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
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
6sappg | How does an SVG file look good at any resolution whereas, a JPEG or PNG can only be scaled a certain amount? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlbbobp",
"dlbbmj6"
],
"text": [
"SVGs are vector graphics. Essentially it contains *shapes*, while JPEGS and PNGs are bitmap, which means they're a giant table where each cell has a color. Shapes are shapes, but zoom in enough and those cells are going to start looking like cells. So an SVG of a circle is a file that says \"there is a circle\" while a PNG of a circle is a bunch of squares in the shape of a circle. When you open an SVG your computer will turn it into a bitmap image (called rasterization). If you zoom in it'll remake it.",
"JPEGs and PNGs are both raster images. They represent a specific image which is why they're used for photographs and such. Since images like photographs are complex, there's no simpler way to express them, so if you resize them too large, there's simply no way to know what it's supposed to look like at the higher resolution. SVGs is a type of vector image. Vector images represent a specific shape (or shapes). When you resize it, the shape is simply drawn again at the larger size. So a vector image might have data saying something like: draw a square and fill it in with black. It doesn't matter if your square is 1 foot, 1 mile, or 100 miles, you always can draw the exact shape you want."
],
"score": [
6,
5
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6sciis | why it takes longer to install something than uninstall it. | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlbo5e4",
"dlbo0nq",
"dlbq1ku"
],
"text": [
"It takes longer to create something than to destroy it. Installing a program requires copying files and extracting compressed files. Uninstalling a program mostly involves deleting files. Deleting a file is simple - the contents of the file aren't actually changed, but the space where the file resides is marked as \"vacant\", so that it can be overwritten later.",
"Very simply put, you're not really uninstalling it. The computer makes the program or whatever, able to be written over.",
"Deleting a file is simple, as all it really needs to do is tell the hard drive that the space is \"no longer needed\". When you delete a file, it doesn't get permanently destroyed. It's like saying you don't want to use this physical paper anymore, and whenever you write a letter you write over what was there before. That's why data recovery works and even if criminals deletes things from their hard drive forensic can recover the file. To truly delete a file you need to write a bunch of random 1's and 0's over the sectors the file was in to make it unreadable."
],
"score": [
15,
5,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6sf5fu | How do films and shows make people appear on fire without causing injury? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlcevnc",
"dlc8nws",
"dlcml3o"
],
"text": [
"If you ever visit one of the Universal Studios parks, they demonstrate this technique as part of their special effects/stunt shows. It's a little surreal watching a guy literally on fire 10 feet in front of you, but they explain a lot of the methods used to make it safe. Basically, the stuntpeople are wearing as much heavy, fire-resistant clothing as possible for the scene and cover every bit of exposed skin in a protective jelly. They use a fuel with a very low burn point so that they can burn at a temperature that won't hurt them, and they hold their breath during the stunt so that they aren't inhaling any fire. And there's a team of assistants with fire extinguishers on standby, keeping an eye on everything. Once all that is covered, a trained stuntperson can handle 10-20 seconds of burning without any ill effects. They'll have a safety signal (like a raised hand or something) that means \"extinguish me RIGHT NOW,\" but otherwise, they'll just do the few seconds of action needed for the scene and be immediately extinguished as soon as the director yells \"cut.\" It's a very realistic effect and is often way cheaper than paying a team of digital artists to render a good-looking flaming person.",
"Someone watched the latest episode of Games of Thrones, didn't they? Stuntmen do two things to avoid injury when they are on fire. 1. The fuels that are burning generally have a low flame point. They simply don't get as hot as gasoline would so there's not as much danger. 2. They wear protective clothing that is often covered in protective gel so that they heat doesn't make its way to their skin.",
"To add to the other awnsers, here is an interesting video on how they filmed the fire scenes in the most recent game of thrones episode: Attention spoilers for S7E4 (and before) URL_0"
],
"score": [
38,
28,
7
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[
"https://youtu.be/pE2wcBeyNdk?t=10m30s"
]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6sgeu9 | How does my phone never "freeze" while my computer "freezes" on a consistent basis? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlcjzmi",
"dlcjmby"
],
"text": [
"Well, theres a few factors here. 1)Phones are pretty closed off from the outside- There are very few internet auto-downloaders, popups, etc. that function on phone browsers, unlike on computer browsers. Apps available for download are all (mostly) examined and approved before becoming available for public download. These both yield a much safer environment for your phone than the computer. 2)Computers have a lot of moving parts, where phones do not. PCs operate on a hard disc, which is like a stack of CDs with record-player needles reading and writing to them. The hard disc, both the needles and the discs can degrade or break over time. Phones operate with non-moving parts, with virtual storage like a USB flash drive, and are less likely to degrade. 3)Phones are often traded in and replaced far more often that computers are, giving you a new, fresh, well-functioning device ever year or three. 4)Phone operating systems are compact and concise, and automatic updates are usually impossible to avoid. Computer operating systems are very broad, and as programs are installed and uninstalled over and over, it can bog down the computer's registry. (The registry is like the map of all the files, what they can do, where to find them, and how they may do things) Sometimes deleting programs without properly uninstalling them can cause issues. Computer freezes can be the result of many things, and these things are often impossible to do on a phone in the first place.",
"Phone software and hardware are typically designed for each other. Especially with iPhones, but also with the most popular Androids, the components of the phone are “standardized”; the developer of an app knows what the device running it is capable of, and can design it accordingly to run with minimal hiccups. On the other hand, there are thousands of different computer models, all with different mixes of parts and operating systems, and so it’s harder for a developer to make their app behave perfectly on every computer."
],
"score": [
4,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6sgh73 | How are today's engines different from engines 20 years ago and older which have lower average output for their displacement? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlcka5w",
"dlcn6an",
"dlclthz"
],
"text": [
"Today's engines use a lot more electronics to handle performance. Things like variable valve timing, dual cam, electronically controlled ignition. Add that with direct injection over fuel injection or carburation. Modern engines operate smoother, with better materials. They also operate with near perfect air to fuel ratios at all times. Engine timings are perfect and they can adapt on the fly to fuel and environmental conditions. Also, modern engines are designed to work well with emissions equipment. Which choked the performance of engines a lot in the 80's and early 90s. Turbos are only a small part of the equation.",
"Many reasons. 1) Technology is better. Instead of a carburetor (which is extremely inneficient, at least relative to today) we now use electronic fuel injection which, through a series of steps and other sensors, determines the precise amount of fuel needed for the incoming air based on throttle position, RPM, speed, etc. It doesn't just 'dump' fuel and air into the combustion chamber. 2) Engines being made with better materials. Lighter yet stronger materials for most engine components. 3) Stronger pistons allow for higher factory compression ratios which directly correlates to higher power output for the same displacement. An example -- > take a '79 DeVille coupe with the 7.0L V8. Sounds huge, right? Well, the compression ratio (CO) was something ridiculously low, like, in the ballpark of around 7.0:1 or 8.0:1. Im too lazy to search actual figures but those engines had low ratios which is why they made no power and were not efficient. If my memory serves me right, compression ratio is difference in piston position when fully \"down\" and fully compressed near the top of the cylinder head. The closer it gets to the cylinder head, the higher the ratio. To increase CO, you need stronger pistons, connecting rods, forged crank, all these things that come with better tech and research. Also, forced induction is another way to increase your CO but to do that, most engines need a lot of supporting mods.",
"20 year ago....1997. mid 90s was era of flourishing electronic ignition and variable valve timing. Before then, the sequence of the intake and exhaust valves was solely set by the shape of the camshaft lobes. The valves would open and close by hard mechanical linkages with the crank and therefore the pistons. With variable valve timing, you had a computer control an oil valve to phase the camshaft or lock the cam lobe to change the timing of the opening and closing. This allows for mapping different performance profiles to conditions, rather that a one size must fit all conditions with a fixed valve/cam profile situation"
],
"score": [
9,
7,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6shhe8 | How they secure phone lines and what makes them secure | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlcroii"
],
"text": [
"Typically the line itself wouldn't be secure, the two end points(phones) would be. You'd have a card or some other encryption method that scrambles the communication, so if one were able to tap in and listen, all they would hear is a garbled mess. The phone on the other end would also have a card to unscramble the communication so they could clearly hear."
],
"score": [
6
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6smlef | why is diesel engines considered more efficient compared to gasoline engines? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dldvgfc",
"dldv71a"
],
"text": [
"It's not just considered; they *are* more efficient. The advantage comes down to a thing called compression ratio, which is the difference in cylinder volume between bottom dead center (when the piston is furthest from the cylinder head, and the fuel/air mix is uncompressed) and top dead center (when the piston is closest to the cylinder head, and the fuel/air mix is fully compressed). The short version is that it is a thermodynamic **certainty** that the higher your compression ratio, the more efficient the engine will be. Spark-ignition (so, gasoline) engines have a hard ceiling on their compression ratios, entirely because they have to worry about the fuel auto-igniting within the cylinder without the spark plug. Diesel engines, however, absolutely rely on auto-ignition, and are built to withstand the effects that go along with autoignition. This also includes turbocharging/supercharging, which you can think of as an artificial means to ramp up the compression ratio. Spark-ignited engines still have to worry about autoignition (and the turbocharger doesn't help), while diesels fully expect autoignition to occur, so they can turbocharge until the cows come home. For reference, carbureted or port-fuel injection spark ignition engines are going to have compression ratios around 8:1 or so, while modern GDI spark-ignited engines will be able to ramp things up to about 12:1 or so. By comparison, most commercial diesel engines are around 16:1 these days, some generators can go up to 25:1, and I've seen some research engines pushed beyond 30:1 (which gets into the silly range). Edit: In contrast to what I'm seeing here, the difference in energy density is incidental, and has *absolutely nothing* with the actual reason behind diesel engine efficiency.",
"Because you can drive more miles on 1 gallon of diesel than you can on 1 gallon of gasoline if you compare the average diesel vehicle vs the average gasoline vehicle."
],
"score": [
13,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6sn23s | why has nasa's curiosity rover only travelled 10 miles in the space of 5 years. | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dldzade",
"dle2j0x",
"dldz5vj",
"dledhnf",
"dldzg24"
],
"text": [
"Because its goal isn't to travel; it already landed where it needed to be. It drives a few inches, takes pictures and soil samples and does related testing. It would need to travel really long distances in order to get to someplace that different, geologically speaking, and it's just not worth it. There's plenty of interesting things right where its at. Also, we've sent other rovers to different parts of the planet. *Spirit* was active from 2004 to 2010 and its sister rover (which landed on the other side of the planet), *Opportunity*, is still going.",
"It doesn't need to go that far to do it's mission. Additionally, every inch of movement is meticulously planned. If it goes over a large rock and gets stuck, the mission is over.",
"The rover is slow and they only move it very carefully. It cant go far on a single charge of its batteries either. They dont want to just drive it around willy nilly and get it stuck. They painstackingly program out the route itll take and often times run simulations etc.",
"I saw this as a post a few years ago but I cannot wait until we eventually get to Mars and build our great future Martian cities around the old remains of the rovers! Each city being named after the rover it was built around!",
"Quick google search of the top speed of Curiosity is 1.5 inches per second. 5 years (it's been like 5 years and 5 days but I'm lazy) = 1825 days = 43800 hours = 2,628,000 minutes = 157,680,000 seconds At top speed of 1.5 inches/sec that's 236,520,000 inches or 3,733 miles is the furthest it could have gone, assuming it's always at top speed. This assumes the ground is always flat and it's a hard surface like sand. Which Mars definitely is not. This also assumes that curiosity is only driving, not stopping to take pictures or soil samples. But at the end of the day like others have said it's because it isn't tasked with just doing laps on Mars."
],
"score": [
51,
20,
8,
5,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6snn3h | Why does it take several minutes of charging for a dead iPhone to come alive when a laptop can do so instantly? | Isn't an iPhone essentially a tiny laptop? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dle3z5y",
"dle46sl"
],
"text": [
"A laptop has circuitry that allows it to be powered directly from the charger. But, cell phones are always powered by the battery, even when they're plugged in. So, the battery has to get to a base level of charge before it can safely power the phone.",
"iPhones can only operate from the battery. It can not run directly from the cord. Laptops are explicitly designed to be able to run fully off AC power and bypass the battery entirely."
],
"score": [
84,
23
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6snw61 | How did the internet work under the AOL era? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dle7h8b",
"dle7rtl",
"dleav34"
],
"text": [
"AOL wasn't the internet at first. It was an Online Service. The internet still existed and if you had a real internet connection, there isn't much different than today (you tended to use your phone company like Sprint). Your ISP's DNS would route you to websites when you used web browsers, etc. AOL is like directly connecting into someone else's computer where you could do things like chat or go to websites (but you had to use the web browser IN america online. And in the super early days, you went to \"keywords\" instead of websites. edit: Think of Facebook. We log into facebook, and we can chat IN facebook. Imagine if that's all you could see was stuff you could search in Facebook. That's AOL. Basically, it was a limited connection to the internet where you could more easily find things you wanted (or that AOL wanted you to see). Think of those latops for little kids that aren't real laptops, but they're for kids and they give them the basics. You used AOL's programs instead of 3rd parties. You didn't use IRC to chat, you used aol's chat rooms, you didn't use Netscape web browser, you used AOL's browser (which was bad), you didn't use an email client like Outlook or Netscape mail, you used AOL's mail client. AOL also charged you by the hour (other ISP's did this too). I knew people who were paying hundreds of dollars per month for going over their 10 hours per month subscriptions (or 40 hours became the norm later). Think of it how we deal with cellular phones today. You had minutes before most started offering Unlimited talk/text (but you still have data caps or data throttling) When real ISP's started to more heavily compete with AOL (usually by giving people unlimited hours), AOL started to allow you to connect to the internet. You could minimize the AOL window after signing in and then use the web browser of your choice, etc. They offered unlimited hours, and then started allowing you to connect for free, as long as you weren't dialing into them (i.e. you had another internet connection) I got my first AOL account back in 1995 (I was using direct internet connections through my college's computer lab before that), and I'm going to admit something... Their webmail today has a lot of features that I prefer over something like gmail. It's \"nicer.\" But I don't give out my AOL address to others because I'd rather not be the butt of a joke. I just use AOL for signing up for things, or as an email account associated with another website.",
"I remember getting in trouble several times for dialing long distance bulletin boards.. the reddit of the 90s.",
"The bandwidth was much smaller. My sister debated whether to get a 300 baud or a 1200 baud modem. That is basically equivalent to characters per second. Only characters were transmitted. So you only downloaded text. My sister was totally blind. Someone used a Texas Instruments chip to make an Apple II speak. It was a toy. It was quickly seized upon by the blind community. Suddenly they could read print without it being translated into braille. The chip was used in toys to make them talk. It was mounted in a board which fit into an Apple II."
],
"score": [
9,
5,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6sphzv | How to figure out Solar needs. | Please explain to me, like I am five, how to figure out the amount of solar panels one would need and the amount of batteries if they were needing a 2500 Watt system with a battery bank for 960 Amp hours (24V) using a MPPT controller and inverter. I get so lost in the whys and hows; I do not understand at all. | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlem1mp",
"dlesndm"
],
"text": [
"Most panels are rated in kW. Size your array to hold enough panels so their rattings add to your required kW. A standard panel we specify all the time is a 2.5kw panel. For sizing the inverter and panels etc you are going to need an engineer Source: work in architecture and do preliminary sizing for clients regularly before bringing in engineering consultants",
"Unless you're planning to go 'off the grid' for political reasons batteries are never worthwhile. For maximum profit you want to size your solar panels to produce just enough power to meet your energy needs at noon on a summer day. Grid credits are low, and are never paid at the same rate you pay for electricity. In addition there may be fees if you want to sell credits back to the grid, which are often more than the value of the credits you sell. This highly depends on state, but there are only perhaps two states (TX, AZ) where it's worthwhile to put electricity back on the grid from a pure cost-profit standpoint. Based on the laws in those states, which they are attempting as we speak to change to make it unprofitable to put credits back on the grid. If you have extra roof space you just have to use up, consider a solar water heater."
],
"score": [
6,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6sqxyg | How does Caller ID work? Why can't we just 'update' it to fight scams involving spoofing of phone numbers? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlevtng"
],
"text": [
"Caller ID v2 exists. It actually does fight the spam by directly polling the original dialing number, not just the final dialog number. Unfortunately it's not profitable to use this. There's a cost involved for updating software, and companies often make money from those calls."
],
"score": [
5
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6srr2d | After detecting a missile launch, how does a country know if it's an attack or just a test? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlf1meu",
"dlf34z3",
"dlg3e4q",
"dlfgfrr",
"dlf1k2f",
"dlfcumi",
"dlfusaa"
],
"text": [
"Normally they tell the other country they are launching a missile. [Though sometimes they forget and there's a bit of a nuclear scare]( URL_0 ). So far this hasn't torched off a nuclear war because most tests are just 1 rocket. And a full first strike would involve hundreds of rockets. Also the missile might not be headed in the direction of anything of value. If the choice was potentially starting a nuclear war on accident or losing an uninhabited island in the middle of the pacific that you technically own, most people pick the latter.",
"As others have said, you can calculate the trajectory of the missile to determine where it will land - A test launch won't be aimed at another country. Another thing to note is that any attack is likely to involve lots of missiles being launched simultaneously, seeing just one on radar is definitely cause for doubt that it's an intentional attack.",
"Could I add a sub-question? How do countries know when a missile has been launched by another country? Are they always watching via satellite? Surely their radar doesn't cover everywhere? Also, do they have missiles that can change direction mid flight to confuse the intended target?",
"Article about the U.S.' launch under attack process: URL_0",
"They track the launch using radar to determine where it's headed. If it's not headed in your direction, it's not an attack (or at least not a successful one).",
"Standard practice is for the country doing the test to tell all others that they are doing a test. If a country fails to do this the trajectory is calculated and if it looks like it could be an attack it is assumed to be one.",
"Typically a test is anouncwd via an international NOTAM: Notice To Airman. When a launch is detected without a NOTAM, all hell breaks loose to track where it's going. Once that's determined then decissions are made made based on the preliminary trajectory. Needless to say, getting it right, with typically no more than 20 minutes of time to decide, is the money shot!"
],
"score": [
78,
14,
7,
6,
3,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_rocket_incident"
],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.nti.org/analysis/articles/launch-under-attack-feasible/"
],
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6st7o0 | Why do PCs/Phones slow down drastically when there is only little main storage free? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlfke7w"
],
"text": [
"When you have multiple programs running on one system, collectively they need more RAM than is available to the entire system. Modern operating systems undergo what's known as a \"Page Swap\" to temporarily write some of what is stored in RAM to the hard drive in order to let other programs have a turn to execute. As the hard drive becomes more full, there is less room to page swap, and the reads/writes for the swap itself take longer. Data also becomes more fragmented, making it take longer to read any individual piece of data, because you have to look in multiple places. Modern operating systems run a TON of processes at once (mine is at 142 for my user alone right now). In order to give all of those programs a chance to run, the computer swaps memory basically constantly. As each of these operations gets slower, the entire system slows down."
],
"score": [
14
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6stey2 | Computer memory storage questions | How is it that in the 60's it would take a whole room to store something as miniscule as 1 mb, but now I can store 64-128 GB in my pocket? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlfi5n4",
"dlfdslb",
"dlfcol1"
],
"text": [
"The hardware got smaller, basically. A megabyte might be \"miniscule\" by today's standards, but it's still 8,388,608 bits (keeping in mind that a bit is a single 1 or 0). You must store each bit physically, somehow. In the 50's and 60's [magnetic drums]( URL_0 ) were all the rage. They used similar technology to modern hard disk drives: they stored 1s and 0s as magnetised pieces of metal, with north pointing either toward or away from the read/write head. The first drum that its creator, Gustav Tauschek, made had a capacity of 500,000 bits (about 62.5 kB), but smaller ones were usually used. They were completely discontinued in the 70's. Modern hard disk drives were first invented in 1956, however, and they quickly pushed drums out of the industry. HDDs have gone from a capacity of 3.75 MB to 12 TB; an improvement of 3.2 million to one in the space of 61 years. [This video]( URL_1 ) does a really good job of explaining *how* HDDs work and the sheer degree of precision it takes to pack so much data into such a small space. But SD cards are the real stars of the show, when it comes to compact data storage. They were invented in 1999 with a maximum capacity of 4GB *(technically their predecessor MMC appeared in 1997 with a max capacity of 512 MB, and the technology they use appeared in the 80's but this is the part where it got interesting)*, but more recent versions (namely SDXC) can manage 2TB in a card the size of your thumb. The exact specifications of how NAND Flash memory, that SD uses is a little out of the scope of an ELI5 (and my ability to paraphrase) but the basic mechanism uses *transistors*. Transistors are essentially switches, that can be turned on and off electronically. On means 1, off means 0. Transistors can be just atoms in size, which is why SD cards are so small. [This video]( URL_2 ) explains really well how a transistor works exactly and talks about the physical limits of them and thus, the end of Moore's Law (which states, basically, that technology ~halves in size every ~two years. So there you go. A whole lot of money and effort over decades got us to where we are now. It can be easy to forget that your phone is a supercomputer in your pocket, but modern technology is truly amazing.",
"I'm going to talk about this in more general terms. [Moore's law]( URL_0 ), first described by Gordon Moore (co-founder of Intel) in 1965, describes the exponential growth in transistor density over time. This means that more components can be fit onto the same size chip, which not only decreases the physical size, but also plays a role in decreasing prices and improving processing speed. There are a lot of different smaller innovations that have played a part in allowing this to happen, like (obviously) the invention of flash memory, faster fabrication machines, and better photolithography tools.",
"I am in no way an expert, but I believe it has something to do with the types of components used. Back in those days they used a lot of switches and vacuum tubes to determine in/output. This ovviously required a lot of space and with it a lot of weight. Nowadays these components have been replaced by integrated circuits and transistors. They simply did not have the technology at the time. Think of it this way, in the 30s they built massive cars with V12's the size of Germany that would only produce a handful of horsepower, whereas today it is possible to squize more hp out of a V4 engine, simply because of new techniques to utilize power/storage etc more efficiently. Like I said, I'm no expert, I just like clicking on lots of different links and reading a lot of random facts. Try searching for vacuum tubes in electronic devices and components like Integrated Circuits to understand the details :) Edit: Words"
],
"score": [
10,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drum_memory",
"https://youtu.be/wteUW2sL7bc",
"https://youtu.be/IcrBqCFLHIY"
],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law"
],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6stst5 | How does AdBlock work so well that companie lose billions a year because of it with no way to stop it. Why can nobody bypass it? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlffk0u"
],
"text": [
"Most ads are not hosted on the same server as the content (ie, an adsense ad being displayed on URL_0 ). This fact already essentially makes it trivial to block 99% of ads. Also, in your example of the pop up that blocks access, that is actually an example of that site bypassing (or more correct - detecting) your ad blocker. This can also be defeated."
],
"score": [
5
],
"text_urls": [
[
"reddit.com"
]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6sxuua | Why does a laptop/desktop make noise while switched on but phones/tablets are silent when switched on, yet they are all computers with similar parts? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlgdk95",
"dlgdm63"
],
"text": [
"Laptops and desktops use active cooling with fans, and may have mechanical drives which produce noise. Tablets and phones only use solid-state storage and passive cooling without moving parts such as fans. Due to this they have more limited performance and power consumption, but are completely silent in operation.",
"Some laptops may have moving parts such as a fan or a mechanical drive. However not all laptops do, take the [HP Stream]( URL_0 ) for example. There are no fans, and the mechanical drive is replaced with an SSD (a storage device with no moving parts.) Similarly, phone usually opt for non moving parts as well. Therefor, they create no noise."
],
"score": [
8,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[
"https://www.amazon.com/HP-Premium-Flagship-Certified-Refurbished/dp/B01MS6TKUA/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1502414224&sr=1-1-spons&keywords=hp+stream&psc=1&smid=ARKFFGMZRYG2X"
]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6sz9jp | How can a projector spraying light at a white surface create the colour black? | Since black is the absence of light, wouldn't a projector be emitting nothing in the black sections of the frame? Wouldn't this just show up as the same colour as the screen you're projecting onto? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlgpckf",
"dlgpujg",
"dlgr8nc"
],
"text": [
"Yes. This is why you need to dim the lights when using a projector. So that the unlit parts look dark.",
"The white color of the screen is indeed always the darkest 'black' color that will appear in the projection. It's all relative. The white light projected on the screen is simply so much brighter than the color of the screen that your brain starts to perceive the screen color as 'black' in the projected image. By the way, this is one reason why some theaters/cinemas use gray/grey or silver screens instead of white screens (as it allows for deeper/darker blacks). Silver is also used because it provides greater reflectivity, and it's also required for some 3D technologies that rely on polarized light.",
"> Wouldn't this just show up as the same colour as the screen you're projecting onto? Yes, this is why projectors work best in a dark room. In a well lit room, light is hitting the screen from all sorts of angles reflecting into your eye. In a dark room, then (in theory) the only light being emitted is by the projector with is focused on the screen. The parts of the white projector screen that aren't being lit by the project shouldn't be reflecting any light so they should appear black. In practice the \"un-lit\" parts of the screen don't appear totally black, but this isn't because the screen is white, but rather because the technology of the projector. Projectors work by blasting a huge amount of light at a series of filters that either allow light of a certain color to pass through, or block the light. The problem is they aren't 100% perfect at blocking the light."
],
"score": [
12,
10,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6szajs | Why are there so many "security" updates for MS Office | Why does a seemingly simple software suite require so many security patches? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlgpkj4"
],
"text": [
"The software is a lot more complex than it may seem. One of the main reasons security updates are so important for MS Office is because it is possible for people to embed 'macros' and other types of code/functions within word or excel documents that may be executed on the end-user's computer when they open the document. The purpose of these features is to allow companies to build interactive documents/forms/spreadsheets that can use logic built-into the document to automatically process or transform data and modify the document as required based on user input. The problem is that every once in a while a hacker may discover a way to exploit these features to execute arbitrary code on a user's computer that may (for example) allow other data stored on the computer to be compromised (i.e. accessed, modified, and/or deleted) without the end-user's knowledge or consent."
],
"score": [
6
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6t1hwh | How did old cartoons like "The Flintstones" put audio into the show since computers storage was so small back then | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlh4vfz"
],
"text": [
"They didn't use computers at all. They recorded to tape, just like all audio recording was done back then. The audio (dialog, effects, music) would be mixed using an analog mixer and then mastered to a final tape, which would then be encoded on the master videotape (or film, possibly) for the episode."
],
"score": [
8
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6t1jaa | How do cartoonist sync up the voice actors with the drawings? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlh99eo",
"dlh60nr"
],
"text": [
"I'm an animator! I can answer this! Most of the dialogue for a cartoon is recorded and sequenced before any drawing takes place. The visuals must reflect what the voice actors were trying to convey, so the drawings are done after any recording sessions to more accurately mirror the actors' choices. It is a long and tedious process of switching out mouths, going back a frame or two, replacing drawings, listening carefully for phonetics, etc. It takes a while, but it looks good in the end. There are instances where a voice actor may record a line or sound to match pre-existing visuals, but for the most part, the acting is done first.",
"Nowadays, it's all done with computers for the most part. In which case, you're basically just having the voice actors do their lines and animate the mouth at a rate approximating the speech. Easy peasy. In the past when everything was hand-drawn, accurate lip syncing was a LOT more meticulous - someone had to sit there and draw the frames, including the shape of the mouth for the appropriate speech pattern."
],
"score": [
15,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6t23u6 | How do countries test their nuclear weapons without doing substantial damage to the earth? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlh9yxa",
"dlhdwoq",
"dlhbnq1"
],
"text": [
"They test them in a desert, at sea, underground, or somewhere else very remote. And substantial damage to the earth has been done, some would say. The US basically destroyed Bikini Atoll with H-bomb tests back in the 50s. We literally kicked hundreds of people out of their homes, blew up their island with thermonuclear blasts, and then told them they could come back in 20 years. I don't think they ever were able to. And there are sufficient amounts of radioactive isotopes floating around nowadays that scientists have to look for \"pre-atomic steel\" for precision equipment, because modern steel is ever so slightly radioactive, because of all the tests.",
"well these days most countries just run computer simulations. computers are powerful and the mathematics are well understood for weapon yield. countries that still test do so because they are new weapons and need the test data in order to run those simulations. but basically, nuclear weapons are fairly weak in terms of geological damage. i've been to hiroshima and its a great modern city and you cant really tell that it got hit with 15 kt only 70 years ago. the damage done by a nuclear weapon is inversely proportional to radius squared. 2 times further away, the damage is already 4 times less. URL_0",
"Most are tested underground. While their power is immense, the ground is immensely strong and heavy -- the most drastic effects have a radius under 1km."
],
"score": [
10,
5,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blast_wave"
],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6t2k1g | why apple products need to be updated every other week | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlhen49",
"dlhf2cb"
],
"text": [
"Because they (Apple) are finding bugs in their code constantly (and sometimes, feature upgrades - but mostly bug fixes). The same reason Microsoft releases updates to Windows monthly.",
"There are different reasons for that. 1) security reasons: Apple is very concerned with the security of their devices, both because of the fact that they want to maintain a close system and because they want to maintain a reputation. 2) better customer care: Apple rolls out updates more frequently to maintain a strong base of customer satisfaction. They have always encouraged updates and made them more easily available over time. 3) helping out developers: this is closely linked to the second point. Having a uniform base makes it easier to develop apps and program, i.e. Windows programmers must make sure their software works on XP, Vista, 7, 8 and 10, while the latest version of os X has been delivered to almost 80% of customers. 4) bug fixes: of course system as complex as ios will have bugs, and the fact that it is widely used make those bugs easier to find (the more users, the more bugs found). Hope this helps"
],
"score": [
6,
6
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6t2sdq | How are webcams easily hacked on different devices and what to do to prevent this across all internet connected devices? | My grandparents are using me as "tech support" as they're getting more familiar with technology. They heard about hacking cameras and microphones (and other cyber security risks), and i'm not familiar with how this is accomplished, nor how easily it can be done. I'm sure a lot of people could benefit from being more aware of the risks and how to prevent it from happening on our internet connected devices. Also, if a preventative approach doesn't aid a user on an already compromised device, how could it be identified and what would need to be done to secure the device. | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlhh8d0"
],
"text": [
"Person with an IT security background here! So, one thing out the gate, they're NOT easily hacked. Well, not any easier to get at then the rest of the device, like stored documents etc. In order to access the cameras or microphone of a gadget, you need to have it run some code to do so, and then that code has to also pack up what it sees/hears and send it to a remote server. This is basically malware, so any software or good practice that'll stop viruses will also keep people away from your webcam. ***And, more importantly..... they're not commonly targeted.*** It's mostly horror stories. Why's everybody talking about it? Because it's creepy and makes for good news articles that people click on. Why does Mark Zuckerberg tape his camera? Because he's Mark Zuckerberg, if you're an average joe you're not interesting. What do hackers actually want? **YOUR MONEY.** Almost all computer-related crime is related to either getting someone's money, or getting the information needed to get to their money (aka identity theft). And usually these scams are designed to hit MILLIONS of people (spam goes out in bulk, viruses spread rapidly)...but sitting and listening to someone's mic or webcam is a lot of work for a low chance of something juicy. So unless you're famous, nobody does it. Spend your time and effort securing their banking deets and encrypting their important stuff."
],
"score": [
10
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6t36ms | Why is cell service so erratic in the mountains? Mountains don't move, so why is the connection not constantly good or bad? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlhn90x",
"dlhp508"
],
"text": [
"For one, rock and other materials on a mountain can block signals (akin to how yiu might Not Have service underground in a tunnel due to the dirt and stone. Secondly, On rigid mountains, it can be hard for cell companies to place anntenas, as they usually require flat services for support.",
"The mountain may not move, but other things change around it. The combination of these things can bring a weak signal to an unusable one. Cell signals are line-of-sight (meaning that the signal is a straight line from the phone to the tower). In the mountains, you are generally pretty far from a tower, so your signal is already weak. While the mountain may not move, other things around the mountain do. Mostly it's weather. Radio signals don't travel well through water, so rain, fog, and high humidity will reduce signal strength. Thermals and layers of hot air on cool air can have a reflective effect that can increase your signal strength. It doesn't take a lot of change for a cell connection to go from 'usable' to 'unusable'. A weak signal is nearly as good as a strong one, but there's a threshold just below that weak signal where it just won't work anymore. If the humidity changes slightly (which can happen pretty rapidly as temperatures change), it could be just enough to knock out the service."
],
"score": [
7,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6t428k | How do tokens work? How does a machine (i.e: arcade game, subway turnstile, etc) distinguish one token from another, or from a similar sized coin in general? | I found a roll of tokens in my desk at work from a previous employee and I'm curious if they would work in another arcade's machines. | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlhrv8t",
"dlhs7ft",
"dlhs33m"
],
"text": [
"Typically, this is done by size and/or weight. There will be elements of the machine that will evaluate the coin by one or both of these metrics to see if it is \"valid\" - it will return it if it is not. Odds are, the tokens will work just fine as there aren't that many people that make tokens and there isn't much value in having unique tokens for each customer.",
"Size, weight, and magnetism. Quarters are not magnetic, but cheap steel washers generally are, so a magnet make an easy test to separate one possibly type of fake. Otherwise you have various sized chutes for the coins and only the correct size coin will count.",
"Tokens are just privately made coins. Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained: 1. [ELI5: How does a coin machine know what coin I put in? ]( URL_6 ) 1. [ELI5: How does a vending machine know which kind of coin I put in? ]( URL_0 ) 1. [ELI5: How can vending machines tell the difference between foreign coins and domestic ones? ]( URL_5 ) 1. [ELI5: How does a coin slot determine which coin is inserted? ]( URL_4 ) 1. [ELI5: How does a vending machine differentiate between different types of bills and coins? ]( URL_1 ) 1. [ELI5:How does a vending machine 'read'/identify coins? ]( URL_2 ) 1. [ELI5 : How a vending machine knows when you insert counterfeit money? ]( URL_3 )"
],
"score": [
5,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2e13ha/eli5_how_does_a_vending_machine_know_which_kind/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1g30qd/eli5_how_does_a_vending_machine_differentiate/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1bk7eb/eli5how_does_a_vending_machine_readidentify_coins/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3uhqsh/eli5_how_a_vending_machine_knows_when_you_insert/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/mr48a/eli5_how_does_a_coin_slot_determine_which_coin_is/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2pq3o7/eli5_how_can_vending_machines_tell_the_difference/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/41gys6/eli5_how_does_a_coin_machine_know_what_coin_i_put/"
]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6t5jo8 | If my brain has 86 billion neurons why can't we make a integrated circuit with 86 billion transistors? | Considering transistors are incredibly small and my brain isn't all that big. | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dli3i13",
"dli35dp",
"dli897v",
"dlisqti"
],
"text": [
"Each neuron can have up to 9 connections. And a transistor can have 2. A transistor having 2 connections can get 2 states, off an on. While a neuron can have up to 9 connections or 9!=362,880. That means one neuron is approximately 181,440 times more combinations. Now this is not very accurate but it gives you a ball park of the difference. Our current technology(for instance in an Intel i7 processor) has about 6 billion transistors at $300. To get a processor as compantent as a brain it would take about 2,600,640 processors costing $780,192,000. I guess in a way we do make ones that are close. Pretty much any supercomputer is kind of close but they are massive and aside from their initial large cost, they cost a lot in maintance(cooling, workers,electricity, etc...). Our technology just isn't there yet. Its one of the amazing things about humans.",
"You can. An Intel Xeon has about 7 billion. Simply stitch a dozen of them together and you have 84 billion transistors in a package smaller than your head.",
"The answer from /u/unlikelyDouglasAdams describes part of the problem very well. A transistor simply doesn't operate like a neuron. The other big problem is that we don't yet really understand how the human brain is \"wired up\". There's a lot of mapping work going on, so maybe in another decade or so we'll have a decent model. But that will take us back to the first problem. Now you might think that it will eventually be overcome due to Moore's Law (doubling transistor density about every 18 months), there's a problem with that idea. Moore's Law is reaching an end, and we don't yet have a good replacement.",
"We can, and we do. AMD's 24-core EPYC CPUs have 19.2 billion transistors, while Nvidia's Volta workstation GPU has 21.1 billion. You could easily just string a bunch together in a server rack to make a brain sized computer. The problem is the brain doesn't work the same way a computer does. Transistors have two states: high and low. Showing as a binary 1 or 0. Neurons are analogue devices that can make multiple connections and use a variety of different neurotransmitters to bounce data around. The brain is also \"plastic\". It can change its structure to suit its needs. The more you run a routine through it, the brain physically adapts to strengthen neural connections, so you run that routine more efficiently. Remember learning to ride a bike as a kid? Or learning to drive a car? Pretty difficult, eh. But now you can probably do it without thinking. What we call \"muscle memory\" or \"running on autopilot\", that's neural plasticity at work. Computers on the other hand don't have this advantage. When you design a processor, that processor's structure is going to remain the same for the entirety of its lifespan. You can build machines that can \"learn\" through software, but the static nature of hardware is still a limitation. There are software limitations as well since computers execute tasks differently than the brain does. Computers need to be taught every single step in a process with precision in order to function, where as the brain can sort of consolidate tasks based on what it already knows. Now there are ways to optimize computer code through shortcuts to increase efficiency, but this will only take you so far. So while computers can perform some tasks a lot faster than the brain, the brain is in many ways more efficient. Computers are good at quickly processing large but simple data sets, while the brain is far better for processing complex, abstract tasks."
],
"score": [
8,
3,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6t7ag9 | What is an USB-C port? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dligwm8"
],
"text": [
"[Type A]( URL_3 ) is the standard USB you find in all computers. There's a difference in speed between generation 2.0 and 3.0 or even 3.1, but their functionality is the same. Type B is usually found in its [micro form]( URL_2 ) on a lot of smartphones. [Type C]( URL_1 ) is even thinner, and can be plugged in both ways. These are mostly gen 3.0 speeds. **Note** that USB is simply the name of the internal bus/connection to your other hardware. The type A,B,C are just form factors of the connectors, most commonly used by USB. Another more recent example is that type C ports are also used in [Thunderbolt connections]( URL_0 ). The Thunderbolt interface combines USB with other standards like SATA, DisplayPort or PCIe. This means you can use it for charging, connecting monitors, external graphics cards, and lots of other applications. It's present in most high end laptops and some high end smartphones."
],
"score": [
8
],
"text_urls": [
[
"https://sgcdn.startech.com/005329/media/products/gallery_large/TBLT34MM50CM.main.jpg",
"http://www.belkin.com/images/productmt_aem/895090/renditions/cq5dam.web.372.372.jpeg",
"https://sgcdn.startech.com/005329/media/products/gallery_large/UUSBHAUB6IN.C.jpg",
"https://sgcdn.startech.com/005329/media/products/gallery_large/UUSBHAUB3M.C.jpg"
]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6t927p | What are the factors that determine your internet speed? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlj753i"
],
"text": [
"For a given Internet connection (say, streaming a YouTube video), the following factors determine your speed: - The efficiency of the data encoding. This is often quite close to 100%, but for some protocols (e.g. emails with base64 at 67%) it's significantly less. - Cryptography layers. About 99.97% efficiency for large files. - Network and Transport layer overhead. Depends on some factors, but typically 97%. - Transport layer automatic speed control and packet drop handling. This depends very heavily on the lower layers - expect about 90% tops. So far, these are the levels that go from your computer to the other machine (e.g. YouTube). All in all, they are quite efficient, about 90% for large files, but signficiantly less for some protocols and small files. When your computer sends a packet, it is transferred from one hop to the next, for instance from your laptop to the router to your ISP's local router to your ISP's Internet router, over some Internet core routers to YouTube's router and then finally YouTube's server. The overall speed is limited by the fastest hop. No matter how big YouTube's Internet connection is, if you're using a dial-up modem, the Internet speed will be slow. Let's go through the typical hops: - YouTube's servers are fast, especially when they're serving the video from main memory or SSDs. SSD speeds are on the order of 500MB/s, although the SSD will usually stream multiple videos at once. - Servers are typically connected with at least 1GBit/s, often 10x that. You're sharing this with all other users of the same server, but good services will always have spare capacity. - Internet backbones have ludicrous speeds (100GBit/s) and should always have spare capacity. - Your ISP's network should be well-connected as well, at the very least 10GBit/s (shared with everyone on your street) with spare capacity. For some shoddy ISPs, this may be a limiting factor. - Your ISP will throttle the connection speed according to your contract. This is software-defined, i.e. can be changed by paying more. This is the speed that's advertised. For home networks, it typically is in the range of 1MBit/s and 1GBit/s in the download direction. - Your medium of connection and the connection over it. Like in the protocols above, there is some overhead - expect about 98% efficiency for cable-based networks. Often, but not always, your ISP will make this as fast as the advertised speed - this saves them from doing software throttling. Devices and cables can often go faster. With VDSL you can reach up to 300MBit/s. With fiber optics or Ethernet, 1GBit/s is easily possible. LTE (wireless) can reach about 300MBit/s as well. Finally, there's the the connection between your laptop and your local router: - Wired connections will be between 100MBit/s and 10GBit/s. - 802.11g networks (very old laptops, iPhone 3G): ~3Mbit/s - 802.11n networks (old/cheap laptops, iPhone 4/5, cheap phones): ~10Mbit/s - 802.11ac networks (laptops, modern phones): ~100Mbit/s If you have an old WiFi router and a new device, you'll of course be limited to the old router's speed. WiFi networks are half-duplex and otherwise quite inefficient. This means that the actual speeds given above will be about 10%-40% of the advertised speed on the box even under good conditions. Bear in mind that network speeds are given in Bit/s - divide by 8 to get B(ytes)/s. Typically, but not always, the limiting factor is either the connection between your home and your ISP or the ISP's throttling. If you're using WiFi at some distance and have a decent Internet connection, WiFi may become the bottleneck as well."
],
"score": [
4
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6t9g3b | What would happen to a phone's screen rotation if it was used on the ISS? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dliwek8",
"dliwayk"
],
"text": [
"It probably wouldn't rotate. There's a gizmo inside of phones called an accelerometer, which is designed to detect acceleration in any direction. But here on earth, it's *always* detecting acceleration in at least one direction due to gravity pulling on it. The software on the phone watches this detection and flips the screen. The phone's software though is usually smart enough to wait for a strong, consistent sense coming from one direction before it actually flips the display, if you tumble your phone quickly in your hands you'll notice it usually waits until you're done to try and move the screen. In space with little to no gravity detected, the phone will probably stay in the default position. Unless you give it a nice shove for a few seconds and make it detect acceleration, which will cause it to flip to face the direction it was shoved from, because it thought that was \"down.\"",
"The sensor would be unreliable and indicate \"down\" only when accelerated in a certain direction. Probably the screen wouldn't rotate under most circumstances."
],
"score": [
8,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6td3zr | We went from 2g to 3g to 4g LTE relatively quickly. What is 5g and why have consumers not seen it yet? What's taking so long? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dljr13c",
"dlk0ec8"
],
"text": [
"We didn't switch that quickly in the past. 3G networks started rolling out in 2002 and 4G networks started rolling out in 2010. It may have seemed faster because there were \"3.5g\" bumps in the middle, like the rollout of HSPA+. In the last year or so, a number of telecoms have started rolling out LTE-Advanced (a \"4.5G\" technology, or the first one to technically be 4G if you're using the ITU's definition of 4G). 5G is still a work in progress. Electronics companies are currently testing some possibilities for the technology, but the industry hasn't settled on a standard for it yet.",
"Theres also the decrease in range the higher frequency gives you, requiring much more testing and construction to prepare for. With 3g you could make a lattice of cell towers and boost power or rebroadcast in densely packed areas. With 5G you have the signal being stopped by much less than a large hill or annoyingly large tree."
],
"score": [
25,
5
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6tdd9t | Why is CGI/special fx in movies more noticeable when being played on tv? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dljwikm"
],
"text": [
"Could be because most tvs either run PAL (25 fps) or NTSC (29.97 fps) formats, whereas cinemas typically run at 24 fps. The more frames per second, the more detail your brain gets and so the easier it is to see the special fx and sets etc."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6tfcjb | Why do a lot of mobile and desktop news sites have this 'read more' button? Why not just display the whole article? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlk7td3",
"dlkkzto",
"dlkb91f",
"dlk9y4o",
"dlk7zdl"
],
"text": [
"because it is a click that can be counted as traffic, as well as a refresh to load more or new ads",
"The one thing it does, even if it does not reload more ads, is give the site an indicator of whether or not the article was actually read, rather than just viewed. I'd imagine this is useful info for publishers.",
"what the others have said would be valid points, if the software actually worked that way. in many cases (wont say majority since i dont go around testing every site) the entire page loads at once, and the \"show more\" button is just a script that unhides part of it. it does not load more ads, and it doesnt even send feedback telling the site that you clicked it u/deadalley's idea does make sense when you're on a main page with multiple articles, but the \"show more\" button is often present even when there's only 1 article on the page i'd say a few sites use it properly, and the rest are jumping on a fad they dont understand",
"I always thought it was because you're not interested in reading every single article, so you don't have to scroll through every one of them.",
"There's several factors that could be at play. For starters, the page will load faster if it only has to display a portion of the article at the start (the rest can be loaded in the background while you're reading and generally by the time you click \"read more\" it will be loaded even on slower connections). Another possible reason would be to get metrics about how many people are reading the article. Every time you're clicking on \"Read More\" that counts as a view to the page FOR the article. This will help them see how successful an article is and potentially advertise more heavily on articles they think will do well, or that are showing signs of being popular. It's also potentially to stop bots from reading/ scraping the articles. Honestly, though, that's not an effective solution so this isn't generally the case."
],
"score": [
59,
16,
8,
4,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6tgpag | If Flash and Java plugins are going to be removed from Firefox and Chrome, why can't they make "good" versions of the plugins that will still work? | I understand that Chrome and Firefox want to remove Flash and Java because of something about them being a security risk (and something about NPAPI and PPAPI or something like that). Is it not possible to make a "good" version of these plugins that isn't a problem? I know that it's better to use HTML5 than to use a plugin, but there's no way all the old Flash stuff will be recreated in HTML5. | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlkigso",
"dlkr3uh",
"dlklr0k"
],
"text": [
"The problem isn't with the plug-ins but rather security issues with the core languages of Flash and Java. Mozilla (which makes Firefox) and Google (which makes Chrome) feel that there aren't ways to make safe use of those languages for web-based services through your browser.",
"Web advocates prefer open standards with multiple implementations. Both Flash and Java did not start as an open standard, but grew organically. Also, there is basically only one code base for each. There's no competition, and browser's can't switch to alternative code. In addition, the team working on the Java plugins was quite small, and was not aided by much community work. For a long time, the Adobe Flash team had no security people in it, and very lax developer standards. In principle, Adobe could spend lots of time and money analyzing the code and looking for vulnerabilities, but with the grown design that's quite hard. They'd rather improve their web editing programs, which is where their money comes from. In contrast, web browsers were and are always very security-conscious. There are currently 4 large teams working on browser engines (Gecko/Servo powering Firefox, Blink powering Chrome, WebKit powering Safari, EdgeHTML/Chakra powering Edge) who compete on security. When a web browser was insecure, users switched to the competition. Then, either the creator got their act together or the browser died. For instance, Microsoft's Internet Explorer got improved by massive security efforts from Microsoft, to the point where Microsoft is now one of the leading companies in terms of secure program design know-how. > there's no way all the old Flash stuff will be recreated in HTML5 Actually, there is. With the growing speed of devices and better APIs for 3D, binary code execution etc., it's feasible that JavaScript code can emulate Flash. Projects like [Shumway]( URL_0 ) could be used to run old Flash programs in the future.",
"Why would Google and Mozilla spend time and money buying up the rights to rewrite either Java or Flash plugins, when instead they could spend all their time and money making Javascript and HTML5 better? Since modern Javascript and HTML5 can do most of what Java and Flash did, but are under better control of the browser makers and more secure, it doesn't make sense to try and remake Flash or Java."
],
"score": [
6,
4,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[
"https://github.com/mozilla/shumway"
],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6tgx5r | What happen if I shut down my computer during an update ? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlkkk2o",
"dlkkd4q",
"dlkju09"
],
"text": [
"It depends. In most cases it will be fine and the update will have to be redone sometime later. However in some rare cases you might break something. An update does a series of different changes to the computer. Doing changes to files, replace files, change system settings and sometimes do changes to the boot loader or the kernel. Some of these changes will have to be done together and will break your system if only one of the changes is done. For example if there are two library files that depend on each other and require the same version of each other. If one of these libraries gets updated but the other one is not before you turn off the computer then you may end up with issues and crashes.",
"My dad accidentally downloaded windows 10 when it came out and halfway through he did a hard shutdown. As far as we can tell it killed the computer by removing windows 8 and not installing 10 all the way.",
"A whole variety of things. It could be simply that you need to finish the update. Or it could not boot. It depends what is being updated, and where the progress is. And just about everything in between - small features may not work - etc. For example - if it needs to update some data on your system and it got through the process of updating the data that boots the machine, but left it in a corrupt state, it may not boot."
],
"score": [
36,
9,
8
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6thc99 | Why can't a brute force attack break cryptography key? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlknqww",
"dlkn62u"
],
"text": [
"For simplicity sake, lets say your password can be any letter, uppercase or lowercase, both are different, and the numbers 0 through 9. That gives us a total of 62 different possible numbers we can choose from, in reality, it is a bit more with added symbols, but this is just for simplicity sake and proof of concept, the more characters to choose from, the longer it will take. Let's say our password is 20 characters long. We can choose one of 62 characters for the first character, one of 62 for the second, and so on. That gives us a total of 62^20 possible passwords that we have to brute force. This number is exactly 704423425546998022968330264616370176. The FBI would have to potentially try all of these but on average though they should get the password at the 50% mark, so on average they have to try half these passwords, so we divide this number by 2. 352211712773499011484165132308185088 Now say that the FBI can try 5 quadrillion guesses per second with their computers. This is already very high, no computer system that I am aware of can do this much and encryption algorithms are generally designed to be slow to brute force like this, but let's see how long it will take us. 352211712773499011484165132308185088/5000000000000000 seconds is about 2232000000000 years of guessing.",
"They can, but \"just brute force it\" is a process that can theoretically take years to do. Even with very powerful computing clusters (like the fastest ones known in the world), symmetric encryption can easily be long enough that the average time to brute force it would be hundreds of years... *easily*. The \"password\" (the key) being brute forced is simply too long to do it fast enough to matter."
],
"score": [
21,
7
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6ti4vd | why do screens use red, green, and blue, but printers use magenta, yellow, and cyan? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlktuq4"
],
"text": [
"Screens are black by default, and it adds different amounts of each color to make white. On print, the paper is *reflecting* white light already, and you are subtracting what colors reflect by adding ink that absorbs them. Think of magenta not as giving off reddish/blue light, but absorbing green and it might make more sense. Likewise, cyan is absorbing red, and yellow absorbing blue. Whereas on a screen, darkness comes form less intense light, on print an amount of black is added in addition to the three colors."
],
"score": [
12
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6tii7l | How does a router's NAT service know which internal client to forward incoming packets to, if more than one internal client is talking to the same external server? | I understand the basics of NAT, but if two devices on an internal network are using the same external server (such as two tablets watching a different YouTube video), how does NAT differentiate between the two packets meant for different clients, if they come from the same external server? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlkxfgw"
],
"text": [
"It abuses the fact that internet packets can list 2 ports, a source port and a destination port. Interestingly the same applies as to how the computer knows which program the reply packet was sent for. Not sure if you know about ports, so here is the quick rundown, ports are kinda like doors, there are a lot of them and they can lead to different places, while IP addresses are the destination house of the packet, the port essentially tells which room the packet should go to in the house. In routers, you can do something called port forwarding, which essentially says that when an incoming connection is addressed to this port, you forward it to this computer on the local network, like the router is the house here and the individual computers on the local network are the rooms. But there is also a thing in computers as well where ports denote which program the packet should go to, the computer is the house in this case and the room is the program. For example, website servers generally use port 80, when a packet comes in that is addressed to port 80, the server knows that the packet is for the website program and sends it to there. Anyways, internet packets have two places for ports, a source port and a destination port. The destination port is for the receiving end, that is the port they use, but when sending a reply, they will instead use the source port, that is like the return address. So the computer sends out a packet to the router, let's say it is for a website, so it will use port 80 as the destination port and a random high port for the source port, say 30000. The computer remembers this port as it awaits a reply, knowing that the destination port for the reply will be 30000. Now what the router does is it will generally do something similar, it will take a high port which it knows is not in use and put it as the source port, say 40000, it doesn't necessarily need to change the port, but in case that two computers on the local network accidentally use the same source port for their connections, it changes it. Now it knows that upon receiving a packet with a destination port of 40000, it will change that destination port to 30000 then forward the packet down to the computer. Both UDP and TCP headers have source ports and destination ports, so both use this method."
],
"score": [
7
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6tip10 | How come an usb-c 85w apple charger can charge a phone or a tablet without blowing it up? How does the power supply know how much power to feed? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlkyibf",
"dlky9lt"
],
"text": [
"The same reason your 1800W wall outlet doesn't blow the crap out of your laptop charger **The charger doesn't provide power** The charger provides a fixed voltage, the load draws as much current as needs at that voltage. The wattage rating on the power supply is how much power it *can* supply without lowering the voltage or turning off to protect itself, not how much power it *will* supply. The power draw is determined by the load, not the source",
"The charger senses what its charging and adjusts the voltage to 5 or 15 volts. 15 volts for pc and 5 volts for phone. Lets say the charger supports 3 amps then the phone would get 15W but the pc (Mac) would get 45W"
],
"score": [
8,
5
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6tjh66 | How do we take pictures of things in space millions of light years away from us? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dll6rkb",
"dll7v0w"
],
"text": [
"We point a camera at it, and wait. Because the light from such distant objects is very dim the exposure time must be very long. The famous Hubble Deep Field picture took 342 separate exposures over 10 days.",
"Think about the time difference between lightning a thunder. The light travels much faster than the sound meaning the further away the storm is, the longer the delay between seeing the lightning and hearing the thunder. This illustrates the fact that both of these things take time to get to you. Next, remember that seeing something is really seeing light reflected off of that thing. I can only see the moon because light from the sun hits the moon, then bounces back to my eyes. Tie those two thoughts together. You look at something that exists 100 million light years (a measure of distance not time) away and it has taken the light 100 million years to reflect off that object (or be generated by that object in the case of a star) and travel all the way to earth and hit your eye. Because it takes 100 million years for light to travel from that object to your eyes, what you are seeing when you look at it actually happened 100 million years ago. To scale this concept down, light from the sun takes ~7 minutes to travel to earth. If the sun \"went out\" we would still receive light for 7 more minutes due to light already headed our direction."
],
"score": [
7,
7
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6tjqad | Why is 'ground' in electrical circuits named 'ground'? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dll7fpx",
"dlli0uc",
"dlla2iy"
],
"text": [
"Because it's literally bonding a spot in the circuit to ground via a pipe or rod that goes into the ground.",
"These are both true, but in differenct circumstances: > Because it's literally bonding a spot in the circuit to ground via a pipe or rod that goes into the ground. True for mains power and high voltage. > Ground implies a baseline or starting point. When referring to \"ground\" in an electric circuit, the voltage is not necessarily zero but merely a point of reference for other nodes along the circuit. True for low power electronics. Sometimes, low power electronics may be connected to mains ground, but far from always. Heck, sometimes it runs on batteries... So, basically, it's a baseline reference voltage. On, say, a phone motherboard, it's enough to have it as the negative pole of the battery, but to nail things down in high voltage applications, you have to anchor it to the planet.",
"Because the conductor is grounded/bonded to earth (the ground) and at the same voltage potential."
],
"score": [
11,
5,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6tjwzy | Why do some edges of the laptop screen "hide" the mouse while others do not? | i.e. If I move the cursor all the way to the right, it disappears behind a secret wall of darkness. If I move the cursor all the way to the left, the cursor can't leave the screen. | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dll944g",
"dllgkfw"
],
"text": [
"The corner of the cursor is the pixel that is the focus of a click. To reach the right-most pixels, it has to go off screen. I'm pretty sure I used to have a windows 95 theme installed that actually flipped the cursor when it was too low or too far right.",
"The part of the mouse cursor that actually triggers things is the very tip. The rest of the cursor is just there to help you see where that tip is. Because the body of the cursor is down and to the right of the tip, it has to disappear off the edge of the screen in order to get that tip right to the edge of the screen."
],
"score": [
9,
6
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6tk1n9 | How do live television shows (e.g. America's got talent, American idol, talk shows, etc.) keep all of their video and audio synced up with so many cameras and so many mics going at once? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dllafvr"
],
"text": [
"They use a system which generates a timecode. This timecode is fed into each recording device. Since every recording has the same base timecode, they are all synchronized perfectly."
],
"score": [
6
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6tnjbq | Why do some wind turbines, when all faced the same direction, turn while others do not? Furthermore, why do they all seem to turn at the same speed? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlm1egq",
"dlmcjmk",
"dlmjru1",
"dlmegbh",
"dlm67xv"
],
"text": [
"They might not be turning for at least two reasons: 1) they have been commanded offline for maintenance, because the power isn't needed, ...; 2) the local wind sensor on the turbine doesn't detect the minimum wind needed to generate minimum power because or hills, wind currents, spoilage from other turbines, ... . The wind turbine has a rotation rate that extracts the maximum energy, as a function of windspeed. If all the turbines are made by the same company, and they are all in the same wind, then that optimization process is likely to have them turning at very similar rates.",
"I know that this is a seperate question but (forgive my ignorance here) do the turbines start turning purely by wind power or is there some sort of starter motor? I only ask because of the size and obvious weight of blades.",
"1) trip alarm was engaged 2) energy curtailment 3) scheduled maintenance 4) little to no wind. They come in streams and some turbines will get it while others next to it will not. Sometimes. And they're not entirely spinning at the same speed. It's just hard to tell from where you're at. If you were to look at the SCADA data, you'll see each one is spinning at a different rpm.",
"The reason they all turn the same speed is because the alternators are synchronized with the electrical grid frequency when they are generating. In other words they turn at a constant rpm to generate at 50 or 60 hz and they will vary the blade pitch to extract the optimal energy from the wind.",
"Blade pitch can be adjusted to keep the turbine spinning at the most efficient speed. Like mentioned elsewhere, if they are all the same model of turbine they will all spin at approximately the same speed."
],
"score": [
58,
28,
7,
5,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6tophf | the point of changing your network's password if it can be hacked anyway. | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlmbat7",
"dlm9vsr"
],
"text": [
"What's the point of locking your door at night if someone can break it down or enter through the window anyways? Why not leave your keys in the car if someone can break in and hotwire it anyways? It's a deterrent. There's no point in a hacker to spend hours and hours trying to get into your home network when there's such little potential payoff if they were to break the encryption. So they're not going to bother. If it's wide open and it's zero effort, or you're using default passwords which takes them 10 seconds to look up? Then you're making it a lot more appealing.",
"You can't \"just hack\" a network password unless you're using a simple password (one or two English words, maybe with common substitutions like S- > 5 and E- > 3) or an outdated encryption system like WEP. With modern encryption and a strong password, it would take decades for someone to hack it."
],
"score": [
10,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6tp7fa | How does a Transistor work and why is it so important? | According to a recent ask reddit thread, most people don't know what a Transistor is, and apparently the transistor is the building block of modern tech. Help! | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlmg8ry",
"dlmfbdk",
"dln6q6d",
"dlmiqi1",
"dlmip81",
"dlmifef",
"dlmkwwr",
"dlmp4db",
"dlmonpm",
"dlmvh9a",
"dlnhw2o",
"dlnbku9",
"dln9s0r",
"dln7slv",
"dlmmogx",
"dln5dsc"
],
"text": [
"I'll tackle the \"why first\". So, a computer needs to be able to take input and give you output. Whether that's deciding what is 2+2 or what it should display on screen. Thus, we need a device that translates input to output *automatically* using electricity. I'll use a MOSFET transistor as an example, as it is arguably the simplest. There is voltage at one end (power) and ground at the other (somewhere for power to go), but the current flow is blocked by the magic of \"chemistry\". There is an input node *next to* the path we just discussed. It isn't on the path, it's just reeeaally close by, separated by a small space. When you give that node a positive voltage (input), the pathway unlocks, and the current can flow from the high voltage to ground. Now, how do we use this awesome little device? Well, you can take a little wire of copper and connect it to the pathway from before just a little bit above the ground node, and run it to a dead end at the input node of a different transistor. This means your first transistor's output will determine the next transistors input. You have now created a digital IF...THEN condition. \"If this happens, then that happens.\" Instead of connecting the bottom of a transistor to ground, you can connect it to the \"power\" node of a different transistor, such that the 2nd is inactive until you give input to the 1st one. Now you have 2 switches that interact with each other based on two sets of input. Mix and match these combos of transistors and you can build \"logic gates\". AND, OR, NAND, NOR, XOR, XNOR. These transistor networks give a single output based on the combinations of 2+ input. AND: If Bob and Terry want to get dinner, then you will go with them. But if only 1 of them (or neither) wants to go, you won't bother. OR: If either, or both, of Bob and Terry want dinner, you will go. You just don't want to go alone. These logic gates can then be wired together to make more complex things like number adders and decision trees. At that point, you can now control numbers and IF, THEN conditions, so programming is now possible. Hop, skip, jump, and you're at your smartphone. Hope that's a coherent overview. Source: Electrical Engineering graduate, 2012. Edit: Thank you for the gold /u/the_cosworth! I tried to keep the explanation ELI5-appropriate, but for those wanting more details, there are some great EE explanations in comment chain below this. They go into Bipolar Transistors, explain some of the alternate uses of transistors beyond a simple switch, etc. There's also some linked videos in the comment chain below that are excellent little classes on the finer points. Visuals help a ton. I'll try to drop a comment about the \"magic of chemistry\" in a bit if anyone still wants to know that.",
"The easiest way to think of a transistor is like an electronic switch. You can turn off the flow of current by applying a much smaller current to the transistor. So imagine the flow of current in a circuit like cars on the street. The transistor is a stop light. When the light is green, the cars can flow. When the light is red, they stop. Because electricity wants to keep flowing, with multiple transistors you can control the flow of electricity and use it to perform simple (or not so simple!) tasks. Imagine a circuit with two transistors. You could set it up so that if one transistor is on, a light lights up, and if both are on, two lights light up. Now you've made an extremely simple calculator that can only do 1+1. Modern electronics are built off of the Integrated Circuit, which is actually thousands and thousands of extremely tiny transistors on a silicon chip. So imagine my silly little two transistor circuit. If you had many more transistors, you could make it do all kinds of things.",
"Others did Why to death (i.e. quite well) but I'm going to give a stab at the How. (TL;DR :: A transistor lets one wire \"act like a knob\" to control how much power goes through another wire.) So you know how they say atoms are \"mostly empty space\"? Well there are these particles that are really small (protons, electrons, neutrons) but they claim a lot of space around them. All of physics and mechanical science and such is about those \"claims\" and how they interact. What do I mean by claim? You can get very close to a small fire, and even wave your hand through a candle flame, but if you build a great big bonfire there's so much heat that you can't get close. Indeed, if your fire is too big you end up standing out in the cold because the margin between close enough to be warm and too close to be comfortable becomes unworkable. So particles claim space that's larger than themselves. One of their primary effective claims is \"charge\". We talk about positive and negative charges. It turns out that those words \"positive\" and \"negative\" are pretty much arbitrary. (Many argue that when Ben Franklin assigned the words he got them backwards, but that's another topic for another day.) So an atom is some number of protons (positive charges) glued together by neutrons if there is more than one because, um, that's how it works. (i.e. we really don't know why, at the ELI5 level, neutrons are necessary.) And for every proton the atom wants one matching electron. This is because plus and minus attract and want to make a big zero. On the other hand, physics demands that there be circles (or really \"clouds\") of electrons around every lump of positive stuff if you want that lump to be stable and happy. The first circle needs to be two electrons, then all the rest of the circles need to be eight. Why eight? Why the exception for two? More stuff that's true with no good ELI5 reason. That conflict, the push-pull between one-plus-one-minus and two-or-eight is how all of chemistry works. When you see a molecule described, like water, H2O, it might be drawn as H-O-H. The little minuses are pairs of electrons, one from each of the neighboring letters. H, hydrogen, is one proton, so it has one electron, which is not two, so it borrows an electron from the Oxygen so its circle/cloud is two. Oxygen is eight positives, so it has eight electrons. It's inner cloud uses two so it's outer cloud has six, which is not eight. So it borrows an electron from each of the two hydrogens. But wait! The hydrogen each borrowed one to make two, and the oxygen borrows two, so What the actual fark, amiright? The electrons are very fast, so they just leap back and forth, doing double duty. So that line is a very hard, very real connection. It's like cheating, but it's allowed. Like being stuck doing both the grill and the chili at a barbecue. And that's basic chemistry. Now silicon (and other things like it) are \"Semiconductors\". They aren't good conductors, and they are not bad conductors, they are just so-so. And so \"semi\". Meh. (Note that \"meh\" here is relative. Silicon is _much_ better conductor than air or plastic, but things like gold and copper are just way, way better.) And if we looked at a perfect crystal of silicon we'd see a very ordered set of lines. And being all pure like that it barely conducts electricity at all (compared to say copper). That's because each electron is exactly doing it's job. So we take that pure silicon and \"dope it\". We force it to accept some non-silicon atoms. Those atoms have just one too many, or one too few protons, which means there are one too many or one too few electrons. So the resultant block has too many or too few electrons. Too many and the block is negative, Too few and the block is positive. Too many and it \"has electrons (it can share)\". Too few and it \"has holes (that can accept electrons)\". Either way, there's now more wiggle room for the electrons to literally skitter around and the silicon is a much better conductor than if every electron has its best spot. So what happens when we mash two of those lumps, one positive and one negative, together? Well the positive part \"borrows\" the electrons from the negative part and it's happy but its now back to being crappy at letting electrons through... in one direction. There's the magic! If I keep putting electrons on the negative side, it can keep lending them to the positive side, and I can suck them out of the far part of the positive side. But if I put electrons into the positive part I just make it even more impossible for the electrons to move around. It's weird, but that's a \"Diode\". Now when that two-part lump is sitting there it's inherently a match of plus and minus. And when I run electrons in part, and suck them out of the other part, the total amount of plusiness and minusiness of the whole block changes. So I can take that diode and add a _third_ block of stuff that's even _more_ plussy or minusy than the first two. As long as I put it on the far side of the \"same kind of stuff\". By that I mean I can do \"Positive - negative - positive\" or \"Negative - positive - negative\". It's got to be three layers and one has to be \"stronger\" than the other two, hence the capital letter. So after I make this three layer sandwich, when I suck electrons out of the center (in the Npn case) or add electrons to the center (in the Pnp) case, there's that diode between the capital letter and the center doing the normal diode thing. But now the second magic bit. As the center gets more electrons added/removed the two ends with the same doping become able to \"see each other\". Understand that a \"Pp\" or an \"Nn\" block of silicon will just pass the electrons on after wasting some of the energy as heat. So as you feed the interruption in the middle the electrons start to be able to go all the way through. The more you stimulate the middle, the more electricity can get from end-to-end. If you stimulate the middle \"enough\" it's like the middle piece was just removed. So what does that practically mean? At low currents a transistor is an amplifier. Put a little power on the center and a _proportionally_ larger power can flow from end-to-end. At higher currents, known as the \"saturation current\", the transistor becomes an on-off switch. So the transistors in your radio amplify the tiny signals received over the air into the big signals necessary to move your speakers and make sound. And the transistors in your computer, being operated at saturation, can do \"logic\" because by using switches in groups you do that AND/OR/NOT stuff. Finally, the smaller a transistor is, they less energy needs to be put on that center part, and the less heat is generated as the electricity flows from N-to-n or P-to-p. So big honking transistors can operate real-world things (your stereo) and lots of tiny transistors can become a phone or a computer.",
"Some comments here have addressed what task the transistor performs but it is not just the transistor that can perform these operations. We have other components that can perform the same task but they can't be shrunk. Computer circuitry is actually immensely complicated. It has to be shrunk down to a microscopic level to be capable of the sophisticated computations of the modern era while still fitting in one room. The transistor is a device that we can make at a very small size. Before transistors we had vacuum tubes and before them, relays. They were used to do essentially the same thing but those parts are far bigger and less reliable than a transistor. Vacuum tubes also get too hot, another one of several disadvantages. If we tried to build a modern desktop computer with vacuum tubes or relays, it wouldn't fit in your house. Being able to built a massive circuit with parts that are smaller than a blood cell is a big reason why transistors are seen as crucial to the existence of modern computational capabilities.",
"/u/veritasium did a great video explaining this rather simply. URL_0 Transistors are extreeeeeemely tiiiiiny switches with no moving parts, which are switched on and off by applying a small voltage which allows current flow through it's main part. This small size means we can fit millions into chips to do more with. Previously we relied on glass coil/vacuum tubes for switching, each being the size of an eraser or bigger. Which obviously meant whatever we built was big and basic.",
"All of you guys are thinking of a transistor as used in a computer. A transistor isnt always an on off switch. It has a linear region where it acts as a variable resistor. For a very small current at the base it can control, in an analog fashion, a current through its collector and emitter. This is how a transistor works in an amplifier or radio circuit. Most of you guys are describing a digital latch circuit.",
"A transistor is a fast, reliable, and miniaturizable device allowing electricity to control itself. There are different types which work somewhat differently, but the basic operation is that there are two terminals plus a control terminal. In operation the current between the two main terminals is controlled by the voltage on the control terminal. The most basic use is as an amplifier: a small signal on the control terminal can control a large current, for example to transform the signal from the needle on a record player to something that can be fed to a loudspeaker. Things get better when you allow a process to feed back on itself. For example if you apply a phase shifted version of the voltage on one of the main terminals to the control you get an oscillator, so can build radio transmitters, for example. If you have a whole bunch of transistors you can do a simple computation on some set of inputs, each input being high or low voltage (representing ``0\" or ``1\"). If you can do simple computations, you can take the output and periodically feed it back as input to the same circuit. You then have a computer. There are other devices that can similarly allow circuits to control themselves. For example vacuum tubes can in many ways be nicer for radios and such. But vacuum tubes are big, complex, and have a filament that burns out rapidly and breaks under mechanical stress. The size also causes speed limitations. Relays are great for designing computers with, but are also big, slow, and expensive with moving parts to wear out. Transistors on the other hand are produced by chemically altering a solid piece of semiconductor. They are shockproof, and don't have fragile or moving parts. They can be tiny and can be mass produced. The last point is a huge understatement, since now we build millions on the same piece of semiconductor, so you can have thousands of times the computing power of a building full of vacuum tubes in an inexpensive chip smaller than your fingernail.",
"Lets talk about a transistor as an \"amplifier\" device... A transistor has 3 parts: base, emitter and collector. The magic happens between the collector and the emitter and everything is controlled by the base. When you have a transistor acting as an \"amplifier\" you have basically the collector connected to the power supply, the emitter connected as the output and the base as the input. To allow this to work, you have to polarize the transistor, that is basically provide 0.7 volts of difference between the base and the emitter. This will put the transistor in a state that any increment in the base voltage will make the collector to let pass the power supply voltage to the emitter. It is like having a huge water box connected to a pipe and at the end of that pipe you have a huge hammer. On your hand you have a button. Every time you press that button, the water box dumps a huge flow of water thru the pipe and the hammer hits something with a huge force. Now imagine this: you tap the button 5 times in sequence. Five huge flows of water comes from the huge pipe and makes the huge hammer hit something violently five times. Then someone say: look, you have built an amplifier. Your light taps on that button provokes huge forces on the hammer. So you get your amplifier. That is exactly like transistors work as an amplifier. A small sound reaches the transistor base and that makes the transistor open the doors and let pass the power supply voltage to the emitter that will eventually reach the speakers. So, a small voltage is \"amplified\" to a huge \"voltage\" that reaches the speaker and you hear as sound. A variation of this principle is used on computers to act as switches creating what we call \"Zeros and Ones\". Billions of transistors are combined to create a computer. This is why you need a powerful power supply to have a power amplifier. Always check how much the power consumers. If it says it consumes 120 W but the company claims it delivers 2000W, something is wrong with that numbers. The amplifier cannot deliver more power that it is consuming. It would be a generator of energy... what is impossible. An amplifier will always produce less output in Watts than it consumes because part is lost in heat.",
"How it works: Put very simply, it has 3 parts. A \"power source\" wire, an \"input\" wire, and an \"output\" wire. The power source (usually) always has power, and it's always trying to give that power to the output. But, it is only allowed to give the output power if the input wire is turned on. Think about your light switch. The power in the house is always on, but the lights are off. Why? Because your switch (the input wire) is off. Turn your switch (input wire) on, and the light turns on. Why it's important: It is the building block for logical operations in computers. It works like and \"If...Then..\" statement. \"If switch is on, turn light on\". You can combine them in interesting ways to create AND, OR, XOR, and every other kind of comparison you would want. Once you had thousands of these guys together, you can make it run really powerful calculations, like running a game.",
"A transistor is a non-linear device with linear characterisics. It's got three main modes of operation: off, linear, and saturation. None of these things mean anything to you probably but it's the foundation of all analog and digital ICs. Linear allows a transistor to act like an amplifier. BJTs are the first type of transistors used and have the best linear qualities which prevents signal distortion. You give the base of a BJT some current and you get along more current between the collector and emitter or signal gain. Think of it like using pulleys or a lever to GAIN mechanical advantage. The BJT was essential for things like radio and sensors where you needed to amplify small signals from inputs from antennas and physical sensors. Saturation allows a transistor to act like a switch. Saturation is a non linear characteristic of transistors meaning that you no longer have a linear gain e.g. for every 10uA you get 1mA output. After a certain threshold say 200uA, it doesn't matter what your input current is... you're only getting 20mA. Super simplistic but it delivers the point. Because of saturation you can start using logic levels as you can simply drive the transistor to saturation and it will act like a switch of either on or off. Transistor technology has significantly improved over the decades. BJTs make for good amplifiers, better than FETs, but consume much more power than FETs as FETs only require a field or voltage input versus a current input to get similar amplification effect. The three modes of the transistor allow it to be built into other building block circuits like operational amplifiers and NAND gates which then are used to make more complex circuits. To give a physical description of a BJT NPN transistor... You've got 3 regions N-P-N which are the collector, base, and emitter respectively. By applying a forward voltage at the base and emitter it allows a current to flow between the collector and emitter provided a voltage has been applied between the collector apply and emitter.",
"To make modern computer (and radio) circuits, we needed 3 critical things. Something that can allow current to flow in one direction, but not the other (a diode), something that can switch on/off other circuits based on a signal, and something that can amplify an input signal to be a larger output signal. Tubes came first. Their smaller Cathode flings electrons at the larger Anode (but going the other direction, larger trying to hit smaller is harder, so it limits flow in the opposite direction). There's your Diode. Opposites attract, Likes repel, so placing a *grid* between the Cathode and Anode, allows you to Switch (or Amplify) an input signal to persuade (or hinder) flow of electrons between Cathode and Anode. (There's your switch and amplifier.) But, tubes are (usually glass) large, heavy, fragile, and consume lots of power. Transistors (with 3 parts, and diodes with 2 parts) do the same job Tubes did, but are microscopic in size, and made (usually) of silicon. You can *dope* a piece of silicon with (or with fewer) electrons, to make it N or P types. If you're N type touching a P type, then electrons like to flow from the N side (more electrons) to the P side (deficit of electrons). But, with fewer electrons on the P side, they have nothing to push to the N side, so they resist flow in the P- > N direction. If you sandwich three layers (say NPN) then electrons like to flow from the N- > P, but resist flowing the next P- > N gap. If you apply a negative charge to the middle P layer, now you have NNN and electrons flow across the common structure. (There's your switch again. And if you vary the Amount (amplitude) of signal charging that middle P layer . . . you can adjust the amount of flow, and there's you Amplifier.) So, a transistor is a microscopically tiny set of NPN or PNP layers of silicon, that does the same job of the older/bigger tubes. Allowing, Blocking, Switching, or Amplifying the flow of electrons, based on a signaling input. They consume lower power, are far less fragile, and last longer than their older tube counterparts.",
"there was this brilliant crash course episode, I'll search it for you and edit then. transistors are nothing more but switches. You can use multiple switches to build logic operators (AND, NOT, OR etc.), the core building blocks of a modern cpu EDIT: [here you go]( URL_0 ) the whole series is highly recommended",
"The book \"CODE\" by Charles Penzold is excellent at answering this question. It starts off by explaining electricity, goes on to explain transistors, then how they can be put together into logic gates. Eventually, you know enough to be able to build a simple binary mathematical calculator out of 1890s telegraph components (or transistors). The explanations are fairly easy to follow and quite engaging. I recommend picking up a copy from Amazon Kindle.",
"Calculations by machine need switches. First were electro-mechanical switches. Size of small loaf bread. Relays. Then tubes or valves. Size of a Twinkie. Then transistors. Size of a dime. Transistors can be, were, are, shrunk down to nanometer scale. This allowed for computers that were size of a building to be shrunk to cell phone size, and power to increase billions of times. Your smartphone? Runs on 8 cores of millions of tiny transistors.",
"Simplest explaination is a water value with a pressure based valve. In digital logic the value is either fully open or closed. You can make valves which open or close depending on pressure to let water pass. Analog, same idea, except you partially open and close. Big pipe, small control value and you have and amplifier. Pipeing in specific setups from no and full flow control valves make logic. voltage is like gravity trying to flow to ground, or lowest level/gnd using water. Resistors are like pipe size changes to affect the amount of water/pressure/current going through. Caps are like lakes sitting at different levels of elevation before ground. All together and you have electronics.. as ELI5 as I could make it without all the other crap to make Silicon.",
"Think of it as a valve on a water pipe. This valve is controlling a large flow of water. However, you don't turn the valve by hand, a tiny flow of water is what's needed to turn it, to control the large flow. Now, once you have this, you can start connecting pipes. You can have the flow in one pipe control the flow in other pipes, creating complex interactions. Now, water in pipes is kind of slow, big and cumbersome. A transistor, on the other hand, can be so tiny that you can't even see it with the naked eye, it's fast enough to change state billions of time each second and it runs on a flow of electrons, not water. This means that we can increase the complexity to insane levels. A chip can have billions of transistors, creating very complex operations."
],
"score": [
3456,
247,
191,
96,
66,
20,
19,
6,
5,
5,
5,
4,
4,
3,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcrBqCFLHIY"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gI-qXk7XojA&list=PL8dPuuaLjXtNlUrzyH5r6jN9ulIgZBpdo&index=4"
],
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6tpv0u | How do Radio Stations know which songs the listeners like? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlmk4zk"
],
"text": [
"There was an AMA not too long ago with a radio DJ who basically said that the music companies (like clear channel which probably owns most the radio stations you listen to) just *decides* what is going to be popular and then pushes the songs. This is why you might hear people say \"I didn't like that new song, but it's growing on me\". edit: [found the source]( URL_0 )"
],
"score": [
9
],
"text_urls": [
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/6d9f2w/iama_former_radio_disc_jockey_the_radio_business/di10jzv/?context=10000"
]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6trn3f | Why hasn't man returned to the moon since 1972? | Our technology now is so much better and we should be more easily able to get people there. | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dln0ntx",
"dlmz4b5"
],
"text": [
"Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained: 1. [Why haven't we been back to the moon in 44 years? ]( URL_0 ) 1. [ELI5: why hasn't there been a man on the moon since 1972? ]( URL_5 ) 1. [ELI5: Why have humans not returned to the moon since 1972? ]( URL_2 ) 1. [ELI5: why hasn't any other country landed on the moon since the U.S. landed on the man back in 1969? ]( URL_1 ) 1. [Why has only 1 country landed on the Moon, & why has nobody been back since 1972? ]( URL_4 ) 1. [ELI5: Why has man not been back to the moon, even with all the advances in technology? ]( URL_3 )",
"The cost of sending astronauts to the moon and returning them safely doesn't justify the return. Well, to the government, at least. The scientific knowledge gained is paltry compared to the risk of loss of life, the amount of money spent, and the simple fact that we might not discover anything new. I think."
],
"score": [
8,
5
],
"text_urls": [
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/5s7s2z/why_havent_we_been_back_to_the_moon_in_44_years/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2xcvy1/eli5_why_hasnt_any_other_country_landed_on_the/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1n6hk2/eli5_why_have_humans_not_returned_to_the_moon/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1apanj/eli5_why_has_man_not_been_back_to_the_moon_even/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/4agua9/why_has_only_1_country_landed_on_the_moon_why_has/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2h11t5/eli5_why_hasnt_there_been_a_man_on_the_moon_since/"
],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6trols | what technology exists to help us shoot down and protect ourselves from nuclear missiles, and how effective is it? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlmzqb1"
],
"text": [
"There are three (known) systems in place by the US. One ship based, that sits near a potential launch site, trying to knock it down as it boosts up, and two land based ones that attempt to intercept the missile later in its flight. None are considered reliable. If anything actually shoots down a missile in a real world scenario, it would be considered a lucky shot. edit: I should point out the defense that is FAR more effective that is in existence and many possess the capability to do. You nuke the F!@# out of your enemy in a massive, targeted first strike on them **before** they can launch any of their missile, and which would likely prevent them from doing so, which also prevents even the chance that you would have to use unreliable defenses, because they ain't shooting nothing back. This was actually a major, and horrifying, tactic both the US and Russia came up with during the cold war, often called a \"decapitation strike\". Both sides considered this the optimal strategy, and both sides luckily backed down from it"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6trtsb | How is computer code "coded"? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dln0qc3"
],
"text": [
"Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained: 1. [ELI5: how are computer programming languages (Java, Python, C/C) actually developed? ]( URL_1 ) 1. [ELI5: How was the first computer program made if there was no program to make it in? ]( URL_5 ) 1. [ELI5: How did the first computer get programmed? ]( URL_2 ) 1. [ELI5: How was the first programming language made before any language existed? ]( URL_6 ) 1. [ELI5: How did they program the first computer? ]( URL_4 ) 1. [ELI5: How did the first computer coding get \"written\" if there wasn't a \"language\" to write it in beforehand? ]( URL_3 ) 1. [ELI5: How did the first computer code know what to do? ]( URL_7 ) 1. [ELI5: How does a coding language get 'coded' in the first place? ]( URL_0 )"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text_urls": [
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2htfxs/eli5_how_does_a_coding_language_get_coded_in_the/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/56ss5y/eli5_how_are_computer_programming_languages_java/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2zvchf/eli5_how_did_the_first_computer_get_programmed/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ye4nz/eli5_how_did_the_first_computer_coding_get/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/yyibk/eli5_how_did_they_program_the_first_computer/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1oeuc4/eli5_how_was_the_first_computer_program_made_if/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1lpxdz/eli5_how_was_the_first_programming_language_made/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3y6clq/eli5_how_did_the_first_computer_code_know_what_to/"
]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6tuhqw | How do phones and computers transfer audio to headphones? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlnkisw",
"dlnkk9h",
"dlnsv71"
],
"text": [
"Sound is transmitted as a voltage signal through wires. The voltage changes just like the soundwave, and this goes into tiny magnets in headphones, or speakers, or telephones. The magnets shake the speaker back and forth as the voltage changes, and this movement makes pressure waves on the air. The pressure waves we hear as sound. The whole process works in reverse too, and that's how microphones work. This also means that if you look at a soundwave picture (or wave form), you are actually also looking at a [graph over time]( URL_0 ) of the in and out movement of the speaker you're listening to.",
"There's a chip called a DAC (Digital to Analog Converter) that converts the digital signal (bits) into an AC voltage that then gets amplified and used to drive the speakers.",
"Sound is vibrations. You can generate vibrations by running an analog electrical signal though a coil near a magnet. This is how we build speakers like in headphones. We can take a digital approximation of an analog signal, and build a circuit that creates an approximation of it by changing voltages really fast to make a signal that looks almost like the analog signal you want.(this is often called a D to A converter). We can use analog electronics to smooth out the approximation of our signal we got from converting from digital, so it is much more like the original analog signal we want. We can do all of this knowing that people hear from 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz so the noise and loss from digitizing and reconverting to analog are not going to affect the sound quality you hear. There is some math behind this, and something called sampling theory which is about how to get from wave forms to data that lets us do that really well, and knowing exactly how things will behave because of the limited range of human hearing mentioned above."
],
"score": [
28,
5,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bdz5X814bNQ"
],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6tvzdv | Why are there no milibytes? | You have megabytes, kilobytes, gigabytes, terabytes, so on so forth. Would milibytes be somewhere between bits and bytes? Or are bits milibytes? EDIT 1: Yes I know I'm retarded. EDIT 2: 1k views! As an autistic that is ONE achievement ¬.¬ | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlnx0lk",
"dlnx1xy",
"dlnxjru"
],
"text": [
"The bit is the smallest increment, its a single 0 or a 1. 4 bits strung together becomes a nibble. 2 nibbles strung together become a byte 1024 bytes become a kilobyte 1024 kilobytes become a megabyte But one cannot divide a single bit into milibits.",
"Mili means 10^-3, that number is smaller than 1 but greater than 0. Since bytes are discrete i.e, there can only be integral number of bytes(or bits, either one works since 1 byte is 8 bits) you cannot have 10^-3 number of bytes. It has to be 1 bit or 2 bits.. there can't be 0.001 bits.",
"Since you specify bytes rather than bits, the answer is basically because that unit wouldn't be a useful way to convey the information. If it's less than a byte, you would want to know the number of bits. Lets say a piano was a unit of measurement that was made up of 88 keys. Giving milibytes in some fraction of a byte is like saying milli-pianos as some fraction of a piano; the number of keys is more useful to know than the fraction of a full piano."
],
"score": [
17,
7,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6tw4p9 | Why are traffic lights run by massive computer boxes when something as small as a raspberry pie could operate a basic traffic program ? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlnyykq",
"dlny6g0",
"dlo6976",
"dlnzlct"
],
"text": [
"Those giant cabinets you see on the side of an intersection aren't filled with processors for the traffic signal. Most of the space inside is either empty air or the giant cables that carry signals and power around. The signal is controlled by a box that is about the size of your microwave, and has a board in it designed in the ~80s or 90s (typically, there are newer ones, but they're mostly the same size). These are slow processors, thick trace lines, and giant heat sinks, with mostly empty air in the box for airflow. They're designed to work in the harshest conditions: 120 degree days with 100% humidity in Florida, to -30 degrees and ice in Alaska, and work as close to 100% of the time as possible. In addition, there's very little money in the traffic industry for upgrading boxes, and little desire to be the first to test something new without a good reason (there are exceptions as always, but overall the traffic industry is VERY conservative with their money and technology). A raspberry pie has the processing power for it and more, but it doesn't have the pedigree or the testing behind it that would make the traffic industry trust it at every intersection in the U.S.",
"Because the \"massive computer boxes\" are really simple, but most importantly, *tested* Tell me, how long have your raspberry pi run programs for 24/7/365 without crashes, bugs or anything else?",
"Also, those boxes might have a network switch, a vehicle detection system, video camera (feeds and converters on older stuff), systems that measure traffic times (point A to point B), a different vehicle detection system possibly for adaptive control and dynamic message sign controllers. All of this stuff is made by different vendors and all of it requires power. Some interface directly into the signal control system and some just dump their data on the network to be collected at the traffic management center. There's also what I call the \"oh-shit\" box, which monitors the signal conditions and makes sure weird things like opposing green lights don't become active. If so, it takes control of the signal with relays (yes...relays) and puts it into flash. Lots of wires, fiber patch panels, terminal blocks, power supplies etc....",
"The wires that can carry a signal to light a traffic light have to be a certain size, because of the current they carry and the thick insulation needed to protect them in harsh conditions inside a roadside box. The power switching card hooked to the wire has to withstand lightning striking the traffic light, so it has large spacing between traces, and it has to switch a lot of current (because lights didn't used to be LEDs). Since the things need to be modular to make them low cost to maintain, each card only does 2-3 bulbs. It doesn't help to make the cards smaller, because the wire thickness and spacing requirements mean the wires can't get too close together. Sure, there is a tiny chip that runs the ladder logic program, but that's in no way the size limiting part of the system."
],
"score": [
30,
10,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6txafu | Why can't you name a folder in Windows 'con'? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlo8lb3",
"dloxln1"
],
"text": [
"Con is a reserved keyword for console aka the command prompt. You also can't make files for other reserved names PRN, NUL, COM1, LPT1, etcetc",
"It's one of the magic filenames inherited from DOS, all the way from the 80s, before Windows was a thing even. Back in those times certain devices were exposed as fictional files. For instance, if under MS-DOS you opened a text file and saved it under the name of PRN, it'd get sent to the printer. But if you look, there's no such file anywhere. The OS just fakes it out. CON is the filename for the CONsole. If you try to read from CON, you'll be reading keyboard input. So for instance copying CON to another filename is a very primitive way of creating a text file with whatever you type next in it. That used to be a very well known trick back in those days, when you had to change something in a system that didn't have a text editor for whatever reason. You can still try it in a Windows command prompt: copy con test.txt Hello, world! Then press Ctrl+Z."
],
"score": [
26,
5
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6txmn1 | How do robo-callers and scammers route calls through local phone numbers? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlob0mc"
],
"text": [
"Caller ID is not secure; the originator of the call can fill in a fake \"from\" number. That's what they do."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6txune | Why do emulators emulate, not simulate? | Emulation brings a host of issues with it, and we know every last detail of most old consoles and computers as far as I'm aware. Surely a modern processor could simulate almost anything made before the year 2000. So why not do it? Note that when I say simulation I mean literal simulation: a software representation of every last chip and wire such that no matter the input, the output would be completely indistinguishable from the real thing. Emulators essentially are simply programs that take an input and manipulate it to mimic the hardware's output, but rarely in the exact same manner. | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlogm9e",
"dlod352"
],
"text": [
"emulation is much simpler. You maybe have 100 instructions to emulate, with their associated effects. Imagine trying to get the interconnects right for 50,000 transistors in code. One mistake and your \"chip\" doesnt work.",
"Modern processors are good, but they're not good enough to do a full processor simulation of pretty much anything (maybe you could get away with the original Game Boy). They'd have dozens of clock cycles to simulate thousands of transistors which just isn't possible to do."
],
"score": [
7,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6u032p | Why is it so Hard for HBO to prevent Game of Thrones episodes from leaking ? | They've done it again , episode 6 out 4 days before premiere . HBO is a wealthy company and can afford the best cyber security and what not , but every season its episodes are getting leaked. We dont see the same happening for other series made by other companies. | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dloxwq7",
"dlp3918",
"dlow5rg"
],
"text": [
"> HBO is a wealthy company and can afford the best cyber security Cybersecurity is totally irrelevant. None of the episodes were leaked by hackers. A company in India has the rights to broadcast Game of Thrones there. HBO send each episode a few days before it airs, so they can set it up to broadcast. People working at the TV station leaked that. There's really no way to prevent this. Episode 6 \"leaked\" because HBO's Spain branch accidentally aired the episode early. They literally broadcast it themselves.",
"Most leaking of movies and tv-series happens because someone in the chain of distribution snags a copy and gives it to a friend. You know, when you manufacture a few million discs for postal distribution, it's not that strange that one of two get tossed in the bin because the machine breaks it. And you can always pick out three or four broken discs and see if they have different faults so that you can reproduce the contents. Or, you know, snag one disc when it's time to put them in cases. Or a whole case before they go to the boxes. Or a whole box before they get on the shipping pallet. Or a whole pallet before it goes into the container. Or a whole container before it goes on the boat. Or... yeah. You get the idea. And...for obvious reasons...if you are gonna ship it to thousands of customers who are paying to have the case in their mailbox on the release date, you can't really avoid that you must have the pallet in your own warehouse a few days in advance. Where your own staff can easily grab one. In fact, in many places, this kind of thing is allowed. Because it keeps down the warehouse theft of this type of products if you allow staff to buy them two-three days before they are officially released. And then it can easily be intercepted by the staff who handle mail. And someone can grab it in your mailbox. Add to that the fact that most video productions also go back and forth a bit before they get to the disc manufacturing; subtitling, ratings (and those things happen in several countries simultaneously because there are several ratings systems) and such also depend on someone actually seeing the content. Then when it comes to distribution to the broadcaster, you can always bork up the communication and send it to the wrong recipient. Or just forget to encrypt a satellite transmission (this has also happened) that someone else with really expensive equipment happened to listen to at the exact right time. Or accidentally schedule it for instant release when you set up your web streaming service. Or forget to charge for it. Or release it in a very small and obscure country a week before all the others, totally by mistake. There is really no such thing as an airtight system. No matter how well you play ahead, you still have the issue with human error. My point is that this happens now and then. And the production company hates it. But it still happens. Truthfully, I find it strange that it's not happening more often than it is, considering how much people are involved in the industry.",
"Probably because as far as nerds and tech savvy people go this is the show that they want, therefore this is the show they go after. No hacker is going to go out of his way to leak the big bang theory. Edit: stupid phone thinks I don't know what I'm trying to say."
],
"score": [
15,
7,
5
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6u0n2o | Why is python most popular language in AI? | AI has been a hot topic and most of the libraries and APIs found are python compatible. Why don't we see languages like C or JAVA as much in AI as python? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlp169z"
],
"text": [
"Python is a higher-level language that is easy to write and format; the syntax is basically like writing in English. When you're doing a big complex task like designing AI algorithms, it helps to have those functions be easily readable and debuggable; Python is hard to make unreadable. C is good if you want efficiency in computer resource usage, but you have to specify literally everything you want to do. Java is, well, a nightmare, frankly. Minecraft is basically what's keeping it alive for your everyday user, and some enterprise programs that run off of Oracle databases keep Java afloat, but by god is that language a nightmare compared to Python."
],
"score": [
10
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6u245l | How is video evidence supposed to be taken seriously as technology advances? | They can some pretty incredible things today with camera tricks and computer programming. Also how can you trust that its unedited video? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlpal26",
"dlptl59"
],
"text": [
"It is a long time since photos and video on its own have been admissible in court. What is needed for photos to be used in court today is a well documented chain of custody that describes who have handled the data and what exactly they did with it. Anyone in the chain of custody may have an opportunity to change the photos so they need to be evaluated for any potential bias in the case.",
"A few points here. First, sure, video editing and manipulation tools are incredibly sophisticated these days. But for really good results, you need studio environments and incredibly well-planned shoots. Taking raw, candid, unscripted footage and convincingly modifying it to depict something that didn't happen is *way* harder than it sounds. Second, but just because convincing fakery might be *possible* doesn't mean that it *happened* in any particular instance. It's trivially easy to *dispose* of video, and only slightly more difficult to *selectively edit* video, deleting parts one doesn't wish to be seen. But actually producing *fake* video, even using existing footage, is still quite tricky. Doable, sure, but time-consuming and expensive. Hollywood can certainly do amazing things these days, but at the cost of *millions* of dollars. Seriously, Marvel can easily spend something like half of the budget on the MCU movies on VFX. Nobody outside Hollywood is dropping six figures modifying surveillance footage, and the number of people that would need to be involved in such a project would make keeping it a secret almost impossible. Suggesting that video footage has been fabricated is rightly regarded as wild conspiracy theorizing, not a credible challenge to the authenticity of the video. Third, just like editing and manipulation tools are sophisticated, so are forensic analysis tools. It's hard to fabricate visually convincing footage, but it's a lot *harder* to do so in such a way that is impossible to detect, whether by analyzing the footage itself or consulting the metadata. What, no metadata? That in and of itself raises huge red flags. So while it might be possible to produce a fake that would be convincing if just played back, anyone who actually needs to rely upon that video as *evidence* is going to have ample opportunity to take a close enough look to detect any tampering. Lastly, in many instances there are facts surrounding particular videos that strongly support the video being authentic and complete. Chain-of-custody has been mentioned [here]( URL_0 ), and that's important. But there can also be things about the video itself. You mention \"camera tricks\". Well, funny thing about that. . . a lot of surveillance footage winds up being *useless* precisely because of what might in other contexts be called \"camera tricks\", i.e., something about the framing, zoom, focus, angle, etc. (basically any cinematographic criterion you could care to name), leaves out an absolutely critical bit of information. Remember the Philando Castile case up in Minnesota? One of the main reasons the officer who shot him was acquitted was that none of the several videos of the event actually showed what the officer saw, from the officer's perspective, in the seconds immediately before the shooting. The footage from the squad car was too far away, and Castile's car and car seat blocked the camera. And as I recall, Castile's girlfriend didn't start recording until after the shooting, so no help there. Another case in point: I once represented a guy on a drunken disorderly charge from an incident outside a hotel bar. The bar had surveillance cameras in that area, and I subpoenaed them. Great! Only not so much. As I recall, somebody was standing between the camera and my guy for most of the critical time period, so we never really saw the specific action for which my guy was charged. Oh, and a lot of the action happened off camera, either because everybody was too far to the left. I seem to remember an animated conversation between one man and someone standing just out of the shot. Not Helping. Well that kind of thing happens *all the time* with surveillance footage. Could footage of this sort be faked? I mean. . . I *guess* so. . . but why would anyone *bother*? I can absolutely see someone cutting out critical passages, but again, that's easier to detect than you might think. But to go through the trouble and expense of fabricating or materially altering video that doesn't really show anything to begin with? What'd be the point?"
],
"score": [
13,
11
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6u245l/eli5_how_is_video_evidence_supposed_to_be_taken/dlpal26/"
]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6u2g5s | If cryptocurrencies are a better method of tracking transactions and money movements, how do they get stolen? | From what I have read, a major benefit to cryptocurrencies is the transparency they provide in leaving a trail of movement. If this is the case, then how are people able to steal / hack currencies without them being able to be traced? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlpdigh"
],
"text": [
"If you want to move crypto, but you don't want it traceable, you use a tumbler. Suppose your bitcoin is in wallet A. You tell the tumbler that you want that bitcoin to move to wallet B. The tumbler tells you to send your bitcoin to wallet C. Then, once the tumbler sees your bitcoin in C, it sends bitcoin from D, E, F, G, H to B. At random intervals over the next few hours - in between each of those transactions is thousands upon thousands if not millions of others in the blockchain as a whole. You end up with 97% to 99% of your money in B. The precise amount is randomized too, for additional untraceability. Nowhere in this process did money go from A to B, and if your delays are high enough - good luck to anyone who wants to track it! However, please note that even if they did figger out who did it, nobody's going to refund them because Bitcoin was designed to not permit chargebacks and the like as credit cards do. Of course, they might get a hit put out on them, but that's a different matter entirely."
],
"score": [
4
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6u309v | Why do torrent sites make it so difficult to find the actual link to download the torrent by adding fake buttons that just open ad windows? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlphu2z",
"dlphtqw",
"dlphuz6"
],
"text": [
"They get as revenue from you clicking incorrect links. They want to make money for hosting purposes.",
"Because torrent sites don't care if you can download what you're looking for. They just want their ad money.",
"Because they get paid by those ad windows, torrent sites also like money, and know that they're offering something with enough value people will pursue it through some obstacles, so they use the pursuit to generate money."
],
"score": [
8,
8,
8
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6u5cx2 | Is it actually bad to leave electronic devices on charge while on and/or overnight? If so, why? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlq1zjo",
"dlq1trb"
],
"text": [
"It depends on the device. Devices with smart battery management chips are fine left on their chargers indefinitely. They cycle the battery properly and keep it at optimum charge. Devices without these chips, like cheap rechargeable toys, can be damaged if left to charge after they are full. They can get hot and this causes their batteries to lose life. Some devices with smart chips have them setup wrong, like the Samsung phone that started fires, but that's usually caught in testing before consumers see the devices.",
"No, not at least phones/tablets. These items do something called 'trickle charging', where at 100% battery the phone stops taking in electricity from the wire. It lets its battery deplete a bit, then accepts charging again."
],
"score": [
13,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6u7zbu | How my 8GB RAM can run files and games as large as 50GB? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlqnd8w",
"dlqndfz",
"dlqt2jl"
],
"text": [
"Not all of the program is loaded into RAM at once. Only portions are loaded as needed from the disk. It is also possible to define portions of the disk as as being \"virtual memory\" where it is treated as if it was real RAM but is actually on the much slower disk drive.",
"The whole game isn't pulled from storage into memory. Only parts of it are called upon at a given time. Dependong on the data, it will be dumped from RAM to make room for other data. Not an exact answer, but that's basically it.",
"To give a simple analogy, you can look at how the brain works. At this very moment you are thinking about something, while there are also huge amounts of knowledge in your memory that you are not thinking about. What were you doing at 4pm yesterday? As soon as you read that question, suddenly you have got from memory the relevant information and you are now thinking about it. Whatever you were thinking about before that is no longer in your mind. What is 3 + 8 - 7 + 9 - 4? Again you are thinking about that now and trying to work it out. To do so, you didn't bring every single piece of knowledge you were taught about mathematics from your memory, just what you needed to do the calculation. So the way you use your active memory and your longer term memory is analgous to how a game works in a computer's memory. It has huge amounts of data, but only uses what it actually needs at any given moment, so it doesn't require as much space to do that, hence the RAM being smaller."
],
"score": [
11,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6u9h1b | Why do you get cellular coverage over a much larger area than 3G or 4G coverage? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlrdk6e"
],
"text": [
"All modern cell service is digital. A normal voice call uses a relatively low data rate (it's variable, but it's something like 10-20 kbps). A good LTE connection can be more than 1,000 times that data rate. For a given carrier frequency, using a higher data rate means you need a higher signal to noise ratio. Think about being in a loud restaurant - is it easier to hear someone who is speaking slowly and clearly, or someone who is speaking very quickly? It's a lot easier for noise to garble what you're hearing from the person speaking very quickly. As you get further from the cell tower, the signal gets weaker (both because of the simple fact that it is getting spread out over a larger area, and because more things may get in the way and block some of it), so it gets harder to \"hear\" over the noise. Past a certain distance, the signal is weak enough that a high data rate LTE signal can't be accurately and reliably received, but a low data rate voice signal can be. This is also why, as you get farther away from your WiFi router, the connection speed drops - the router and your computer continuously measure the signal to noise ratio and change the connection speed to insure reliable communication, reducing the connection speed as the signal to noise ratio drops."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6uaage | Why do some commercials in commercial breaks start playing, and then immediately cut off by another commercial? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlr490e",
"dlr4avt",
"dlra8oz"
],
"text": [
"National networks sometimes run local/localized ads targeted at a particular area; so for instance, I live in DC and back when I actually watched TV, I'd see ads for local businesses even if I was watching CNN or Cartoon Network; When I was watching, I noticed that most often, the ad that was getting cut off abruptly was for some product you could buy in stores nation-wide, most of the time, and the ad that was being played was a local business ad; so the conclusion I reached was that the local network was slow in switching out the ad, such that a tiny bit of the nation-wide ad played.",
"Local stations sometimes cut into network commercial blocks to insert local commercials. Although probably automated today, I used to do this manually in the 80s and unless \"network\" was perfectly on time, sometimes you missed the cue by a few frames. This might be the case in the situation you explain.",
"Yo ho ho! Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained: 1. [ELI5: What's happening when a commercial plays for a second or two before skipping to the next one? ]( URL_2 ) 1. [ELI5: What's up with the random 2 or 3 second blips of commercials in commercial breaks? A commercial will start but only the first second or two will play then it cuts to another commercial. ]( URL_0 ) 1. [ELI5: why does the last second of a commercial sometimes play right after the last commercial of a break on TV? ]( URL_7 ) 1. [ELI5:Why do tv commercials sometimes come on for a second and then switch off to show another full commercial without ever going back to the \"skipped\" commercial? ]( URL_1 ) 1. [ELI5: Why do some commercials come on for a half second and then suddenly switch to another? ]( URL_5 ) 1. [ELI5: What happens when you see a tiny flash of one commercial, only to have it cut off by another commercial? ]( URL_4 ) 1. [ELI5: Why do commercials sometimes cut off after a second or two? ]( URL_3 ) 1. [ELI5: What exactly happens when a television commercial abruptly cuts out in the middle of its air time and another commercial plays after? ]( URL_6 )"
],
"score": [
5,
4,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/30vxqa/eli5_whats_up_with_the_random_2_or_3_second_blips/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/29s6kq/eli5why_do_tv_commercials_sometimes_come_on_for_a/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2eb5lv/eli5_whats_happening_when_a_commercial_plays_for/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3amp5z/eli5_why_do_commercials_sometimes_cut_off_after_a/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2l7niw/eli5_what_happens_when_you_see_a_tiny_flash_of/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1wycbe/eli5_why_do_some_commercials_come_on_for_a_half/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2145fm/eli5_what_exactly_happens_when_a_television/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3szd0p/eli5_why_does_the_last_second_of_a_commercial/"
]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6ue3jk | How do Peer-to-Peer Connection in Games Work? | For games like Warframe and For Honor, what is the "structure" or "path" of the connections between the game servers, the host player, and the connected players? How is this different from games with dedicated servers? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dls1hfn",
"dlrzfgr"
],
"text": [
"So the terms \"dedicated server\" and \"peer to peer\" can mean both the way players connect to each other, and where the \"game logic\" runs... I will use the term \"computer\" to generally mean \"PC or console\". In **dedicated server** games, there is a server set up to run the game. This server is not a player, and often runs a different version of the game software. It doesn't need a video card, it doesn't need the game assets that are only needed for rendering (e.g, textures, detailed 3d models, etc). With a dedicated server, all players connect to that server - this is called a \"star\" topology. The dedicated server runs the simulation. What the player's computer sends to the server is something like: \"I am moving in this direction, I am facing this direction, and I am shooting\". The server updates the simulation and informs all of the players of the new state of things. There may be a *lobby host* player who controls the game settings, but that's where their responsibility ends. In **Peer to Peer** games, the players connect directly to each other. One player's computer (we'll say Player A) sends packets directly to the other player's computer (lets call them Players B and C). There are two common forms here - the game may have a dedicated host player that all the players will connect to (you get A-B and A-C). This is similar to how dedicated servers work. One player is both the server and a player. A second form of peer to peer game is when all players connect to each other, and there is no *dedicated* host player. This is called a \"mesh\". Everyone runs the logic and then try to negotiate with each other. It is usually something like \"I am here, facing in this direction, moving in this direction, I am shooting, and my shots are doing damage to this enemy\". Finally, there are the **game services**, the servers that provide non-gameplay-related services. These handle things like matchmaking, grouping up players and picking a dedicated server or (for peer to peer games) sharing IP addresses between plaeyrs so they can connect together. They handle other things such as leaderboards, player progress and unlocks, etc. These are independent of *dedicated servers* - that is they usually not the same machines or software, but they are associated with it. Players talk to these servers, and these servers may be able to communicate with the dedicated servers. Now... the exceptions to this. In any of these situations, players might also connect directly to each other for voice chat purposes, or they might use a dedicated server to handle this. A dedicated server might be nothing more than a \"packet reflector\", to simplify or protect network connections between players. Everyone connects to the dedicated server, rather than each other, and the server routes packets to the players, but the game still works like a peer-to-peer game. In a dedicated host situation, players may still pre-emptively connect to each other so they can quickly pick and migrate to a new host, or share information directly with each other. In peer to peer networks (both forms) the game might be able to support \"packet relay\", in case two players can't connect to each other, but they can both connect to a third player. In that case, the third player bounces packets between them. There are both \"server authoritative\" where the dedicated server or dedicated host runs and verifies simulation, and makes the final determination if an action was successful, what a shot hit, etc... then there is \"client authoritative\" where clients determine if they were successful and what should happen to them as the result of other clients claiming to have successfully done something. In client authoritative games, cheating is much easier. Dedicated servers are usually server authoritative, but not always - Player Unknowns Battlegrounds is a dedicated server game that is client authoritative. Peer to peer games are kind of a \"hybrid\" because even if the dedicated host is authoritative (server authoritative), he is still a client, and could still use hacks. It's a complex enough subject, I've probably forgotten to mention an edge case... (Edit: minor typos)",
"P2P networks is actually sort of a blanket term that covers a couple types of network structures. Games like warframe dedicate one of the players as a \"server\" and all other players connect to them. if player \"A\" is the host then the only latency that matters is between A and each of the players in the lobby. Games like For Honor connect each player to every other player independently. Because it is a direct data transfer you wont get things like phantom hits or swings that hit on your screen, but miss on your opponents. The downside of this is that latency will be a variable for each player in the lobby. there are also security concerns with this method if it is done improperly. A dedicated server would work like how warframe does, but instead of a player being the one that data is transferred through it will be a server that everyone connects to."
],
"score": [
5,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6uejdk | the difference between torrents and streams | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dls2t8v",
"dlsaqmv"
],
"text": [
"A stream is designed to be watched live (and generally once). For example youtube. You can watch it, but you must go back to the website to watch it again, you are not downloading it. A stream is also hosted on a server. So a site like google or HBO invests in large servers to be able to handle all the streams. A torrent is a download. Once you have it saved on your computer, you can watch it forever. A torrent is also peer to peer. When you download a torrent, you are downloading from dozens or hundreds of different people. Each person is giving you a small part. And once you have downloaded a small part, you can even start uploading to other people, even if you do not yet have all, or even most of the file you are downloading.",
"Streaming breaks small chunks of a larger file up sequentially and the client downloads and request chunks as it goes. This reduces server load for early dropouts, and allows people to only load what they need, especially if they skip a portion of the video or audio content. Streams are sequential chunks, loaded one after the other. A torrent however, is also broken up into chunks, but is instead downloaded with much higher parallelism and does not care about sequence, so long as they land in the right place. This means that a server hosting a torrent file can hand out parts of the file at a time to many clients at once very efficiently with parallel network transmission, a client can also download chunks from many servers asking for different parts of the file at a time, this solves one of the largest problems in network transmissions - latency. For these reasons, torrents are typically useless unless if the entire contents of the file are downloaded, as they do not form a complete stream of bytes."
],
"score": [
11,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6ueosj | Why are there so few aircraft remaining from World War II? Aircraft were built in quantities that are hard to comprehend, yet many models have vanished entirely. | This is strange because today we have boneyards filled with hundreds upon hundreds of every type of modern aircraft retired. Why do we not have boneyards like that with WWII vehicles? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dls4sv3",
"dls3zue",
"dls4t11",
"dls5fvy"
],
"text": [
"WW2 ended in a period of hyper-rapid aircraft development. New high tech fighters and bombers were practically obsolete by the time they were deployed. A new front line fighter type could be expected to serve for only a few years before it was obsolete. Old planes were surplus, a drain on resources, and after a few years were hopelessly obsolete relics with no practical use. So they were sold off for scrap, for parts, or for conversion into racers. Modern planes last *a lot* longer as the pace of technology has slowed dramatically in the realm of aeronautics. While aircraft of the late 40s could be expected to serve for less than 10 years, the current backbone of the USAF fighter fleet, the F-15, has been flying since 1972. The B-52 has been in service for 60 years and shows no signs of being retired any time soon. So all those boneyards aren't full of obsolete junk. They're full of modern (or last generation) aircraft in storage.",
"because after the war, they were in the boneyards, waiting to be sold or scrapped. once all the old planes were taken care of, the newer old planes go to the bone yard for the same. but in case we ever need those planes back in action or some parts or whatever, we can still have access. so short answer, ww2 planes aren't in boneyards because they were cleared out by selling or scapping to make room for the planes you see in the boneyards today.",
"I'm not an expert so take this with a huge grain of salt, but I do work in naval aviation and live close to the largest naval aviation museum in the country which is full of WWII era aircraft, which I visit quite often. And what I've seen/heard repeatedly there is that during that particular war they didn't have the luxury, or frankly the desire to treasure their tools of war. Time and money were so valuable that literally no effort whatsoever was made to save and protect any inoperable planes (or ships for that matter) that weren't able to be immediately rehab'd and put back on the front lines, or in a training context. If an aircraft missed the carrier flight deck and went into the drink, it was left there. If an aircraft was downed permanently and taken out of use, it was broken back down for scrap metal and recycled back into the industrial war effort. I'm sure there's much more to it than that but that is what I have been told.",
"A lot of them were dismantled for scrap. My dad remembers jumping on a pile of wings in a nearby junk yard (by an airport). This would have been in the 50s"
],
"score": [
11,
5,
4,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6ufccg | How did Jurrasic Park have such good cgi in 1993? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dls9qps",
"dlsqo1w",
"dlsghoo",
"dlsck09",
"dlsh8tb",
"dls9kie",
"dlslqkw"
],
"text": [
"It really didn't. Jurassic Park mainly used animatronics ('life-like' robots) and old fashioned special effects. Then it just came down to a lot of planning and a REALLY good quality effects crew. Technology (cgi) helps, but Jurassic Park (imho anyway) shows you can make a visually impressive movie with (comparatively) basic technology and a lot of creativity. Edit: I will happily stand corrected by /u/missle636. My response was based on a 'making of' I saw many years ago, which appears to have misled me about how heavily CGI was used. A quick look into ILMs history and I think I should admit I was wrong.",
"All these responses so far are horribly misleading, borderline incorrect! While they did use a large amount of animatronics, a lot, and I mean A LOT, of the scenes with dinosaurs in it are CGI. Notable are: the T-Rex chasing car scene, the opening-scene \"welcome to Jurassic Park\", the scene where the T-Rex is destroying the flipped car (there wasn't even a real car there), the flock of Gallimimus', the raptor kitchen scene, the T-Rex finale in the museum and many, many more. All of these dinosaurs were pure CGI. Another notable usage of CGI in this movie is the scene where the girl falls through the ceiling, and looks up into the camera. The actress who did this stunt was actually a stunt-actress and so the face of the original actress was overlayed with the help of CGI. You can't do that convincingly if your CGI isn't on point. I think I've made my point clear now. So now to answer your original question. The CGI in Jurassic Park is made by a studio called ILM. And with this movie, they revolutionized the business and usage of CGI in the filmindustry. ILM showed that is was possible to create convincing animate objects such as animals with the help of computers, and really started the demise of [stop motion]( URL_0 ). How they exactly did it I don't really know, but most likely the computer technology was just powerful enough to accomplish these things, and it was the first time someone tried to do it. The team at ILM also had incredible artistic freedom. Fun fact: the movie was originally supposed to be completely stop motion, but when Spielberg saw the work of ILM, he revised many scenes to include their CGI. They even added the scene of the T-Rex fighting with the raptor in the museum just because they could do it with CGI.",
"They didn't have good CGI really, They just used it very, very well. There were actually a ton of practical effects used in Jurassic park with animatronics and models etc and CGI was seamlessly mixed in with that when it would be least noticeable like in the dark or the rain. They also used CGI for stuff that is easy to use CGI for. The smooth dino-skin is easy to create with a computer. Hair or feathers are much harder to make look right with CGI. The also had experts with backgrounds in stop-motion and similar to help make the animation look life-like. It also helped that they had a director like Spielberg who actually knows what he is doing to get everything to mix it all up.",
"They used physical props such as animatronics that were supplemented with CGI. It was not fully CGI created. It is the combination of practical and CGI that makes things look awesome and that is why I am glad we are going back to a mix.",
"It really didn't have much CGI or animatronics. They actually created real dinosaurs and trained them to act in a movie, which was base on a true story....their story. CGI wasn't that great in 1993. They did use some CGI to make the kids, which is why they look so horrible in the movie.",
"They used robot dinosaurs and CGed what couldn't be done practically. Now adays we're lazy fucks that go full CG which tends to look like ass.",
"To supplement the answers already here, the only dinosaur we see pretty close up in good light, that's completely cgi is the brachiosaurus at the beginning eating the leaves at the top of the trees. It's no coincidence that that's probably the scene that's held up the worst over the years and looks the most \"cgi\". All the memorable close up dinosaur moments that still look so amazing achieve that because they're mostly highly detailed puppets and physical animatronics as opposed to computer imagery, which was reserved for distant full body shots, obscured by darkness and rain. TL;DR: They knew the limits of the effects they had at their disposal and made the most of each method."
],
"score": [
32,
11,
8,
7,
5,
4,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_motion"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6ufosy | how does someone get access to all the music in the world to be able to start a business or app, much like I < 3 Radio. [technology] | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlsc6dv"
],
"text": [
"You approach the people with the rights to the music (i.e. record companies, labels, artist groups, licencing companies, artists, etc) and get permission (a license) to use their music. This would be a **MASSIVE** undertaking (both in terms of time and money), especially if you want to start from scratch. The other alternative is to approach somebody who already has the licenses (like a radio station) and see if you can operate under them. **ALL** the music in the world is a LOT of music though. Nobody has access to everything. I < 3 radio doesn't, it just has access to a large library of songs."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6uggq6 | Why are there GSM and CDMA phone lines? Is it more beneficial to have one then the other? Why isn't there just one kind of phone line? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlsj8td"
],
"text": [
"GSM and CDMA are mobile phone standards. GSM stands for Global System for Mobile Communications (it originally stood for Groupe Spécial Mobile but they changed it). GSM uses Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) as a way of allowing multiple devices to share frequencies. CDMA is Code Division Multiple Access. The easiest way to describe the difference is imagine you are in a room with lots of people, they cant all talk at the same time and be heard. TDMA would be the equivalent of everyone taking turns (I.E. everyone has a turn to speak), CDMA would be the equivalent of everyone speaking in different languages."
],
"score": [
10
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6uh5pv | In metal gear solid you fight against an enemy named Psycho Mantis. He has the abilities to make the controller vibrate, fake a corrupt data, and force you to change the side the controller is plugged in. How do game programmer's do that and work on every console the game is played on? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlsmdp7",
"dlsm6a9"
],
"text": [
"The game originally only came out on PS1. The point of games consoles is that they are all the same. Or at least they designed to be effectively all the same for game programmers. Sony provided APIs (Application Programmer's Interface) to do things like make the controller vibrate, look at data on the memory card, check which controllers are plugged in and so on. Using those the developers can be sure that all of those features will work on every PS1 console. There was also a PC version of the original Metal Gear Solid. But I'm not sure what that does instead.",
"Also the game was originally an exclusive PS1 release so they didn't have to think about porting the feature ."
],
"score": [
9,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6uir1d | Why USB 3.1 Gen 2 SSDs (Like the new T5) Only Transfer at 540MB/s? | I'm about to buy an SSD to use for editing on my MacBook (Yes the one with the controversially low number and variety of ports). All of those ports (USB-C Thunderbolt 3) Support speeds of 10Gb/s, which according to [this]( URL_0 ) website is 1250 MB/s. As far as I can tell, the new T5 takes advantage of this tech and is supposedly "super fast", but has a max read/write speed of 540Mb/s. What is causing this limitation, or is there no limitation and I got something completely wrong? Thanks for any and all responses | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlszske",
"dlsyvtt",
"dlsya3m",
"dlsz619"
],
"text": [
"USB 3.1 gen2 supports 10Gbps. A highway supports 500mph? So why can't all cars that use the highway go at 500mph and are limited to say 150mph? Same thing. Usb3.1g2 is simply an interface specification. Like a highway. It's up to the device to be able to reach the peak tpt the interface supports. Most devices can't come close.",
"Looks like you are limited to the speed of the nand. Depending on which SSD you have and what kind of data is being written to, will determine its peak speed. But for last gen SSD's, thats about normal for sequential read/write speed. In reality, that is fast as hell so dont be discouraged that the bus isn't running at its full capacity.",
"One possible reason is that the external drive uses an adapter emulating a SATA 3 interface, which has a maximum potential data transfer rate in the neighborhood of 550mbps. Going this route would enable the use of a off-the-shelf consumer SSD, which could save costs over a faster interface.",
"1. It could be the max read/write speed of the SSD itself is 540Mb/s causing the bottleneck. 2. The external drive could just use a plain ol' SATA3 Drive (or at least the SATA 3 interface internally) to save on costs - easier and cheaper to build 2 million drives and throw 1 million of them in external enclosures than 1 million drives specifically for external use and 1 million drives for internal. 3. Very unlikely, but there could be a bottleneck on the chipset limiting actual throughput on the USB3.1 interface due to other (internal) devices consuming bandwidth, likely a dedicated graphics card."
],
"score": [
4,
4,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6um6di | How does Apple know whether or not a charging cable is "certified"? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dltqdzu"
],
"text": [
"There s a chip inside the lightning cable that tells the phone that its a legitimate chip approved by apple, if the phone doesn't see this, then its not legit. Yes it can be hacked, thats how some knockoff cables from China were introduced."
],
"score": [
6
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6um7b7 | how does keeping the AC on continuously during the summer save money? | I've always heard that you should just leave your A.C. on instead of turning it off when you're not home, or even at night. I've heard that if you keep turning it off, you're making the unit work harder every time you turn it back on, thus making your electricity bill higher. | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dltqrzm"
],
"text": [
"It doesn't. Here's a [debtroundup]( URL_1 ) article that I'll quote from, their answers come from an HVAC tech: > The myth: Leaving your air conditioner on all day will help save money in the long run by not having to kick start it each and every time you turn it back on. > The truth: Absolutely false. > By keeping your air conditioner on at all times during the day, you’re not using an air conditioner efficiently, because leaving the air on all day (even when you’re not home) results in a higher use of energy. It would seem to be common sense that something that works harder is spending more energy, but this assumption is not an accurate reflection of how air conditioners work. Fluctuating to accommodate for a constant temperature is far more taxing on an air conditioner than when it’s working at full capacity. Air conditioners work best when they are operating in full gear. [Time]( URL_0 ) also has an article on common mistakes with AC, where they specifically mention not cooling empty rooms, which means don't use an AC if you aren't home."
],
"score": [
8
],
"text_urls": [
[
"http://time.com/4408512/air-conditioning-mistakes/",
"https://www.debtroundup.com/should-i-turn-off-my-ac-while-away/"
]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6unjj5 | For old times' sake I recently pulled my ps2 out of my storage and plugged it in for the first time in over a decade. To my surprise the time and date was still correct to this day.how it managed to keep time for so long while being in a state of no power. | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlu12sn"
],
"text": [
"There is a tiny battery with just enough power to keep the memory running. It must also power the internal clock (they are usually watch batteries. It was a really sad day when my pokemon gold internal battery died, I'm happy to hear your ps2 one is still working."
],
"score": [
7
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6us2n7 | How come when someone tries to open a car door at the same time that someone unlocks the door, it won't open/unlock? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dluzqdd"
],
"text": [
"Does not happen in modern cars. There's a latchkey in older cars that, if you tension the door lock wire at the wrong time, will cause it to go flaccid - which will result in the door lock not opening. So you press the lock button, it tenses an actual wire, and if the door handle is opened at that exact moment it can't pull any tenser, so it does not unlock. Modern cars have circuitry to prevent that situation."
],
"score": [
14
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6utr1b | How come 3D modeling software will take hours to render a single high quality image of a car, while a video game like Gran Turismo or Forza will display 30 images per second that look just as good? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlvc2z0",
"dlvbxfb",
"dlvd1nv"
],
"text": [
"they don't look just as good. they're way less detailed. but you don't notice because you're not scrutinizing the detail of how the detailed the ferrari badge looks when you're going around the road.",
"I could be wrong, but I believe the textures have already been rendered, they're just being animated in game",
"Generally, in movie quality renderings there's a lot more detail regarding reflections and refractions whereas games convincingly fake these effects, trading accuracy for speed. Same goes for techniques like bump mapping and other tricks done with pixel shaders so that a game can render a detailed surface into a single polygon instead of actually drawing a detailed mesh of something like a brick wall. These techniques look pretty good in a game where the focus is on the action but in a movie where the camera may be up close to these surfaces it would look pretty bad next to something made by Pixar. Likewise games tend to keep the number of dynamic lights and other objects in any particular area/map to a minimum to prevent slow downs while prerendered scenes have no such limitations."
],
"score": [
9,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6uwmw9 | What makes GPUs (stuff like NVIDIA and AMD cards) so much better than the generic integrated cards (Intel HD cards) in normal laptops and computers? | Have been PC gaming for a few years. Recently upgraded to a laptop with an NVIDIA graphics card. As you'd expect the increase in performance was huge. How come these dedicated GPUs give such increased performance? What differentiates then from the integrated stuff found in normal laptops? (eg the Intel HD range) Also are they similar to processors or are they more like RAM. | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlvx0x9"
],
"text": [
"They're processors, not like RAM (memory storage). What differentiates them are two things: integrated GPUs are built onto the same die as the CPU itself, and integrated GPUs share system RAM. Discrete GPUs come with their own memory. The upside that makes integrated graphics worthwhile is they're cheaper, they're sufficient for most non-gaming purposes, they produce less heat (no need for a fan or extra cooling/space), and they consume less power (important in a mobile setting)."
],
"score": [
4
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6ux4ne | Why do some micro USB cords charge certain devices but not others? | I have many micro USB cords and devices that they charge. Some cords will work to charge certain devices, but then won't work at all to charge my phone, vape, ps4 controllers, etc. Sometimes I'll have a cord that works to charge a device for a while and then all the sudden it just won't charge that device any longer (but WILL charge some other device). What gives? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlw87lz",
"dlwbimc"
],
"text": [
"USB is an open standard, but there's nothing stopping people from putting their own proprietary protocol on it. so the cable will physically fit, but the software doesnt recognize it and refuses to interact with it",
"First, proprietary *charging* protocols. While USB is an open standard, it originally allowed carging with currents up to 1 A, and even less before that. IIRC, safe fallback current for charging through motherboard USB port is only 0.5 A, it could provide more only if device actually asks for it. That wasn't enough, so various manufacturers developed several unofficial extensions to the standard. Usually this is done by connecting data wires to power wires through resistor with certain value. Some manufacturers (most infamously Apple) has gone even further and included advanced circuitry to detect that compatible device plugged in compatible charger. This also helps them to sell those chargers and cords at higher prices. Nowadays there finally are some official standards like USB 3.0 and QC Second, on the other hand, cheap cords might actually be unsuitable to high currents - wires too thin, resistance too high. Lastly, in your case I would also suspect some defect either in cable or in connection to charger."
],
"score": [
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6v15ky | Why you shouldn't take Eclipse photos with your smartphone if you can normally take pictures of the full sun without any problems | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlwy6ag",
"dlx23oj",
"dlx22cz",
"dlx1k5i",
"dlx2fgp",
"dlx5rwy",
"dlx4n9n",
"dlx6xg3"
],
"text": [
"The main issue is not your phones camera, but the risk of you looking at the eclipse for too long, looking directly at the sun during the day by itself is already a bad idea. The danger during an eclipse is your eyes adjusting for a dark environment, so your pupils widen, if you now look at the eclipse your eyes might take severe damage, without you even noticing, as the brightness of the sun that would usually force you to look away/close your eyes isn't there anymore.",
"I'll chime in. I'm professional photographer. I haven't shot an eclipse, but I have shot with a 90mm Reflector Telescope. The issue with shooting the sun is the lens. The front element captures all available light, and through a series of elements focuses that light onto the sensor. You're right in saying you can take photos of the sun without damaging your camera. An eclipse doesn't suddenly produce more light. The sensor will protect itself from excess light. But like burning ants with a magnifying glass, enough focused light will physically burn the sensor. So I wouldn't set the camera on a tripod and do a long exposure shot. It'll have enough time for the infa-red to burn the sensor. The other issue is burning out your retinas. Some professional cameras have an optical viewfinder. The light comes down the lens and there is a mirror in front of the sensor that directs the image up into the viewfinder. When you press the shutter release it flips and directs the image at the sensor. Then back to the viewfinder. So just like the sensor, that concentrated light is directed at your retina. Magnifying glass vs ant again. This is that same reason that every telescope has stickers everywhere that says \"don't look at sun\". The only time I worked on a job where a sensor was fired was a big stage performance and a lazar shot directly into a digital cinema camera. It's pretty rare. As you smart phone doesn't have a large lens to direct the light, or an optical viewfinder, I wouldn't worry too much.",
"Honestly dude, eclipse totality is going to look exactly the same as it has for 1,000s of years. why people would be pointing at the sun and taking a photograph with their mediocre phone camera instead of looking around and enjoying a rare experience is beyond my comprehension.",
"I thought the advice was given because shooting a picture of the sun will end up looking crappy. Have you ever tried taking a picture of the moon? It ends up being a tiny white dot on a black background with maybe an ugly halo. You need more professional equipment to be able to get a decent picture.",
"I heard on the news last night that you can use your phone to watch the eclipse. Stand with the sun at your back, put your phone on a selfie. I'm not going to do it because I live in central Florida and the sky will look like an ordinary cloudy day.",
"You can take pictures of the eclipse with a digital camera. The light won't damage any part of the camera. But ABSOLUTELY DO NOT LOOK AT THE SUN THROUGH A LENS. So the digital display of the phone is fine. the digital display of a digital camera is fine. The camera will not be damaged. But if you use your eyes to look through the tiny window of a fancy camera or an old camera, you will burn your retina.",
"If you've never had a problem, then you probably won't have a problem today. But the sun is bright, and you have a little magnifying glass in front of the electronics. Everyone knows the fun of melting stuff with a magnifying glass in the sun. CCD smoke. Don't breathe this.",
"It won't destroy your camera any more than leaving your phone in direct sunlight will destroy it. Remember, phone CCDs don't have a shutter and are always exposed to light from outside. If looking at the sun could damage them, we'd all be paranoid about leaving our phones in the sun."
],
"score": [
489,
196,
62,
21,
17,
12,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6v24jm | Why is that sometimes when you click a link, it does not load at all and takes a very a long time but when you refresh it, it just loads instantly? | First time posting here. Would like to know more about this topic. | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlx3ibb"
],
"text": [
"First time you connect to a website there is a lot of things happening behind the scenes. There are DNS lookups, service discovery, encryption negotiations, etc. But if you visit the site again then most of this information is cached. Your browser also caches a lot of the images and other content on the site so it does not have to retrieve them again. Most browsers have a \"clear cache and refresh\" option which discards the cached pages and makes the page load as if it is the first time you load it. In addition to this there is a lot of things that can effect the loading time. If a single packet is lost on the network it may be some time before it times out and the packet is assumed lost and therefore resent. This is especially true in the initialization phase which happens the first time you visit a website. The servers can also have a varying load on them, especially with modern cloud computing which is designed to scale very fast depending on load it is common to have the servers overloaded for a few seconds at a time. It may also be that the website have anti-spam measures that need to be initialized when you first visits a website but then is much faster the next time."
],
"score": [
8
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6v5fu8 | Zero/No Knowledge Encryption | I've tried to find online resources explaining this but I still cannot get my head around it. What is it and how does it work? Thanks | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlxryfr"
],
"text": [
"A Zero-knowledge proof is a system that allows you to prove that you know a secret (such as your password) without telling the secret itself (in any form). Real world examples require a lot of complicated maths (as encryption generally does). A simple example could be a (physical) labyrinth. You can prove that you know the solution to someone by running through it while they wait at the end. If you do it quickly enough you have effectively proven that you know the path (or else you would have taken an hour) without the explaining it to the other person."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6v7c44 | What goes into remastering a song? | I've been enjoying listening to Mothership by Led Zeppelin recently. It got me wondering what changes are made when remastering those old songs. Is it just simply adjusting eq levels and adding compression? Or is it more complicated than that? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlyuap5"
],
"text": [
"The concept of a \"master\" goes back to when vinyl records were the most common form of recorded music to be sold. The common process was to record each artists performance on magnetic tape. You would have the drums, guitars, strings, vocals, etc all recorded on individual tapes. This allowed very good recording of each instrument...with specific microphones. After this was done, the tapes were then mixed down to create a *master tape*. From this master, master mothers were created to press records. For a re-master, the original recordings (those individual tapes) would be remixed... often though much more modern equipment. Noise reduction, EQ, and other processes could be applied...almost always now done digitally. At the end, a new master is created, and then copies of this are made and sold."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6v7mhv | Why a portable game console like Nintendo Switch, can play games so well but a equally priced computer cannot. | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dly9j38",
"dlyivo7",
"dlyjk3k",
"dly6yms",
"dlyblvy",
"dlyge7q"
],
"text": [
"Many reasons: * Gamers often tends to have powerful PCs so they can run all types of games. Gamedevs may choose to exploit this extra power (depending on market) to flesh out their games a bit more. * The Switch runs switch games. When you create a Switch game, you know exactly what it will run on making performance related choices a lot easier. * Because the Switch is mostly for playing games and a computer can also be a work tool, peoples will be reluctant to spend as much ($800+) on a console, so it must stay relatively cheap. * There exists a shitload of games that will run on any computer, including $300 laptops. * Consoles have an architecture made for running games. Everything has been optimized to get the best experience for the price. This means many trade-offs that are typically not feasible in traditional computers. (The best example of this is unified memory).",
"Let's talk about sports for a minute. I swear this is getting back to video games, but I'm building a metaphor. Let's look at something like hitting a baseball. Hitting a baseball is a very skill-based thing. You need power to hit it far, and it's a physical skill, and it's *difficult* but not a whole lot of *work* to do; the effort of hitting a baseball is less the actual hit, and more the sprint to 1st base afterwards. Now, let's look at that sprint: It will make you winded, and it puts a strain on your body, but it's not a *difficult* thing to do from a skill perspective; yes I know that running has technique and that you can do it wrong, but by and large pretty much anyone can run. It's *easy* but it's a lot of *work*. So now back to computers: There are two types of operations that we typically use computers for: Really *complex* problems, and problems that require *a lot of work* to be done *very quickly*. Graphics processing is one of the latter things: updating a screen is programatically a very simple thing to do. It's literally the first thing you learn in any programming class: make the screen say \"Hello World.\" At its' heart, a video game is taking user input and then changing the screen according to input plus the game's internal algorithms once every 60th of a second (or whatever the framerate is). This is contrasted to something like protein folding calculations, where your CPU has to evaluate complex formulas and go through hundreds of steps to get a single answer. Your laptop/desktop PC is a general all-purpose PC, and will typically be made so that it can do either sort of task decently for its' price point. While you might want it for games, someone else wants it for his 60,000 row Excel spreadsheet with pivots, and it has to adapt to that too. Game consoles are not used for Excel, and that's why they can be cheaper: they don't have to assume that Excel is going to be run on their hardware. This changes two major things: The hardware (which is basically less focus on the CPU and more focus on the GPU) and the operating system; Windows has to hook into hardware of all different sorts; to do this, it has tons and tons of code to deal with each conceivable processor it's running on, each conceivable RAM architecture, every possible keyboard driver.... this means that it has to generalize its' approach to using resources. Which is great for you and I as users, as it means that each time a computer comes out we don't have to learn its' proprietary operating system. But consoles skip that; we *know* what chips are in each Switch. If I know what chips are in the Switch, I can become an *expert* on the Switch and how to eke out performance where needed by writing code that is directly executed as assembly to speed up performance, whereas with something like Windows you have to guess at what you're working with.",
"They can, I could easily build a gaming pc that'll play most games for cheaper than the switch.",
"I think its because desktop parts are prepared for upgrade like the motherboard which can accept several parts. The switch has been optimized for, everything is part of the motherboard.",
"Fact of the matter is. You CAN. The switch is not very powerful graphics wise, and it wouldn't be all that difficult to build a pc from brand new parts that can crush it. The only problem is that modern games are a lot more graphically intensive on PCs, so these $300 machines look weaker compared to their more expensive brethren (though I'm fairly sure that even in this price point thw PC can play almost all modern games if the settings are turned down enough). Make no mistake though, the PC will still run laps around the Switch (and that's coming from someone who preordered it).",
"A combination of factors. Consoles do exactly one thing - they play the games and software designed for them. When you're making a game for the Switch, you know *exactly* what your system specs are. You know *exactly* what the firmware is. You know *exactly* what the system software is. So you can program your game or app with that exact knowledge in mind. You can cut out any need for flexibility or modification because it will only ever run on *exactly* that system. Conversely, computer software needs to be able to run on a massive number of combinations of hardware and software configurations, and programming has to be dedicated towards figuring out what's running and running it properly. Are you running Windows? Linux? Mac? Which version? How much RAM? What brand video card? How much memory? It needs to be programmed and account for any variation or combination therein. Additionally, while there are things like data installations and patches, a bulk of the data is running from the disc or cartridge that the console uses, whereas in computers most of the time you're running it from all on your hard drive, so it has to be able to process all of that on its own, as well as store it. Also, on the backend, computer games don't have to be programmed as tightly as console games. For a console, you know if you want to fit this on a Switch cartridge, you have to fit it in whatever space you have access to. You *have* to make it fit right, which means that you have to do tighter programming and coding to make sure you're not wasting space. When programming for a computer, you really have no major space limitations - most hard drives are at least half a terabyte, if not more. So a few extra gigs here or there isn't going to break anything, so no need to polish it up that tightly. As for your second question, it relates to the above comment about what a console does versus a computer. A console can be smaller because it's designed to always use the exact set of hardware and only have to run things designed to run specifically on it. It only needs as much space for hardware as it needs to make it fit, because it will always use just that hardware. It's designed from the ground up to fit that hardware perfectly. For laptops or desktops, there's an infinite number of hardware configurations, and it needs to make room for varying sizes or amounts of chips or cards. You also need to make room for keyboard and touchpads in laptops, as well as screen sizes."
],
"score": [
20,
6,
3,
3,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6v7x16 | What is NAT and what does it do / what is static NAT? | What is NAT - what exactly does it do? And what is a static NAT and what does that do? Tried looking it up but the definitions weren't very eli5-friendly. | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dly9pe5"
],
"text": [
"You have a single Internet connection, and you only get a single address from your Internet Service Provider, but you have multiple devices that you want to connect to the Internet- your laptop, your phone, your game console, and so on. One way to connect multiple devices through a single connection is Network Address Translation, or NAT. You have a single device (your router) connected to the public Internet, and the rest of the devices are connected to a private network. When each of your devices wants to communicate across the Internet, they send messages to your router and your router relays the information to the destination, making all the traffic look like it comes from that one public facing Internet connection. Your router keeps track of which device was communicating with which server so when the responses come back, it knows which device to send it to. This works fine for sending traffic, but with only one IP address connected to your router, none of your devices other than that router are publicly accessible from the outside Internet. So if you want to run a server (whether it's a website or a game server) on one of your devices, there's no direct way for people outside your network to send requests to your computer. Static NAT is a way of setting up your network so that your router forwards the requests it receives to a specific computer within your network. That way, your computer inside the private network can receive requests from the greater Internet."
],
"score": [
8
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6v8p7r | Why is it harder in fps games to aim at a target that is above you, than at a target who is below you or on level ground? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlyi22z",
"dlyly24"
],
"text": [
"Aiming works by setting your inclination with up/down movement and rotation with left/right movement. When you are aiming level your left/right movement with the control device matches with what happens on the screen. The more you aim up or down the less that is true. When you aim straight up your screen no longer moves left and right but instead spins in place. To make your actual aim go left and right when aiming on an incline you need to compensate for the spinning manually. Targets above toy tend to be harder to hit generally because they are usually behind singe kind of cover, even if out is just the surface they are standing on.",
"I imagine that in most cases, when you're looking at a target above you, he is standing on some kind of ledge or cliff or wall, or whatever. The wall probably blocks some of his body, meaning there is less of a target to keep track of. You can also not see the ground he is walking on, so if he is moving it can be harder to predict where he will go. If you're above someone, you can see more easily what is around a target, where he is going, and you can probably see their entire body."
],
"score": [
5,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6v9mgf | Why does the "strength" of a password matter? | Why would a password like "RandomWord123" be considered weaker than a randomly generated one like "WYDQF0f1Ccr & !sO5". I understand passwords like "12345" could get bruteforced, but with keyloggers and people hacking into databases does it even matter how strong a password is? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlyl8hj",
"dlylanq",
"dlyl59q",
"dlylj5l"
],
"text": [
"> but with keyloggers and people hacking into databases does it even matter how strong a password is? With keyloggers you are correct, it doesn't matter how strong your password is, if you have a keylogger installed then it will record whatever password you enter. With databases it's a different story. Passwords shouldn't be stored in databases as-is, so that if a hacker gets access to the database, they can't just extract all the passwords. Instead, a *hash* of the password is stored. A hash function is something that takes a string and transforms it into a seemingly random string of characters. The hash function is \"one-way\", i.e. it's not possible to figure from the hash value what the original string was, except for brute forcing it (i.e. trying every possible input until you get the desirable output). When you enter your password to login to somewhere, the backend server runs the hash function on the password you just entered and compares it to the value stored in the database. If you entered the correct password the values will match. There's also another mechanism in use called \"salting\", but we'll ignore that for now. So why do you need a strong password? If the hacker managed to get a copy of the database, they now have the hash of your password. But they don't know what your original password was - they have to brute-force it. If your password is complex, brute-forcing become unfeasible.",
"Any good brute force program will start with a dictionary of \"passwords\"' which will have things like names and birthdays and common words. URL_0 Websites force people to have a decently long password and include numbers because if you let the average idiot choose any password they want they will choose a much simpler and shorter password that will be easily guessed by someone who knows about these things. Brute force only works if the password attempts are unlimited. With any decent limited password entry even with 5 wrong attempts resetting every 10mins, You would have to be very lucky to get the password within any sensible amount of time. And the target would likely get an email warning him of the attack. keyloggers are a different story. My bank issues me with a keychain token code. The code changes every 10 secs or whatever and i have to enter that code to access my online bank. I could tell you my banking Id and my password and you would still not be able to transfer money out of my bank unless you had the physical access to the token. my other bank doesnt have a token but it sends me a text message code that i have to enter. Same principle. You would need to have my banking ID, my password and access to my phone.",
"> and people hacking into databases If your password can be found in the database, the person who implemented that database was incompetent. When someone hacks a database and gets the users table, what they're usually wanting is the ability to conveniently brute force passwords, *not* just a list of passwords already there. A service should not store your password. As for keyloggers, there are a few things to note. A keylogger targets a specific user, rather than a specific service, which makes it a very different animal. If you create a website and allow its users to use simplistic passwords, then someone hacks your database and starts brute forcing, they might easily get tens of thousands of user accounts in one move, which could potentially destroy your entire business. Complex passwords don't protect against a keylogger, but someone can't hack *your site* to keylog your users, they need to infect a whole ton of people with a keylogger and maybe score a few who use your site. So as the creator of the site, it's a no-brainer to enforce complex passwords.",
"So say you're brute forcing a list of hashed passwords. That takes a long time if a password has enough characters, since it has to cycle through every possible combination of characters. So what if you could make the combinations you have to cycle through less? Remember that if crackers have a copy of the hashed passwords, they don't need to crack 100% of them. Hell, they may only need one if they're trying to get a login to a system. So how do you make the number of possibilities smaller? Well, if you stuck to only alpha characters, and no numbers or special characters, that means there's a *lot* less possibilities for each character, so you can cycle through combinations a lot faster. What cuts it down even more is if you stick to words in the dictionary. They say the average English speaker only knows about 20,000 words...even in combination, that's not a lot for a computer to get through. So that'll probably be their first pass. Basically, they start with the easy possibilities, since they're really quick to get through, and then move on to harder and harder methods until they think the rest isn't worth it. So as an admin, you restrict the passwords to not allow the easiest methods to crack. It's kind of a trade-off, though...if you make the rules too hard, people forget, and that creates problems. And of course the other thing is that the whole commonly used \"password questions\" thing isn't really very secure. There are a *lot* of people who probably have all of the answers to their password questions on their Facebook somewhere. Incidentally, [Ars Technica wrote a really neat article]( URL_0 ) about a group of crackers and how they went through a publicly leaked password file. It's very enlightening."
],
"score": [
15,
7,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[
"http://www.passwordrandom.com/most-popular-passwords"
],
[],
[
"https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/05/how-crackers-make-minced-meat-out-of-your-passwords/"
]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6v9r2r | If I log in to other sites with my facebook account, what will happen to my accounts is Facebook goes bankrupt? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlymbu4"
],
"text": [
"This is an open issue. Your saving graze is that companies usually does not go bankrupt without any warning. So you will likely have time to change over your account if that were to happen. In fact the likely reason for Facebook to go bankrupt is if the users are deserting them in the first place. What is a bigger issue is that Facebook might change its policies at any point. Currently they do not gain much from allowing other sites to use their authentication system. However if they were to one day limit this feature to premium members you may be shut out of your accounts with other services. There is also a possibility that an rouge Facebook employee or a government official could missuse the authentication system to allow them to log in to other sites as any user they want."
],
"score": [
6
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6vb7pe | How do TOTP apps and cards work? You can scan a QR code to pair, press a button on a card a few times but how does it know to pair to a specific program or app, and how can each one work 100% of the time? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlyw7lq"
],
"text": [
"TOTP works like this: 1. Generate random string: KlObowfX8trAVzd8 2. Choose a timebase. Eg, current UNIX time: 1503411873 3. Choose interval. Eg, 60 seconds. So we're in interval 1503411873/60 = 25056864 4. Choose algorithm. Eg, SHA-1 5. Calculate SHA1( KlObowfX8trAVzd8 + 25056864 ) = 4757ce2bce6feacf3f3a5861ab4aac1fe3751c37 6. Use the last say, 6 digits = 3751c37 So to sync a TOTP generator you need to set up all the data from 1 to 4. The random string has to be specified explicitly, and the rest may be implied because you're adhering to a known standard. And that's what you're doing by scanning the token."
],
"score": [
5
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6vcr6j | how is 4% spandex combined with 96% cotton? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlz8i9w"
],
"text": [
"When cotton is turned into fabric, it is twisted by a loom into tiny little threads. These threads are then twisted around each other to make stronger threads. This just means 4 out of every 100 threads is made of spandex, which gives the mixed fabric more stretchiness."
],
"score": [
10
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6veq6h | How does an antivirus recognize a virus? | Is there a particular giveaway that says "This is malware!!"? How does the antivirus differentiate between malware and any other foreign software (i. e. not part of the OS). | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlzpx8e"
],
"text": [
"Most antivirus software works using two main methods: The first is a giant list of known viruses and what they look like. Viruses are programs and each particular kind stores their data in the same sorts of places every time. When scanning the antivirus can just search for the signs of malicious programs that are already known to exist. The second method is a heuristic strategy. Certain kinds of behaviors are typical of malicious programs and not others, for example tampering with the memory entries of other running programs or obfuscation of its file structure. When scanning the program can detect some of those behaviors and tentatively mark the program as suspected to be bad."
],
"score": [
5
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6vfjhi | In networking, what is the three way handshake process used to establish and terminate TCP connections | I'm completely lost here guys, would appreciate some eli-5 explanation so i can grasp this concept. | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlzwl1p"
],
"text": [
"Computer A sends a SYN packet to Computer B saying \"Hey, i want to SYNchronize and talk with you!\" Computer B then replies to Computer A with a SYN-ACK packet that says \"I ACKnowledge you want to SYNchronize with me\" Computer A then replies with an ACK that is effectively \"I ACKnowledge that you ACKnowledge that I want to SYNchronize with you\" In TCP basically every packet comes with an ACK packet to say \"Yup, i got it!\", if you don't get an ACK you resend. Since this is a two way communication you want to make sure that your desire to connect got through so the receiving computer sends back SYN-ACK, and they want to know that you got their acknowledgement so you send back ACK. Now both parties have positive confirmation that the other party received and agreed to their request to connect Then the socket opens"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6vfo5o | How do scammers from India get a hold of phone numbers from United States and Europe? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dlzypwc",
"dlzy4wp",
"dlzzl5n"
],
"text": [
"You can purchase huge databases of names & numbers from marketing companies. Or you can look on torrent servers for the same for free. Or you can just sequentially wardial numbers. Out of all of the scam calls I've gotten over the years, only one or two have actually used my name in the call.",
"Names can be put into online phone number directories like whatever your equivalent of Canada411 is. They can just pick a random name and a number will probably show up. Tl;dr It is the same way the first T800 found Sarah Connor.",
"In the event of OP asking about Caller ID \"phone numbers\" There are a near infinite number of VoIP providers, many of whom offer local numbers on both the inbound and outbound side (making it cheap to use, especially in countries where you don't pay if the call isn't answered). There is no way to trace these as you can often use laundered/untraceable payment methods or straight up fabricate a business address. That is if the VoIP company and user can be identified, as many scammers use redirects or temporary conference calls (someone else calls you, then them, then hangs up) to make it difficult if not impossible. These providers then supply whatever Caller ID the scammer desires and most systems will show that and either \"out of area\" or the state the area code belongs to if it isn't one of the big 3 landline providers."
],
"score": [
8,
3,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6viij7 | How does a military vessel like a destroyer fail to detect a cargo ship heading their way? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dm0g9cp"
],
"text": [
"They are supposed to have multiple people on watch at all times watching the radar, radio, AIS as well as look out the windows. So people are questioning how this can happen to four different ships in the last few months. One clue is that all ships were under the same command which would make the admirals involved a bit suspect. It might be that morale have been relaxed and that lookout duty were not looked at seriously. And after three incidents the problems were still not taken seriously by the admirals. Unlike a civilian ship it is a bit harder to solve this problem though automation as ramming ships is a valid strategy in warfare and emergencies. You would not want a system that can potentially take control away from the crew."
],
"score": [
4
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
|
6viyt7 | What is SMTP? | I am currently doing a research for my boss re: email campaigns and has come across the term called SMTP. I tried to understand what Wikipedia is trying to explain, but I just can't quite grasp it. Help? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dm0j6uh",
"dm0jfh1"
],
"text": [
"STMP stands for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. It is the common language (protocol) used by both email clients and servers to understand each other and be able to send emails. Imagine that you were building a new Outlook application. You would need to \"speak\" SMTP if you were to communicate with the email exchange server. Otherwise, it would not understand you. Pretty much like when you go to a foreign country where no one speaks English and you have to learn their language. Please note that SMTP is only used for sending emails. There are other protocols for receiving emails, such as POP.",
"Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. The language actually being spoken by a mail server to deliver mail. Suppose you want to send mail to [email protected]. The dialog would be something like this: 220 URL_0 ESMTP Exim 4.87 Wed, 23 Aug 2017 18:35:46 +0500 HELO URL_1 250 URL_0 Hello URL_1 [10.86.68.2] MAIL FROM: daleglass@ URL_1 250 OK RCPT TO: [email protected] 250 Accepted DATA 354 Enter message, ending with \".\" on a line by itself Subject: This is an email This is the email content . The lines starting with digits are from the server, the rest is sent from the client."
],
"score": [
22,
7
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[
"mail.example.com",
"mydomain.net"
]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6vjemq | Why does Nintendo produce extremely limited runs of products like the NES Classic and SNES Classic? | Why did Nintendo release such a limited run of the NES Classic when they could have sold many more? Is it something to do with the parts? Is it to create hype? I saw that the SNES Classic preorder sold out in about thirty seconds on the Target site. Doesn't this strategy encourage reselling, potentially alienating loyal customers? What's Nintendo's motive? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dm0njsi",
"dm0nbl4"
],
"text": [
"Nintendo has been in the habit of under-shipping their hardware since the NES days. Back then it made sense; if you can't find it in the store it must be popular! Nowadays it's ridiculous because of how much we're used it near-instant gratification via Amazon and other internet retailers and how accessible industry news on sales projections are (back in the day you got one magazine a month, if you were lucky!). Nintendo is a *very* Japanese company (unlike Sony, who are Japanese in origin but have departments and executives all around the world who actually have input on how the company moves, whereas Nintendo's foreign offices just do what Japan tells them to do), and the Japanese don't like change. So they've been doing the same shit since the late 80s. That's why their online is crap because it's \"new\" (it was *new* ~~ten~~ **fifteen** (Christ I'm old) fucking years ago) and why they have accounts and downloads tied directly to hardware and so on. They don't feel like they need to change to fit the way the industry currently works, so they don't. tl;dr: old Japanese men. If you'd like to know more you should read Console Wars by Blake Harris. It really goes into Nintendo's corporate culture and shows how similar attitudes from Sega Japan really fucked the company over.",
"Free advertising. It brings more buzz to the Nintendo brand. When everyone is talking about them, all youtube gaming channels mention them, newspapers mention the sellout... it gives them more attention and buzz. Long term they aren't trying to go to Sega route and just make a few nostalgic games and releasing classic versions of consoles. No one really talks about the Genesis-Mini even though they're on shelves across America sitting there. Nintendo wants you to buy their consoles, their amiibos, their games. No one knew about or really bought a Wii U. They're increasing demand for Nintendo. Since they know you can't get a hold of the NES classic you'll be in the \"I want Nintendo now\" mindset and will be more willing to buy a Switch, 2DS, or Virtual Console games. It was the same as Pokemon Go, people wonder why they didn't add any features. Pokemon Go and Mario Run were only put out as advertisements reminding the public of these games in the their eye. Pokemon Go actually increased sales of the 3DS. I'm willing to bet that the NES classic helped the sales of the Switch."
],
"score": [
10,
8
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6vk1f6 | Can the shape of earbuds damage your ears/hearing. | I was wondering if, even without music playing, having some earbuds in your ears can cause permanent damage to your ears. For example, I have some rubber tipped earbuds that are very comfortable but just about any time I use apple earbuds my ears are sore afterward (because of their shape). Can just the shape cause damage to your ears? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dm0sglu"
],
"text": [
"It could if you decide to jam something that does not fit into your ear. Imagine a ten centimeter diameter hole in piece of paper, now imagine trying to fit a 20cm diameter rod through that same hole, it's going to rip the hole if forced through. TLDR: one size does not fit all and its up to the user to realise this and act on it accordingly."
],
"score": [
4
],
"text_urls": [
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6vk3k8 | Horse Shoes | What are they for, how do they attach without hurting the horse, and how can wild horses go without them? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dm0slqt",
"dm0ucda"
],
"text": [
"Horse shoes are nailed into the hoof, which is a solid mass of fingernail like material that feels no pain. Wild horses don't need them because they're always on dirt or grass, soft surfaces. Working horses walk a lot more and spend time on pavement or gravel or cobblestone, which is too abrasive on their hooves without protection. Without horseshoes you risk sanding down the hooves quicker than they grow.",
"Okay - horse shoes attach with nails - if done correctly this doesn't hurt the horse, but the nails are curved and if done in correctly it can hurt. They are for protecting the hoof AND adding traction. Not all riders use them on their horses, and some only put shoes on the front feet. Again - many riders go barefoot, meaning the horse does not have shoes at all. Barrel Racers, other race horses, hunter/jumper... English Pleasure horses, and similar performance horses wear shoes to give them more traction - you can even add studs or corks to the shoes for more grip. Shoes must be removed very 8 weeks so the hoof is trimmed and the shoes are put back on unless too worn down. Wild horses don't do all the tough performance stuff so don't \"Need\" them."
],
"score": [
19,
3
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[]
]
} | [
"url"
] | [
"url"
] |
6vlnkp | Why is it that, even though 3G worked fine just a few years ago when it was the only option, using 3G now is hardly better than having no signal at all? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dm18e3a",
"dm1uzcq",
"dm29f38"
],
"text": [
"Years ago sites were SUPER basic. They were really tiny and optimized to be small and fast to load. As bandwidth increased, developers seized the opportunity to make them more complex and visually appealing which also added to their size fairly significantly. As a web developer, I don't put much thought into older phones or slower bandwidth.",
"While the entries about apps/webpages requiring higher bandwidth all the time do have some effect, that's not the main problem with 3G (or non-LTE \"4G\" like HSPA+). Cell providers have a limited amount of frequencies/spectrum to provide bandwidth for users. Each different technology type uses up part of that allocation, and the more spectrum devoted to a given technology, the more users can be on it simultaneously without congestion (and the faster max speeds can get). So now with most phones supporting LTE, cell providers want to maximize the bandwidth available there (newer technologies are also more efficient), so they are slowly taking spectrum away from the 3G allocation and adding it to LTE. This means that anyone left trying to use 3G will not get the same speeds--essentially everyone left on it is using a smaller and smaller pipe.",
"3G still works just fine for phone calls. But current websites are more and more likely to be big enough to be very slow to load with a 3G connection."
],
"score": [
20,
6,
4
],
"text_urls": [
[],
[],
[]
]
} | [
"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.