is a fictional force, as if it were some kind of psychological effect. This is not true. The centrifugal force is an inertial force, meaning that it is a frame-dependent force that arises from the body's own inertia. It's true that the centrifugal force is not fundamental like gravity, but neither is friction or rope tension. Centrifugal force is every bit as real as other forces in the frame that it appears. A machine such as a spring scale can measure the centrifugal force independent of any human psychology. The centrifugal force can also be derived mathematically without any gimmicks or approximations by transforming Newton's law into a spinning reference frame. 129.63.129.196 (talk) 15:59, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

surprise
It is surprising that "tool-making" ability is not listed. And just when thought that it was only humans, monkeys, etc; the crow bent a wire for food; making any modern-day attempt to define folk physics bunk. Just as referenced by the example of a flat earth.

Is this the same as intuitive physics? I think that Stephen Pinker prefers that term in his popularisations of evolutionary psychology. Analogous are intuitive engineering, intuitive biology, intuitive economics -- Alan Peakall 17:29 9 Jul 2003 (UTC)

 * The article stub as-is certainly gives that impression. I have encountered the term in a different setting, though, in a late-70s or so artificial intelligence article by Patrick Hayes called the Naïve Physics Manifesto.
 * Here is a link:
 * http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~afb21/publications/masters/node28.html

 * I also think that folk something-or-other is a synonym for intuitive something-or-other, as in folk psychology, a term often used in cognitive science. -- Are Sørli 18:01, 6 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Exactly what is this page about? "Naive" is a word generally regarded as unfavorable in learned circles; to use it in regard to the work of Newton and Feynman et al. produces a strong impression that somebody has an ax to grind. There could be such a thing as naive physics in reality: the ideas of physics that people hold intuitively (or anyway it looks like intuition). What makes this page most remarkably silly to an outsider is that its first example is a crucial and famous rejection of the naive physics of Aristotle. But I don't mean to slight Newton, the second example, in his major piece of counter-intuitive work, which apparently is naive because he couldn't afford a spectrophotometer. Dandrake 21:37, May 9, 2004 (UTC)

Well, after two months, if no one can defend that list of "simple models" that is in fact a list of highly sophisticated (though now in part obsolete) physics, then I'll just delete it. For theories that turned out to be too simple to last until now (when we know everything and nothing we say will in the future be found too simple), there's always Obsolete scientific theories (to which I'll make a pointer), not that it doesn't have its own problems. Dandrake 00:06, Jul 14, 2004 (UTC)

No one having defended them, I removed the examples of obsolete or deliberately simplified physical models as used by incredibly non-naive physicists, and put in a list of actual folk physical ideas. I don't understand how the old list fit into either folk physics or the AI study referred to.

I'd like to put in a modern example: the Stanford fans' version of The Play of some years ago, in which a football was passed to the side (the rules forbidding a forward pass), and the play was ruled valid; but the forward motion of the passer actually caused the ball to be moving downfield (say the Stanfordians), and the play should have been called back. But the above shows that one can't state it clearly without too much verbosity.

We need more on the AI work which tries to codify common-sense knowledge. Dandrake 06:12, Aug 16, 2004 (UTC)

Would it be okay to add the widespread idea that the earths rotation causes gravity?

Citation Needed?!?
"A dropped object falls straight down.[citation needed]" Citation needed? CITATION NEEDED?!? WHY in the world would a citation be needed here? And who or what should we cite? It is silly things like this that make Wikipedia unrespected in academia. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 205.201.141.146 (talk) 20:42, 9 February 2007 (UTC).

 * I'm confused about that one, too. Is someone looking for proof that people think this, or proof that it isn't true? As none of these other list items have been tagged, I'm just going to remove that one.

Zadeez 04:09, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

"Two events are simultaneous or they are not."
I'm a bit confused as to why "Two events are simultaneous or they are not. " is listed here. Isn't this an example of the tautology "A or NOT A" and therefore inherently true? Sgt. Muffles 01:36, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

 * Simultaneity is not well defined once things are moving at the speed of light. Or something... it can depend on your frame of reference, and something seen as simultaneous by someone at point A might not be seen as simultaneous by someone at point B, yet neither party is right or wrong. --Kirkjerk 18:02, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Tautologies run into trouble when the predicates involved are not well-defined, or when boundaries are fuzzy, or when they blend fictional and non-fictional domains, and on and on. Simultaneity is not well-defined in special relativity. There has to be a reference to an inertial frame (no matter what speed you're moving at).

Which means it's not the person who thinks something is either simultaneous or not who is wrong, it's the person who thinks simultaniety means anything on its own, making it more of a naive semantics than a naive physics. ˜˜˜ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.231.153.63 (talk) 00:46, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

"A coin will hit the ground before a feather when both are dropped at the same time from the same height."
Errr... this is true, unless you're ignoring air resistance and terminal velocity and all that good stuff! --Kirkjerk 18:04, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I'd agree that that entry is worded rather poorly. There needs to be some sort of categorical certainty in the statement to make it properly false, for example, "A coin will always hit the ground...". Possibly, a better example would be "When two objects are dropped from the same height, the heavier object will always hit the ground first". Reveilled 12:01, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

 * I would have thought that one is the other way round (the first thing you get taught in highschool physics is that the coin and the feather fall at the same speed, even though it's blatantly untrue...). I suppose that's more "just-enough-knowledge-to-be-dangerous physics" rather than "naive physics" though. FiggyBee 01:43, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

absolute
"The ideas of absolute motion and absolute simultaneity survived until 1905"

Err - absolute motion was disposed of by Newton, way before 1905.

210.193.179.135 (talk) 01:08, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Moving the page.
Maybe this has been suggested before but I think this article should be moved to Naive Physics or Naive physics.

The reason being that the i with the diaresis (ï) is easier to find on your keyboard, it's easier to spell, and I think that it is has become more common, and that many.grammarians now.consider (by whom?) it to be more proper (clarifaction needed).

I suspect that these pages already redirect here, although I haven't checked, because the other reason is that it would look.better in a hyperlink. Right now links to this page read something like: Na%C3%AFve_physics @nd @fter the ©hange, it would look like this:

Naive_physics

Given the importance of this topic, given recent research in this field (how long?), particularly due to recent advances in machine learning and developmental psychology,

I think it would be easier to read,

and might make more people link to this page. (personal opinion, may contain original research)

This is discussed in the body of the article on Evian spelled backwards.

Mechachleopteryx (talk) 21:42, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

title: Talk:Naïve physics


text:
Bill Maher

William Maher (born January 20, 1956) is an American comedian, writer, producer, political commentator, actor, and television host. He is popularly known for the HBO political talk show Real Time with Bill Maher (2003–present) and the similar late-night show called Politically Incorrect (1993–2002), originally on Comedy Central and later on ABC. In 2022, Maher started the podcast Club Random.

Maher is best known for his political satire and sociopolitical commentary. He targets many topics including religion, political correctness, and the mass media. His critical views of religion were the basis for his 2008 documentary film Religulous. He is a supporter of animal rights, having served on the board of PETA since 1997, and is an advisory board member of Project Reason. Maher supports the legalization of cannabis, serving on the advisory board of NORML.

In 2005, Maher ranked at No. 38 on Comedy Central's 100 greatest stand-up comedians of all time. He received a Hollywood Walk of Fame star in 2010. Maher has earned 41 Primetime Emmy Award nominations and a win for his work as executive producer for Vice in 2014. He has also received nominations for two Grammy Awards and a Tony Award.

Early life and education
Maher was born in New York City. His father, William Aloysius Maher Jr., was a network news editor and radio announcer, and his mother, Julie Maher (née Berman), was a nurse. He was raised in his Irish-American father's Roman Catholic religion. Until his early teens, he was unaware that his mother, whose family was from Hungary, was Jewish. Owing to his disagreement with the Catholic Church's doctrine about birth control, Maher's father stopped taking Maher and his sister to Catholic Mass when Maher was thirteen.

Maher was raised in River Vale, New Jersey, and graduated from Pascack Hills High School in Montvale in 1974. He then attended Cornell University, where he double-majored in English and history, and graduated in 1978. Maher has said, "Selling pot allowed me to get through college and make enough money to start off in comedy."

Early career
Maher began his career as a comedian and actor. He was host of the New York City comedy club Catch a Rising Star in 1979. Maher began appearing on Johnny Carson's and David Letterman's shows in 1982. He made limited television appearances including on Sara (1985), Max Headroom (1987), Murder, She Wrote (1989, 1990), and Charlie Hoover (1991). His feature film debut was in D.C. Cab (1983). He later appeared in Ratboy (1986), House II: The Second Story (1987), Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death (1988), Newhart (1988), hosted the talk show Midnight Hour on CBS (1990) and Pizza Man (1991).

Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher

Maher assumed the host role on Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher, a late-night political talk show that ran on Comedy Central from 1993 to 1997 and on ABC from 1997 to 2002. The show regularly began with a topical monologue by Maher preceding the introduction of four guests, usually a diverse group of individuals, such as show business, popular culture, political pundits, political consultants, authors, and occasionally news figures. The group would discuss topical issues selected by Maher, who also participated in the discussions. Jerry Seinfeld, a regular guest on the show, stated that Politically Incorrect reminded him of talk shows from the 1950s and '60s "when guests interacted with each other as much as with the host".

Politically Incorrect won an array of awards, including an Emmy Award for Outstanding Technical Direction, two CableACE awards for Best Talk Show Series, and a Genesis Award for Best Television Talk Show. Maher earned numerous award nominations for his producing, writing, and hosting of Politically Incorrect, including ten Emmy nominations, two TV Guide nominations, and two Writers Guild nominations. ABC decided against renewing Maher's contract for Politically Incorrect in 2002, after he made a controversial on-air remark six days after the September 11 attacks. He agreed with his guest, conservative pundit Dinesh D'Souza, that the 9/11 terrorists did not act in a cowardly manner (in rebuttal to President Bush's statement calling them cowards). Maher said, "We have been the cowards. Lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That's cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building. Say what you want about it. Not cowardly. You're right." Maher later clarified that his comment was not anti-military in any way whatsoever, referencing his well-documented longstanding support for the American military. After receiving complaints, FedEx and Sears pulled their advertisements from the show, costing the show significant revenue.

Maher's remarks after 9/11 were not the first time he had sparked controversy on Politically Incorrect. In the same year, he expressed his deep regrets and apologized after being widely criticized for comparing his dogs to mentally disabled children. The show was canceled on June 16, 2002; the Sinclair Broadcast Group had dropped the show from its ABC-affiliated stations several months earlier. On June 22, 2002, six days after the cancellation of Politically Incorrect, Maher received the Los Angeles Press Club president's award (for "championing free speech"). Maher was on the board of judges for the 2002 PEN/Newman's Own First Amendment Award, which included writer Vanessa Leggett, imprisoned for 168 days for protecting sources and research notes.

Real Time with Bill Maher
In 2003, Maher became the host, co-producer, and co-writer of Real Time with Bill Maher, a weekly hour-long political comedy talk show on the cable television network HBO. In 2016, HBO renewed Real Time through 2018, for its 15th and 16th seasons. During an interview, Maher told Terry Gross (on NPR's Fresh Air) that he much prefers having serious and well-informed guests on his program, as opposed to the random celebrities that fleshed out his roundtable discussions on Politically Incorrect.

As with his previous show, Politically Incorrect, Maher begins Real Time with a comic opening monologue based upon current events and other topical issues. He proceeds to a one-on-one interview with a guest, either in-studio or via satellite. Following the interview, Maher sits with two or three panelists—usually consisting of pundits, authors, activists, actors, politicians, and journalists—for a discussion of the week's events.

Real Time has earned widespread praise. It has been nominated for more than ten Primetime Emmy Awards and six Writer's Guild awards. In 2007, Maher and his co-producers were awarded the Television Producer of the Year Award in Variety Television by the Producers Guild of America. Maher holds the record for the most Emmy nominations without a win, having been nominated on 22 occasions and not winning once. Eleven of the nominations were for Politically Incorrect, while nine were for Real Time. The other two were nominations for two of his HBO comedy specials: I'm Swiss and Bill Maher: The Decider.

Political commentator
Maher is a frequent commentator on various cable news networks, including CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, and HLN. Maher has regularly appeared on CNN's The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer and has also been a frequent guest on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews, The Rachel Maddow Show, and Countdown with Keith Olbermann. Maher has also appeared as a guest on HLN's The Joy Behar Show. He wrote the foreword for the 2002 book, Spin This!: All the Ways We Don't Tell the Truth by show host Bill Press.

Maher hosted the January 13, 2006, edition of Larry King Live, on which he was a frequent guest. Maher appeared as a special guest on the June 29, 2010, edition of the show, on which CNN anchor Larry King announced his retirement. Maher co-emceed the final show of Larry King Live on December 16, 2010, with Ryan Seacrest.

Other work
In 2004, Maher appeared on stage as Satan in The Steve Allen Theater production of "Hollywood Hell House", a spoof of Christian-run hell houses. The show was a faithful reproduction of an evangelistic scare-experience written by Reverend Keenan Roberts to terrify teenagers into declaring themselves Christians. "Our faith is that putting this up as itself, it will hoist itself on its own petard, that it's comical just as it is," explained producer Maggie Rowe. The show featured a rotating cast of over 160 celebrities, including Andy Richter (Jesus), Richard Belzer, Dave Thomas, Traci Lords, Craig Bierko, Sarah Silverman, and Julia Sweeney. Maher and director Larry Charles teamed up to make the movie Religulous, described by trade publication Variety as a documentary "that spoofs religious extremism across the world". It was released on October 3, 2008.

In 2013, Maher became one of the executive producers for the HBO newsmagazine series Vice. Also in 2013, Maher appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and offered to pay $5 million to a charity if Donald Trump would produce his birth certificate to prove that Trump's mother had not mated with an orangutan. Maher said this in response to Trump having previously challenged President Barack Obama to produce his birth certificate, and having offered $5 million payable to a charity of Obama's choice if Obama would produce his college applications, transcripts, and passport records.

In response to Maher's offer, Trump produced his birth certificate, and then Trump launched a lawsuit after Maher was not forthcoming, claiming that Maher's $5 million offer was legally binding. "I don't think he was joking", Trump said. "He said it with venom." Trump withdrew his lawsuit against the comedian after eight weeks. On May 13, 2016, Maher and his friend Michael Moore announced on YouTube that they are going to make a movie called The Kings of Atheism.

On March 21, 2022, Maher launched a podcast titled Club Random, a series hosting one-on-one interviews with guests, recorded in his bar at home, where he discusses everything except politics. Guest have included Quentin Tarantino, Jimmy Kimmel, Bella Thorne, Judd Apatow, Mike Tyson, Killer Mike, and William Shatner. In February 2024, Maher revealed that he decided not to release a two-hour interview with Kanye West recorded for Club Random because of the rapper’s recent antisemitic comments. In March 2024, Maher announced that he was starting a podcast network with Chris Casey and Chuck LaBella called Club Random Studios. On March 15, 2024, it was revealed that Maher ended his affiliation with the CAA talent agency after being snubbed from Bryan Lourd's private Oscar party.

Political views
Maher often eschews political labels, referring to himself as "practical", although he has generally held moderately liberal views over the years. Maher stands against political correctness. In his words, "The difference is that liberals protect people, and P.C. people protect feelings." In the past, he has also described himself as a libertarian, and has also referred to himself "as a progressive, as a sane person". In a 2012 panel discussion with Salman Rushdie, Maher counted himself, Rushdie, and others such as Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris as "9/11 liberals", noting that they differentiate themselves from many mainstream liberals in saying that not all religions are alike and that they are not bigoted in criticizing a particular religion. He said in a later interview: "It's ridiculous to label criticism of a religion as a phobia of a religion. I'm going to criticize any person or group that violates liberal principles...."

Maher favors the ending of corporate welfare and federal funding of non-profits; he also favors the legalization of gambling, prostitution, and cannabis. Maher also supports the death penalty. Maher describes himself as an environmentalist, and he has spoken in favor of the Kyoto treaty on global warming on his show Real Time. He often criticizes industry figures involved in environmental pollution. He is a board member of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. The comedian has noted the paradox of people claiming they distrusted "elite" politicians while at the same time wanting elite doctors to treat them and elite lawyers to represent them in court.

Candidates and endorsements
Despite being a member of the Democratic Party, Maher has voted for Bob Dole and Ralph Nader. Maher also considers himself to be at odds with both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. In the 2008 U.S. presidential election, Maher announced his support for U.S. Senator Barack Obama (D-IL). Although Maher welcomed Obama's electoral victory, he soon became critical of the new president for not acting more boldly on health care reform and other progressive issues. On February 23, 2012, after his "Crazy Stupid Politics" special streamed on Yahoo! Screen, Maher announced that he was contributing $1 million to Priorities USA, the Obama SuperPAC.

In the lead-up to the 2014 midterm elections, Maher conducted a "Flip a District" contest on his HBO show. His audience was asked to select one "terrible, entrenched" member of Congress in a close election race—"the loserest loser of all"—to remove from office. Maher aimed to help oust that representative by shining a "national spotlight" on the politician during segments of his show and stand-up comedy appearances in that member's district during the Fall election. Maher ultimately selected Republican Representative John Kline from Minnesota's 2nd congressional district, but he failed to prevent him from winning against his Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party opponent Mike Obermueller.

In the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Maher initially endorsed Senator Bernie Sanders on February 5, 2016. Maher later announced his support for Hillary Clinton after Clinton won the nomination from the Democratic Party primary elections in June 2016. In October 2016, Maher criticized WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for publishing leaks from the DNC's emails, saying: "I really feel like he's lost his way a little, and he hates Hillary." On March 31, 2017, following her defeat, Maher responded on air to suggestions Clinton was ready to end her low profile and speak out: "Hillary, stay in the woods. Okay. You had your shot. You fucked it up. You're Bill Buckner. We had the World Series, and you let the grounder go through your legs. Let someone else have the chance." In August 2019, Maher said an economic recession would be "worth it" if Donald Trump does not get re-elected in 2020. He said: "We have survived many recessions. We can't survive another Donald Trump term."

Over the course of 20 different editions of Real Time with Bill Maher broadcast between April 13, 2018, and August 7, 2020 and in several press interviews, Maher predicted that Trump would refuse to concede any loss in the 2020 United States presidential election, dedicating a 'New Rules' end segment to the subject on January 25, 2020. Maher highlighted Trump's own public references to Maher's assertions that Trump was "not going to leave", and quoted Trump's March 14, 2019, assertion that "I have the support of the police, the military, the bikers [for Trump]" and "the tough people", citing this as evidence that Trump would seek to remain in office by force. Maher predicted there would be violence by armed Trump supporters attempting to keep Trump in power and criticized Democratic Party politicians for not taking the threat seriously:"'So my question to all Democratic candidates is: what's the plan? If you win, and the next day he claims he's voiding the election because of irregularities he's hearing about, what do you do? What do you do when the crowd that was in Virginia this week, 22,000 strong, marches on Washington? This is a scary moment. And when I've asked Democrats, 'What do we do if he doesn't go?', their answer is always some variation of 'We have to win big!'... First of all, NO! No, we don't have to win by a landslide! Jesus, fucking Democrats! I am so sick of Democrats volunteering to play by two different sets of rules. That's the new paradigm? Republicans can win by one vote, but we're not legitimate unless it's a landslide? Fuck. And two, do you really think it would matter if it was? That they would suddenly get rational about math and facts? They believe Hillary ran a pedophile ring out of a pizza parlor!'"Maher later said in an August 15, 2020, interview with Vanity Fair that "we've baked it into the cake that he's not going to leave." In the September 25, 2020, edition of Real Time, Maher criticized the framing of a New York Times story by Michael Crowley headlined "Trump Won't Commit to Peaceful Transfer of Power", which ran on page 15 of the print edition of the paper. Maher asserted that, "I got no help from the New York Times, Washington Post, [or] CNN", adding that the media "should have amplified" the severity of Trump's threats that he would refuse to concede or commit to a peaceful transition of power.

In January 2022, Maher declined to run in the 2024 United States presidential election following speculation by Dana Perino that he may be called on to do so. In July 2024 he called on Joe Biden to decline the Democratic party's nomination in order to have an open convention at the Democratic Convention; Maher expressed his support for Gavin Newsom to replace Biden as the party's nominee.

National security
On June 7, 2013, Maher expressed on his show limited support for the NSA's PRISM intelligence data collection from private phone calls and the Internet, saying that the threat of terrorists obtaining and using nuclear weapons was the tipping point for him. While he stated that he trusted the Obama administration to employ the program responsibly, he described the NSA's access to private data as a "slippery slope", and worried about whether other politicians would be as responsible.

Since the 9/11 attacks, he has endorsed certain uses of profiling at airports, saying that "Places like Israel, where they have faced terrorism for a long time, of course understand that profiling is part of all detective work. It's part of all police work. If they stop calling it profiling and start calling it high-intelligence screening or something, people would go, it's about time."

Maher opposed Trump's Executive Order 13769, an order which banned entry into the US of citizens from five majority-Muslim countries and has hosted multiple guests, including Sam Harris and Jim Jefferies, on his show who have also opposed the order. In 2022, Maher criticized the Biden administration's Disinformation Governance Board and agreed with the comparison that the board was similar to the Ministry of truth from George Orwell's dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Foreign policy
Maher favors having a strong military, but has said he is disenchanted with the size of the American military and defense spending. In 2015, Maher criticized Barack Obama's visit to Saudi Arabia, a close U.S. ally, saying: "Stop respecting their medieval bullshit under the guise of, 'It's their culture.'" Maher opposed the Iraq War from the beginning and has summarised his opinion by saying that the United States and the world have had to pay too high a price for the war.

On the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Maher says he is "more on the side of the Israelis" and does not consider both sides equally guilty. He acknowledges that "Palestinians do have gripes", and he has been critical of U.S. financial aid to Israel, saying "they don't need our money, they can handle it themselves." Maher claims that most Israelis prefer a two-state solution and oppose the hard-line stance of their government, which he describes as having been taken over by their version of the Tea Party. However, Maher has defended Israel's military actions against Palestinians amid criticism over civilian deaths and disproportionate casualty count between Israelis and Palestinians during the 2014 Gaza war. He argues that Israel is still showing restraint, and he finds it ironic that the same people who were incredulous over how the Jews in World War II were led "to their slaughter", cannot understand why they are defending themselves now. Maher faced online backlash for tweeting that "Dealing w/ Hamas is like dealing w/ a crazy woman who's trying to kill u - u can only hold her wrists so long before you have to slap her" at the start of the war.

In August 2019, Maher denounced the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, saying: "It's predicated on this notion ... I think it's very shallow thinking that the Jews in Israel are mostly white and Palestinians are mostly brown, so they must be innocent and correct and the Jews must be wrong." He responded to Rep. Rashida Tlaib's call to boycott his talk show: "Some people have one move only: boycott. Cancel. Make-go-away. But here's the thing, the house voted 318 to 17 to condemn the #BDS movement, including 93% of Dems. Does Tlaib want to boycott 93% of her own party?". Condemning the October 7 attacks by Hamas militants on Israel, Maher spoke about it as Israel’s 9/11, and took serious issue with people who seemed to applaud these attacks; however, he cautioned Israel not to “lose the moral high ground” in the 2023 Israel-Hamas war. Maher expressed disappointment with former President Barack Obama over his comments on the 2023 Israel–Hamas war, saying that "there is a big difference between collateral damage and what Hamas did."

In April 2020, Maher criticized those who equated using the term "Wuhan virus" with racism. Stating that "Scientists...have been naming diseases after the places they came from for a very long time. Zika is from the Zika Forest, Ebola from the Ebola River, hantavirus the Hantan River. There's the West Nile virus and Guinea worm and Rocky Mountain spotted fever and, of course, the Spanish flu." He added: "This has nothing to do with Asian Americans, and it has everything to do with China." In March 2021, Maher criticized China's treatment of Uyghur minority in Xinjiang. He said the United States has "lost" to China in the "battle for the 21st century." According to Maher, China is dominating the world while the United States is wasting time in a "never-ending woke competition."

Race
In June 2017, Maher came under criticism for saying in an off the cuff joke "I'm a house nigger" in response to guest Senator Ben Sasse offering Maher to work on the fields in his home state on Real Time. This led to calls being made by people to HBO to fire him. Following the episode, HBO sent a statement to media outlets, calling Maher's remarks "inexcusable and tasteless" and said the cable network will remove that segment from future airings of the show. Maher also issued a statement apologizing for the remarks saying in part, "I regret the word I used in the banter of a live moment. The word was offensive, and I regret saying it and am very sorry". Maher apologized on his show and had a discussion with Michael Eric Dyson, Ice Cube, and Symone Sanders about the controversy.

In 2021, Maher opposed the NFL's decision to play the "Black national anthem" before games, considering it a form of segregation. Instead, he argued for one national anthem and rejected separate ceremonies and dorms based on race, which drew some criticism. In 2022, Maher criticized the Democratic Party for "checking boxes" in regards to candidates of different identity groups, including race. He stated that Democrats prioritize diversity over merit. Maher has also spoken out against critical race theory but supports teaching the history of racism.

Immigration
In November 2015, Maher expressed opposition to the United States accepting Syrian refugees. Maher argued that they have different values which are at odds with American values due to some refugees may be coming from places which are governed by Sharia law or want to be. Maher cited cases in the UK where Muslim immigrants had carried out female genital mutilation and honor killings. In 2021, after the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, Maher urged America to take in Afghan refugees. Maher has criticized Donald Trump's opposition to immigration, including his proposed border wall, and accused him of hypocrisy, having himself married two immigrants. Maher has also accused Republicans of hypocrisy for opposing immigration and praising their immigrant parents, saying "You can't spend the first half of a debate bitching about how immigrants are ruining the country and the second half on the uplifting stories of your immigrant parents." Maher has criticized Democrats' approach to immigration and has praised Canada's system, saying "Canada is much more to the right on immigration. You have to have a skill. That's mostly what it's based on. Ours is mostly based on family."

Gun rights and hunting rights
Maher endorsed a 2014 Maine referendum to ban the use of bait, traps and dogs to hunt bears in Maine. He specifically criticized the use of bait, referring to its use as "nothing but an execution". Maher is a gun owner, and explained in his February 12, 2013, appearance on the late-night TV talk show Conan that he owns guns for personal home protection. However, he does not identify himself as a "proud" gun owner, commenting that being a proud gun owner is akin to "saying I'm a 'proud remote control owner. Maher has stated that statistics showing that gun owners are more likely to harm a member of their household are caused by irresponsible gun owners, and believes that tragedies such as school shootings will not lead to a fundamental change in gun laws because both Democrats and Republicans favor guns. Maher has also questioned the need to own large arsenals of guns. He believes the Second Amendment is "bullshit" and said that bipartisan background check legislation proposed by Pat Toomey and Joe Manchin was “so marginal". In 2022, Maher blamed mass shooting in part due to Hollywood romanticization of gun violence in movies. However Maher has said that despite him not liking guns he is glad that they exist saying it "levels the playing field".

Religion
Maher is highly critical of religion and views it as highly destructive. He has been described, or self-identified, variously as an agnostic, atheist, and apatheist, while objecting to having his views defined by a single label. In his 2008 feature film Religulous, he refers to himself as agnostic. He has rejected being grouped with explicit atheists, saying in 2002, "I'm not an atheist. There's a really big difference between an atheist and someone who just doesn't believe in religion. Religion to me is a bureaucracy between man and God that I don't need, but I'm not an atheist, no."

Maher has occasionally referred to himself as an apatheist, saying in 2011 "I don't know what happens when you die, and I don't care." When discussing his apatheism and his views on the existence of God, he said on a scale from 1 to 7 (7 being "absolutely certain there is no god"), he was only at 6.9, like Richard Dawkins, "because we just don't know ... but we just don't think about it." He added, "There's atheist and there's agnostic, and I'm okay with us not splitting the difference on those; if you are just not a super-religious person, you are on my team." Several months later on a 2012 episode of his HBO show, Maher declared that "idiots must stop claiming that atheism is a religion ... believe it or not, I don't really enjoy talking about religion all the time. In fact, not only is atheism not a religion, it's not even my hobby, and that's the best thing about being an atheist. It requires so little of your time." He has reiterated his stance during other interviews, rejecting both the certitude of the existence, as well as the certitude of nonexistence of deities, concluding, "I'm saying that doubt is the only appropriate response for human beings."

While critical of all organized religions, saying "they're all stupid and dangerous", Maher says all religions are not alike, and has drawn comparisons and contrasts between them. He has said, "By any standard, Mormonism is more ridiculous than any other religion." He has referred to tenets of Judaism as "insane" and "funny", and has said that Buddhism includes some crazy things like "reincarnation". He has described Christianity and Islam as more "warlike", and has asserted that, like historic Christianity, present-day Islam needs to undergo its own reformation and enlightenment.

In defense of his criticism of Islam, Sharia law and Muslim culture, Maher says he "believes in the values that Western people believe in which a lot of the Muslim world does not. Like separation of church and state. Like equality of the sexes. Like respect for minorities, free elections, free speech, freedom to gather. These things are not just different from cultures that don't have them.... It's better ... I would like to keep those values here." In 2017, Maher agreed with the author Sam Harris that “the left has allied itself with Islamists”, and that the liberals had failed to stand up to Islamic extremism.

Citing studies and poll results by Pew Research Center, the World Economic Forum and others, Maher says the human rights violations and "illiberal ideas" found in Islam are not extremist views held by a small minority but are supported by a majority of citizens in Muslim countries. Maher has criticized liberals as hypocritical for defending these core liberal values and ideals only at home, while not condemning the oppression of these values and groups in Muslim culture. Regarding the more recent publicity generated by his stance in the ongoing debate, Maher says he thinks people are finally paying closer attention to a conversation that they need to have. "I'm just shining a light on the reality of the situation. I don't even understand why this is so controversial."

Maher received the 2009 Richard Dawkins Award from Atheist Alliance International. He was an advisory board member of author Sam Harris's Project Reason, a foundation that promotes scientific knowledge and secular values within society. In 2023, while still being critical of religion, Maher discussed some of his spiritual queries and interests with long-time friend and new age guru, Deepak Chopra.

Health care
Maher supports the establishment of a Medicare-for-All universal single-payer health care system, and has consistently agreed with the proposal since 2011. Maher has stated that the American Medical Association is a powerful lobbying group and was one of the primary reasons why the United States had failed to enact health care reform in the decades prior to the passage of the Affordable Care Act. On the topic of getting the Affordable Care Act passed, in 2009 Maher stated that Obama should forget about trying to get 60 votes for it because "he only needs 51": "Forget getting the sixty votes or sixty percent—sixty percent of people don't believe in evolution in this country—he just needs to drag them to it, like I said, they're stupid; get health care done, with or without them." On Fox News in a televised debate with Bill O'Reilly, Maher said that "if Jesus was in charge of the country we'd probably have health care for everybody."

Maher has expressed the view that a lot of illness was the result of poor diet and lack of exercise, and that medicine was often not the most appropriate way of addressing illness. In an episode of his show about the 2008 presidential candidates' health plans, Maher stated that poor nutrition was a primary cause of illness, and that "the answer isn't another pill." He also has said: "If you believe you need to take all the pills the pharmaceutical industry says you do, then you're already on drugs!" He has expressed his distaste for the pharmaceutical and health care industries in general, arguing that they made their money out of treating people who are made sick by consuming unhealthy food that corporations push on the public. Maher maintains that mass consumption of high-fructose corn syrup is a contributor to the rise in frequency of obesity in the United States.

In a discussion with Michael Moore about the film Sicko, Maher said, "The human body is pretty amazing; it doesn't get sick, usually, for no reason. I mean, there's some genetic stuff that can get to you, but, basically, people are sick in this country because they're poisoned. The environment is a poisoning factor, but also, we gotta say, they poison themselves. They eat shit. People eat shit, and that's, to my way of thinking, about 90 percent of why people are sick, is because they eat shit." Tara Parker-Pope and former Senator (R-TN) Bill Frist, a physician, have called Maher's criticism of the H1N1 flu vaccinations unscientific. Infectious diseases expert Paul Offit wrote that misinformation about vaccines from celebrities like Maher has put children at unnecessary risk.

Surgical Oncologist David Gorski criticized Maher's claims about vaccines several times on ScienceBlogs, and deemed it inappropriate that Maher received the Richard Dawkins Award. Skeptics, including magician and popular science writer Martin Gardner, neurologist Steven Novella, and magician Jamy Ian Swiss have also strongly rebuked Maher, characterizing him as anti-science, uninformed and potentially endangering the health of fans who take his "non-medical" advice. Maher responded to the criticism, saying, "What I've read about what they think I'm saying is not what I've said. I'm not a germ theory denier. I believe vaccinations can work. Polio is a good example. Do I think in certain situations that inoculating Third World children against malaria or diphtheria, or whatever, is right? Of course. In a situation like that, the benefits outweigh costs. But to me living in Los Angeles? To get a flu shot? No." In 2019, Gorski again criticized Maher for his HBO interview with the doctor Jay Gordon and Maher's claims about vaccines (in particular, the influenza vaccine), including the speculation about a link between vaccines and autism, which is debunked according to consensus science. In January 2021, Maher promoted the COVID-19 lab leak theory. On April 16, 2021, Maher called media coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic "panic porn" and added that "When all of our sources for medical information have an agenda to spin us, yeah, you wind up with a badly misinformed population, including on the left."

Cannabis legalization
Maher, who has a California medical marijuana card, openly and publicly uses cannabis, and has been a visible supporter of cannabis law reform. Maher is a member of the advisory boards for both the NORML and Marijuana Policy Project, organizations that support regulated legalization of cannabis. He sold cannabis while in college at Cornell and credits it for making his college and the beginning of his career as a comic possible. In 2015, Maher called on then President Barack Obama to pardon people incarcerated for marijuana offenses and later praised President Joe Biden for pardoning citizens convicted of marijuana offenses. He has been called "one of the brightest torches for sensible marijuana policy" and "a contemporary cannabis statesman".

Conspiracy theories
Maher has been a critic of 9/11 conspiracy theories. On October 19, 2007, Maher confronted several 9/11 truthers and had them ejected from his show audience after they interrupted the live show numerous times by calling out from the audience. The incident drew significant media attention and praise from Fox News talk show host and frequent critic John Gibson. Maher has spoken out against QAnon and the conspiracy theories they have promoted. Maher has criticized the decision to ban conspiracy theorist Alex Jones from Twitter saying "I don't like Alex Jones, but Alex Jones gets to speak. Everybody gets to speak."

Gender and sexuality
Maher has been critical of the #MeToo movement, describing it in February 2018 as McCarthyism. He has supported Chris Matthews against allegations of sexual harassment in 2020. He has also downplayed the sexual harassment allegations against former senator Al Franken including rejecting the idea that Franken was a "sexual predator" and has suggested that the allegations against Franken were political.

Maher supports same-sex marriage. He has referred to arguments against same-sex marriage as "bankrupt". In May 2022, on more people are identifying as LGBT, Maher said "Yes, part of the rise in LGBT numbers is from people feeling free enough to tell it to a pollster, and that’s all good, but some of it is [because] it’s trendy". Maher also referred to puberty blockers and other transgender health care for trans youth as "literally experimenting on children". GLAAD criticized Maher for these statements and referred to him as transphobic, citing articles from organizations such as the World Health Organization and the American Academy of Pediatrics that state gender-affirming care is medically appropriate.

Maher has also criticized the Democratic Party's approach to sex education on multiple occasions. In March 2022, Maher rebuked liberals for their opposition to the Florida Parental Rights in Education Act and defended Republicans for pushing the bill. In 2023, he criticized the Biden administration for its support for preferred gender pronouns and discussing sexuality within schools.

2023 WGA strike
Maher criticized the 2023 WGA strike on his Club Random podcast. Speaking to comedian Jim Gaffigan in September 2023, has stated, "they kind of believe that you’re owed a living as a writer, and you’re not". He went on to say that "They're asking for a lot of things that are, like, kooky." In an interview with TMZ Maher stated he supported the strike and added that the writers have "legitimate gripes" with the studios. However, Maher clarified his problems with the strike noting "there are some things that [the writers] are demanding I don't agree with." In particular, Maher criticized the WGA proposal of having a mandate to have a particular set number of writers on each show. He stated, "They want to micromanage the creative process in a way that I think is antithetical to anybody that is an artist. They want to tell people how many people, what kind of people you can have working on your show, writing on your show". Maher stated his wish to have Governor Gavin Newsom help end the strike.

On September 13, 2023, Maher released a statement on Twitter announcing his plans to restart a version of his HBO show. He wrote in part: "'Real Time is coming back...It has been five months, and it is time to bring people back to work. The writers have important issues that I sympathize with, and hope they are addressed to their satisfaction, but they are not the only people with issues, problems and concerns...[I] will honor the spirit of the strike by not doing a monologue, desk piece, New Rules or editorial'."

Maher's announcement, as well as the continuation of The Drew Barrymore Show and The View, has led to vocal protests. The Writers Guild of America released a statement describing Maher's decision as "disappointing", adding, "It is difficult to imagine how Real Time with Bill Maher can go forward without a violation of WGA strike rules taking place. WGA will be picketing this show." Early the next week, Maher said he would wait a few days to see what the next round of negotiations might produce.

Awards and nominations
Maher has received 41 Primetime Emmy Award nominations winning for Outstanding Informational Series or Special for Vice in 2015. He also received two Grammy Award nominations and various Producers Guild of America Award and Writers Guild of America Award nominations. In 2003 he was nominated at the 57th Tony Awards for the Tony Award for Best Special Theatrical Event for Bill Maher: Victory Begins at Home. In 2016 Vice was nominated for the Peabody Award their segment on Student Debt. Maher was honored by High Times as "Top Pot Comic in 2006" and Real Time won a Stony Award in 2006 for "Best Cable News Show". High Times later designated him as "Stoner of the Year".

Personal life
Maher has never married. Regarding marriage, Maher is quoted on his website as saying, "I'm the last of my guy friends to have never gotten married, and their wives—they don't want them playing with me. I'm like the escaped slave—I bring news of freedom." Maher has said his influences include Lenny Bruce, Woody Allen, Steve Allen, Johnny Carson, Robert Klein, and George Carlin. Comedians who have said they were influenced by Maher include Chris Rock.

In 2003, he began dating flight attendant Coco Johnsen. In November 2004, at the end of their 17-month relationship, Johnsen sued Maher for US$9 million for "pain and suffering" for alleged "insulting, humiliating and degrading racial comments." Her suit stated that Maher promised to marry her and father her children, support her financially and buy a house in Beverly Hills. Johnsen's suit also alleged that she quit her job as a flight attendant and occasional model to be with him. Maher's lawyers in their response, filed on November 23, 2004, in Los Angeles County Superior Court said Maher is a "confirmed bachelor, and a very public one at that" who "never promised to marry [Johnsen] or to have children with her." Maher's filing stated that, after the relationship had ended, Johnsen "launched a campaign to embarrass, humiliate, and extort ridiculous sums of money from Bill Maher." Johnsen's lawsuit was dismissed on May 2, 2005.

In 2005, Maher began dating Karrine Steffans, author and former hip hop model. When commentators suggested there was a pattern to his dating because both his girlfriend and former girlfriend were black, Maher said, "People say I'm into black women. Robert De Niro is into black women. I'm just into women who are real, and they happen to be black." From 2009 to 2011, Maher dated former adjunct professor, science educator, and current Skeptics' Guide to the Universe co-host Cara Santa Maria. Since 2014, Maher has dated Canadian singer Anjulie Persaud. In 2012, Maher purchased a minority ownership interest in the New York Mets.

title: Bill Maher


text:
Kombucha

Kombucha (also tea mushroom, tea fungus, or Manchurian mushroom when referring to the culture; Latin name Medusomyces gisevii) is a fermented, lightly effervescent, sweetened black tea drink. Sometimes the beverage is called kombucha tea to distinguish it from the culture of bacteria and yeast. Juice, spices, fruit or other flavorings are often added.

Kombucha is thought to have originated in China, where the drink is traditional. By the early 20th century it spread to Russia, then other parts of Eastern Europe and Germany. Kombucha is now homebrewed globally, and also bottled and sold commercially. The global kombucha market was worth approximately US$1.7billion.

Kombucha is produced by symbiotic fermentation of sugared tea using a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast (SCOBY) commonly called a "mother" or "mushroom". The microbial populations in a SCOBY vary. The yeast component generally includes Saccharomyces cerevisiae, along with other species; the bacterial component almost always includes Gluconacetobacter xylinus to oxidize yeast-produced alcohols to acetic acid (and other acids). Although the SCOBY is commonly called "tea fungus" or "mushroom", it is actually "a symbiotic growth of acetic acid bacteria and osmophilic yeast species in a zoogleal mat [biofilm]". The living bacteria are said to be probiotic, one of the reasons for the popularity of the drink.

Numerous health benefits have been claimed to correlate with drinking kombucha; there is little evidence to support any of these claims. The beverage has caused rare serious adverse effects, possibly arising from contamination during home preparation. It is not recommended for therapeutic purposes.

Kombucha contains a small amount of caffeine.

History
Kombucha most likely originated in the Bohai Sea district in China around 221 B.C. The drink was consumed in Russia and from there entered the rest of Europe. Its consumption increased in the United States during the early 21st century. Having an alcohol content of less than 0.5%, kombucha is not a federally regulated beverage in the United States.

Prior to 2015, some commercially available kombucha brands were found to contain alcohol content exceeding this threshold, sparking the development of new testing methods. With rising popularity in developed countries in the early 21st century, kombucha sales increased after it was marketed as an alternative to beer and other alcoholic drinks in restaurants and pubs.

According to the market research firm Grand View Research, kombucha had a global market size of US$1.67billion, and this is expected to grow to US$9.7billion by 2030.

Etymology and terminology
In Japanese, the term 'kelp tea' (昆布茶) refers to a kelp tea made with powdered konbu (an edible kelp from the family Laminariaceae) and is a completely different beverage from the fermented tea usually associated with kombucha elsewhere in the world.

The etymology of kombucha is uncertain; however, it is speculated that it is a misapplied loanword from Japanese. It has been hypothesized that English speakers mistook the Japanese word kombucha to mean fermented tea, when in fact, this type of fermented tea in Japanese is called 'black tea mushroom' (紅茶キノコ) which became popular around 1975. Webster's Dictionary says the use of kombucha in English likely stems from the misapplication of Japanese words: kombucha, kobucha 'tea made from kelp', kobu, konbu 'kelp', and cha 'tea'. The American Heritage Dictionary states that it was "perhaps... used by English speakers to designate fermented tea due to confusion or because the thick gelatinous film produced by the kombucha culture was thought to resemble seaweed."

The first known use in the English language of the word to describe "a gelatinous mass of symbiotic bacteria (as Acetobacter xylinum) and yeasts (as of the genera Brettanomyces and Saccharomyces) grown to produce a fermented beverage held to confer health benefits" was in 1944.

Biological
A kombucha culture is a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast (SCOBY), similar to mother of vinegar, containing one or more species each of bacteria and yeasts, which form a zoogleal mat known as a "mother". There is a broad spectrum of yeast species spanning several genera reported to be present in kombucha culture including species of Zygosaccharomyces, Candida, Kloeckera/Hanseniaspora, Torulaspora, Pichia, Brettanomyces/Dekkera, Saccharomyces, Lachancea, Saccharomycoides, Schizosaccharomyces, Kluyveromyces, Starmera, Eremothecium, Merimbla, Sugiyamaella.

The bacterial component of kombucha comprises several species, almost always including the acetic acid bacteria Komagataeibacter xylinus (formerly Gluconacetobacter xylinus), which ferments alcohols produced by the yeasts into acetic and other acids, increasing the acidity and limiting ethanol content. The population of bacteria and yeasts found to produce acetic acid has been reported to increase for the first 4 days of fermentation, decreasing thereafter. K. xylinus produces bacterial cellulose, and is reportedly responsible for most or all of the physical structure of the "mother", which may have been selectively encouraged over time for firmer (denser) and more robust cultures by brewers. The highest diversity of Kombucha bacteria was found to be on the 7th day of fermentation with the diversity being less in the SCOBY. Acetobacteraceae dominate 88 percent of the bacterial community of the SCOBY. The acetic acid bacteria in kombucha are aerobic, meaning that they require oxygen for their growth and activity. Hence, the bacteria initially migrate and assemble at the air interface, followed by the excretion of bacterial cellulose after about 2 days.

The mixed, presumably mutualistic culture has been further described as being lichenous, in accord with the reported presence of the known lichenous natural product usnic acid, though as of 2015, no report appears indicating the standard cyanobacterial species of lichens in association with kombucha fungal components.

Chemical composition
Kombucha is made by adding the kombucha culture into a broth of sugared tea. The sugar serves as a nutrient for the SCOBY that allows for bacterial growth in the tea. Sucrose is converted, biochemically, into fructose and glucose, and these into gluconic acid and acetic acid. In addition, kombucha contains enzymes and amino acids, polyphenols, and various other organic acids which vary between preparations.

Other specific components include ethanol (see below), glucuronic acid, glycerol, lactic acid, and usnic acid (a hepatotoxin, see above).

The alcohol content of kombucha is usually less than 0.5%, but increases with extended fermentation times. The concentration of alcohol specifically ethanol increases initially but then begins to decrease when acetic acid bacteria utilize it to produce acetic acid. Over-fermentation generates high amounts of acids similar to vinegar. The pH of the drink is typically about 3.5.

Absence of nutrients
Kombucha tea is 95% water and contains 4% carbohydrates, but is otherwise devoid of significant nutrient content.

Production
Kombucha can be prepared at home or commercially. It is made by dissolving sugar in non-chlorinated boiling water. Tea leaves are then steeped in the hot sugar water and discarded. The sweetened tea is cooled and the SCOBY culture is added. The mixture is then poured into a sterilized beaker along with previously fermented kombucha tea to lower the pH. This technique is known as "backslopping". The container is covered with a paper towel or breathable fabric to prevent insects, such as fruit flies, from contaminating the kombucha.

The tea is left to ferment for a period of up to 10 to 14 days at room temperature (18 °C to 26 °C). A new "daughter" SCOBY will form on the surface of the tea to the diameter of the container. After fermentation is completed, the SCOBY is removed and stored along with a small amount of the newly fermented tea. The remaining kombucha is strained and bottled for a secondary ferment for a few days or stored at a temperature of 4 °C.

Commercially bottled kombucha became available in the late 1990s. In 2010, elevated alcohol levels were found in many bottled kombucha products, leading retailers including Whole Foods to pull the drinks from store shelves temporarily. In response, kombucha suppliers reformulated their products to have lower alcohol levels.

By 2014, US sales of bottled kombucha were $400 million, $350 million of which was by Millennium Products, Inc. which sells GT's Kombucha. In 2014, several companies that make and sell kombucha formed a trade organization, Kombucha Brewers International. In 2016, PepsiCo purchased kombucha maker KeVita for approximately $200 million. In the US, sales of kombucha and other fermented drinks rose by 37 percent in 2017. Beer companies like Full Sail Brewing Company and Molson Coors Beverage Company produce kombucha by themselves or via subsidiaries.

As of 2021, the drink had some popularity in India's National Capital Region, partly due to its success in the west.

Hard kombucha
Some commercial kombucha producers sell what they call "hard kombucha" with an alcohol content of over 5 percent.

Health claims
Kombucha is promoted with many claims for health benefits, from alleviating hemorrhoids to combatting cancer. Although people may drink kombucha for such supposed health effects, there is no clinical proof that it provides any benefit. In a 2003 review, physician Edzard Ernst characterized kombucha as an "extreme example" of an unconventional remedy because of the disparity between implausible, wide-ranging health claims and the potential risks of the product. It concluded that the proposed, unsubstantiated therapeutic claims did not outweigh known risks, and that kombucha should not be recommended for therapeutic use, being in a class of "remedies that only seem to benefit those who sell them".

Adverse effects
Reports of adverse effects related to kombucha consumption are rare, but may be underreported, according to a 2003 review. The American Cancer Society said in 2009 that "serious side effects and occasional deaths have been associated with drinking Kombucha tea." Because kombucha is a commonly homemade fermentation, caution should be taken because pathogenic microorganisms can contaminate the tea during preparation.

Adverse effects associated with kombucha consumption may include severe hepatic (liver) and renal (kidney) toxicity as well as metabolic acidosis.

Some adverse health effects may arise from the acidity of the tea causing acidosis, and brewers are cautioned to avoid over-fermentation. Other adverse effects may be a result of bacterial or fungal contamination during the brewing process. Some studies have found the hepatotoxin usnic acid in kombucha, although it is not known whether the cases of liver damage are due to usnic acid or to some other toxin.

Drinking kombucha can be harmful for people with preexisting ailments. Due to its microbial sourcing and possible non-sterile packaging, kombucha is not recommended for people with poor immune function, women who are pregnant or nursing, or children under 4 years old: It may compromise immune responses or stomach acidity in these susceptible populations. There are certain drugs that one should not take with kombucha because of the small percentage of alcohol content.

A 2019 review enumerated numerous potential health risks, but said "kombucha is not considered harmful if about 4 oz [120 mL] per day is consumed by healthy individuals; potential risks are associated with a low pH brew leaching heavy metals from containers, excessive consumption of highly acidic kombucha, or consumption by individuals with pre-existing health conditions."

Caffeine
Kombucha contains a small amount of caffeine.

Other uses
Kombucha culture, when dried, becomes a leather-like textile known as a microbial cellulose that can be molded onto forms to create seamless clothing. Using different broth media such as coffee, black tea, and green tea to grow the kombucha culture results in different textile colors, although the textile can also be dyed using other plant-based dyes. Different growth media and dyes also change the textile's feel and texture. Additionally the SCOBY itself can be dried and eaten as a sweet or savory snack.

title: Kombucha