q_id
stringlengths 6
6
| title
stringlengths 4
294
| selftext
stringlengths 0
2.48k
| category
stringclasses 1
value | subreddit
stringclasses 1
value | answers
dict | title_urls
sequencelengths 1
1
| selftext_urls
sequencelengths 1
1
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
65qdr9 | Why is the cursor arrow in every OS at the same tilted angle to the left? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgcg8it",
"dgccjxo"
],
"text": [
"Because 45 degree diagonal lines don't look as weird as other angles on a low resolution screen.",
"Because the graphical user interface was designed in English-speaking places, where we read from top to bottom and from left to right. The tail of the arrow falls *after* rather than before what we are reading, so that it doesn't obscure the word we are probably trying to click on."
],
"score": [
6,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
65qfbh | How do TV networks know how many viewers are tuned in at any particular moment? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgccwq5",
"dgcd5u1",
"dgcq1k4"
],
"text": [
"They don't know that information. They get their ratings info from companies who pay average people to record their TV watching preferences. They even use that info and sample size and guess how many were watching.",
"So, the stats available probably aren't that accurate. Thanks for the info.",
"In the UK, one of the ways in which viewer numbers are measured, is by monitoring the surge in electrical demand during an ad break or at the end of the programme; a phenomenon known as [TV pick-up]( URL_0 ) which is attributed to all of the people switching on their kettles to make a cup of tea. This can result in hundreds of Megawatts of demand, even reaching as high as 2.8GW when England played Germany in 1990"
],
"score": [
6,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[
"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_pickup"
]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
65qjil | Where and how is offline spotify/netflix content saved? | I searched my phone to see where the content is saved, but did't found anything | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgcebpl"
],
"text": [
"> Inside the SD drive, I can find the spotify folder with directories android/data/com.spotify.mobile.android.ui/ and then /cache and /files. URL_0 It appears that Spotify also encrypts the files so you can't use them in other applications."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[
"https://community.spotify.com/t5/Android/Where-does-Spotify-save-the-offline-playlist-files/td-p/6929"
]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
65rjxg | How do "hive" applications get startup users? Apps like tinder, meetup, and other social apps? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgcxar5",
"dgcs03i",
"dgcrud6",
"dgcp3q0",
"dgd3brj",
"dgcwcat",
"dgd86ue",
"dgd31in",
"dgd2lci",
"dgcy949",
"dgcr14s",
"dgd8lku",
"dgd1eqt",
"dgcq47k",
"dgcy7d3",
"dgcytwz",
"dgd2uq7",
"dgd5xds",
"dgdl80n",
"dgd0am4",
"dgd7lq0",
"dgdsot8",
"dgdd8g1",
"dgdd0dv",
"dgd6x5h"
],
"text": [
"The heart of your question is really 'How are social networks formed?\" The textbook answer is that you need a **critical mass** of users, so that when someone new signs up, there are other people to interact with. Otherwise no matter how many people download your app, the newcomers will just leave if people are just trickling in, which means the app will be perpetually unpopular. The key then is to get a large number of users *at once*, so that the network becomes sustainable. However, this answer only leads to more questions because it creates a paradox that many people refer to as \"the chicken and the egg problem.\" How can you convince the first users to sign up when no one else is around? Unfortunately, there's no easy answer, which is why businesses are willing to pay an incredible amount of money just to buy an existing social network. If you've ever wondered why Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter are worth so much even though they have no clear business model, this is exactly why (social networks are valuable because they are very difficult to create). Nevertheless, here are a few guidelines that can help create a network. They don't always work (e.g. Google+ have tried and failed), but these are characteristics that successful social networks share: 1) Start with a small but concentrated population. For example, Facebook was initially only available to Harvard students. Once it reached a critical mass of users there, it then expanded to other ivies, and then to all colleges, and finally to everyone. The same can be seen for dating apps like Coffee Meets Bagel, which first started off in NYC, and then gradually expanded to other cities before opening up to everyone. When you start off with a localized population, you lower your marketing costs and you get more mileage out of word of mouth. It's much easier to simultaneously sign up 1000 users in one city than it is to simultaneously sign up 1000 users in a thousand cities. 2) Rely on users to recruit other users. Social apps become more useful when more people sign up, which means the users themselves are interested in helping advertise the app. For example, Venmo isn't very useful if your friends don't use it, so there's already an incentive for you to get your friends to install it. This growth will happen slowly over time, but because a critical mass requires a lot of simultaneous new users, you can speed up the process by rewarding existing users who help you expand your network. Venmo did this with a $20 referral bonus to both the new user and the friend who referred them. Other apps reward in-app currencies or features, such as letting you message more people on dating apps. 3) Minimize sign up costs for users. If you've ever wondered why many computer games (e.g. League of Legends) and mobile games are free to play, it's because the very presence of a user is valuable. A multiplayer game would be unplayable if no one else is there. Thus, companies will literally pay new users (e.g. Venmo example above) to sign up. Of course, this is very costly, so the next best thing is to offer the app for free.",
"Tinder targeted a few college campuses when they first launched in the fall of 2012. These colleges included \"party\" schools such as USC. 90% of users were ages between 18-24 in 2012. I would suspect other social/dating apps would begin in colleges as you have aggregated amount of young people in one area.",
"One of the simplest methods is simply not to launch until you have X number of users pre-signed up, i.e.: We are launching soon enter your email to be notified when we do The peril there is your concept and marketing has to be strong enough to bring them back when you launch. You also need to be aware 1 email != 1 user There are bots thy just fill in forms, users that don't bother returning, bounced and changed emails and so on. Rule of thumb tends to be around 10-30% usually come back to check it out",
"Many don't start with a user base. Quite a few buy the information they will need to start from a similar business with a different focus. Think buying traffic flow data from Google maps or how many people in what areas are looking for hot singles near them from bing. After that they will advertise millions and millions of dollars in advertising, hots special prizes for joining earlier, have bots, and staff do the heavy lifting till the user base picks up. Just like forums really.",
"Social networks rely upon something called \"network effect\" to provide a benefit to the user. - You need a lot of users for the features in the application to work the way they are meant to --------- Example: Using a dating app with only 10 users. - You log into the app and only see 10 people - You aren't likely to date any of those 10 people - You aren't likely to even connect with any of those 10 people because you don't match - None of the features like search, messaging, favoriting, etc provide any value because the isn't a network to interact with For many applications the network needs to be in a specific vicinity for those features or the key benefit of the application to be obtained. Example: A dating app with 10,000 users but, the users are spread across the world with only 10 users in any given city. Even though you have many times more users you're still going to have the same shitty experience as if the entire application only had 10 users. ------ So, what do applications that rely upon the network effect to provide a benefit and value to their user? - They can create many fake accounts to give the illusion of a big network which leads to actual users joining - They create alternative benefits for users that do not rely upon a network effect--like creating contests or giveaways in the application tied to using it, paying users to use the app, creating affiliate programs paying people to get their own network to join and use the app, specific features the aid in the experience (like personal matchmaking or dating consultation services), etc - They partner with a much larger network and offer incentives to the partner to on-board their users--like an affiliate program arrangement - They acquire an existing company with an establishing network If the application's network effect does require the users of that network to be within a close proximity of one another the strategy is focused on a single specific area at a time. Dating apps and ride sharing apps are great examples of this. They start in hyper local areas (college campus) and slowly extend outward. Once they capture a large % of the market in that area they roll out to a new area and build further. Definitely read up on Tinder, Bumble, Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Facebook, Snap, etc for interesting examples of how they each did it a little differently. ------ Everything distills down to an experience. A user judges their experience not just upon using the application but, upon every instance of interacting with your company--directly or indirectly through word or mouth/reviews. Whatever strategy is created and implemented usually supports the overall experiential goal that the social network represents...the key benefit of being a part of that network. If you're trying to do this yourself, always be aware of this and always do what enhances the experience by having every strategy, decision, and action in alignment with each other and the overall goal. If what you do does not support that goal, you're only creating confusion/discomfort for the user and taking away from that experience.",
"As others have noted, many of them start off with a small, easy to target niche. Facebook and Tinder started off with colleges because college students have a shared identity that their marketers could leverage, it's easy to test your messaging when you can actually watch people react, and young people tend to be early adopters of new technologies. Some marketplace-type apps cannibalize their competitors. For instance, AirBnB started off putting listings on CraigsList pointing to their own platform, to get people to switch. I've also heard of companies selling things on eBay and including materials promoting their own apps. That way they're getting the best possible users, the ones who are already doing what they want them to do and just need a better way to do it. That minimizes the number of users they need to get in the door to get a useful amount of activity going through the product. Some companies use a honeypot approach, where they launch a product that doesn't depend on network effects, then use that to build up their audience enough to later switch on the parts that are dependent on network effects. OkCupid started out as just a bunch of wacky, fun questions that you could share with your friends. Then once they had some number of people, they rolled out the ability to find other people based on how close their answers are to yours. Some go for broke and just try to sprint past it. They build a product dependent on network effects, raise millions of dollars, and sink most of that money into marketing to almost immediately grow the userbase large enough for the product to be useful.",
"Well, there's a few ways. You could look to how Reddit did it. Looking through the comments, surprised nobody saw it. Basically, they setup the site and then created a pile of alt accounts. As people would post, they'd patiently remind them of the rules and guide them into the behavior of the kind of user they wanted to attract. They also quite literally had conversations with themselves to give the appearance of a larger (and more cohesive) userbase than actually existed. It was basically a re-enactment of the monkey story -- and eventually it reached critical mass and started growing on its own and the alt accounts went defunct. The site you see today is the result of those early efforts. Was it dishonest? Maybe. But that's how a lot of sites kick off. Slashdot did the same thing, before it rose to prominence in the IT world... and then they sold out and it all came crashing down. There's actually many, many forum-based sites where when they initially went live, it was mostly the author/owners going to other forums and canvasing to draw people to their site and giving the appearance of more activity to keep people around until that critical mass point tipped over and it became self-sustaining. There's also examples where they didn't do this and trusted that the mere brand identity or whatever would carry the day: Google+ for example, also known as the Ghost Town of the social networking world, or Hangouts, which is yet another attempt by Google to shove something down people's throats that totally isn't working out. I'm sorry to say, but if you're the only one at a party, more people showing up isn't gonna happen. You need that core glob of people to start roping others in, and even if you have to fake it, it's better than just kicking off the site and then promoting it without that (even fake) activity to engage people.",
"I work(ed) for a company that had this exactly, I can tell you the answer is money and speed. I can't give away too many details about the company without giving it away, but we were spending upwards of $25 per person to build an account. It's not that we were paying them, but we used feet on the streets, and face to face interactions with an army of hourly people to just get as many downloads as we possibly can. We did this quickly. We just accepted that the first 100-1000 users were going to have a bad time, but once we artificially cranked the wheel enough, we could take our hands off of it and it would go on it's own, and that is exactly what happened.",
"I was on Grindr when it first started. On the original iPhone. The nearest person was like 20-50 miles away. And littered with dick pics as profile pictures. The good old days.",
"PayPal paid $10 to sign up for a while. Source: Notes on startups, or how to build the future by Peter Thiel",
"Smaller companies lean heavily on word of mouth. Tell everyone you know and beg them to tell everyone they know. It was how I found out about the Her app back when it was datch I think it was called.",
"Hey! So I was actually recruited to help spread an app like Tinder because I'm a sort of influential member of my campus and in a fraternity. The one I \"worked\" for offered commission for certain thresholds of downloads for my area, and it was monitored via how many people stated they were at my campus. The app that was described to me versus the actual app in function was very different, and honestly pretty sleazy. The developer was my point of contact and would every couple weeks check in and tell me some new even shallower feature that they added. At the end of it all, after I had given up trying to spread this app that I ultimately decided was not something I wanted to support, he sent me a very unprofessional email basically saying, \"Hey! You know how we said we would pay you? Turns out we can't!\" So yeah. A lot of the apps rely on getting some college kids to whore out downloads from their friends.",
"Some of these apps also started as a different platform entirely. When Instagram first started it was promoted as an image filter app but you were forced to create an account to use their filters. It happened to have a feature that would let you post on Facebook and twitter at the same time in exchange for posting on their social network. So it kind of built up that way. Snapchat was marketed as a private messaging app that happened to grow into its own social network.",
"Not a direct answer to the question, but any service that requires a group of users to work relies on \"network effect\". That is, the value of the service is very dependent on having the right number of users in its network. Having too few people on a dating site makes it useless, or in business terms, it has little value. When starting such a service, the cost to acquire each user is an important cost to factor into business plans.",
"At a high level, every new/innovative product (or service) introduced in a marketplace starts with the *Early Adopters*; these are people who are unhappy with the status quo, the stuff out there, and they are looking for something new that fits their needs/wants, often by *hacking* the present products. Engage then early adopter and ... that's just the beginning. For more: URL_0",
"There's a locally developed app for music sharing, sharing information about shows and the scene, etc. I learned about them at a music conference, where they started to market and share the app with musicians in the area. They are currently on a tour across the country interviewing and recording musicians from all over the US. They're putting together some good video content and sharing it online. It seems like it's a tough grind. Actually, I just remembered something. They held a talk at my college and got Andrew W.K. to talk about the app before I learned about them at the music conference a couple of years later.",
"What a lot of people seem to neglect in their replies that critical mass isn't just down to the number of people using your service. But the number of people who use it in a particular area. This makes universities an extremely good place to target your services. Facebook started out as a way for students to keep in touch that was better than myspace. Tinder likely the same. You need to find a high density of the demographic you're targeting and market the fuck out of your product to them. (reddit stole fark users)",
"random sidenote but I had an idea for an app called \"MeetUp\" where you can find people near you who share your interests and then i found out that it already existed with that exact name lmao",
"Get young women to sign up. Every successful social network has started by focusing on teen and college age girls. Tinder actually started by bribing sororities. Google+ gave out early access to 30-40 year old male tech bloggers. Guess what happened to them.",
"To add to the other answers here, you can also \"buy\" users, but not in the traditional sense. What I mean is you can reach out to internet celebrities that already have their own fan base, and ask them (pay them) to use your app and bring their followers with them. This may not work for dating sites, but it can work for user-generated content sites like blogs, video streaming, etc.",
"It's less important to have a *lot* of users, and more important to have a big percentage of your users be able to connect with each other. If facebook had a user-base of 50 people, and each one was from a different city, none of the users would find it all that useful of a platform. But if those 50 people were from the same school, they might find it to be useful. And those 50 people would start telling their friends that aren't on facebook to get on facebook. And everybody that signed up would have at least a few people that they could talk to, and they'd start telling their friends to get on facebook. You can see how quickly these numbers can skyrocket. You only need a small starting point and a well designed platform for it to blow the fuck up. With that said, there's also the option of buying users, or recruiting them from other social media platforms. You'll see people doing this a lot on reddit, but usually only in the smaller subreddits. Fake user accounts is another option.",
"For dating apps like Tinder the answer is obvious; seed the network with fake users so the first users don't see a ghost town, drop a load of money on marketing to get massive adoption quickly, then phase out the dummy accounts as the real users come in. It's also common to do a phased regional roll out. Target the big cities and college campuses first which tend to set the trends for everyone else. Once some buzz is going in those areas then you expand your marketing to broader markets.",
"I found Tinders story pretty cool. From what I recall they actually threw a party at USC and had everyone there download the app and it grew at least partially naturally from those people. Pretty sure it was like a couple sororities and frats. Look it up.",
"Some apps have a 'pre-order' like sign up phase where you create your account before the app actually comes out. That way, when the app launches, it could already have thousands of users, many of which are excited for it to come out and will start eagerly using it from day 1.",
"I was offered a promo job for some dating app a year or so ago. We walked down the line of club liv with 'cool' light up shit that drunk tourists live for. If they downloaded our app, they got a random prize and a voucher for a free drink if one of their friends signed up before they entered the club. (Drinks at liv are like 30$ so almost everyone did it) imagine them doing this in miami, la, new york, chicago etc on the same night in multiple clubs per city? The tourists go home, the app alerts them to nearby people and they start using it... they are in those cheezy club photos you take at the entrance with the glasses, boom sticks, pins, phone cases etc with the logo on it. Of course they post that super cool time they went to liv on their social media.... advertising to more people. It was pathetic to watch people give up personal info, effectively selling themselves to advertising companies, to get a fucking light up ring."
],
"score": [
5983,
1953,
592,
464,
258,
118,
47,
40,
32,
31,
25,
21,
18,
11,
10,
8,
7,
5,
5,
5,
5,
4,
3,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossing_the_Chasm"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
65t3dt | If Windows' constant ask to restart your computer after updates has generated into a meme, then why haven't Microsoft changed their approach to try to get the user to implement these updates? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgd2pyu"
],
"text": [
"They understand but the other option is to let a lot of computers remain vulnerable. This was the problem that Windows had since the internet was a thing and partly how Windows earned its reputation as being woefully insecure compared to competitors like Linux and Mac. With Windows 10, they decided to take an aggressive approach to get updates down onto as many machines as possible to prevent Windows PCs from being infected en masse like in the past. The problem there is that you just, well, *have* to restart your computer after some updates because Windows can't write to certain files while it's running. This, too, is another security feature to prevent hijacking of system components which was a problem prior to Windows XP (and not really fixed that well then)."
],
"score": [
4
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
65tecf | If all websites start with "www." what is the point of having it in the first place? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgd2zoy",
"dgd2xyp",
"dgd2xh4"
],
"text": [
"Not all websites start with `www`. This *host name* can be nearly anything you want. It's useful for distinguishing different parts of the same domain: for example, although the main portal to Wikipedia is at ` URL_6 `, the English Wikipedia is at ` URL_4 `, the German Wikipedia is at ` URL_0 ` and so on. If you don't have a need for that distinction, it's still useful to pick *some* hostname, because it lets you change your mind later. For example, you might choose to send cookies for pages on `www. URL_1 `, but decide to serve all your images from `images. URL_1 ` without cookies and save bandwidth. If you had your pages on ` URL_1 `, any cookies for those pages would also be sent with the images from `images. URL_1 `. (Note there's a hierarchy: there could even be `big.images. URL_1 ` to break it up further.) It happens that the first website, hosted at CERN, used `www` as a hostname. This why it became the default choice for everyone who wanted to have a website of their own; there's no special technical reason for it.",
"Because not everything on the internet is a web site. The idea was to have different names for different servers doing different things. So, at URL_0 , the website might be at www. URL_0 . The ftp server might be a different machine at ftp. URL_0 . The incoming mail server might be mail. URL_0 . As websites became the dominant form of brand identification on the internet, most companies pointed their root domain name to the web server. So then URL_0 would point to www. URL_0 .",
"Because WWW stands for \"World Wide Web\" and that's just ONE service running on the internet. It used to be considered good form, when other services were a lot more common on the internet, to prefix your server with the service it ran so a user would know. For example, FTP for the File Transfer Protocol and news or nntp for newsnet servers. You still see it nowadays with subdomains like URL_3 being the main site and URL_2 being the page to go to to access your email. ~~It's still there - most browsers just assume that if you enter URL_1 , you meant URL_0 and affix it for you.~~ Incorrect, see reply. Some sites won't work without the www, but that's really rare and can be fixed with some editing of your DNS entries."
],
"score": [
27,
14,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[
"de.wikipedia.org",
"example.com",
"big.images.example.com",
"images.example.com",
"en.wikipedia.org",
"www.example.com",
"www.wikipedia.org"
],
[
"foo.com",
"www.foo.com",
"mail.foo.com",
"ftp.foo.com"
],
[
"www.google.com",
"google.com",
"mail.school.edu",
"www.school.edu"
]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
65tgfj | Why do you see individual pixels in small droplets of water on an LED screen? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgd3ok2"
],
"text": [
"The droplets form a kind of lens which magnifies the screen under them, showing the colored segments which make up the pixels of the screen."
],
"score": [
6
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
65ux0l | Why is it that a machine that has no moving parts can start working correctly again after a reboot or a significant period of downtime? | For example, our home WiFi started playing up after everyone came back for the Easter holidays. 6 people in the family, all with multiple devices and whatnot. Anyway, after rebooting it several times to no avail, I decided to leave it off, completely unplugged, overnight. Now it works fine. It's not like it's a living thing that needs rest, or a machine with moving parts that requires maintenance, how is it that this worked? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgdd8cu",
"dgdmx5f"
],
"text": [
"A device like a wifi router is still connected to the same connection after a quick reboot most of the times. Leaving it of makes the connection to the provider timeout and it has to make a new request and so on and so on.",
"For one, and I know this may be a bit nit picky but I think it's an important distinction, your wifi/router isn't a machine. It's a computer. Not a computer in the same exact sense as your pc or laptop, but it's still basically just a computer. I make this distinction because, like you said, a machine has moving parts and has noticeable wear and tear and thus needs maintenance. However, computers need a degree of maintenance as well. Just because they don't have moving parts doesn't mean they don't experience wear. The circuit boards, capacitors, processors, memory, and all forms of electronics and chips that go into them pass electricity and take on a degree of wear. Maintenance for these kinds of components is generally keeping them clean of dust/debris. Dust will insulate the components causing them to heat up and wear out faster. You may already be aware that computers don't like heat. The heat generated as a byproduct of the electric current passing through the components is what actually causes the wear and tear. When the software has a bug/glitch or some kind of hang up that, in this case, doesn't allow you to connect your devices then powering it off can often times allow everything to reset and work again properly. Sometimes this means more than just rebooting. If you've ever had to call the cable company and they helped you trouble shoot anything one step they'll often ask is to unplug it from the wall (and if the device has a battery pack they'll ask that you remove that as well) and leave it unplugged for some duration of time. Often times something like 20-30 seconds. Other times they may say a minute or two. This is to allow any residual energy stored in the capacitors to drain. Once all power is removed it will finally reset. You can reapply power and see how things look once it's booted up. If maybe you've ever seen some older electronics (older radios for instance) that had an LED to indicate if it had power and/or if it was on, when power was removed you might see that LED slowly dim until it went out completely. This is due to the residual power still lingering in the capacitors. I believe there's still plenty of current generation electronics that'll do this but I know it was more common in older electronics."
],
"score": [
5,
5
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
65vm0z | What is the difference between .doc and .docx files? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgdjweu",
"dgdi8oi"
],
"text": [
"In order to understand the difference between the 2, you really need to know what was wrong with the old type. As you likely know, the original MS word file format was the .doc file type. This file type is actually quite old and evolved over time. The problem with it is that because it's so old, it's evolved to do more and more than it was originally intended to handle. Modern documents include high definition images, macros and a whole slew of other features. While the .doc file type had been altered to handle these more advanced document features, the fact is that it was doing a really poor job. It was like a 200-year-old house that had been renovated dozens of times to accommodate modern technology and tastes. One of the biggest problems is how it handled Macros. Macros are programmable actions that can be contained within documents. For example, a company might use a MS word document for their invoicing. At some point, someone made a macro that cleared the invoice to it's blank, default, state so that a new invoice could be created. This saves the company time and is a good thing. The problem is, these macros became susceptible to viruses and became known as a source of viruses. BIG problem. Also, the way the old .doc files handles photos was really inefficient. This was fine when all photos were assumed to be small and minor, but as technology has improved people have wanted better quality images in their documents. This would cause the .doc files to balloon to HUGE sizes. Sizes that were really quite unmanageable. So with word 2007 MS introduced the .docx file format. It had a few advantages. First of all, it was based on an open source platform (XML). So other word processors would be able to open and create this kind of file. MS was confident that word was dominant enough in the market that this feature would be an advantage rather than a liability. So the openness is good. It introduced a significant amount of security on Macros. thereby preventing them from being the virus magnet that they were in the past. Lastly, the way that word handled multimedia changed. In the past .doc format word would convert any image to a common file format and include it in the document file itself. This was really inefficient. Also if any of those complex elements became corrupted the entire document would be lost. The new file format appears to be just a document, but it's actually a container disguised as a document. So a .docx file can contain a document, some pictures, some macros and lots of other types of files all wrapped together into what appears to be a single file. This allows the word to embed lots of different file types without having to include them in the text of the document (it works more like a web page). This makes it MUCH easier to compress, and if 1 image in a document becomes corrupt only that part is lost, the text of the document can still be recovered because those elements are kept separate rather than being fully integrated. So, the .docs standard is safer from viruses. More able to deal with different kinds of multimedia content. More open source (therefore more available). To top it all off, the .docx file is a compressed file by default. So the same document in a .doc vs .docx will be a smaller file in .docx. So it's easier to transport, email, or share with other people. In general it's better all around.",
"Both are file extensions used by Microsoft Word. The *.doc filetype was used by older version of word and the *.docx is used by newer version of Word. Newer version can still read and write the older file format so it is still used when you want to make sure that everyone including those with older versions of the program can read it. Internally the difference is that the old files were mostly incomprehensible by anything other than the word program itself and that was by design. The newer version is \"sort of\" open in that everyone can work with them in theory (if not in practice). DOCX files are just ZIP files that can unzip and unpack and find xml files in there that you can actually look at and edit with a editor. XML is related to the HTML used by websites to tell web-browser how to show the pages to the reader. It is a better more open and more modern way to store data. In theory at least."
],
"score": [
101,
15
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
65xkhw | How does combining Playstations (or any other computer) into a "cluster" create a supercomputer? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dge1z5h",
"dgdym5z",
"dgdyd2d"
],
"text": [
"Software developer here, Cluster computing is not the same as grid computing or cloud computing or super computing or mainframe computing. A cluster is a homogeneous local network of nodes, a grid is heterogeneous, a cloud is heterogeneous, distributed, and may even be 3rd party. Distributed computing in common parlance is using 3rd parties to perform your computation - typically by running client software. You see this with SETI@home or Folding@home. Data is divided into batches which are shunted off to a node to be processed until completion, and then the results are combined into a single in-order sequence. Hadoop was a method popularized (and then later entirely abandoned for being too inefficient) by google that used a map/reduce technique for grid and cluster computing. A mainframe is a computer that has substantial hardware resources dedicated to moving data and performs transactional operations on that data. The IBM z13 has thousands of processors inside the cabinet dedicated just to moving data, and nearly any component can be hot swapped by shuffling all data off the component and onto it's replacement. Even the operating system can be upgraded entirely without stopping computation. These systems are used in places where less than 100% uptime or more than 0% error is intolerable. Yes, such software exists and you use it every day. The banking system has been running *the same* mainframe software since the 50s, just imagine how many credit card transactions are in flight on Earth at any given instant in time. It's also why bank accounts take a day to post, because daily account transactions are accumulated and then ran in singly large batches overnight. A super computer is a massive parallel computer. These days they're all cluster computers, but that wasn't always and doesn't have to be the case. Each processor is effectively performing the same operation on a data point in lockstep with each other processor. These machines are only capable of accelerating \"embarrassingly parallel\" computational problems, and that is a technical term. The most powerful super computer would be more than 99% idle and your Halo or whatever would actually probably play worse than it would on your gaming rig or game console. A big technical challenge is keeping the CPU and the network (the \"mesh\") saturated with data. Efficiency is the whole point to building any of these massive systems in the first place, and you can only compute certain types of problems and the system is only as fast as the slowest component.",
"Depends on the type of job you're running. Different types of jobs can benefit from massively parallel processors, like you'd get by combining a bunch of smaller computers into a \"bigger\" one. Say you had a list of 100 million numbers that you had to add up. You could do it on one processor but it would take X amount of time. So you take the numbers, split them in to 100 groups, run each of those groups on a processor, then combine the 100 results. The resulting process takes that much less time. But there are also jobs that don't parallelize very easy. If your algorithm requires the result of another algorithm, you end up waiting on the first one to complete before you can start the next one. In that case, you want faster single processors more than a bunch of possibly slower processors.",
"A PS4 which is basically just a computer with a custom OS has a Central Processing Unit \"CPU\" which can do a calculation such as 1 + 1 = 2. If for example your 1 CPU can only do 1 calculation every second this means it would take you 1 minute to do 60 calculations, what if you wanted to do this faster? You need more CPU's, the idea of clustering PC's together is to gain more calculation power so if you where to get 60 CPU's (60 PS4's) you would be able to do the same calculations in 1 second rather than 60 seconds, thus speeding up your calculation speed."
],
"score": [
5,
4,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
65xwt7 | why aren't we investing in engines that run on hydrogen? | Wouldn't it solve both our dependency on oil and the rise of CO2 production if we could create engines that ran off hydrogen possibly even making an engine that took water, split it, burned the hydrogen and released the oxygen and water? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dge0y6j",
"dge0yze",
"dge136z",
"dge17p7"
],
"text": [
"The energy required to \"Split\" water into its composite hydrogen and oxygen would exceed the energy you harvest by burning it. You can make hydrogen powered devices through the use of [Fuel Cells]( URL_0 ) which generate electricity as part of a chemical reaction, but this doesn't involve \"Splitting\" water. Why don't we use fuel cells for everything? Because it's less cost efficient and far less convenient to replace a fuel cell every 80 miles than it is to refill your tank at your local gas station every 300 miles. Good luck finding a fuel cell station. These kinds of questions always forget the importance of cost and infrastructure. If you could create such a vehicle, but it's the size of a golf cart and costs $200,000 you won't see adoption at any rate that will \"Solve our dependency on oil\".",
"We are. The technological problems are just so large that there's not much interest in really doubling down on the research because the payout is uncertain and not a very quick one. The infrastructure is a large problem, for example. How do you transport and store hydrogen? Hydrogen is a gas in its raw form which needs to be pressurized for transport, which means that all of the systems have to be isolated. Gasoline, in comparison, is liquid which can be just pumped around. Hydrogen gas is also highly volatile which makes the tanks exploding during crashes a serious consideration.",
"we don't have a source of raw hydrogen. taking water and splitting it into hydrogen and oxygen isn't free. you have to put energy into it. you actually have to put ALOT MORE energy into it than you're going to get out of it. so where are you going to get that extra energy? so carrying around a tank of water and splitting it isn't feasible. you have to do the splitting at a fueling station. but storing hydrogen is a problem as well. you need a really strong tank to store hydrogen at pressure. Honda and Nissan do this now.",
"Separating hydrogen from water takes exactly as much energy as is released from burning hydrogen(which takes oxygen from air, bonds it with hydrogen, creating water). So yeah, you're not generating any net energy from taking hydrogen from water and burning said hydrogen. Now, that part there is what I'm confident enough that I dare to answer on physics topic here. But that being said, hydrogen has been considered a \"battery\" of sorts. You could store energy like that, by separating it from water and then storing the hydrogen, until you burn it. It doesn't generate energy, but it stores it. And the problem is, hydrogen is really, really trigger happy about bonding. Meaning, it explodes really, really easily, risking pretty much everyone around the hydrogen engine. Which is why people don't really like hydrogen even for that purpose. If you could get rid of the whole \"huge explosion risk near your engine\", you would probably see people use hydrogen as a battery of sorts. As far as I know, disregarding safety, hydrogen is really good for that purpose."
],
"score": [
15,
3,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_cell"
],
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
65yq5t | Why do all radio stations end with an odd number after the decimal? | Such as 101.5 but never 101.4 or 101.6 | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dge7icr",
"dgegbyy"
],
"text": [
"To avoid interference, stations must be 0.2 MHz apart. If they used the even numbers too, they'd only be 0.1 MHz apart, and the signals would overlap.",
"I just wanted to add, for fun, that every station ID that starts with a K is West of the Mississippi and everything with a W is East of the Mississippi. I don't know why that is."
],
"score": [
16,
5
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
660mdb | Why the iPhone 7 home button aren't replaceable? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgepp28"
],
"text": [
"They can be replaced, however replacing the home button means you lose Touch ID. Apple won't replace it for you, even though they can fix. They would rather try to convince you buy a new phone."
],
"score": [
7
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
660zif | Considering all the different elements of sound, how is audio translated into binary so that a computer can understand what it's processing? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgernor"
],
"text": [
"As complex as sound.. uh.. *sounds*, really your ear drum is interpreting all those various sounds into one wave form. That is because you have one ear drum in each year, and it has only so many dimensions. It's really a matter of how much pressure, and how fast, the ear drum is vibrating. When we first started studying sound, we literally just looked at how our ear drums vibrated, and replicated that with analogue technology. It's just a wave, up and down. So with computers, the binary is just representing that *single* wave. There are a LOT of ways of describing this in binary, depending on how much *fidelity* you want to the actual wave form. Basically, the binary representation will describe in a certain time interval where the wave goes. It goes up, it goes down, it stays flat. So basically / - \\ That's just three little symbols that can represent all of sound."
],
"score": [
7
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6617l4 | How do we use radar to figure out where it's raining and where lightning has struck? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgeuwp9"
],
"text": [
"Rainfall appears on certain types of radar - it reflects the radar signal back to the dish, which is also able to detect the motion of raindrops (Doppler radar). Wikipedia has more details [here] ( URL_0 ). Lightning detection is different - it doesn't use radar at all. Instead, receivers pick up the burst of static noise from the lightning burst itself, and computers do \"triangulation\" calculations based on the delays between the times the signal is detected. There is a margin of error in the location result."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_radar"
]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
661g0b | Why do different CPUs/Motherboards have different pin counts and does the number of pins affect performance? | I was looking to buy an Intel gaming/workstation PC when I came across different motherboard sockets like 1151 and 2011-3 which have 1151 and 2011 pins respectively. It came across me that if the you had 2 of the same CPU and the only difference is being the number of CPU/Motherboard pins on it, would the performance be affected as more data can be transferred through the pins? For example a CPU/Motherboard with 2000 pins can have proportionately double the performance of one with 1000 pins. | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgeur09"
],
"text": [
"More pins are mostly used for more power and ground connections as power requirements increase. In addition, we are now doing more in the processor, which requires direct connections. Before, we used a single bus, to connect to a Northbridge chip, which connected to memory, graphics and expansion ports. Now that Northbridge chip has been folded into the processor, so we need on-chip connections directly to memory, graphics and expansion slots. In addition, they will often make a small change to the pin count when they make changes that require a different motherboard. If they used the same socket, they'd have problems with people using the wrong motherboard. with a different pin count and socket design, this problem goes away - or at least, it should...."
],
"score": [
4
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
662ngu | How old phones could turn theirselves on for alarm, whereas smartphones cannot? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgf5bqh"
],
"text": [
"It's all about permissions and what files an app can change. Apps can do a lot of things, like downloading stuff, access your camera, turn the screen on, play music etc. But there are some things that an app can't do because the Phone system does not allow it. Talking about Android here, I don't know how iOS and other OS work. In Android there are different layers of access. [Check this image here]( URL_0 ). You can see that in the bottom you have the Drivers like **POWER MANAGMENT** and then you have libraries, followed by FrameWorks and only then the Apps. Apps can use the Frameworks \"at will\". That why Facebook, Uber, Pokemon Go and other apps know your location: they get information from the *Location Manager*. Apps only have access to that layer of options, only that layer! About turning on the device. It was to do with the Power Management. And that is on the lowest layer possible, apps have no access to it. It is controlled only by the OS. You can't touch the files in that layer (YOU CAN, BUT APPS USUALLY CAN NOT!!). They need permissions that apps don't have. Otherwise virus could change that an Android OS would be a pretty vunerable system. **WHY OLD PHONE COULD DO IT?!** Because the Software was written FOR THAT PHONE (or a group of phones like symbian). There was only 1 app for watch, 1 app for calendar, 1 app for camera, 1 app for phone. etc. In Android there are zero apps that are hard-wired into the system. (Talking about standart Android, companies usually \"tuned\" it a bit) **TL;DR:** Check the image. Apps can only use the second from top layer. Turning on option is on the bottom so apps can't access that. Old phones software were made just for that purpose."
],
"score": [
6
],
"text_urls": [
[
"http://simpledeveloper.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/android-architecture.jpg"
]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
662opm | Why is it so hard for N. Korea to develop nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them? | Apologies if this has been asked before but I didn't see it in the crappy reddit search. Nuclear technology was first developed in the 40s. Yet we see stories about N. Korea and other countries trying to develop this technology and seemingly being unable to do so. Why is it so hard for them to develop tech that is 60-70 years old now and that schoolchildren in the west all understand on at least a rudimentary level? They can't be that far behind the curve can they? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgf5eis",
"dgf66e7"
],
"text": [
"1) It's not that easy to cobble together enough fissionable material to actually build a bomb, and is actually far harder than making material suitable for a nuclear reactor for power production. This is doubly true when you account for the fact that the best fissionable materials (uranium and plutonium) are significantly rare. 2) This all get's much harder for a North Korean regime that is simultaneously dirt poor and ostracized by the rest of the world, such that it's exceedingly difficult for them to get both the technical know-how, raw materials, *and* technical equipment necessary to build the bomb. 3) This isn't even including the delivery system, given that ICBMs are rather complicated devices, and which *also* require all sorts of technologies that the North Koreans may not be able to replicate on their own. As an aside; just because you know how something works in general doesn't mean you can replicate it. For an example, take the development programs surrounding the Sukhoi T-50 fighter. On paper, the thing is every bit the match for the American F-22. However, it can't get *off* the paper, entirely because Sukhoi can't get the engines to work. What's significant, though, is that they probably know *precisely* how to make the engines. They've probably already gotten the plans for the P & W F-119 engine (used on the Raptor), either because they stole it themselves, or got it from the Chinese. But they simply can't replicate the engine components, because their manufacturing capabilities are just so far behind. It's a question of material science. Hence, they can't make an equivalent engine, which stymies the T-50 program and keeps them from being able to mass produce the aircraft. And that's in the case of a Superpower, and former hyperpower, with a very experienced aerospace and scientific community. So now compare that to North Korea, which has absolutely *none* of that experience, and you'll see why it's so difficult.",
"Because they are really fucking poor, they have little natural resources and little education. Also, im guessing their R & D department is similar to the USSR model, where you tell you best and brightest to build something within x amount of time or they will be killed. And well they couldnt and now theyre on like their 5th tier scientists working on something that requires Einstein level shit. During the cold war the russians were working their asses off trying to reverse engineer the B-17 ( i think it was this one, but i could be wrong) bomber. They could make a plane that looked just like it, but they couldn't get it up to the same specs. In terms of N. Korea's ability to deliver its weapons i feel like we just use tech from Ronald Reagan's star wars program to make sure none of their shit is ever viable"
],
"score": [
9,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6636e8 | Why is it okay to use VR headsets but not okay to sit 10 inches away from a TV | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgf73dn",
"dgfdf8y",
"dgfmqai"
],
"text": [
"It's not a matter of images being projected but rather how much your eye strains to focus on up-close things. When you are sitting 10 inches away from a TV, the muscles in your eye need to strain to change a clear lens within your eye so that images 10 inches away will focus properly and appear sharp (like a magnifying glass). When your eye is relaxed, far away things will appear in focus while things up close will be blurry. Constantly straining your eyes to focus can cause eye strain, headaches, and lead to or worsen near-sightedness (although there is also evidence that lack of exposure of children to bright light like sunlight may also contribute to the recent explosion of people who need glasses). VR headsets are different because they include a glass lens of their own before the projected image. This lens makes it so that when your eye is relaxed, the images from up close are in focus. Therefore, your eyes do not have to strain to focus on the VR headset screen. Note that the muscle controlling the lens in your eye will weaken with age. This is why older people need reading glasses as their eyes are unable to adjust to focus on close objects.",
"I don't think there is any actual evidence that sitting close to the TV is in anyway bad for you/eyes",
"For prolonged period of times, it is not good to do any one activity. The issue isn't necessarily the distance from the object, but how your eyes focus on it. Imagine \"the point\" at which you focus on the object for clarity. When you're watching the television, you're usually several feet away. Now, hold your finger just past your nose and focus on it. Notice how you have to bring your eyes in and almost go cross-eyed? This is known as convergence. When you wear a VR headset, you still focus at a distance. It is an augmented reality view so it is designed to be as if you're looking at something in real life. If you had to focus at a distance of your finger just beyond your nose, you would have eye strain in no time. This would also lead to something known as [convergence insufficiency]( URL_2 ) which makes it hard to look at things up close. There main problem is the distance at which you are focusing on and there are two main issues. First, is with prolonged use. It is good to vary your focal length throughout the day for short periods of time. If you work at a computer most of the day, you can do this by focusing something a lot farther than your screen (say out a window) every so often. I try to make it a point to stare off in the distance when typing. A lot of people will read what they type and proof as they go, but try looking out of a window or something as you type. This will give you a minute or two of a varied focal distance at a time while not decreasing your productivity. I would recommend doing this 4 to 5 times every hour for a minute or so at a time. The second problem is those that do stare at a screen all day is that your screen may be a bit too close (like the finger just past your nose example) and increases your eye strain due to convergence. As you get older, you generally lose sharpness in your near-sighted vision. To help with reducing eye strain, they show that you can get prescription glasses that focus on a distance of about 20\" to help with the strain on using a computer screen all day. These glasses are specially designed so that if you tried to use them elsewhere (say walking outside), the view through them would be blurry. The helps reduce the amount of work the muscles of the eye perform to focus on your screen, helping with your long-term eyesight. Sorry for the long winded response that didn't address your question directly, but for more information, the [Vision Performance Institute]( URL_0 ) is doing a lot of work in the area and have [published]( URL_0 /publications) a lot of information on it. No relation to them but they are a good single source. There are researchers doing their own research all over the world."
],
"score": [
80,
29,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[
"https://www.pacificu.edu/about-us/centers/vision-performance-institute",
"https://www.pacificu.edu/about-us/centers/vision-performance-institute/publications",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convergence_insufficiency"
]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
664vly | Why are all circuitboards green? Motherboards, random stuff around, laptops, graphic cards, etc. | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgflkaf"
],
"text": [
"Mostly a combination of things. The earliest phenolic boards (some paper cured with resin, a very early plastic composite material) were an ugly brown-maroon color for decades. Green PCBs came around when we started to use fiberglass instead of paper as the substrate for the board. We also moved away from phenolic resins toward newer materials that were being developed. -One of the better resins was a 2-part epoxy that cured green. -In addition to this, the US Military required that electronics be on green PCBs (for whatever reasons they'd justified at the time) -Probably the most clinching detail is that green is the easiest \"backdrop\" color. Human eyes have evolved to be able to notice all manner of fruits, vegetables, animals, and predators on a backdrop of green (grass, leaves), so it's no trouble to the brain to be able to pick out labels, components, and whatnot from the green background These days, boards can be made from fiberglass, plastic, composite materials, and some have up to ten layers inside a single PCB. Similarly, color choices are basically unlimited, with black and red becoming popular choices in addition to the classic green"
],
"score": [
8
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
665d73 | Why has technology advanced so much in the last 100 years compared to the previous 1000? | What's caused tech to advance so rapidly in recent times? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgfps0g",
"dgfpze4"
],
"text": [
"A ton of reasons, but here are a few of the big ones: * Society began rewarding innovation. If you made carts in the 12 century and found a way to make wheels a bit faster, you couldn't, as you can today, market that idea, spread it around, and make money off of it. You would likely just have continued making carts and the innovation would have died with you. * Certain innovations, like the ability to use chemical energy stored in coal, opened up a *ton* of avenues for technological advancement. Being able to use a steam engine to power things simply makes a lot of things possible that previously would be infeasible if they had to be powered by muscles. * Increased communication. A lot of these early innovations in the industrial revolution were organizational and centered around communication. When people get to cooperate more, the chance that they come up with new ideas greatly increases. * Many fewer people tied to the land and thus free to innovate. When 80% of the population has to grow food (and thus don't have much time to innovate) it puts restraints on technological growth.",
"Part of it is technology begets technology. By that, I mean as we develop better tools we can use those tools to make even better tools and so on. For example, even if we had the knowledge to make modern computer chips in the 1950s, we wouldn't have had the machines capable of working on the microscopic scale that they do now. We had to have rudimentary computers that could help make those machines first. Another part of it is the amount of people who are alive and able to do research. Right now there are about 7 billion people on earth. In 1750 there were under a billion. That means there are 7 times as many people able to do research now than there were about 250 years ago. Additionally, Before modern times only a small percentage of people in most civilizations were educated and an even smaller percentage of them pursued science and engineering. Nowadays a huge number of people from all sorts of backgrounds can get degrees and many go into the sciences."
],
"score": [
13,
6
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
666xqx | With electronic voting so commonplace, why does it take so long for precincts to report in? Shouldn't the report be instant the moment the polls close? | Surely they wouldn't do it just to keep us in suspense... | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgg59da",
"dgg7vfm"
],
"text": [
"Just because it's electronic doesn't mean it's connected to the internet. I worked an election a few years ago in a city that used optical scanners. First, just because the polls are closed, doesn't mean voting is done. Anyone in line is still allowed to vote. Once that was done we had a bunch of paperwork to do to make sure things like the number of ballots cast matched the number of voters who signed in. Everything had to be signed by multiple people. Then we have voting machine printed out a few copies of a sheet with the actual results. But since the scanner only sees the bubbles filled in, for write-in candidates it only detects that someone picked a write-in and separates the ballot into a separate bin. But ours didn't separate them right, so we had to search through all of the hundreds of ballots for the 5 or 6 with write-ins. Then we all had to sign the form with the results. Then everything had to be properly packed up and sealed. And then we all had to drive back to the city clerk's office. They verified all our paperwork was good, then they had to communicate the results to the county, which I think they do (for the preliminary results at least) over the phone. The polls closed at 8 PM, I think I got home that night around 11:30. This was several years ago, but the technology changes so slowly, that's probably how that city still does it.",
"1.) \"Electronic\" =/= \"connected to the Internet\" (and for good reason - many places are hesitant to make that move specifically because doing so would open up the election to potential hacking). 2.) Confirming the votes. It's easy to just count the votes, and in fact that is what's done when results of an election are announced overnight/within a few hours of the poll closing. But the *real* election is the process of confirming each vote (re: making sure each vote came from a legitimate person and that there's a paper trail for every voter). *That* process takes a while, which is why technically, results aren't actually \"confirmed\" or announced until up to a month after an election."
],
"score": [
10,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
66b08b | Why isn't satellite imagery for map providers updated more often? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgh0v0s"
],
"text": [
"those aren't satellite images. overhead views are taken by airplane. real commercial satellite images aren't that fine resolution that you can make out your car on your driveway. the NSA prob has satellites that can read the newspaper in your hand though."
],
"score": [
5
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
66bq4f | If I don't know how to physically create video games, but I create the ideas for them, What is my job title? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgh8nj0",
"dgh6x21",
"dghhrjg",
"dgh724f",
"dgi78wo"
],
"text": [
"Unless you have some sort of specific skillset that can contribute to turning those ideas into an actual product, (art, project management, programming, screenwriting, etc.) your job title is unemployed.",
"You would be the lead designer, in charge of creating the GDD - Game Design Document. This would basically be the **Bible by which your Game Shall be Made, Written and Authored by You.** It would include menu layout, mechanics, any advanced calculation formulas for damage output when compared to armor, shields, damage resist %, and hit points, etc., as well as mechanics of jumping, level design documentation (such as 1 jump is 1 box in height, but you can double jump, etc), art design, sound design, etc. **Edit:** On that note, it would still be pertinent to know at least what each tool used by the team members actually DO, so that you can properly assign the work done. You would more or less be the project manager, as well, working in tandem with the producer and team managers.",
"I study making games in University. From various visiting lecturers, our own teachers etc. I have heard the phrase \"Ideas are worthless\" at least a couple of dozen times. If you are planning to make a career out of having ideas for games, you will not have a job title. Sorry if I'm mean, but no-one in the industry gives two shits about ideas.",
"Consumer. You would be the consumer in that case, although it would only be a \"job title\" in the \"I have it on my t-shirt\" sense. The truth is that the hard part of most in things in life is *doing* them... not thinking about doing them.",
"I'm just saying this to motivate you but ideas are a dime a dozen. Everybody has ideas. The real value lies in knowing how to turn ideas into reality. And there are several aspects to that. Pretty much all ideas are initially unusable. It's just so easy to have an idea that it's also easy to forget what it takes for an idea to become a reality. So the first step is to refine an idea. Figure out what it takes to realise that idea in concrete steps. Identify the challenges, the success conditions, the market (maybe you're the only one who likes your idea) and so on. Then there's the production process where various disciplines are required to turn that idea into a product, step by step. It doesn't just require people who know how to build, it requires people who know how to plan and manage. Because there's such massive difference between an *idea* and a feasible product plan, there's very little space for people whose job ends at *'having an idea'*. Most people are considerably more multidisciplinary and the job of conceiving a game is divided among a great many people. Just to give you some examples: * The Game Designer writes the game design document that basically describes the game from a top level helicopter view right down to details like how steep can a slope be before it's no longer passable for a player or how far is the spread for this shotgun shot's pellets. * The Writer writes the story obviously. But unlike a book or movies, games are interactive. That means a video game writer has to think very differently. Gamers might not play the game in a linear fashion, the writer has little control over the pacing of the game, NPC's might have branching dialogue trees rather than one tightly controlled conversation and so on. * Artists, modellers, animators, programmers and so on bring the game to live. But even they work with creative constraints that prevent them from simply freestyling their work. For instance, the number of frames in a punch animation radically changes how slow or fast that punch is, vital in a fighting game. And at the end of the day, most people work in teams. Most game designers, for instance, don't get the opportunity to write and direct an entire game. They're likely working on a much more detailed level where one game designer might spend his time working firearms for instance. Ie. designing what the correct rate of fire, damage per projectile, projectile velocity and decay is. Anyway, my point is that there's no such job as 'the idea man' in any industry. Everybody has ideas. There's never a shortage of ideas, only a shortage of people with the time and talent to turn something as vague as an idea into a viable and profitable project. And no matter which role you take in a project team, you will be hugely benefited by having a working knowledge of every other process involved so you can match your work output to the requirement of your colleagues."
],
"score": [
33,
6,
5,
4,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
66c2we | How can we get a picture of the Milkyway without sending a satellite outside of our galaxy? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dghaa7o",
"dgh9k25"
],
"text": [
"Those pictures are: * an artist's conception * a computer generated simulation base on what we can see from earth * another galaxy we think looks like ours As you point out, it is not possible for us to take a picture of our galaxy from the outside.",
"do you mean the entire galaxy in one photograph ? We cannot. Any photos of the Milky way either show a portion of the galaxy only, or are artist impressions, or are actually photos of another galaxy."
],
"score": [
79,
11
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
66casb | How do fingerprint readers / touch IDs maintain security without the need for frequent changes like a normal password? | Edit: So it's biometric data, but it's still 1s and 0s just like any other data. | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dghbuhy"
],
"text": [
"A password is something you know. It's knowledge. Knowledge can be given away, or stolen. So if you haven't changed your password, maybe someone has figured it out. So, for security reasons, you should change passwords frequently. But biometric security, like fingerprint scanners, are based on something you *are*. You're not likely to lose your finger or have it stolen, so it's much safer to keep that as an ongoing method of identification."
],
"score": [
12
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
66cito | How did people talk to people on different continents back when we only had land lines? | I more or less understand why cell phones can work but I don't get how a land line could call people across oceans... | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dghdx5e"
],
"text": [
"There are lots of physical telephone cables under the Atlantic and elsewhere. These trace their history back to underwater telegraph cables that were laid in Victorian times. [Map of Atlantic cables 1858]( URL_0 ) The British Empire worldwide was similarly connected in this era. More recently (post WW2) saw the development of satellites with ground stations either side beaming telephone signals up and back."
],
"score": [
7
],
"text_urls": [
[
"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/Atlantic_cable_Map.jpg"
]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
66dh8q | Why does it take so much longer to use a phone/laptop's charge than it does to actually charge it? | I just noticed that my laptop has 20% battery left, but only 20 minutes charging it gives me another 8 estimated hours of usage. Why is this the case? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dghlx5o"
],
"text": [
"The laptop let's say uses about 200mAh of power. Your charger can give to laptops battery 2000mAh of power. Your laptop is power efficient and does not consume more than what charger charges. As battery wears out over time, it will charge quicker and depleet quicker, because capacity is being lost over time and lets you use smaller amount of capacity. Edit: In short, the charger gives way more mass power to phone/laptop than what laptop/phone itself consumes."
],
"score": [
5
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
66dk85 | If an electronic device or machine is hit by an EMP powerful enough to knock it out, what will you have to do to get it running again? | There was a recent news story that the Russian military is bragging it has an EMP powerful enough to knock out naval vessels. So suppose that happens to an aircraft carrier: What would they have to do to get it working again? Replace the core components? Switch to backup power? If they have an alternative, does the EMP short that even if it's not in use when it hits? Jesus, I really do feel like a five year-old asking this. | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dghnqb5",
"dghow7a"
],
"text": [
"When electricity pass through a wire it creates an electric field around the wire. Similarly when an electric field is close to a wire, it makes a small amount of electricity pass through the wire. EMPs generate massive electric fields so they can make large amounts of electricity pass through wires over a large range. For most wires this is fine and they can handle the amount of electricity. But for computer circuits, they have tiny wires that will get overwhelmed by the amount of electricity. The wires will burn out and physical damage will occur. Any circuit with tiny wires that is in the range of the EMP will be effected regardless of whether it's powered up or not. It will be physically damaged and will no longer function. **NOTE** I'm describing the way an IDEAL EMP would work. I'm not discussing whether there currently are any that can achieve any real world damage. Maybe there are, maybe there aren't, I don't know. Just describing what, in theory, would happen in an ideal circumstance.",
"I think the theory is high altitude burst from a nuclear device that causes a EMP is a huge problem as the fast (short lived) pulse will cover a huge radius, computer cables and power transmission lines would have a spike of current go through before a beaker could isolate and thus frying all the electrical control circuits. Consider sub stations being damaged by an EMP these would take a long time of very niche skills to rebuild consequently multiple city's would be without power for very long periods of time; ergo starvation, exposure, unrest. I suspect more deaths from a high alt burst using the EMP than a ground level one with its flash, blast, and fallout. The only credible protection is to 'harden' the system against EMP or prevent the EMP. read more with a search on (starfish prime)"
],
"score": [
20,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
66f8du | Why do magnets have little to no effect on common technology anymore? | I remember as a kid when I waived a magnet over the TV set the whole thing would freak out. Now, if I hold a magnet in front of my monumentally more complex iPhone, it's attracted to it, but has no effect. What stops magnets from destroying pieces of technology like they used to in the past? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgibjlw",
"dgi2onr",
"dgi35qj",
"dgi89za"
],
"text": [
"Oh shit, I've literally got a degree that lets me explain this! (Electrical and Electronic Engineering btw). So, old school TVs were known as \"Cathode Ray TVs\". A Cathode and the corresponding Anode are terms used to describe where Electrons come from and go to. We have electrons? Yes. A Cathode Ray Tube is a device that spits out massive numbers of electrons from the Cathode at the back, to hit the Anode at the front of the tube. However, the Anode has a hole in it, so some electrons are spat out and keep going. Electrons are charged particles, and charged particles moving through a magnetic field experience a force, like a fat kid walking through a Pizza field. They're drawn to the corresponding magnetic pole. This electron beam we have in the TV can be steered across the screen with magnets. Electromagnets. The beam was steered across the screen really rapidly, and covered the screen at 60hz (because that's the power grid frequency in the US). This electron beam then hit phosphorescent coating on the inside of the screen, and depending on how it was steered, it would hit different coloured coating areas, making a picture. Which is cool and all, but this is ELI5: Why do magnets fuck with TVs, not how TVs used to work. Well, your magnet draws the carefully steered electron beams towards it in ways the TV didn't intend. My best analogy is someone is steering a car, and you have a second steering wheel: It's going to go a bit crazy. So why doesn't your iPhone freak? The phone uses a grid of individually controlled lights to display a picture. There is no electron beam inside your iPhone, and thus, no ability for the magnet to deflect the beam.",
"older tv used magnets to guide the \"pixel beam gun\" inside the cathode ray tube, and the inside of tv tube lit up were the beam hit. New screens such as your phone use a grid inside- nothing to affect.",
"Old school hard drives are magnetic. The old ones didn't have shielding at all, and the slightest magnetic fields could erase data off of them.",
"Those older technologies (specifically CRT displays, magnetic media such as data hard drives and cassette tapes) utilized relatively low strength magnetism to manipulate 'something' to do what they do. Thus they could be adversely affected by a modest common magnet. Newer technology (flat panel displays, optical media and solid state data storage) don't utilize magnetism to directly manipulate much of anything except maybe a loudspeaker and maybe a mechanical relay or two. Thus they are unaffected by weak static magnetic fields."
],
"score": [
55,
17,
8,
8
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
66gt2h | Why do some places use web authentication pages instead of just using a WPA key (especially those that offer free wifi, such as hotels, banks, cafes, etc.)? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgiciqq"
],
"text": [
"A WPA key is the same for everyone. It's difficult, therefore, to lock out individual users automatically. Using an authentication token delivered via a web-page makes it much, *much* easier to keep track of how long an individual user has been online, and whether they've paid for access. Technically they could do this by using WPA-Enterprise, but that would still require offline setup on a per-user basis *and* it doesn't work with as many devices. (the above applies for WPA2 and correspondingly WPA2-Enterprise, and also to WEP though there's no RADIUS version for that and there's no point really in using WEP anyway)"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
66h6pl | . As far as I understand computers just take a string of one's and zeros and perform an operation based off of that string. So why can my computer do the same operation 99 times without an issue and then crash the 100th time? | It seems like the point of a computer is to take out the human error component, yet it seems like they make errors like humans. | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgiesyg",
"dgietrk"
],
"text": [
"The computer *isn't* doing the exact same operation 100 times when initial conditions are considered. If you could observe its internal state, you'd find that *something* had changed between the first 99, where everything went fine, and the hundredth where it crashed.",
"That's an over-simplistic description of how a computer works. There are any number of reasons why this might happen. The 100th operation might operate on some data that was fine the first 99 times but has been corrupted when it comes to be processed the 100th time. It might be that two programs running simultaneously interfere in a way that hasn't been accounted for, and one program crashes."
],
"score": [
18,
5
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
66hxck | How come videos don't load like they used to? | It seems like not long ago one could click on a video, hit play and then pause it so that it could load all the way before watching it. One could easily re-wind by clicking any time in the video and it would already be loaded. Nowadays it seems like you click the video, hit play and then pause and the video does not load all the way. It only loads a little at a time and then when you try to rewind it has to buffer and re-load again. Whatever happened to letting a video load, watching it and rewinding easily without all this re-loading? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgimtcg",
"dgimq88",
"dgj7no9"
],
"text": [
"They changed the way buffering works to try to cut down on data usage. Many people dont watch the entire video so there is no point in loading the whole thing. and internet is faster these days so most people's connection can buffer faster than the video plays. So they only buffer slightly ahead of where the person is in the video.",
"When pre/buffering videos , the advertisements wouldn't be able to set up correctly throughout the video as well. GoogleAds runs on specific algorithms to match a targeted as to the targeted individual . If the video was to buffer all through so easily, the ads would be less reliable to pop up and be directed based upon the viewer . TLDR: Advertisements pop up specific times unique to each IP Address to make money",
"The old style is called progressive download. One file that contains the whole video is downloaded. The player is able to start playback as soon as enough seconds of the video are downloaded to theoretically provide seamless playback. If playback goes faster than the download you'll see video pause while the buffer reloads. Most newer services use a streaming format - HLS or DASH. The video on the server is really a bunch of small 2-6 second video files. The player downloads them one at a time and seamlessly transitions between each clip. Streaming offers a ton of benefits: - bandwidth conservation: only download what's needed - seek: user can seek ahead in the video without having to download entire clip. The player simply skips to the segment that's next and resumes. - bandwidth adaptation: video player can detect if your network slows down and downshift to a lower quality clip. Each segment could have 6 or more different resolution and bitrate options available on the server. Every couple of seconds you may see a quality shift because the player adjusted to ensure you get seamless playback. Once the network improves it can upshift to better quality. - ad insertion: easier to switch between the primary content and an ad"
],
"score": [
28,
5,
5
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
66imgn | Why/when did we start calling Emoticons Emojis? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgiqjzz",
"dgiql9q",
"dgj49bj"
],
"text": [
"They're actually different! Emoticons are ~technically~ just these: :) :( < 3 etc. Made **just** with punctuation symbols. Some software **may** convert those symbols into pictures...but there is no defined standard. < 3 might become a heart, it might stay a less than three. Emojis have a defined standard in Unicode (the big rulebook of how computer treat and keep track of text). So if your computer supports full unicode, and it gets told to show character number U+1F618, it should show a smoochy emoji face.",
"They're actually different things. An emoticon is the text that makes a face, such as :). an emoji is the actual picture. they came into being in Japan and made their way over here.",
"To add on to other comments: the word emoji is unrelated to the word emotion. It comes from the japanese E, meaning 'picture' + Moji, meaning 'character.'"
],
"score": [
35,
9,
5
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
66irzx | Why are TV/movie cameras so much larger than consumer-grade cameras or phone cameras? | Referring to video cameras, specifically. What's all that extra space used for? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgislqn"
],
"text": [
"The biggest space hogs are the lens assemblies. A fancy assembly can do manual iris (how much light comes in/exposed the picture is) zoom, and focus just by moving pieces of glass and metal around. Your smartphone or consumer camera is much more limited in what it can do in this regard, or can't do it at all and has to use software to compensate. For example, if you zoom on your smartphone, it's a very \"robotic\" movement and at full zoom, stuff starts to pixelate as you're probably blowing the picture up bigger than the sensor can detect. On a pro level camera, you can turn the knob on the side with your hand to move the mechanism, which results in a much smoother, natural motion. Also, because the picture is magnified *before* it hits the sensor, you're getting full quality. Similar stuff applies for the other bits. When content is destined for TV, it's worth the bulk and expense."
],
"score": [
5
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
66isfc | Every human on the planet spontaneously vanishes, and a hundred years later, aliens arrive. Would they be able to find out about the internet? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgissjk",
"dgit7am",
"dgirrjl"
],
"text": [
"Sure, there would be an \"Internet for Dummies\" book someplace on a library shelf. They could learn all about what the Internet was. They could go to the places where the computers were, and maybe fix up the Wikipedia servers so they could learn all we know.",
"Unless they were TRULY alien in some extreme and spectacular way (e.g. they're a sentient gas cloud that's the size of Phobos), they would easily be able to find out about the internet... without using the internet. If they were advanced enough for travel though space, they'd be advanced enough to detect and investigate well-preserved computer complexes. And there are plenty of those in hardened military bunkers or Aperture Science salt-mine based testing installations, for example. Some of the printed circuit diagrams and historical user manuals that lists the locations of on-line versions of instructional materials and reference documents would allow them to easily infer the existence of a world-wide knowledge base. ACCESSING it is an entirely different question.",
"The internet requires power at every server, router, and switch. Without power, it would quickly become useless. After 100 years of neglect, it's unlikely that the data on the servers would have much integrity left, so the only remnant would be the physical infrastructure of the machines and cables that all linked it together."
],
"score": [
20,
16,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
66j8nn | How is it possible that no one ever leaks critical algorithm information from secretive companies such as Google and Facebook? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dkmdoil",
"dgiwimg",
"dgivix2"
],
"text": [
"I realize this is a really old question, but I'm not happy with the answers. Most comments are something along the lines of \"How would you use it? You can't just create your own search engine\". Everyone is ignoring the fact that the algorithm is extremely valuable for companies who have websites (so basically every single one). Knowing how Google's algorithm works makes SEO (search engine optimisation) much easier. You could trick Google to show your website as the first result (or at least on the first page). Google releases a lot of information about SEO themselves, but only the parts they want people to optimize (have a mobile website, load fast, support HTTPS), but not things they don't want people to do. For instance spamming keywords over and over again, which obviously doesn't work (..anymore, depending on how you did it)",
"Part of the reason it never leaks is that even if you know how they do it, it STILL takes an enormous amount of resources & gathered data to do what they do. So your average joe couldn't pull it off, and companies that are ALREADY large and powerful and in theory could 1) already have their own 2) would possibly face legal trouble if it ever came to light they knew Facebook's secrets and built their own system based upon them. It's ~kinda~ like how when someone stole Coke's secret formula and took it to Pepsi, Pepsi didn't read it and reported the guy. They want clean hands.",
"Because they have great jobs and don't want to lose them? Or maybe they sign some killer non-disclosure contract that says if you do we take everything you love away from you."
],
"score": [
10,
8,
6
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
66k6so | Is watching a movie on a phone held close to your face an equivalent viewing experience to sitting a distance away from a big screen if they cover the same area of your field of vision? If not, why not? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgj4198"
],
"text": [
"It isn't a matter of scale, but rather your eyes' focal point. Even if a big screen and a phone held up close are equivalent, there is still a difference between focusing your eyes several inches in front of you versus 50 feet away. ETA: I might answering LI6, so someone with more knowledge please come in and help me."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
66l7k1 | Why should we scan instead of photocopying? | [Explaining digital archiving to an aunt who lives in the past] When my wife's grandmother died, she entrusted several hundred old (1800s–1980s) photographs to my wife and me. My wife's aunt, who lives 1,000 miles away, is a hoarder stuck in the pre-computer age, and she keeps calling us requesting the original documents. She really wants to photocopy the pictures and snail-mail them to all her family, and she thinks she has a right to do so . . . right now! We are both trained digital archivists, and we've tried to explain to her that scanned copies are the best way to distribute and preserve these photographs for future generations. She just doesn't seem to get it. What would you do? How would you explain it to her? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgjbzh5",
"dgjbv1x",
"dgjbywj",
"dgjbvgg",
"dgjsd2j",
"dgjd26g"
],
"text": [
"As someone that works with technology with people that are old and don't understand technology she almost certainly just doesn't know what the heck you are talking about and just wants the thing she wants to happen to happen. She wants a photocopy because that is the word she knows to use to mean a duplicate to mail. So when you start talking about digital archives and scans and whatever it just sounds like you are saying you won't give her the thing she's asking for and it's not communicated that your thing is the same idea. Scan the documents then send her high quality print outs, higher quality than a xerox would be, because that is what she wants and when you talk about digital whatevers she thinks you are just denying her the ability to have copies.",
"Do it your way, then loan her the originals so she can do it her way, and you get 'em back. Her ~~mom~~ grandma died, dude. This is not the hill worth dying on, it's not really important to win this fight imho.",
"My girlfriend says the best way would just be to go over there and show her how it's done and how safer and more efficient scanning really is. My way would be to tell her that those photos will disintegrate if she photocopies them. And then to ask her \"is that what you want to happen?\"",
"Sometimes being correct is not worth the effort it takes to get there. She is from a different time and this is what she wants. Sure you could fight the battle, but is the juice worth the squeeze? Scan the pictures and archive them, or put them on a cd and give her the copy as backup. Then photocopy the pics. IF she is curious as to which is better she may explore, if not you have a backup saved for if she needs it.",
"Tell her that \"scanning\" is basically the first stage of photocopying, after which you can print the picture, or multiple copies of the picture, or edit the picture. To get her to calm down, mail her the pics you already scanned, along with some physical demonstration of what you can do with scans: - multiple quality prints of a few selected pictures, so she can mail them - a collage of several pictures, maybe even a family tree - a picture book, with annotations and dates And then a CD so she can get more of this from her neighborhood FedEx store (look up the address too). Also, do not talk down to her. Some of these pictures survived for more than 100 years on paper. How long will your hard drive, or your cloud service provider, will last?",
"> She just doesn't seem to get it. What would you do? How would you explain it to her? I don't think the issue is with technology, to be honest. It sounds like she just wants the control over it (which to be fair, her mom just died). when you tell her digital copy, all she's hearing is \"nnebeel is holding onto them, i can't have them\". One of the ways people process grief is being able to touch things that have memories If she really is struggling with the technology bit though, i would just tell her you *are* photocopying them, just say it's a professional photocopy that preserves better. (Besides, as far as she's concerned, it's the same thing). The same way you wouldn't go to Target for a wedding dress, or dry cleaning vs the washer. The suggestion someone gave of just doing it and print copies for her and then showing her the result is smart, as well. Seeing is believing, and all that."
],
"score": [
7,
3,
3,
3,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
66lld3 | the benefits of helium-3 from mining the moon | Heard about it in the news and am curious | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgjj1oz"
],
"text": [
"There is no benefit. Helium-3 is the best fuel source for fusion power, but fusion power isn't anywhere near being viable nor is there any expectation that it ever will be. The whole mining Helium-3 on the moon thing is a science fiction plot device and nothing more. The dirt on the moon contains a few parts per billion of Helium-3, which is a lot more than you can find in dirt on the Earth. But its still almost nothing. Even in a science fiction fantasy land where industrial scale mining on the moon was possible you would expend far more energy trying to mine that Helium than you could ever get back from it. Right now on Earth we mine Helium as a byproduct of natural gas extraction, and most commercial Helium production comes from a few natural gas fields in Texas that contain ~7% Helium by volume. Most of that Helium is Helium-4, but those fields still contain several orders of magnitude more Helium-3 per volume than the dirt on the moon does. If there was ever demand for Helium-3, we would just purify it from existing Helium production on Earth. The reason you're hearing about it in the news is because India claimed it plans to build a Helium-3 mine on the moon by 2030. But just like the $4 smartphone and the Indian male contraceptive thing that was going around on Reddit a few weeks ago this claim is bogus. Right now India is in the middle of a nationalistic fervor and is churning out dozens of stories about wondrous scientific advances that are going to turn India into the world's greatest super power. But thus far every single one of those stories has been nothing more than the Indian press playing to that nationalistic climate. Right now India's space program is at about the same point that the US space program was in the early 60's and this story is nothing more than the Indian government trying to generate good press for itself. In short - anytime you hear about some wondrous new invention or program coming out of India you should take it with a gigantic grain of salt. There is no serious plan to mine Helium on the moon and its doubtful that there ever will be."
],
"score": [
5
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
66lo3q | Copyright Infringement | How does a publishing company find out who downloads their content illegally, IE using BitTorrent? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgjhbqo"
],
"text": [
"They have agents connecting to the infringing torrent swarms who record the IP addresses of everyone in the swarms. With the IP addresses, they can then easily find the ISPs and send them a notice about the infringing IP addresses."
],
"score": [
4
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
66lrox | Windows Regedit | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgjk42n"
],
"text": [
"The registry is a database of internal settings for Windows and for the programs that are installed on the computer. Back in the days of Windows 3.1 and Windows 95, each program had its own configuration files, but then Microsoft decided to change the system for newer versions of Windows, so all the configuration data is stored in a database format. You have access to a lot of the configuration options in Windows through the Control Panel. And most apps and programs have a Settings menu where you can configure options for that program. Most of the time you don't need to change anything in the registry. If you're an advanced user, regedit opens the registry and you can search or change the parameters directly. There's no \"save\"; any change is immediately applied, and there's no \"undo.\" You can export portions of the registry to a file, and re-import them to \"undo\" changes you've made, but be careful because you can totally screw up Windows by changing the registry values."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
66noo7 | Why do we worry about the number of times you can write to an SSD? | From what I understand, RAM is basically temporary solid state storage. Data is written to RAM almost constantly while your PC is in use, and then that data is dumped either when programs are closed or when your PC is shut down. Solid State Drives are similar in that they have no moving parts, but their data storage is "permanent" (for lack of better term in my limited vocabulary), just like mechanical hard drives. So, my question is, why are things like the number of times an SSD can be written/rewritten varied from manufacturer to manufacturer, and why are these things advertised, even though RAM is being read/written thousands upon thousands of times over the course of however long you use your PC and nobody seems to worry about degradation caused by it? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgjx483"
],
"text": [
"The basic answer is that RAM and SSDs are different in the way they store data. SSD read/writes are (much) lower than HDD, a cost in exchange for speed (but not as much speed as RAM). The better term you are looking for in regards to SSD/HDD v. RAM permanence is volatility. RAM requires power to retain data, SSD/HDDs do not."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
66ofa4 | Why isn't T-Mobile violating net neutrality? | T-Mobile doesn't charge extra data when users listen to music on certain data plans. Yesterday, there was an article on r/worldnews about Canada upholding net neutrality. It said, "Differential pricing contradicts the principle of net neutrality because it allows service providers to leverage their privileged position to decide which services are most attractive to their customers, effectively discriminating against others." So wouldn't this be a violation? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgk1e4h",
"dgk0lj9",
"dgk1ehm"
],
"text": [
"It absolutely is a violation of net neutrality. It's a textbook example of how to violate net neutrality. They're giving certain services to customers with different levels of access based on what they pay. I think your real question is, why are they being allowed to violate net neutrality and don't we have any laws or regulations that would prevent that?",
"Well yes it is. Thats why in my counrty (the Netherlands) AFAIK T-Mobile isnt allowed to give those services",
"Yes, they are violating the rules. That's one of the biggest issues. The rules, as they stand for now, are not being enforced."
],
"score": [
33,
10,
5
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
66q7wr | What is net neutrality? | What is it? I've heard of it before but I don't understand any of it. | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgkeps7",
"dgkkkyn",
"dgkrxfg"
],
"text": [
"Net neutrality is the concept that every internet service provider *(ISP)* treats every piece of data equally. This means that the ISP doesn't slow packages down when they go to websites that aren't in their favor. This means that ISP A transfers the packages of its own customers just as reliably and just as fast as the packages coming from or going to ISP B. In a nutshell. Internet transfer is equal for everybody",
"Here's a hypothetical example, using real-world players: Comcast is the biggest ISP in the country. More people get their internet through Comcast than any other company, and most of them don't really have any alternatives. If they want to get online, they gotta go through Comcast. Comcast also wholly owns NBCUniversal (as in NBC, MSNBC, Telemundo, and many other media channels), which also gives it a 30% stake in Hulu. Essentially, in addition to owning the data network, Comcast also owns a lot of the media that their network carries to consumers. Now, **in comes Netflix**, who is *not* owned by Comcast. As an entertainment service, Netflix is a direct competitor to Hulu and many of Comcast's other holdings, so Comcast would *much* prefer if people watched Hulu instead of Netflix. However, since Netflix *isn't* a massive ISP, they have to go through Comcast's network if they want to get to most of their users. And this is where the problems start appearing. **In a world *without* Net Neutrality**, Comcast can manipulate its network in a way that basically fucks with people's connection to Netflix and favors their connection to Hulu. They can slow the connection to the point where Netflix's quality drops, load times are long, etc, you get the idea. Meanwhile, they can also make sure that Hulu always has a fast, crystal-clear connection, even if that means screwing over other connections when the bandwidth gets tight. Long story short, Comcast gets to use the fact that they own the infrastructure to unfairly undermine their competition. It'd be like if Verizon *purposefully* gave you shitty call quality whenever you called somebody who used Sprint. However, **in a world *with* Net Neutrality**, Comcast *can't* discriminate between the services it provides a connection to. Legally, they have to treat Netflix, YouTube and everybody else in the same way that they treat Hulu. They don't get to play favorites. Thus, you (the consumer) end up benefiting enormously, because you can pick whatever service you like the best and can't be forced into watching Hulu because Comcast wants you to. As you can see, **Net Neutrality is good because it keeps the internet free from the manipulation of the people who run it, who don't always have your best interests at heart.** For comparison, phone carriers have been subjected to similar regulations for years; they can't prioritize certain calls over others based on who's calling who. Obviously, this hasn't caused any huge problems for phone carriers, so the only reason why ISPs are fighting against similar laws for the internet is because they don't want to lose the gravy train.",
"The internet is a giant crisscrossing networks of pipes transporting tiny packets of data. If you want something that is 100 kilobytes it'll be spread out across hundreds of packets which will individually travel across the network in the most efficient route. However between your home and the beginning of the above mentioning quilt of the internet is the thread that connects you to it (your ISP). Net-Neutrality dictates that an ISP has no right to change the speed or the route of your packet(s) based on it's destination. The easiest example is if Comcast (Xfinity) wanted to encourage their customers to use their OnDemand service for internet-TV they might degrade the quality of your Netflix connection in the hopes that you as a customer will say \"Man Netflix is always so **slow**, I should try Xfinity!\" However this is inherently unfair to both Netflix and you as a customer. The ISP is directly impeding Netflix's ability to run as a business and is denying you, as a customer, from making an informed decision. As a parallel to this imagine your local cities streets were contracted out to a private contractor. This contractor also owns a nearby Ford dealership. In order to boost sales he makes the road to all of the other dealerships incredibly bumpy and all of the road-signs are confusing and made it incredibly difficult to navigate. Some people will continue to make the journey because they **really** want a Chevy. But a lot of people will just throw their hands up in frustration and buy a Ford. The difference between this example and Net Neutrality is that roads are protected by the government as a public entity (similar to a utility) while right now the Internet is not protected (and Trump is actively trying to revoke what little protections are in place). If you want another example, imagine your neighbor who is a really good person is trying to set up a local business to custom make a small widget that he sells online. However his local ISP also owns a business which mass-produces those widgets. In order to make it harder for your neighbor to compete he makes 50% of the packets which go to his website fail to arrive. This causes potential customers to constantly drop their connection. Maybe some will persevere through it, but many would rather just go to the mass-produced company and buy them. This is **not** your neighbors fault and he is competing fairly, however he is being artificially blocked and being forced to fail. There is nothing your neighbor can do to protect himself except to pay a \"Special Fee\" to his local ISP for a \"Protected Connection\". If he does this he can compete fairly, but the ISP still wins because although they may be losing potential (stolen) business, they are still making free money for NOT blocking his website. This is extortion."
],
"score": [
16,
7,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
66qrjj | Why do mobile apps (facebook/twitter/etc) have updates so often? | Why do mobile apps have 30+mb updates every day or two? I've never understood what kind of bug fixes etc. they would need to update so frequently for. Can someone enlighten me please? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgkpps1"
],
"text": [
"There are multiple reasons. One is because there are so many devices, at least on Android. Those hundreds of devices all have different screen sizes, processors, OS versions, and many other differences. As users find bugs, they can report them, and with the hundreds of millions of devices out there, that is a lot of bug reports. Also, new things are being added all the time, like Facebook's Stories, which also induce more bugs to be found. Other things are added, or fixed language translations, patches for security flaws, or removal of outdated features."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
66ramk | What is better about flat cables rather than regular cylindrical ones? I keep seeing them advertised as being better. | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgkn2vo"
],
"text": [
"Cylindrical things have relatively equal resistance going in any direction, so they can bend and get tangled in a variety of ways. Flat cables bend easily one way but are harder to bend across the thicker side. Since they tangle less they can be advertised as better."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
66rc1z | What is the thing they use to trigger an explosive in cartoons? | I'm talking about something like this: URL_0 I have some experience with explosives, but never encountered such a thing. | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgknhpw",
"dgknltb",
"dgknk2g"
],
"text": [
"That is a blasting generator. Back in the days before microelectronics it was not that easy to generate a high voltage current from batteries to set off electronic blasting caps. So you would have a small hand operated generator to generate the current you needed to set off the blasting caps.",
"Its called a plunger detonator, or a plunger box detonator. Edit: From URL_0 - > It is a generator, like in those old crank phones. Except, the one in the plunger is a bit beefier for more current. The shaft has teeth on it, these rotate a gear inside the box, which is connected to a shaft on which is a coil of wire. Around the coil are magnets. The rotating of the coil between the magnet poles makes an electric current (these things will bite you if you are not careful) which then goes out to the detonator cap. The cap blows, setting off the high explosive of your choice. Modern detonators are spring loaded, and much smaller. You can see the A-Team using them, a little box with a Tee handle. wind up the spring, and let it go.",
"It's called a dynamite plunger. You press down on the handle, which creates an electric current, which sends a charge down the wires to trigger the explosive. URL_0"
],
"score": [
7,
7,
5
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[
"http://brassgoggles.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=780.0"
],
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9W8BnHBVxmg"
]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
66rgi4 | What is Elon Musk's new company Neuralink, and what is its goal? | I saw Elon announced a new company called Neuralink, and I read part of the article about it, but couldn't really understand what it's all about. | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgkr7o5"
],
"text": [
"Brain-machine interfaces (BMIs) already exist, and are used for a variety of medical purposes. Cochlear implants can restore some hearing, retinal implants can offer low-resolution sight, and vagus nerve stimulation can reduce the severity of epileptic seizures. However, for as wonderful as they are, all of those things kind of suck. They're bulky and obtrusive and not especially effective (although they're far better than any alternative). So, a part of Neuralink's mission is to develop more convenient, effective, and cheaper BMIs (which may sound familiar if you've been following SpaceX's development of cheaper, faster, more frequent rocket launches). As they miniaturize, implants should be able to work at a finer resolution and produce better effects. Retinal implants with more smaller \"pixels\" might be able to offer full, baseline-level sight, rather than the fuzzy, blocky \"at least I'm not running into things\" vision they produce right now. That's what we know for certain. Anything beyond that is speculation. This blog post, which has extensively covered Musk's businesses, suggests that the ultimate goal is the classic sci-fi merger of artificial intelligence and computing with our brains. The argument is that Musk is deeply worried about the development of AI and sees it as inevitable (both of which he's on record stating), so our best chance for a good outcome is to *become* that AI by integrating it with our brains. Some choice quotes from Musk at the end of the article: > We’re going to have the choice of either being left behind and being effectively useless or like a pet—you know, like a house cat or something—or eventually figuring out some way to be symbiotic and merge with AI. A house cat’s a good outcome, by the way. > The pace of progress in this direction matters a lot. We don’t want to develop digital superintelligence too far before being able to do a merged brain-computer interface. URL_0"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text_urls": [
[
"http://waitbutwhy.com/2017/04/neuralink.html"
]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
66t1ve | How license plate readers, both stationary and on police patrol cars. Help stop gang violence. | I was recently watching my local news station. They had a pretty large segment on how license plate readers stop gang violence. The segment ended up having less information then I was hoping for. After watching it I still do not understand how the police would use the collected information to stop gang violence. | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgl2pst",
"dgl4kgp"
],
"text": [
"Often when a news source says something helps \"stop\" a particular kind of crime, they don't mean it helps pre-emptively stop a particular thing from happening. They really mean it helps catch perpetrators faster, cut down on repeat behavior between the first offense and arrest, and therefore reduce that kind of crime over time. & nbsp; Say a known gang member goes and shoots up someone's house, killing the residents. Police investigate, gang-member says he was at home playing poker with his homies all night, they corroborate that story. Without some other evidence, the police can't prove he wasn't there. NOW, police have license plate readers (both cruisers passively scanning the cars in front of them and stationary ones maybe at major intersections) that see this gang member's car at 3 different locations in a direct route between his house and the victim's on the night in question. The reader helps provide police with more evidence of where a certain suspect was in relation to a crime when they don't have witnesses at the scene and the suspect's neighbors all play dumb. This is particularly helpful in the area of gang violence, where gang members often live in close proximity to one another and are more likely to lie about where their fellow gang member was than a random non-affiliated neighbor.",
"License plate readers help the government monitor and track people. The story about catching gang members is supposed to make you feel good about losing your right to be free from this Orwellian surveillance."
],
"score": [
12,
11
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
66tc1h | What circumstances is torrenting legal? | Obviously any freeware would be okay. Is it ever legal to torrent a Movie? If you pay for cable/streaming services are the shows on there legal to download since you pay for those in a way? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgl4msq",
"dgl4t5x",
"dgli9is"
],
"text": [
"Torrenting is legal so long as the people you are Torrenting from have the legal rights to distribute the files they are distributing. If you seed, it's legal so long as you have the legal right to distribute the files you're seeding.",
"In most cases it's legal only with the permission of the copyright holder. Just because you're allowed to make a copy one way, doesn't mean you're allowed to make a copy any way you like. It's also legal to torrent something in the public domain, which means the copyright has expired, was given up, or was not correctly registered to begin with. This is rare for movies. It's also legal if the copyright is not recognised by your country. For example software and movies copyrighted in the USA are reproduced freely in Iran, and vice-versa, because Iran and the USA do not recognise each other's copyrights.",
"Torrents are just a download protocol, so not illegal by itself. It all depends on WHAT you download."
],
"score": [
24,
4,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
66tnl5 | how are traffic light sequences decided and programmed? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgl7853",
"dglaaxa",
"dgl7ba8"
],
"text": [
"The sequence is usually the same, north/south goes, then people turning left, then east/west goes, then more people turning left. At a good intersection the length of the light is determined by inductive sensors buried in the road, which senses the cars and know exactly when the last one goes through.",
"Here in the Bay Area: completely and utterly fucked up. Usually just bigger roads get longer times. And it has a fixed pattern that it would rotate against. Coming from Sweden this is extremely agitating as traffic lights back home have sensors under the road to sense traffic and use it to give green to lanes when it's safe and depending on traffic in real time. So no waiting around for 5 minutes when you drive at night and there's nobody there.",
"My amateur understanding is that in many towns the traffic patterns are monitored and adjusted according to time of day for what makes the most efficient and safe traffic patterns. We are so controlled ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ They will either be on a timer pattern where each light changes according to a predetermined and controllable sequence (how long each light is green, orange, or red. They may also be on a sensor based system where the priority will be longer greens for busier streets while sensors within the pavement (or cameras, infrared, laser, I'm not confident about how, I just know there are sensors.) that start a countdown for the light to change. These sensors can also be buttons that pedestrians can push to gain safe crossing."
],
"score": [
10,
9,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
66ufcm | How come when phone screens break, they are still completely functional and readable, but when computer monitors or TVs break, they can no longer display the correct colors? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgleb0y",
"dgle1z6"
],
"text": [
"To explain it simply...when you break a monitor, you're breaking the screen directly. When you're breaking a phone screen for the most part, it's like breaking a glass panel placed over the monitor rather than the monitor itself. The glass is there for structural rigidity and to protect the LCD as LCDs are very, *very* fragile and break easily. So the glass takes the hit rather than the LCD, and breaks. Bonus trivia: Usually the digitizer (the thing that tells the phone that you're touching in a certain area) is laid over the LCD (and under the glass) and thus that's why even if a phone is cracked the touch screen still works fine. If you actually pulled off the glass entirely touch would still work okay but the display itself is as fragile an eggshell so the glass is there for structural support. Notable exceptions to this are some LG phones that seem to have the digitizers integrated into the *glass*, so when they break, touch no longer works.",
"You are breaking the digitizer on top the panel. If the crack goes deep enough to crack the actual display panel, it'll look like a broken monitor. The digitizer is what reads the touch input hence isn't on tv's and most monitors."
],
"score": [
8,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
66v4er | Can a telescope act as a microscope? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgliw1o"
],
"text": [
"A telescope is focused at infinity. It expects all light to come in parallel to the telescope. If you look at something close it ends up blurry. A microscope on the other hand is focused at a very close range. The difference can be adjusted by a single lens often called a macro lens. But you might have problems with the focus adjustment ranges and different light condition requirements."
],
"score": [
7
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
66v5vi | How do CPUs understand Assembly Language | For example CMP EAX 1 How does the CPU understand the opcode CMP? And by extension, how does the CPU compare two numbers? Where are they stored when being compared? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dglj34m"
],
"text": [
"The assembly code gets mapped into binary machine code. This is a pretty simple mapping and if you have read the x86 manual where all the assembly opcodes are listed their machine codes are listed with them. In the CPU there is a small state machine that runs the microcode that often comes in driver upgrades. This state machine is quite simple so is implemented in hardware. It have a lot of single bit output signals that goes to a number of muxers in the CPU. A muxer have a number of inputs and outputs and depending on the command input it is given it connects the selected inputs and outputs together. In this way the CPU is able to read the machine code and send the numbers between different registers, transfer lines, compute circuitry, memory, etc. The CMP command is quite fun. It is actually a subtraction without a designated output. So it subtract the two numbers and disregards the output. Every operation can set a few single bit flags that is stored in the flag register. The subtraction operation sets two flags, one if the result is negative and one if the result is zero. The following conditional jump opcodes use these flags as the condition."
],
"score": [
5
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
66vxxk | How does Stephen Hawking "talk"? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dglnytp"
],
"text": [
"From URL_0 > My main interface to the computer is through an open source program called ACAT, written by Intel. This provides a software keyboard on the screen. A cursor automatically scans across this keyboard by row or by column. I can select a character by moving my cheek to stop the cursor. My cheek movement is detected by an infrared switch that is mounted on my spectacles. This switch is my only interface with the computer. > ACAT includes a word prediction algorithm provided by SwiftKey, trained on my books and lectures, so I usually only have to type the first couple of characters before I can select the whole word. When I have built up a sentence, I can send it to my speech synthesizer. I use a separate hardware synthesizer, made by Speech Plus. It is the best I have heard, although it gives me an accent that has been described variously as Scandinavian, American or Scottish."
],
"score": [
16
],
"text_urls": [
[
"http://www.hawking.org.uk/the-computer.html"
]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
66vy2r | Why are Xeon processors better suited for server applications than mainstream CPUs? | Just curious what makes them better... | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dglpd5t",
"dgltl1g",
"dglpbrr",
"dglvqbv",
"dgm50yj"
],
"text": [
"Xeon processors allow you to use ECC (Error-correcting code) memory. This is crucial in servers because it allows the memory to self correct data corruption in most instances. It also provides more virtualization functionality which is common in servers today. On top of these two major differences they also allow for multiple CPUs in the same workstation and generally come in higher core counts which is beneficial to a server doing many tasks.",
"Along with support for ECC memory, Xeon processors are \"certified\" by Intel to produce mathematically consistent and correct results. Your home budget spreadsheet will be ok if the 32nd decimal place of a one time calculation is incorrect. But, it your a High-Frequency Trader making millions on stock transactions, then any minute calculation error will be very expensive over time. Some Xeons that fail certification become i7 processors.",
"For one, you can run several of them together on the same motherboard. We have a server at my workplace that has 64 CPUs. Also, higher core counts (up to 16), larger cache, and support for error-correcting memory.",
"In addition to the other answers here they also typically have more level 1 cache memory than desktop processors. L1 cache helps speed up context switching.",
"\"Server\" changes over time in enterprise environments. It used to mean a very high power dedicated machine. But today it might just as well mean a very high powered VMware environment running virtual servers. The Xeon has a few things going for it that make it suitable for enterprise server or vm environments. It has a lot of cores which allows for extensive multitasking or multithreaded application support. VM environments can also assign dedicated CPU cores to a particular virtual machine. It has a large amount of on board L1, L2, and L3 cache to speed up memory access which helps servers with high input and output IOPS requirements. And it supports ECC memory which is a kind of RAM with built in parity checking that prevents errors and crashes caused by radiation and electromagnetic noise altering memory values. Basically it's RAM that will keep accurate values in all conditions. Normal desktop computers use non ECC memory and if a random neutron goes zipping through a memory chip and changes a 0 to a 1 it can cause corruption or a system crash. It's rare, but when you need 99.99% up time vs 99% uptime it's worth it. Lastly, the number of PCIx lanes and northbridge functions allow Xeons to support very high input output operations a second (IOPS) with high speed access to multiple high performance RAID arrays, network adapters running anywhere from 1GBPS to 10GBPS, as well as multiple processor setups where a motherboard accepts 2 or more Xeon processors together. Xeon chips also support a slightly different instruction set than say an I7 desktop processor. This allows it to more efficiently execute common commands you might find in an enterprise Linux environment or VMware ESXI environment. One of the products I work on at my job has 16 to 32 cores and it's mission critical function is very high network, disk, and memory IOPS. The Xeon chips help it to achieve this with high bandwidth dedicated PCI express lanes, fast memory access and caching, and multiple cores allow threading of child processes to individual cores. Like 2 cores keep the database clean, 4 run DB queries, 2 handle GUI rendering, etc."
],
"score": [
91,
54,
10,
5,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
66w911 | Why do the first 4 numbers of my IPV6 Address never change? | Ive noticed lately that the first 4 numbers of my ipv6 address never change. For example my ip address looks like this xxxx:xx:xxxx:xxxx:fd50:56d4:8e2d:c6c4 Where the x's remain constant and the last 4 numbers change constantly. What do those first 4 numbers mean and why dont they change? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgls27e",
"dglrz4l"
],
"text": [
"The first 64 bits of your ip address is your network. It is assigned or given to you by your provider. Just like your house number never changes (without a lot of extra planning) your network won't change (without a lot of extra planning). The last 64 bits are your device address. Depending on your network configuration and type of device, it may change frequently, or may not change at all. A server's IP is likely to be static, and a desktop, phone, or refrigerator will have a temporary IP so someone can't use your IP to scan or hack your device.",
"IP addresses aren't just random, they actually describe your logical location on the Internet. ISPs and large organisations have a range of IP addresses, which all start with the same number. That range will be a subset of the addresses *their* ISP has. This means that if something on the Internet sends something to you, each router along the way knows which way to send the data so it gets to you. So it's a bit like a real life street address. One sorting office might not know exactly where your address is, but they know where your city is so they send it to a sorting office there. When it gets to your ISP, they have records of who has which IP address at any given time, so they know where to send the message even though your specific address changes."
],
"score": [
10,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
66xif0 | Why does machine-made ice cubes have holes in them? | When I make ice cubes at home (in a tray) the cubes are perfectly square, but at restaurants the ice cubes have a hollow part on one of the sides... why? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgm0ltu",
"dgm070z"
],
"text": [
"When you make them at home, you fill compartments in a tray with water and freeze the entire thing, so each compartment becomes an ice cube. Ice makers work slightly differently. They have an array of fingers (or prongs or spikes, whatever) which are dipped into a container of water. These fingers are chilled, causing ice to form around them and build up into the shape you know. The fingers are [lifted out of the water, each covered in ice]( URL_0 ). They are warmed very slightly, allowing the ice to fall off, leaving the hole in the middle. Freezing around the fingers is faster than waiting for all the water to freeze.",
"Because that machine makes ice by taking a metal rod, chilling it to below freezing, and then spraying water onto it, where the water freezes. When the ice is thick enough, the machine briefly heats the rod- the inner layer of ice melts, and the rest of the cube slides off and falls into the hopper."
],
"score": [
9,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[
"http://cdn.newair.com/kb/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/ice-1-300x200.jpg"
],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
66xisn | Aren't electric cars still using fossil fuels? | Since most electricity (~85% in US) comes from burning of fossil fuels, wouldn't electric cars using the electricity be using fossil fuels? Is it significantly more efficient to use the fossil fuels burned at the power plant instead of gasoline in a car? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgm0p2x",
"dgm0uq0"
],
"text": [
"Yes, electric cars will still be using energy that's ultimately derived from fossil fuels for the most part, but as you guessed, the tiny engine in an automobile is significantly less efficient than the enormous turbines and other equipment used in power plants. As well, power plants have a lot more (and more effective) pollution-mitigation equipment than a car does, so even if the power plant were equally efficient, it would still produce less pollution.",
"Looking at the energy going in and out alone, electric cars are between 50-70% efficient. The worst offenders for traditional power generation are coal plants, which are in the neighborhood of 20% efficient (with nuclear, gas and solar being superior, anywhere from 30-50%). Though a great advantage for electric is that it isn't picky where the power comes from. If you're from Washington state where 70% of your power comes from hydroelectric, the electricity itself is very efficient (~90%) and low pollution. Gasoline and diesel-powered cars are anywhere from 10-30% efficient at converting the chemical energy stored in the fuel into vehicle motion. Trucks that regularly spend most of their lives at optimal highway speeds can reach 40%."
],
"score": [
8,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
66xsm3 | How would extraterrestrial life forms be able to decipher a message in binary? | I have heard that binary coding is a universal language. But I was also told that letters are represented by a series of numbers. Therefore how would they be able to comprehend us? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgm4b2a"
],
"text": [
"It's not so much that we think binary is a universal language. We think that *numbers* are universal, and that binary is the simplest way to communicate them. We'd do something like sending sequences of prime numbers, effectively communicating the message \"there is intelligent life here\"."
],
"score": [
8
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
66xw8t | How do people with metal body parts go through metal detectors at airports? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgm36tp",
"dgm39li"
],
"text": [
"They don't. These days they are directed through the millimeter wave detectors. Or they can opt for a hand screening.",
"My father has 2 fake knees. He carries a note saying that. He also gets screened and gets a pat down."
],
"score": [
15,
5
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
66xxbv | What are the differences in the levels of caches? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgm4h1m",
"dgm6wlf"
],
"text": [
"Speed and size. By speed I mean how fast can the cache give you data you want (aka latency). Size is tied to the speed of the cache, the smaller the cache is the faster it can give you the data. That is the main tradeof. You want the cache fast (small) but you want to be able to store a lot of data (slow). The smart guys making computers figured out that having multiple caches of increasing size is optimal. Example. CPU wants data, asks the L1 cache for it, L1 is small and therefore fast to look up the data and gives it to the CPU. CPU wants another data so asks L1 again, but this time L1 doesn't have the data. L1 is too small (because it needs to be fast) so the data was deleted to free space. So the request goes level up to the L2 cache. L2 is bigger (that also means slower) so it can hold more data and there is higher chance it has the data CPU needs. In case L2 doesn't have it, L3 is searched (even bigger and even slower). If even L3 doesn't have it, the RAM is accessed (this takes ages from computers perspective compared to looking the data up in the caches).",
"ELI5 answer involving milk for your cereal. Your whole family is eating cereal for breakfast, so you bring a carton of milk to the table, but it runs out. Your L1 cache is your refrigerator. It's only a few steps away. Your L2 cache is the neighborhood grocery store. They have to constantly stock up on milk. Your L3 cache is Costco. Main memory is the dairy that produces the milk."
],
"score": [
6,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
66ytvg | why does every car have remote central locking but homes do not? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgmbvz2",
"dgmbalh",
"dgmpgym"
],
"text": [
"You can get remote locking door locks for your home. But in general they are harder to get power to. Most exterior facing home doors are solid and hard to fish power wires to. The \"wifi\" and digital combo locks you see are all battery powered so you need to remember to change those batteries. I used to live at a place with a fancy electric lock but I never used it since it was always out of power and I didn't feel like it was worth it to change the battery. On the other side car doors have tons of holes to fish wires through. The battery recharges every time you drive it so you don't have to worry about power. It is smaller so less wires to run around. In addition wanting to unlock all doors at once is nice.",
"There is very rarely a need for a non-keyholder to get inside your house, so it only makes sense to keep the doors permanently locked. Likewise, the situations where you would benefit from unlocking all doors in your house are vanishingly rare, so why would you pay a lot of money for that functionality? In comparison, people get in and out of cars constantly, commonly without owning said car. Keeping the doors unlocked is convenient, as is having the ability of locking them down at once.",
"Cars are federally mandated to lock the doors once you start driving as a safety feature in many countries. This means cars already have all the gear to electrically lock all the doors. The cost of this gear is baked into the base price already. Adding a radio and key fob to let you do it from outside is a minimal additional expense, and a perceived high value addition. Homes have no such mandate. You can get it setup, but you will be paying for every bit of it, explicitly."
],
"score": [
31,
10,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
66zcd9 | why are there no transparent phones, computers or TV like we see in futuristic movies even though we have the technology? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgmfryr",
"dgmfmpt",
"dgmicl5",
"dgmgg4t"
],
"text": [
"because it would be awful. you get enough glare from light shining on the front, now imagine how bad it'd be if you add light coming through the back",
"Circuits arnt see though yet and itd be kind of annoying vs just seeing whats on your screen",
"Are you old enough to remember the clear Swatch watch? Clear turns yellow.",
"Movies use these because they show the actor's faces through the screen. But they are pretty terrible for readability."
],
"score": [
11,
6,
5,
5
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
66zv5f | What's the difference between a CPU with integrated graphics and an APU? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgml4i7"
],
"text": [
"A 'CPU with integrated graphics' is a technical description. \"APU\" is a brand name from AMD, like how \"Retina\" is a brand name from Apple describing a high DPI screen."
],
"score": [
12
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
670sb9 | Why are Scuba Suits mainly black? | I know that some fish tend to have their underbellies white and the tops dark (some rays), is there some relation of this with scuba suits? Or to do with absorbing heat, being seen, etc. Thanks! | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgmsvos",
"dgmuded"
],
"text": [
"The purpose of a wetsuit is to keep you warm. They do this by trapping water between the suit and your skin. Black is the best color to absorb sunlight - and heat the suit up. There may be some other reasons but I believe this is the main one..",
"A big reason is so they will dry out more quickly. It can be pretty hard to get a wet suit dry, and if you pack it away when it is still wet it can get kind of funky. Letting it sit in the sun for an afternoon will usually do the trick."
],
"score": [
8,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
671717 | What is it about Microsoft updates that they happen so often, instead of waiting a longer period of time to update alot in one sitting? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgmwd2f"
],
"text": [
"Back in the Windows 98 days MS released the 'Critical Update Notification Tool' (no idea how that acronym got past them; when they figured it out they renamed it 'Critical Update Notification Utility'). It would check MS servers for 'Critical' updates every 5 minutes (literally) and whenever IE was opened. You could change that behavior to something a bit more sane, but every time it installed an update it would reset the frequency to every 5 minutes. In the following years MS considered their biggest public relations problem to be the bad press they were getting about bugs, crashes, and driver glitches, some of which weren't their fault (due to viruses, trojans, other malware, and apps outside of their control). In 2000 they released Automatic Updates, which only checked for updates once each day, in hopes that fewer people would disable updates. Then in 2005 they released Microsoft Update, which also updated apps and system drivers and Service Packs, and the sight of a thousand little updates that didn't bother saying what they were for - you had to click on each one, copy a link, and paste it into your browser - made a lot of people decide that the easiest way to get Windows to shut up about updates was to disable updates altogether. Their current practice of issuing security updates on the second Tuesday of each month is actually a compromise between the shotgun updates of long ago and just turning the damn updates off."
],
"score": [
8
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
673o62 | Why isn't there a universal volume level? | Since I'm not entirely sure how to explain it, I'll explain my frustration. When I listen to youtube, I need to raise my volume button, when I toggle over to a game, I need to lower it, when I want to watch Netflix, I need to adjust it once again. | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgnfmex"
],
"text": [
"Your talking about volume normalization. There is such a thing. Not everyone uses it in recording post peocessing. They should."
],
"score": [
21
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6751ju | How the anti-shoplifting vertical bars at stores' exits work (if you have no clue what I'm talking about let me know) | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgnq5mk"
],
"text": [
"These panels are RFID detectors. Some valuable/high incidence of theft items have a little plastic tag attached to them, within which is an antenna and a programmable chip. If one of them gets too close to the panel's, they sound an alarm. They can be disabled by a strong magnet wiping them, which is why sometimes you'll see a cashier repeatedly wipe an item over a particular spot on the counter."
],
"score": [
7
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6777ge | Why does Reddit search often fail.? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgo9nel",
"dgo9lts"
],
"text": [
"I remember some redditor saying that most search engines refreshes the search automatically after a certain amount of time if it doesn't go through but for reddit instead of refreshing it just goes 404",
"I don't get this either. If it's taking some time, why not let it finish? How can it just \"give up\" after one second?"
],
"score": [
5,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6783j2 | Why do ads nowadays ask you to search for the brand name or keywords rather than providing a website? | Most print, cinema, radio, or any other ads (I use adblock so I don't get internet ads, there may be an exception there, and I also don't watch TV so that might also be an exception) for the last few years seem to say to search (like on a search engine) for their brand name or keywords of the ad instead of providing a website. This especially seems to happen with car ads. I'm in Australia so I don't know if this is the same elsewhere. | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgodzwe",
"dgohb2a"
],
"text": [
"What do you remember easier, \"Search for Plink on google!\" or \"Go to URL_0 !\"? In the first case, you only have to sort of remember the name (was it plunk? pink? Something like that), in the second case you have to remember the website unless you're going to google it anyway",
"Forcing you to search for them on google inflates the number of people doing so, therefore placing their product higher on google's search results. Leading people who didn't nessicarily hear the original commercial being more likely to be shown that website in a search result. The ad man is getting you to work the system on his behalf for free"
],
"score": [
12,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[
"www.wesellplinks.com"
],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
679cmf | why do capital letters matter in URLs for YouTube videos? | **Why do capital letters matter in URLs for YouTube videos?** Taking a video for example: * Why does this URL work? URL_0 * But this one doesn't? URL_2 Is there a reason for doing this? If so, what is it? Are the capital letters randomised? Edit: Another video (if the above doesn't work): * With capital letters: URL_1 * Without capital letters: URL_3 | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgomygq"
],
"text": [
"Because that way you get shorter URLs. Assume no numbers for a moment. If you disregard difference between capital and lowercase letters, you have 26 different options for 1-letter long video tags. If you regard them as different letters, you have 52 options. For 2 letter long video tags, you have a bit under 700 choices if you disregard the difference, and bit over 2700 if you don't. For 10 letter tags, you have 1,000 times more possible tags available to you if you don't disregard the difference."
],
"score": [
4
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
679hf4 | Why do ads attached to videos tend to load faster with better quality than the actual video I'm trying to watch? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgonzqc",
"dgp773j"
],
"text": [
"The ads are presented to many people in your area for many different types of requests so they are kept in a local cache while your specific video likely is not. Think about going to a car parts store and requesting a specific part. They need to go find it on the racks of many different parts. Also they give you a flyer of coupons with your order, a stack of which is kept at the front counter because they always need them for every order. The coupons are easy to get ahold of just like the advertisement is kept handy.",
"Ads are also prioritized. \"The video\" is the *lure* to get you to their site. \"Showing you the Ad\" is the *product* the site sells to the Ad-distributors. So the site needs to make sure that works perfectly."
],
"score": [
86,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
679irn | How does clicking the "I'm not a robot" reCAPTCHA box confirm that I'm human? | Couldn't a spam program automatically click the box to bypass this? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgop3ld",
"dgoyn92",
"dgop2yo",
"dgosdam",
"dgpccv3",
"dgowj2c",
"dgonzem",
"dgowyhu",
"dgp16pi",
"dgp0sso"
],
"text": [
"reCAPTCHA takes account of a whole lot of information about how your cursor moves before you ever click that box. If it looks like something a spam program might do, it throws up an extra challenge, like identifying features in images, that humans are still much better at than bots. Things that can set it off include \"teleporting\" the cursor to the right location, moving it in perfectly straight lines, and similar.",
"A very important part of this, is your actual browsing history, known by Google. If Google recognize you, and knows you are browsing like every other human being would do (check the news, read your email), than you get the easy challenge. However, if Google doesn't know, or trust you, you can get a lot picture solving challenges. Sometimes I have to solve 3 challenges before reCAPTCHA is satisfied.",
"There's a lot of speculation, but not enough hard data here, unfortunately, as it's not open source. Most of the speculation is towards things like human interaction. As a person, to check that box, you need to use your mouse to move the icon to the box, then click it. You're very rarely going to be dead center. If you're a program (at least a simple one), you're going to use Javascript or something similar to move the cursor to the center of the box, then click it. The thought is that it looks for non-human style movements and controls to identify bots.",
"It observes patterns of events in the document. For example, mouseover, mouseout, mousedown. It then compares the recorded data against training data using some kind of machine learning algorithm.",
"All the answers are right but not complete. \"NoCaptcha\" reCaptcha uses heavy obfuscation of its JavaScript code in order to try to prevent an analysis of what it is measuring. This guy URL_1 figured out what it measured by some reverse engineering and later these others URL_0 figured out some of how it measures the user profiles, enough to break it. These days it gets easier and easier to track individual users and devices (even if they are using different browsers!) so these techniques have the potential to work as long as how they measure it remains \"secret\". If not, all these measures can be faked. To me, is appalling to see that Google is following here the principle of Security by Obscurity, that has a long tradition of failure in IT Security. Instead they should be more bold and sponsor serious research and Security by Design.",
"When I'm using remote control software of the server, I always have to perform the challenges. The software registers clicks not mouse movements. It looks like a robot is browsing.",
"Some time ago, ticking this box would've opened a window with a few tiles. On this picture you'd see a random shot of a street, and you're supposed to tick all tiles of the picture that contain a street sign. That's saved for a while, so you only need to do that once every couple of days, weeks, or months.",
"If you were a robot (the kind theyre looking for anyway, automatic scripts etc), your mouse cursor would just instantly appear at the button and click it. You pass the test by moving your cursor from one place to another like a human would.",
"I always see people claim that reCAPTCHA works on things like how you move around your mouse, and maybe that is part of it, but I have never seen that claim evidenced. > To counter this, last year we developed an Advanced Risk Analysis backend for reCAPTCHA that actively considers a user’s entire engagement with the CAPTCHA—**before, during, and after**—to determine whether that user is a human. This enables us to rely less on typing distorted text and, in turn, offer a better experience for users. - URL_0 This seems to indicate that reCAPTCHA at least partially is reliant on your history of interaction with this service and probably other Google services as well.",
"Most of the answers in this thread are only partially correct or are incomplete. If you're willing to watch a short video on the subject I think [this video]( URL_0 ) provides a good explanation. You can start at about 4 minutes in if you don't want the history of why we use the system we do today. The TL;DW is that it sends a request with all sorts of information such as IP address, country, time stamp and yes, as other people have said, info about how your cursor is moving, timing between browser events, and other information which Google is keeping secret right now. That is run through a risk analysis engine and if you fail, then you get the image recognition CAPTCHA."
],
"score": [
136,
82,
32,
26,
17,
10,
9,
8,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://www.blackhat.com/docs/asia-16/materials/asia-16-Sivakorn-Im-Not-a-Human-Breaking-the-Google-reCAPTCHA-wp.pdf",
"https://github.com/neuroradiology/InsideReCaptcha"
],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://security.googleblog.com/2014/12/are-you-robot-introducing-no-captcha.html"
],
[
"https://youtu.be/jCr6rNaZ9EU"
]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
679r40 | How do we know that a machine isn't deceiving us during a Turing test by simulating detectable machine answers so the AI remains undetected? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgoqfip",
"dgp3gj5"
],
"text": [
"Theoretically it's possible that someday there could be an intelligent machine that tried to hide its own intelligence. Today we know that's not the case because we understand how all of the machines that have ever competed in Turing tests actually work. They're all designed to fool an unsuspecting human for a few minutes or otherwise say human-like things, but not to have real intelligence.",
"In general, many people give too much credit to Artificial Intelligence in its current state of advancement. Most Artificial Intelligence is simply a very complex rule based system. If x than y. If not x than z. While the situations become much more complicated and the algorithms used to make these decisions could make your head spin, the rules and algorithms still create very binary decisions which could not lead to a machine \"deceiving\" humans during a Turing Test. A specific type of Artificial Intelligence known as Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) is where I think your question more directly applies. ANNs are unique as humans have to \"teach\" these systems versus creating rules. The way humans \"teach\" ANNs is through data training sets where the ANN derives what it perceives as meaningful patterns. An ANN (hahaha) is only as smart as the data set you have chosen to teach it and selecting the data to teach the ANN is not an exact science. For example, there was a study done where an ANN was designed to identify helicopters in images. The study complied 100's of photos with helicopters in the image and then 100's of photos without a helicopter in the image. The ANN was confirmed to have learned the data set through various validation methods with a 90%+ success rate. However, when given new photos failed to correctly identify helicopters less than 50% of the time. What's the deal?!? Well, the difficult part about ANNs is the way it arrives at a decision cannot be easily determined or traced. What the study found out was that all of the photos with the helicopters in the image were taken on days where there were clouds in the sky. So instead of actually identifying the helicopter itself, the ANN made the conclusion that if there was a cloud there was a helicopter which worked for the very small data set but failed when presented with new data. So how do we chose the perfect data set to train ANNs to perform a specific task? Who knows... not to mention the issues encountered when dealing with large volumes of structured and unstructured data with missing or incomplete data sets. The most notable feature about an ANN though is the fact that it still does not make \"new decisions\" as it uses patterns it has already been taught based on training data sets to reach decisions. As shown in the example above, even if we generated a data set which would aim to \"deceive humans during a Turing Test\" the ANN could draw a completely irrelevant conclusion not to mention the fact that humans would have to generate a data set which would teach it to have actual intelligence or enough to learn how to decieve... Soo I guess the answer is until humans can figure out how to \"teach\" something to have genuine intelligence/deceive humans any AI will be unable to deceive humans in a Turing Test because the AI makes rule based decisions or in the case of an ANN makes decisions based on a small representative portion of data (that may not even be appropriate) where it would already have to have been \"taught\" to deceive humans during a Turing Test. As mentioned in other comments, the Turing Test is actually not a great standard to measure machine intelligence and better standards need to be created as AI advances."
],
"score": [
9,
9
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
679w4b | Why does San Francisco, home to an industry known for literally inventing telecommuting, suffer from so much location-based demand when the employees could be living anywhere? | Why is it that tech workers need to be in (or close to) San Francisco to work for companies like Google, Oracle, LinkedIn, Adobe, etc. when those companies could embrace telework and hire people from anywhere in the US/world? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgoxew6",
"dgowy8p"
],
"text": [
"Many of the companies here in Silicon Valley have offices in other cities, and those offices do real tech work, so your assumption that the workers have to be here is slightly incorrect, but there are a couple of strong forces at work here that conflate together to create the Bay Area tech industry. First, people choose to live in SF. They do this even when their jobs are 75% of the way to San Jose, and they deal with their 1+ hour commute because they love living in SF. The Bay Area is a great place to live (except, of course, for the horrendous cost of living issue). Second, many jobs allow telecommuting, but some don't. I've always worked in embedded devices (mostly video game consoles), and often, those devices are secret and cannot leave the premises due to security. Silicon valley isn't just software jobs, it is hardware jobs, mechanical engineering jobs, aerospace, and a lot more. This doesn't mean telework is impossible (a lot of the companies you mention have a lot of telework options, and I always video conference from home for early meetings) but there are still strong forces encouraging companies to have their employees in a local space. And it helps the employees too. Not every job can be done from home and interviews tend to be local. So when I change jobs, being in a location full of companies looking for my skill set means I don't have to keep relocating. There are network effects here related to VC that also encourage a local system. Finally, tech companies do hire people from everywhere in the world, they just transplant them to Silicon Valley. That's why Trump's plans for H1-B visas are such a hot topic here. When you are going to hire someone, the cost of a plane ticket isn't that big of a deal. Hell, back in the dot-com days, you usually got a relocation bonus to help with rent (did I mention the cost of living problem?).",
"San Francisco != Silicon Valley San Jose is really the true hub of Silicon Valley, and is about 50 miles away from San Francisco. Most tech workers live there instead of paying for the prestige of living closer to San Francisco. That said, not all IT jobs lend themselves to telecommuting and the ones that do rarely allow you to do it 100% of the time. All things being equal, a local employee is going to be more productive and engaged than a remote one, even if they are only in the office a few times a month. Also, a lot of people in Silicon Valley work for smaller companies emerging companies that are still developing their business. Personal interaction is far more important to them. Also, they usually want to do business with or be acquired by the big boys, and want people on the ground who can make that happen."
],
"score": [
13,
6
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
67blel | Have you tried turning it off and on again? | I understand why some issues may require a restart but this seems such a prevalent solution to (what seems like) a fair range of problems. Is there something else going on? The same goes for unplugging and re-plugging things (looking at you, wifi), what was going wrong previously that is now solved without actually changing anything? Or is this a separate approach to fixing it? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgp58ad"
],
"text": [
"Certain processes stop working right, certain programs don't load properly and the programs on the RAM (active memory to what you are using) is messed up. Restarting the computer clears the RAM allowing your programs and processes to start new and fresh allowing them to run properly the second time. (This is a fairly common question on here, so I won't be surprised if it does not get very far on the page)"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
67d04y | How do sports commentators have access to such seemingly obscure facts and stats at all times? > | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgpmy9s",
"dgpgvi6"
],
"text": [
"There was a show on ESPN years ago about a company that gets all the obscure stats for them. Can't remember the name of the company. They did the crazy stuff, like in baseball when they tell you this is the first time in 17 years a left handed batter has hit a home run off an ambidextrous pitcher in the month of September in back to back games.",
"Some of them are just lifelong fans of the sport... you'd kind of expect a guy who calls 100+ baseball games a year for decades to have a lot of random information about baseball in his head. But they also have producers and assistants who might tell them interesting facts and stats on a channel they can hear but we can't. Or their production team just figures out some information that might be relevant during a game and prints out a page with stuff the announcer can refer to as needed."
],
"score": [
11,
10
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
67fe24 | how do torrents work? | I'm not gonna say that I've download something illegally, I'm not gonna say that its adobe after effect 2017. But if I did do that it says it isn't registered and cant use any of the functions at all? Can someone explain the concept and all. | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgpzhj0",
"dgpz8lr"
],
"text": [
"Do you really want to know how torrents work or do you just want to know why the software you downloaded isn't working? Most programs and games need to be cracked before you can use them. The crack is usually included when you download the software and there is usually an explanation how to do it on the site where you found the torrent.",
"Torrent is just a kind of \"protocol\" to share a file. It works by chopping the file up into chunks (virtually, that is - the file is still intact), and each chunk gets a hash. A hash is a simple mathematical way of identifying something, using the digital content to generate the hash. When you want to download the file, you can either get what's known as a magnet link, which sends out requests for information on the file, or you download a torrent file which points to some server on the internet. You're torrent client asks the server (called a tracker) for a big list of everyone who has that file. Then, you start asking each of those \"seeders\" for little chunks of the file. Once you have all the chunks, you put it together and - viola! You have the file (or files) you wanted, even if they might be questionable."
],
"score": [
5,
5
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
67fjeo | What is Broadband Accessibility Act of 2017? | A few days ago, I came across this post. URL_0 I'm not from U.S, so I'm not really familiar with how messy internet infrastructure is there. Can you guys ELI5 on this topic? - What is Broadband Accessibility Act of 2017? - Is this all related to Net Neutrality thing happening in U.S right now? - Who is winning in this situation? "Win" is a rather vague term. What I mean is who is benefiting most? Telcos, Cable Providers, Customers or someone else? Thanks. | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgqn1ey"
],
"text": [
"> What is Broadband Accessibility Act of 2017? Basically? It's a $45 million bribe being paid to AT & T and Comcast to get them to stop blocking EPB expansion in Tennessee. EPB is an electric power cooperative in Tennessee that started offering gigabit internet service to customers in Chattanooga, but has subsequently faced restrictions on its ability to expand due to heavy lobbying by AT & T and Comcast. The Broadband Accessibility Act is becoming law in Tennessee to effectively bribe AT & T and Comcast with \"a rural development fund\" to get them to step out of the way. > Is this all related to Net Neutrality thing happening in U.S right now? Not really, though EPB will be required to give AT & T and Comcast access to its power poles which is part of what common carriers are expected to do. > Who is winning in this situation? Comcast and AT & T."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
67g39t | Often in movies there are lines of dialogue (subtitles) that aren't possible to hear. | Anyone knows? The subtitles appear and it is impossible to hear the dialogue. Thanks for all the answers so far but this user has my question right: /u/cleverlikeme > I think the OP is actually asking about 'background' conversations that aren't distinguishable audibly but still get clear subtitles. In other words, in some movies, you can read some dialogue that is actually impossible to hear because it's mumbled, trailing off, etc. /u/Aomidoro > I would be very curious to hear from somebody who actually has industry experience with this, because as described by the OP it does seem like sometimes the closed captioning must be produced from the actual script because it contains dialog that is not actually discernible. Closed captions produced in realtime for live tv inevitable have mistakes (I believe they are produced on some sort of phonetic chord-based keyboard?), but actually even closed captions for tv shows that aren't live sometimes have large numbers of errors. I noticed this before on either amazon video or netflix: the closed captions had situations where clearly the person making them didn't understand the word being used (especially for technical terms), so obviously in this case they weren't working from the script. Therefore it seems like there are different ways these captions get made? My guess is that there are essentially two different processes depending on whether a show is captioned by a separate company or whether the captions are from subtitles produced by the actual makers of the show (or perhaps it's simply an issue of whether the creators of the show bother to provide the script or not?), but I'm curious if anyone knows whether this is actually the case? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgq7o0a",
"dgq3e0n",
"dgq382m",
"dgq7bny",
"dgq8ci1",
"dgq3jio",
"dgqiawl",
"dgq3z6j",
"dgqgtl3"
],
"text": [
"I took a class on subtitling in college and it's really important to realize that subtitles, be them for deaf/hard-of-hearing or from on language to another, are a form of poetry. When you bring in time into the situation of reading all kinds of rules pop up. How many characters you can use is a big one, so you might rather use the word \"gross\" over \"disgusting\" for the sake of a shorter subtitle that can actually be read in time. You might correct someone's stutter or mis-speak, unless of course it is critical to the film. The main goal of subtitles is to make the film watchable for someone who can not hear or for someone who does not speak the language the film is in. This means you will make sacrifices, jokes will be lost, information in general will be lost, cultural references, and word play are very common examples. In response to the initial question, the subtitler should use their best judge of whether what needs to be subtitled and what doesn't. Does a visual explosion need \" < Explosion Sound > \" no it does not, but say an explosion is happening and it is silent! Now the subtitle \" < Silence > \" would be super helpful to the viewer. One last factor, is depending on the movie you saw it could have been subtitled with computers which do a terrible job. The best subtitles are still done by humans who can use their best judgement as to what should be included. EDIT: As others brought up it's important to not confuse closed captioning and subtitling. Watch a Criterion DVD if you want to see A+ human done subtitles, watch Netflix or the live news if you want to see a computer type out what it \"hears\". To properly answer the original question I'd need to actually see what the OP saw. I have subtitled films before, one a documentary and some 1920s short films french- > english. I had the script to neither, and of course the documentary didn't have one. Having script would help discern what someone is saying, but it does not always take into account things subtitles do (nor does it take into account tone or the way a word is said which is very important). This includes when the camera cuts, when it's a voice over dub, music, etc. A subtitle is only up right when the person starts talking, and down as soon as they are finished. If they're talking fast, better come up with something that sums it all up. If they're talking and mid-sentence it cuts, you do a new subtitle, this one being in italics (because the character speaking is not on screen). There's a language to subtitling you may understand without even realizing it. Download a freeware subtitling program, you subtitle frame by frame you the precision with nicer programs is amazing. First you go through the movie marking where subtitle will be then you go back and type in what each subtitle is. As you go you keep notes that you refered to or spelled things the same way the whole time. So if you refer to an \"automobile\" as a \"car\" in the subtitles to save space you better keep using the word \"car\" throughout the whole movie as not to become confusing. This goes double for slang you translate or type out.",
"The sound descriptions are even more interesting. \"Cat meowing quietly in distance.\" \"Car door closing.\" ... I didn't notice/recognize at least 50% of those without the subtitles.",
"Yes, sometimes the dialogue (especially if done in the background) is kinda quit to hear if you're not in a cinema. Depends on the movie. But sometimes I wonder if you're supposed to hear the dialogue or not. I assume that the subtitles are written after the script, even if the execution in the movie is hard/impossible to hear for (artistic) reasons.",
"I think the people writing the subtitles will use the same script that the film crew use, but sometimes the director or the editor will leave something out, but the subtitle writers will just copy it from the script anyway.",
"Even if you can hear something being said, it may be difficult to make out exactly what is being said. Closed captions were very helpful when I was watching Deadwood and The Wire for picking up on some of the dialogue I otherwise would have missed. In those series, it was worth going back and watching the shows a second time with cc on.",
"Watch a movie in your native language with your native languages subtitles on. You'll see how much is actually put up there. Often there are shortened passages of dialogue.",
"I would be very curious to hear from somebody who actually has industry experience with this, because as described by the OP it does seem like sometimes the closed captioning must be produced from the actual script because it contains dialog that is not actually discernible. Closed captions produced in realtime for live tv inevitable have mistakes (I believe they are produced on some sort of phonetic chord-based keyboard?), but actually even closed captions for tv shows that aren't live sometimes have large numbers of errors. I noticed this before on either amazon video or netflix: the closed captions had situations where clearly the person making them didn't understand the word being used (especially for technical terms), so obviously in this case they weren't working from the script. Therefore it seems like there are different ways these captions get made? My guess is that there are essentially two different processes depending on whether a show is captioned by a separate company or whether the captions are from subtitles produced by the actual makers of the show (or perhaps it's simply an issue of whether the creators of the show bother to provide the script or not?), but I'm curious if anyone knows whether this is actually the case?",
"Scrips are written that way. The playwright gets to use all of his craft. Just as emotion and tension are communicated by the music, which most of the time should not be there, the volume of the conversation is adjusted by the playwright and the director. Plays are like that too. Although before microphones, amplifiers and speakers actors had to learn to project their voices, there are scenes in plays where dialog is not going to be clearly understood. There is a scene in Brigadoon where the chorus is singing this. The words are actually being sung that you are not going to hear them.",
"A lot of people are confusing closed captioning with subtitles. Subtitles only mean the lines of text on the movies for reading, and when used alone, generally only for spoken sentences. Closed captioning includes all noise related things essential to watching the movie, including explosions sounds and whatnot. Now to answer OPs questions, subtitles most often have official subtitles, and other unofficial ones may be just ported from these, perhaps translated or copied from released movie script. You're probably thinking of srt files that come with video downloads, but remember, movie theatres also have access to subtitles that they can display. One instance I can think of was Thor dark world, where the dark elves talk. It's in a completely made up language so no one should know what it's talking about, but official subtitles show that they actually are saying something, and when I watched it in the theatres it was displayed. I only realized it wasn't embedded to the movie when I tried watching it a week ago without subtitles."
],
"score": [
208,
96,
35,
7,
5,
4,
4,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
67gd5w | How do cameras, or their lenses, auto-focus? | At first I thought that maybe the concept was a little similar to our eyes in that it tries to get as much of the incoming light on one point, the middle of the sensor, and so adjusts the focus ring until it finds a position with the largest amount of light on this spot. However, this doesn't explain (to me, anyway - maybe I'm just being thick) how a lens will be able to refocus on objects based on distance. | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgq68jr",
"dgq71pq",
"dgq9jb2",
"dgq8ccy",
"dgq9p6n"
],
"text": [
"2 ways: - You digitally analyze the frame to figure out the least blurry lens configuration. Least blurry means sharpest color transitions between neighboring pixels. Only works in certain types of digital cameras. - You measure the distance between the camera and the target, and figure out an appropriate lens configuration. Little IR sensors can be used to measure the distance.",
"There is multiple ways to do it. A way to do it is to measure contrast. It you take the difference between two adjacent pixels on the sensor the maximum difference will occur when the image is in focus. It is obvious when you think about it because a out of focus image is blued and the difference between pixel will be smaller then in a in focus image Laser Auto Focus was used on cell phones. If that is used the a LED or laser is used to illuminate the subject with a short puls. The device measure the time it takes for the light to travel to calculate the distance Phase detection is also used where the incoming light is split into two images and compared. Look at the image on the [Wiki]( URL_0 ) of a explanation since it is hard to do in text but simpler to understand from the image",
"The lenses don't do any auto-focus processing. It's all in a the camera for which there are two (main) methods. I will try to eli5 as much as possible. 1. contrast detect (most compact and mirrorless cameras.) the camera hunts back and forth until it detects dramatic transitions between two colors in a defined area. 2. phase detect. (DSLRs) There is an autofocus sensor separate from the imaging sensor in a camera. This sensor detects only portions of an image in multiple places. When out of focus these portions are considered \"out of phase.\" How \"out of phase\" these portions are how much the camera should turn the lens to focus. Users of old film cameras used [a split prism in the viewfinder]( URL_0 ) ***edit*** - since phase detect is difficult to explain in words it's basically a modernized version of the split prism, and the mechanism has been moved out of view. 2a. In recent years a hybrid of contrast detect has been developed that puts phase detect capabilities directly on the sensor, providing this capability to non-dlsr's Bonus: [the eli20 version]( URL_1 )",
"Active autofocus involves measuring the actual distance to the subject, usually by infrared or ultrasonic rangefinders. Passive autofocus is more common. It involves finding the greatest contrast between pixels. This is easier than it sounds. Imagine a dark subject on a light background. To focus on the subject, you place the autofocus sensor on it's outer edge. The sensor is a small line of pixels such that, when oriented correctly, the dark subject is on one half and the light background is on the other. When the subject is out of focus, the dark and light pixels will be blurred together into a middle value. Focus is performed by moving the lens toward or away from the imaging device. As you move the lens toward the correct focal point, the subject's edge sharpens and the dark and white values become distinct. Eventually the lens moves past the point of focus and the values blur together again. The autofocus computer looks for the point of maximum difference between pixels on each end of the autofocus sensor. It basically steps the lens forward while calculating \"average value here minus average value there\" and stops when the calculation goes from increasing to decreasing or vice versa. This is the point of focus. As such, the autofocus does not focus on a single point. It requires a small region of contrasting values. SLR cameras use small dedicated cross-shaped sensors much like the one described above, while fixed lens cameras or your phone use the imaging sensor itself. The principle is the same in either case.",
"Rangefinding and Contrast-detection autofocus have already been covered, but phase-detection is more important than rangefinding, and historically was more important than contrast-detect. It's still used on every SLR camera and is generally better. First of all you have to know what makes an image blurry when it's out of focus. This is because light from a single object - let's say the tip of your subject's nose - can travel different paths before getting to the film or image sensor. In particular it could travel straight into the middle of the lens, or more towards one of the edges. If these rays of light aren't all brought into the same point on the sensor then they get smeared over a big area, and you get a blurry splodge instead of a nice nose. Contrast-detection works by looking at the splodge and shifting the bits of the lens around until it's less splodge-y and more nose-y. But this is unreliable if your nose happens to be indistinct and splodge-y already - what then? Well we can do this more intelligently. Remember the different paths light can take, through different parts of the lens? We can separate out the light going through different bits of the lens and divert it towards special auto-focus sensors. Now, the images formed on these sensors will be much less blurry, even when the image is out of focus, because each image is formed from something more like a pinhole camera. Instead, the images formed will be different from one another - shifted with respect to each other. (This makes a lot of sense if you think about it - the blurred main image is formed from infinitely many slightly-moved images all on top of one another) So now you can shift the lens's focus mechanism and the camera will see these two little images line up with one another - and then you're in focus. Another advantage is that you can tell which direction you have to move the images in to line them up, and this how to adjust the lens; with contrast-detection you only know that it's blurry and have to guess which direction will make it less blurry."
],
"score": [
131,
31,
14,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autofocus#Phase_detections"
],
[
"http://blog.epicedits.com/wp-content/uploads/manual-focus-indicator-1500.jpg",
"https://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2010/07/how-autofocus-often-works/"
],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
67giqo | Why do modern video games on the console make you download the game first? | I'm able to put the disc in and begin playing instantly on my xbox360 but when I put a game in my xbox one and it has to download. | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgq6h61",
"dgq9e6t",
"dgq6ilp"
],
"text": [
"Because games have gotten bigger, and shipping takes time. When a game is \"done\" it may not be done. It is just in a condition where it can be shipped. Then in the months / weeks between printing discs and shipping them around the world, they iron out some bugs, update some textures, etc. Additionally the game may ship with a basic texture pack because the higher definition, the more space something takes. And we're still using DVDs which a single sided dual layer disc only has 8 GB of space. That isn't a lot. So the higher definition textures have to be downloaded. This is then downloaded day 1 when you put the game in, because the game checks central servers for updates. Another issue is load times. By installing from disc to disk you can speed the load times. Honestly discs need to go away in favor of cards. A DVD SSDL (Single Side, Dual layer) has 8 GB of space, even a dual layer BLuRay only has about 50GB. I can get a micro SD card up to 512GB. I can get a 64GB microSD card for $20. That's the end-user commercial price, not buying in bulk millions at a time. That card has more space, uses less material, and will have faster O and will actually have I. Then again I play PC, we just download everything anyway.",
"The reason why most xbox 360 games didn't need to be installed is because the launch model of the 360 didn't include a hard disk(HDD), which meant games had to be optimised to run entirely off disks. Later models included HDD's, but installation wasn't made mandatory as people with older models couldn't play newer games otherwise. Since, all Xbone's have a hard disk, developers can afford to install games. This means that you need to sit through an install the first time you play the game, but on the other hand, loading times are shorter. An analogy: If you are getting a new house, you would move all your stuff at once (installing), instead of bringing every item just as you need it (loading from disk). Moving everything at once takes time, but after that you never need to visit your old house again. EDIT: Additional info[not ELI5] The PS3 had mandatory installs because the PS3's Bluray drive wasn't as fast as the 360's DVD drive. Not only that, but the PS3's 512MB memory is split, with 256MB dedicated as RAM, and the rest as VRAM. This is inefficient, and leaves developers with lesser memory to work with when compared to the 360. This means that either the assets have to be scaled down to fit, or they have to be aggressively loaded and unloaded to remain within the memory limit, which again, burdens the disk. Skyrim for PS3 also used a page file in addition to this install, and after a certain point, this caused the game to drop to single digit framerates.",
"Reading from a disc is much slower than reading from a hard drive. Modern games are also much larger so to cut down on load times in the future they make you install the game first."
],
"score": [
35,
15,
12
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
67hkhh | is the speed of electricity and the speed of light the same thing? | When I plug my phone into the charger does the speed of electricity coming from the outlet into my phone match 300,000,000 m/s? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgqfahf"
],
"text": [
"Almost. Current passing through a medium travels at a rate given by its \"velocity factor,\" which is anywhere from 0.5*c* to 0.99*c* depending on what the wire is made of. Copper wire is like 0.95*c*. So the current travels very close to, but not quite at, the speed of light. Interestingly enough the electrons themselves do not travel very fast at all. It's the wave that travels near the speed of light. You can imagine the electrons in the wire as a bunch of people who are packed together very tightly in a line, and someone at the back shoves the person in front of him. The \"Shove\" is going to travel really quickly up the line, even though the people themselves don't travel very far or very fast."
],
"score": [
10
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
67j2s1 | How and Where do websites store their massive amounts of content? | Big websites like Instagram, Facebook and Youtube. How do they keep so many people's information (Thousands and thousands of terabytes of pictures and videos)? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgqt6hp"
],
"text": [
"Websites like Facebook store their content on Content Delivery Networks (CDN's), these are companies like Akamai, Amazon, or Cloudflare who own thousands of servers in dozens or hundreds of places around the world. Websites pay these companies to host their content for them, so when you upload photos for example to facebook, they will actually be put on an Akamai server somewhere (close to where you live), then Akamai will copy this information to all its other data centres. This means that if someone on the other side of the world wants to look at your photo, it will actually come from a data centre to close to where they live, so they don't have to wait for it to come for the other side of the world (it may seem like a small difference to us, but when you handle billions of data requests every day, the energy and time savings starts to add) So why don't websites just make their own servers? having dedicated companies that already have infrastructure all over the world is more efficient, you don't have to worry about building the server, or buying a building, or how you're going to support millions of users around the world. its much easier for these companies to increase the number of servers they have, than for a new company to gain a world wide presence. This means its better for the CDN's because they have a business, it's better for large websites, because they don't have to worry about expanding their infrastructure as much, and its much better for small websites. Small websites and companies would never be able to build servers in different countries, but CDN's give them a moderately cheap way of giving there audience a much better experience."
],
"score": [
4
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
67jls5 | Is it true when your parents tell you that when you play video games that it Rots your brain?? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgqwub0",
"dgqw99d"
],
"text": [
"No, however it can mess up with your \"reward system\" because most winning at most games is waaaay easier than winning in real life (requires no extensive training sessions, you don't have to run, etc..) There are some studies that prove that Video games help in problem solving and reactions. Also stimulates your coordination / timing in some aspects. Just don't spend a lot of time on it. It also can hurt your vision because your are focused in the same point for hours. Play for fun, don't get addicted.",
"It's probably doing the opposite. Keeps you alert and improves your hand eye coordination."
],
"score": [
10,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
67leo8 | When 1080p movies are letterboxed on 4:3 screens, what is the new resolution you're watching? | Are the pixels just squished together or do you lose some detail? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgrchjn"
],
"text": [
"You lose detail. How much detail depends on the resolution of the display. It is possible to have a high-resolution 4:3 display, however most 4:3 television displays have a low \"standard definition\" resolution of around 704×480 pixels (in the US/Canada) or 704×576 pixels (in most countries outside the US/Canada). When 16:9 (widescreen) films are presented on \"standard definition\" 4:3 displays in letterboxed format, the effective resolution is usually around 704x396 (totalling 278,784 pixels). So, all in all, you lose around 1,794,816 pixels of information/detail when you present a 1080p movie on a standard definition 4:3 display. Basically that means the letterboxed version on the 4:3 SD TV only has 13.4% of the detail/resolution of the original 1080p movie. If you have a high resolution 4:3 display (e.g. 1024x768), it's possible you may be able to retain more of the detail, but you will still be losing a lot of the detail/resolution when compared to the original 1080p source material."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
67lg10 | What is so revolutionary about Unicode? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgrdd8r"
],
"text": [
"Computers only handle numbers. Before Unicode (and it's still a bit of a problem), you'd get a bunch of numbers that are supposed to be \"plain text\", but you also had to keep track of which system of numbers to letters applied. Windows alone had *dozens* of \"code pages\". Most programmers only used one (the one for their primary human language), so it was easy to forget that they needed to keep track. Not too bad until the Internet. Then, chaos. Web browsers often had to guess. Guess wrong and -- yuck. Complete garbage. Unicode does two big things: - *one* system for numbering letters. All languages should be included (and we're rapidly getting there) - a few pretty simple systems for turning those numbers into bytes. There are only two in common use, and it's very easy to guess which one you're receiving just by looking at the bytes."
],
"score": [
7
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
67oekt | Why have built-in webcam covers not surged in popularity yet? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgrx1gr",
"dgrx2sz"
],
"text": [
"I think offering a built-in cover would be perceived as an acknowledgement that the product is not entirely secure in its own right. It's like selling a house with bars on the windows. Makes you wonder what's wrong with the neighborhood.",
"> Can anyone offer a better explanation? Tape is cheaper. Also, I think you overexaggerate the paranoia. People may ring their hands about spying, but no one really believes *they're* a target. The second you tell them they need a new computer to be save they'll just spend $0.50 on a roll of electrical tape and just cover it up."
],
"score": [
14,
8
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
67p72s | How do people "break into" user accounts on websites such as Reddit or Facebook within minutes? | Every so often, a skilled hacker does an AMA and someone always asks if the person can hack their account. Last time, the hacker did (and provided photographic proof) within 5 minutes. How is this done, and is there anything the Average Joe can do to prevent it from happening to them? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgs3vti"
],
"text": [
"I see 3 possibilities: 1. It's a hoax. They didn't actually hack into the person's account. The person who requested that they hack into their account is actually the original poster or a friend of theirs. They already have the password to the account and are using it as a way to convince people that they are a master hacker. This is commonly known as a shil. 2. The person who wanted their account hacked had a very easy to guess password. 3. The hacker has knowledge of some kind of security flaw on Reddit or Facebook that allows them to gain access to an account. These kinds of vulnerabilities are very valuable and can be sold for thousands of dollars to the right people."
],
"score": [
5
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
67q6ef | the difference between 3G and 4G and why AT & T's "5g" is considered fake. | Scrolled through the comments on that Reddit post on at & t's "5g" that's supposedly misleading, I saw some comparisons to when 4g was released and how it's essentially 3G with some minor tweaks. So what actually is 5g and when will we know it's here? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgsd9w4"
],
"text": [
"3g and 4g are standards set forth by the ITU, 5g isn't a thing yet and won't be til sometime in 2018 or 2019. At & t use of the term \"5g evolution\" is just pointless marketing buzz words and is just an implementation of multi antenna 4g LTE MIMO, something already done by other telecoms."
],
"score": [
5
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
67r0gw | Why have cars in the past decade included more features for handsfree mobile phone use if talking on the phone while driving is dangerous? | Almost all new cars have Bluetooth connectivity and designated buttons on the steering wheel or console for accepting a call, even before Bluetooth car phones were installed in cars. Why do these features exist if talking on the phone while driving is dangerous? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgsj9hu"
],
"text": [
"Talking while driving and *holding* a phone is dangerous. The added manual task of holding the phone is what Rob's attention from the manual task of driving. Talking over Bluetooth is realistically no more mentally taxing than talking to a passenger in the vehicle."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
67ra55 | Why do phone batteries die when they get cold? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgsnoln"
],
"text": [
"Batteries produce electricity via a chemical reaction. Most chemical reactions are less efficient when it's cold. This happens to car batteries too - when it's freezing out it may be harder to start the car because the battery isn't producing enough juice."
],
"score": [
4
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
67rcc3 | How do artists "get away" with samples in their music? | What made me think of this was $uicideboy$. In over 25+ of their songs they have samples from other musicians such as Three 6 Mafia, Future, Young Thug, etc. They've also sold such music for $ (Eternal Grey was even put out on cassette). Here's a guide the guys over at /r/g59 put together showing the songs with samples. URL_0 | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgsm77r"
],
"text": [
"They don't, necessarily. Many pay for the use of the sample. If they are part of a major label, their is much scrutiny before a release and often a large enough budget to pay for the sample. Smaller artists will often take the risk because they most likely won't be sued unless their music is popular. The drive to gain traction will almost always outweigh the fear of legal troubles. \"We will cross that bridge when we get there\". There are certainly samples that have been destroyed to the point of being nearly unrecognizable. Those are harder to prosecute. Another possible scenario is that there are many old school sample albums that were released specifically for people to rip beats from. There are some classic samples ripped from \"sample records\". Nothing illegal here because that's the intended use."
],
"score": [
4
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
67sk1o | How does Adblock remove ads from YouTube, Twitch, and the like. Also why haven't those sites prevented Adblock? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgswla3"
],
"text": [
"Adblock apps have giant lists of where advertisements are located and when told to load them by the site.. don't. Sites cannot block them because they run on the user's computer and websites cannot touch them. At the most they could refuse to serve up content if ads are blocked, but that usually results in the uses simply leaving the site and never returning. This kills the site."
],
"score": [
5
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
67sxs2 | Why are soap operas shot like video and not shot like film? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgt198y"
],
"text": [
"A \"film look\", (most features are shot on digital high definition video these days, so not many are \"film\" anymore) takes more time and money to achieve. Careful positioning of lights and cameras, longer time to set up and shoot. Soap operas are more focused on quick production time, so they shoot a scene with multiple cameras and more basic lighting setups."
],
"score": [
7
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
67sztn | why are game graphics at the beginning of a consoles life worse looking vs the end of a consoles life | Many games from the beginning of the Xbox 360, Xbox One, Wii U, PS3 and PS4 all looked pretty bad for their time but over time have gotten better looking all on the same hardware. Is this due to better PCs to make the content? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgt0tgx",
"dgt3b1j",
"dgt112g"
],
"text": [
"It has less to do with the tools and more to do with experience. Simply put, by the time a console generation has reached it's end, developers have had a few years of trial and error to figure out what exactly they can do with the machine. They know what doesn't work, and what will get them the most bang for their system resource buck. They've nailed down how to get the most from the kit at hand, and it shows.",
"Think of it like this. Let's say you're an artist who's learned how to paint using charcoals, and you became an expert at it. Then one day, I give you a new canvas, take away your charcoal, and give you watercolours to paint with. You'll spend your first year trying to unlearn the lessons and shortcuts you mastered with charcoal, and then hone your watercolour skills. As time passes, you become better at mastering the brush, colours, blending them, strokes etc. Over a period of time, you become really good and can produce masterpieces in water colours. Then, I give you a new canvas, and give you oil paints to paint with. You repeat the whole process again.",
"Aside from developer tools and learning tricks to squeeze out power, it's worth noting that launch day titles are usually a grab bag of first party stuff, ports of AAA games devleoped for the last-gen system, and some random shovel-ware that gets ported to everything. Only the first party stuff really has a chance of making decent use of the console, since they had the time, budget, and access to develop it for the new console. But even then a typical AAA development cycle is 3 years, it's unlikely they had the finished console that whole time, for much of the development cycle even the first party developers were just developing for a prototype that probably changed a lot as the release got closer. So 3+ years into a console cycle, only then do you start to see games developed from start to finish for that generation of console."
],
"score": [
6,
5,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
67u0qg | Why can't we just install Windows on consoles (xbox scorpio etc.) If they're so powerful to run hardware intensive games? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgt95dk",
"dgt97pg",
"dgt976c"
],
"text": [
"Windows is designed to run on standard PC hardware. This makes certain assumptions about the CPU, how it's connected to the rest of the system, what's provided by BIOS/UEFI, built-in interfaces for everything from keyboards to clocks and a whole bunch of other stuff. They're basically built to be backwards compatible to the original IBM PC from 1981. Consoles don't need to bother with that. They're built with a single purpose, playing games & they can get better performance at lower costs by not being PCs - *that's what makes them consoles*. Another design goal is that consoles are *supposed* to be simpler than PCs. They're intentionally meant to be simpler, more stable & more secure at the expense of flexibility. On top of that, the cost of console hardware is subsidized because console manufacturers expect to make a certain amount of money back by licensing deals on games sold for the system. If you allow some sort of open OS, like Windows, people can install whatever they want without the manufacturer ever seeing a dime. The cost of the hardware would have to go up if this subsidy went away. At the end of the day, however, the XBox **does** run a trimmed down version of Windows at its core. You probably can't see or feel it as a user but, to the developers of games, they're very nearly the same as a desktop PC running Windows.",
"Windows is designed to run on a PC. But a console is not a PC. The latest consoles do use an x86_64 processor and similar hardware as you would expect in a PC but that is just parts and not everything that Windows expects to be there. When designing a new console with a new operating system you can omit a lot of the old standards and conventions of old computers. This does not mean that you can not port an OS to a console. Linux have been ported to PS3 and PS4. However that takes time which Microsoft is unwilling to do with their Windows.",
"Because Microsoft don't want you running regular Windows on an Xbox One. They don't provide a way of installing it, and they have various security features to prevent people installing and running unauthorised programs. However the hardware is similar enough to a PC that if someone manages to break the encryption it is possible that Windows could be installed on it. It might not run that well though because there aren't freely available Windows drivers for the exact hardware an Xbox One has. They aren't particularly powerful compared to a decent PC though, so I'm not sure what benefit it would have. Part of the reason they run games relatively well for the hardware they have is that they are running a stripped down OS which allows games greater access to the hardware than you get on a PC. So you'd lose that benefit if you were running regular Windows on it."
],
"score": [
10,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
67vatz | The glass broke off of my microwave, but the faraday cage is still intact, why is it, or is it not, still safe to use? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dgth7tr",
"dgth6au",
"dgtvrrj",
"dgthbri",
"dgtp1m8",
"dgtomq5",
"dgtqs2x",
"dgto89b"
],
"text": [
"The glass in the microwave might have small strands built in for a second layer Faraday cage. It is hard to say if it is still safe to use. It is better to be on the safe side. If you are worried you might try with a wet towel placed on the outside of the door and around the edges. It it gets hot in some areas then you should not have turned on the microwave. Also if you have problems connecting to the wifi when the microwave is on then it is not safe to use.",
"It is not safe to use because it was poorly constructed. The likelihood is that if the glass falls off then the factory it was produced in had poor quality control and a variety of other systems may have compromised integrity. Microwaves have electrical systems running at high enough voltage to electrocute a human being. This is unsafe.",
"If you are 100% sure that: * there is no broken glass *anywhere* in the microwave * there is no broken glass nearby the microwave * there is no exposed circuitry in either the waveguide or the magnetron * you do not mind your WiFi being perpetually on the fritz * you do not mind feeling a bit warm near an open oven--that is what it is--and possibly being burned from hot surfaces Then sure, go ahead and use it. Microwave radiation is of similar danger to infared radiation, a.k.a. your baking oven; it does not cause cancer, but it can cause physical burns, and steam burns are really painful. Otherwise, [I'd buy a new one]( URL_0 ) and make sure there's no residual broken glass.",
"If it was just a question of the glass being gone it is probably fine. But the glass might have been a space for keeping the screen in place, or the door was damaged otherwise, and it just isn't worth the risk. Microwave burns can be nasty with lasting nerve damage and new microwaves are cheap.",
"Guys, this question surely relates to the nature of microwaves, not whether or not an appliance that is janked might short out.",
"A microwave is one of those things that's so dangerous under the hood that you don't use it if *anything* is broken. A new one is well worth the cost. There are just too many was this could injure you or start a fire.",
"It seems to me that it would not work as well, even if it did work. While the microwaves are cooking the food, the steam that the food releases would be leaking out of the unit, there would be no buildup of radiant heat in the box, and your food might not cook as well. So while it may still work for disposing of Gremlins, it might not be worth the risk to still use when preparing food.",
"Even if it's safe now, there's nothing protecting the rather fragile faraday cage and if the Fraday cage is damaged while the microwave is in operation you are FUCKED."
],
"score": [
55,
28,
8,
7,
6,
6,
6,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[
"http://www.target.com/p/black-decker-153-0-7-cu-ft-700-watt-microwave-oven-black-em720cpn-p/-/A-50568401"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
Subsets and Splits
No saved queries yet
Save your SQL queries to embed, download, and access them later. Queries will appear here once saved.