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9tlnfh | How exactly does porting a video game work? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Former game developer here, Video games today are written in C/C++, which are the \"lowest level high level languages\" around, because they offer enough abstraction to be useful and they compile to something quite performant, with care. Regardless, these are old languages, and there's a lot of legacy you inherit when you use these languages. A lot about these languages are \"undefined\" or \"implementation defined\". That means for the same code you can get different results from one toolset to another, and you are going to use different toolsets depending on what platform you're targeting. You need to take this into account. Different platforms used to have very different capabilities - some were 32-bit, and others 64-bit. This alone is a big problem, which is why the transition for Windows PCs was such a big and long ordeal. To illustrate, you know you have memory, like RAM, and memory is addressable - each byte has a unique address. Well, addresses are a form of data, and programs do a whole lot with just memory addresses. On 32-bit systems, addresses are 32-bits, and on 64-bit systems, memory addresses are 64-bits. That means just by changing platforms, you've doubled the size of a principle data type. And early hardware still only read 32 bits at a time. That means if you're doing something memory address heavy, you need 2 move operations to get the whole value from memory. This transition alone is a big damn deal, could make programs larger in memory than acceptable, and slower than acceptable. You'll have to use different algorithms to do the same work, or at least get the same or similar results. Not all platforms support division! Can you imagine? Some of the earlier handhelds were like this - most gameboys. And when it comes to numbers, there are two different and common ways to represent numbers in bits; one way is integers, another way is \"floating point precision\" aka \"real\" numbers - numbers with a decimal place. Not all hardware support floating point types. There's a whole standard around floating point numbers called IEEE-754, and not all hardware that has floating point support implement the standard - you have to take that into account and rewrite your code. Some hardware has weird quirks. Gameboys, again, the hardware was fixed as to when it was going to redraw the screen, AND YOU BETTER BE DONE RENDERING when it happens, because it's going to happen regardless. The PS3 had that weird cell processor, and segmented system memory that made it difficult to work with. And different platforms have different capabilities. I remember a Spiderman game that was out for the PS3 and 360, and the port to the Wii was *terrible*, because it didn't have the rendering capability. On the other platforms, you have a great depth of field - you could see down the Manhattan streets, but on the Wii, they had to use fog to hide the fact the hardware *just couldn't* render that much that fast. You could barely see the buildings around you - typically not even the whole thing. And that means that assets and various presumptions need to be adjusted. Perhaps 250k polygons for this model is too much on that platform... Maybe the crazy 8 render pass multi-texture bump mapping hyper-fucker shading needs to be dialed back to hyper-shitter or something. And then you have to test the shit out of each platform.",
"Ages ago (in computer terms) video games were often hand-coded in assembly language... that would mean when converting over to a new platform you would have to basically start over from scratch and rewrite the whole code, taking into account different registers, graphics and hardware capabilities, etc. Newer games are written in higher level language (C/C++/etc) which (usually) can be recompiled over to another system. The difference is going to be in the hardware access libraries. How do I load textures, 3d images, sounds/music, keyboard controls, etc. These also can be abstracted with libraries that have a common application programming interface (API)."
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9tpqo1 | How can a cellphone mark the right time even without internet connection and after being turned off? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Ever notice how phones never have an off *switch,* something to actually break the electrical connection, but always a button? A phone that is off is never actually off, not completely. Just like when you're asleep you're not dead, just in a low-energy rest state, waiting for some signal to tell you to turn back on, whether it's an alarm or a dog or just your brain going \"okay wake up.\"",
"A lot of PCs have a clock that always runs, off or not. A lot of desktop PCs had one powered by a button battery."
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9trn5f | By what method does raw computer code get "translated" to the stuff we see on-screen? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The code that programmers write is considered \"high level\". It's written in a computer language that makes sense to humans. Then it goes through an optimizer that checks through it to see if it can be reduced down to a less commands for faster performance. At the point it gets changed to a format that humans can't really understand. Then it gets converted into machine code, literally the ones and zeros of binary. At this point, only the processor understands it. & #x200B; That code runs the while the computer is on. It mostly waits for things to happen like for the user to click the mouse or for data to arrive from the internet. When something happens, part of the code called \"handler\" gets executed. It looks at what happened and decides what to do about it. & #x200B; For example if you click the mouse, then a \"mouse click handler\" code is executed. It checks which part of the screen you clicked on, then it checks to see what application is using that part of the screen, then it gives that information to the application and it figures out which part of the application the mouse was over and what it should do. If that application happens to be Microsoft Word, then it will figure out if the mouse was over the document part, or over one of the menu parts. If it was over the document then it will figure out where the place the cursor based on where you clicked.",
"**TLDR**: Essentially, a binary string gets turned into a longer binary string with each pixel in the monitor receiving three values, one for each of it's Red-Green-Blue lights \\[ON-ON-OFF\\] = > \\[(on-off-off)-(on-off-off)-(off-off-off)\\] = > two red pixels, then one black pixel The exact method and rules of converting this data depends upon the OS, program and GPU. ===== **Text**: Each language has a way of converting binary into a pixel-pattern, and this is called encoding. English has 3 that are commonly used, and ASCII is one of the more popular schemes. Essentially, you start with a string in binary... 01101000 01101001 ...then this is processed with one of the OS's encoding schemes (ASCII, for instance) which is part of the OS software. This breaks the string into a code point that references a shape, and we get... 72 73 ...which is then passed to the graphics processor and turned into a pixel pattern for that code point... x - - - x xx x xx x - - - x - - x - - xx x xx - - x - - x - - - x - - x - - x - - - x xx x xx = HI ...and that information is sent to the monitor, so that all the \"-\" are shown as white and the \"x\" as black, and this example contains 25 pixels per letter. & #x200B; **Graphics**: Software does a bunch of math to calculate geometry and position and texture, but clipped to the view of a camera or what is being \"rendered\" in the scene/level. The binary string that contains all this is sent to the GPU, which does a bit more geometry to see which parts of the scene can be ignored (because a person standing behind a wall is part of the scene, but is not seen). Sometimes software does this occlusion culling before the GPU sees the data the first time (this is where API's come in, like DirectX and OpenGL). This shifts some of the processing from the GPU to the CPU. The GPU then converts the remaining binary into patterns that the monitor can understand, and we get another HI pattern like above, but including details about color (so each pixel in the monitor gets three bits of info). The monitor receives this information and each pixel (which contains 3 lights) will turn on the corresponding colors to make that part of the image. It's probably worth mentioning that the GPU has a built-in software that helps it do all this conversion, and that software is proprietary to the manufacturer and specific to the card model. ===== So the crazy thing here is that a resolution of 1024x1024 gives you 1,048,576 pixels in the monitor, each has three lights so thats 3,145,728 bits, and a typical monitor does this 60 times per second. That means the GPU is sending out 188,743,680 bits of data per second, on top of the 60 sets of geometry calculations it does to get that data. & #x200B;",
"I think your question has 2 parts. 1. How is human-typed code executed in a computer. 2 how is the results of computer execution displayed on the screen Both have been answered though.",
"The other answers, while correct, don't seem ELI5, so I'll give it shot. Computer code is made up of instructions. As a human, I might instruct my computer to show me a red cube on a white background. This is called *high-level instructions*. The computer breaks that down into something it can work with. For example, it will create an image of the cube in its brain, calculate the position of its corners, choose the colours from a palette like a painter, and whatever else it needs to do. Then, it will figure out how to show this 3D image on a 2D screen (i.e. what the cube will look like if you flatten it). Strictly speaking, this is still *high-level instructions*; back in the day humans would write these instructions instead of the simpler one from above, but we have since made shortcuts for often used commands. The part of the computer that's responsible for showing the image is the screen, so the computer will translate the instructions for the screen to understand (i.e. which pixels to turn red and which ones to turn white). These are *low-level instructions*. It's not done yet. The screen will then interpret these instructions and execute them through even more basic operations (i.e. turn on the electricity for this diode, turn it off for that one). That's mostly how it happens. What's interesting is to note that some operations are executed by the computer brain, others by the screen (or different components I haven't mentioned). That's why *compatibility* is so important in computing."
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9ts1wk | How are things like Charlie Brown cartoons animated? | They didn't have 3dsMax or Maya back when things like "Snoopy come Home" or "It's the great pumpkin Charlie Brown" came out, so how did they animate those? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Animator here. For the whole 20th century, most cartoons were drawn one frame at a time on paper first; then those drawings were traced onto individual sheets of clear plastic with black ink (coloured in by painting on the other side)... then those sheets were placed on top of paintings or drawings of a background then photographed on film one frame at a time. If it sounds super difficult, time consuming and complicated, that's because it was. Nowadays, most non-3D cartoons are either: -drawn digitally, using an electronic pen directly on a computer screen. It's easier, faster, cheaper, and more versatile. -animated in programs like Flash or ToonBoom using \"puppets\" made of flat drawings instead of 3D blobs",
"They drew lots of pictures by hand. They developed shortcuts to make it easier and simpler though (common backgrounds that don't need to ve redrawn for instance) (edit: im not familiar with the ones you cited. If they're 3D then stop motion with models) (edit2: both these styles are still in use today too, but a bit more specialised)"
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9tsjhn | How the hell were movies edited in the 1900s? | I’m pretty sure computers came way after the first silent movies, so how did they put different scenes together? The first movies were around the late 1800s. HOW? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"They cut the film, stuck it back together, and wrapped the cut in clear tape. That's where the terms come from. Like, they used scissors. On the physical film. You do know that the reel that's still used in logos used to be how film was recorded, right?",
"Movies were shot on reels of film so they would look at each individual frame and when they found something they didn't want they would literally cut the film remove anything they didn't want and tape it back together where they wanted the film to resume.",
"They cut film with a knife and taped it back together. This video shows it being done: URL_0",
"People have already answered the question. But one thing you should realise is that they were cutting film together this way until the end of the 20th century."
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9tt51j | How do automatic sinks pick the temperature? | Sometimes they're spot on, and sometimes the water comes out boiling. I just want to know why they hate me. | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"There's a knob or lever for setting the temperature on the side of most of them. Whoever used it before you picked their preferred temperature. The ones that don't have this I assume have the exact same system but with a hidden and/or tool-requiring way to change the setting.",
"“I just want to know why they hate me.” Very relatable content right here. May all your automatic sinks be perfect waterfalls.",
"In new construction they are typically set by the plumber at a specified safe temperature, and inspected. The other variable is the type of system used to heat the water. Many restrooms and break rooms will have Instahot heaters under the counter. This is an electric heater that will provide instantaneous hot water at the predetermined temperature by running water through some form of heating element. If connected to a water heater without a recirculating line and pump in the system, the water will be cold until all of the cold sitting water clears the line, which depending on usage and distance from the water heater could take a while. Sometimes maintenance will adjust these systems assuming there is an Instahot and keep testing until they think it is right. When there is adequate usage would be why the water comes out boiling. Other comments from r/runiat and r/NLJeroen are correct as well."
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9ttvar | How do the recaptchas work where you click on them and they swirl then decide your not a robot without you doing anything? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"As well as what the other guy said, some captchas will track mouse movement over the captcha box. If your mouse pointer moves smoothly, not in a direct straight line, and pauses before clicking then you're much more likely to be human than a program.",
"It times how long it took you to do it. Most bots are dumb and just click instantly, humans will always take a little longer.",
"It check different information to identify if your behavior and fingerprint is likely to be human or not. Information such as previously browsed website, mouse movement, browser version, cookies, etc. may be used to determine that."
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9tvr0m | difference between class composition and inheritence in C++? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"A class is a composition of data (fields) and functions (methods). The name of the class is used to describe the type of variables which are instances of this class. So if we have a class called A and it has a field on it which is of type B (where B is another class) then we have composed B with A - there is a B available within A. Classes can also be extended. This means if I have a class BaseClass I can \"extend it\" to NewClass, where NewClass will have all the non-private things of BaseClass, plus whatever else I put in this class. You can even sometimes \"override\" methods, which means NewClass can have a different version of a method in BaseClass. The usual basic rule of thumb about when to use composition and when to use inheritance sounds something like \"Compose if B has an A, extend if B is an A\". So if you have a class Pet, well pets have owners, so a field you might have on Pet could be an Owner instance where Owner is some other class. Also, pets are animals, so if you had an Animal class, it might be worth having Pet extend the Animal class, so that it gets all animal behaviours for free. A word of caution, however, inheritance is often the cause of horrible code coupling that leads to maintenance and testing issues. This usually only occurs when the \"is a\" relationship isn't quite as strong as first thought. If class B is going to extend class A, you should be dead certain that the logic in class A is *guaranteed forever* to be *exactly* what B needs. If you don't have this guarantee, prefer composition. C++ allows more in the way of inheritance than most other object oriented capable languages. It allows multiple inheritance, and you can define \"friends\" of classes. The less you know about these the better.",
"You've already got a very in-depth answer here, but for the sake of ELI5: Composition is \"has a\" while inheritance is \"is a.\" A car has doors, wheels, an engine, etc. That's composition - it's \"composed\" of parts. A Honda is a certain king of car. It's a car, but it also has specific characteristics that make it a Honda, like the H emblem, and maybe a special engine design. This is inheritance - the Honda inherits all the characteristics of a car, but adds some characteristics that make it special."
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9tvzbp | What's the difference between PC's that became standard in 90's and likes of Amiga , Commodore? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The PC that we consider standard is the IBM PC, a computer that was initially no different than the Commodore 64 or the Sinclair Spectrum in terms of it being a home computer incompatible with computers made by other companies. It became standard because it was easy to clone. IBM wasn't willing to spend the money to develop anything custom so apart from the BIOS software it was essentially all off the shelf hardwave unlike other systems with custom chips. The only thing unique about it was the software code that tied the pieces together. The operating system (DOS) was easy because Microsoft had negotiated a very good deal; IBM wanted to pay a flat fee for DOS instead of paying Microsoft per copy. Microsoft agreed on the condition that they retained rights to DOS and so they could sell a \"Microsoft DOS\" in addition to the \"IBM DOS\" distributed with the IBM PC. The BIOS was harder but eventually a company made a clean room implimentation of it - software that did the same function but could be proven in court that it wasn't copied from IBM. With a compatible BIOS, Microsoft DOS and easily purchased components from companies like Intel other companies quickly made \"IBM Compatible\" PCs which is what we have today."
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9ty0sl | why the weather/wind affects my digital TV signal | I use a digital antenna to watch TV. How come the signal gets choppy or gets lost completely when it gets windy/stormy? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I don't know of any way that wind would affect your signal. Unless you are near a bunch of trees and the tree branches are moving in the wind, changing how the radio signal is being blocked/reflected. But rain certainly can. Rain can both block the radio signal and cause multiple reflections of the radio wave. Both of these can cause your reception to be degraded. With analog signals, this can result in static, poor quality, etc. With digital signals, it will tend to be either good quality or nonexistant. As the signal degrades, it can oscillate between the two possibilities, causing a choppy effect."
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9tyzl6 | Why are cellphone cameras more secure than computer webcams? | At various workplaces, they'll make you cover up the computer webcam but not your work cell phone. People have told me that phone software is more secure than computer software, but it's not clear to me why. | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"In general most computers can load and run software from anywhere. Although this is what makes them great it makes them much easier to hack vs a device like a smartphone that can only run software from the app store. Phone software also uses much more layering in the software so that it is very difficult even if a malicious program got installed for it to cause any damage to the underlying OS. If you installed something malicious simply removing it is sufficient on mobile devices in most cases to be sure it's gone. On a computer however you would have to completely wipe the system and start from a clean image to be sure anything malicious is totally removed. Also everything on mobile devices more or less run in their own container whereas on computers everything all pretty share the same resources and access level after install.",
"The only reason is that regular users have more control over their personal computers than they do with their phone. The more control you are given, the more likely is it that you might have installed malware. Phones usually force you to go through some vetted app stores, and on top of that put many restrictions on what the software can do. Malware does often slip in though, more commonly on Androids, but unless your phone is rooted, software has a difficult time accessing the camera.",
"I wouldn't say phones are particularly secure. But some differences come to mind. The main likely difference is that a cell phone most of the time is going to be inside a pocket, pointed at the desk, or at the ceiling. A computer webcam on the other hand is pretty much purpose made to be pointed at something of at least some interest, so it's far more likely to record something sensitive. A laptop with the lid open and on a desk is in a good position to record the whole room. A phone will very rarely get the same point of view. A phone has more limited applications that work in a more restricted environment -- hopefully that means a phone is less able to start randomly recording. If the fancy calculator app asks for webcam permissions, that would be suspicious. PCs don't get that sort of thing. A phone shouldn't be running world-facing services. You can certainly install the wrong thing on it, but it should be pretty hard for the wrong thing to install itself without your help. A computer provides rather more opportunities for that. Phones install software largely from shops managed by large companies that like maintaining a good reputation. Certainly there's a lot of fishy apps out there, but something outright malicious would eventually get removed. PCs don't have the same sort of thing currently. Phones are largely self-updating, which hopefully also closes some security issues. A phone is battery powered, and if something was recording all the time it'd drain the battery fast -- that can lead to noticing something isn't right."
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9tzk9l | How did early Mesoamerican peoples, like the Inca, grow crops in the high Andes mountains? | How did they grow crops whilst living in the mountains? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"By growing crops that were native to the area. They didn't eat stuff that would grow well in the fields of Nebraska. For example, the corn that ancient Central American people grew would generally not be recognized as corn by people in industrialized countries today except in a vague sense."
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9tzxgi | How can my cellphone record and post nearly 4K video but CCTV cameras at legitimate businesses(banks, schools etc.) have such poor quality? | I’m new here and not trying to troll. I’m also very familiar with cellphones. However, after watching this episode of Dateline I don’t understand how I can record and post near professional grade videos with my phone, and the cameras outside of legitimate businesses(banks, doors to apt complex’s, schools, etc) have such low quality?? How sway? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Try to make a 24h 4K video with your phone. You will have a little problem with the storage capacity. To be able to work with less storage you could loop the video, but at least a few hours should be stored in the loop. In 4K still a lot of space. And maybe your workplace needs multiple cameras, would add a lot of Data to the list.",
"On top of other good answer, you would be shocked how old some of the computers and technology in use at major businesses are. If it's not gonna increase profits, the company probably isn't gonna spend more money on it.",
"Full HD video takes up a lot of hard drive space. Lower quality video takes up less space. Being able to store 3-6 months of video is better than only storing a month or two.",
"I used to work in the security field, and everyone here is right. Every company wanted to store at least 3 month backups. HD video takes gigs and gigs, so to store that much time, you'd need warehouses of hard drives/solid states/tape/etc. It's just a matter of space, and cloud storage is expensive."
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9u3hpw | How come plane windows stay so clear, even at high altitudes? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Ok so in order for the fogging effect to occur there has to be a degree of humidity. Outside the aircraft there is very low humidity because of the altitude (but still some as if you look you can spot small ice crystals on the window sometimes). Inside the cabin, they have dehumidifiers as part of the AC system, which keeps the internal humidity down. So there is low humidity inside and outside the aircraft. Lastly, if you look closely at an airplane window you’ll see there are several “panes” creating a significant barrier between the inside and outside of the cabin. While for pressurization, it also limits the contact between the internal and external air. Think of it like a glass of ice water on a hot day: you get condensation on the outside of the glass right? Now put the water in a semi insulated two layer cup. You’ll notice an extreme difference in the amount of condensation on the glass depending on the quality of the insulation cup. Some may have none at all.",
"What does the altitude has to do with windows staying clear?"
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9u4wuh | what logic circuits are in Real life? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"You build computer with logic circuits in hardware. The thing you do in software can be represented with local operation. Look at URL_3 to see how you build a adder of binary number with logical gates. Logical gates are made by connection transistor together. You can do that with individual transistors where you have one per part. Single components like that was used to build computers in the 1950s and is still used today to amplify and or just turn thing on and off etc. From the 1960 multiple transistor was in each chip an was used to build logical circuits. Look at the 7000-series URL_1 that is sill used today. They have chips that contain 4 NAND gates. The amount of transistor that if on a chip increased over time and from the 1970s you have complete CPU in a chip and today you have billions of transistors on one chip. Look at this page URL_2 that describe how you build logical circuits with individual transistors. Or a longer book with more types of circuits URL_4 Here is a project to build a 8 bit computer from scratch with logical circuits URL_0 It describe every thing from how you build logic circuit with transistor until you get a computer.",
"You can actually build logic gates out of real physical transistors and build more complicated stuff like half-adders and adders from logic gates. In modern CPUs you won't really be able to see them, since they are beyond microscopic small at this point, but you can still build you own simple versions out of big ones. You don't strictly speaking need to use transistors either. We used valves before transistors were a thing and in fact there is no need to actually built it based on electricity at all. any sort of physical phenomenon that you can make behave like logic gates would work. Electricity with transistors is just the best we have for that right now."
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9u4ymd | Help further this analogy about how computer parts work together? | Here's the analogy so far, based on older posts I found on ELI5 about this: \- The CPU is a person working \- Their desk is the RAM - the more RAM you have, the bigger desk to put stuff on. \- A bookshelf or filing cabinet is the storage (hard drive or solid state). \- The GPU is another person at another desk who can paint what the worker asks really quickly \- The motherboard is the office itself, limiting what pieces and people are able to be where. \- The sound card, internet card, etc. are other people, like a musician and a mail carrier. & #x200B; Here are my questions: * Is having more cores in the CPU like hiring another worker in the office? And does it mean you'll need a bigger desk (more RAM) to accommodate the extra person than if you had just the 1? * What does it mean to have a better processor? Like, how does the difference between Intel i3/i5/i7 fit into this analogy? What about a higher clock speed? * How do I know what processor I will need - is it based on how much is "Idle" in Activity Monitor (I'm on Mac... for now)? * Similarly, what is a healthy percentage of the desk/RAM to be used at once in day-to-day life? Like, having a desk that's 90% covered in papers and stuff doesn't seem the best. Sure, at times it'll happen, but for your everyday work, maybe 25-33% seems more reasonable... What's the equivalent for computers? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"This is the danger of taking an analogy too far. You've really gone off the deep end here. The analogy is pretty accurate for an entry-level understanding of what does what in a computer, and loosely how it all works. An additional core IS a lot like hiring another worker, but it doesn't mean you have to have a bigger desk (although it wouldn't hurt). A better processor is a more productive or more efficient worker. Don't try to bring product tiers (i3/i5/i7) or clock speed into it because you'll only confuse yourself. You *need* whatever processor will get the job done for you. Workstation computers (especially for graphics work) need high performance parts. Your facebook-and-email machine doesn't need much at all. There's nothing wrong with running your computer at capacity as long as you understand that it can't go any faster or take on any additional tasks. Most people build computers intending to have a little overhead to play with."
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9u51f8 | What is Kubernetes and how does it relate to the cloud? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Kubernetes does containerization. What does this mean? Well, it lets you isolate software. Instead of having a server with 10 programs installed you can have 10 containers. This means i.e. that a malfunctioning program doesnt bring down the rest. It also means you can easily add more of the same containers, allowing you to react faster to load changes."
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9u5bto | How does HDR work in newer TVs? | Many newer TVs are advertised with HDR technology. Wasn't the contrast between black and white always there? sometimes as high as 1:10,000? What is HDR and how does it really work? is it technologically difficult to implement? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Basically it means that there is more detail displayed in the shadows and highlights before they are completely lost to pure black and pure white.",
"Contrast. Giving a Higher Range means you get bigger contrast between the darkest dark and the lightest light, allowing more detail in dark regions. New tvs are able to be much brighter than old tvs could. Plus, it is contrast without i.e. light bleeding from lighter to darker regions"
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9u66va | How are such vast (RDR2) gaming worlds created? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"That’s a question that requires a long answer. Short answer, some games use procedural generation (that draws assets from a library) and some hand place everything. Some do a mixture of both."
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9u8aj0 | How do whetstones work? | Like I get the basic idea that they sharpen stuff, but I watch this one guy on YouTube who makes knives out of crazy shit (y'all probably know the one lol) and he uses all these whetstones but I just don't get what it actually does? I get that there's probably different friction and stuff depending on how fine it is, but I still don't get it lol | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"You know when you sharpen your wood pencil it gets shorter because the sharpener just shaved off bits until the dull part is pointy? You get pencil shavings after you sharpen a pencil. Whetstones grind or shave off parts of a metal knife to make it sharp. And you get metal shavings (particles, dust) after you sharpen knives. A whetstone comes in different versions from rough (300 grit) to very fine (3000 grit) depending on what you want to do. Usually you start with a rough stone to grind off lots of material, then go to a finer stone for precision and polishing. Grit is also used to measure sandpaper for car detailing or other work that involves paint and polish.",
"The stones have different grits like sand paper the water is used as a lubricant so you can sharpen and polish with them.",
"[Dull Knife]( URL_0 ) [Sharp Knife]( URL_1 ) The whetstone is used to scrape off layers of the steel, at an angle, so that the remaining steel forms that sharp jagged edge, that will cut like a saw."
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9u8sgf | what does it mean when a song is "remastered" ? | Watched Bohemian Rhapsody a few days ago and what a movie. Was always a fan of Queen but now I'm really into their songs after the movie. Several of them are "remastered," and not just theirs, but a bunch of songs by other old bands. What exactly does it mean? What makes a song be remastered? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It just means that they go back and remove any flaws in the audio (bad edits, mic noises, hiss, etc)",
"URL_0 Re-recorded using “better” technology than what was originally used. Removes the pops, snaps and general distortion that was recorded during the time of release. Makes it sound more polished. Edit: This guy explains it far better than I did",
"Back in the day, audio engineers would create a single \"master\" copy of a piece. That master would then be duplicated for production. This was especially because analog recordings cannot be copied without loss; if you make a copy of a copy you'll introduce more and more distortion. Remastering is simply the process of finding one of those old master copies and using our modern tools to do things like correct minor flaws and adjust the mix to sound better on modern equipment. It may also mean repairing the damage and degradation caused by making tens of thousands of copies."
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9u9n4n | Why do phones/computers/TVs need to have a glass screen? What would happen without one? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"e92mzx1",
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"text": [
"For phones, glass is hard and will not scratch easily in your pocket. Monitors and TVs usually aren't glass.",
"They don't need to be glass since we don't use CRTs anymore. The alternative is polycarbonate or some other plastic, but glass is the best material for the cost. It's completely transparent and doesn't scratch nearly as easily as any non-plastic. For it's durability and quality, it's just the best choice."
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9ualmk | What is this drama about Diablo the game? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Everyone was excited for the next generation of pc and console games, we've been hearing rumors and speculation and seeing lots of jobs posted from blizzard. We knew it was a Diablo title and what we ended up getting was a mobile game. The vast majority of people attending blizzcon are PC gamers and a smaller slice are console gamers, so getting an announcement of a mobile game was a huge letdown because of the obvious limitations and drawbacks on mobile platform. Some of those include that a lot of footage from the Diablo gameplay looks similar to Chinese mobile titles, phones have an insane variety of hardware and support , the vast majority of which aren't capable of handling high end content. Then there's the huge glaring issue of content monetization, which mobile games are laughably famous for. It's probably a tad overblown because no one has had game time on it and are purely judging it by an announcement and jumping on the meme bandwagon, you see meme shitting on an unreleased game so it must be bad, herd mentality. It's definitely not what mostly anyone was looking for. myself , working a full time job as an adult I don't have nearly as much time as I did when I was a kid so if the game we're implemented well I'd be down to try it. Unfortunately the easy meal for almost every single mobile title is pay to play, pay to progress content, and if that drips over which it likely would in the form of little micro transaction boosts then it'll completely ruin the title and sour the franchise.",
"In the late 90's, a revolutionary gothic horror fantasy role playing game, Diablo, was released. It defined the \"hack and slash\" genre. Several years later, Diablo II was released, which built upon the core tenets of Diablo. A decade later, Diablo 3 was released to a mixed reception both critically and amongst hardcore fans, as it dramatically simplified the game mechanics greatly Throughout Diablo 3's release, most planned content was scrapped due to Blizzards dedication to \"fixing the game\", and making the gameplay reflect earlier titles. Fast forward to Blizzcon, where a Chinese MMO, developed by a company called Tencent, was showcased as Diablo Immortal, the next installment to the series. Fans asked \"is it coming to PC?\", to which developers mocked them, and said \"what, dont you have a phone?\" This is an important distinction due to the fact that Blizzard has never released a mobile game, meaning the next installment of a beloved franchise was, by design, never intended for its primary audience."
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9ub9yc | I got a sextortion email from my own email | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"You know how when you write snail mail and send it through the USPS or the like? Well imagine in the return address field you put the address of the person you were sending the mail to. Email isnt much different. By default email really provides no protections or verification of who is sending the email. It just trusts that what is written, is valid. Your email client like Outlook or gmail webmail may not let you change that field, but there are plenty of apps/services/code that do, or you can code your own from scratch pretty easily."
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9ubb1g | How is Blizzard able to manipulate the votes on its Diablo Immortal videos and how is this not a violation of Youtube's terms of service? | How is Blizzard able to manipulate the votes on its Diablo Immortal videos and how is this not a violation of Youtube's terms of service? The system seems fairly straightforward to me... how can they just make votes (hundreds of thousands) disappear? If they are changing the votes, how are they able to do this without having their channel affected negatively by Youtube? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"A definite possibility is that the votes themselves were put there by botnets at the hands of very angry fans, making the votes the actual ToS violation and their removal the rectification thereof. Either that or reuploading it I guess.",
"Blizzard almost certainly doesn't have access to the vote directly. YouTube wouldn't want anyone to have that power. So other possibilities: 1) They're reuploading, so the new video misses the initial massive negative backlash. 2) YouTube flagged the mass number of downvotes as odd behavior and deleted/hid them pending some review. 3) The downvotes were actually from bots and YouTube deleted them."
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9ubj28 | How can a current gen processor be significantly faster than a five year old counterpart, while they have the same number of cores(physical an logical), same frequency and the major instruction sets are the same? | What plus can it put down to the table to be that much faster? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"More precise manufacture, better architecture; shorter distances for data to travel, less resistance, lower voltages, higher clock cycles, less heat",
"It has to do with the efficiency and architecture of the transistor layout. It's very complicated.",
"All that was mentioned before plus predictive execution, the processor is fast, like really really fast, so when it needs to fetch something from memory it has to wait until data arrives doing nothing, so let’s say you get to a “if else” instruction, while waiting for the memory to give the data back the processor tries to predict what that data will be, if it gets it right the execution is faster, if it’s wrong you have lost nothing. This is actually the cause for the specter and meltdown bugs. And it’s waaay oversimplified."
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9ubp1i | why the enigma machine used in WW2 was so hard to crack? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"By modern standards, it really wasn't. The computer they used to crack it ran at something like 25kHz, less than 1% of 1% of the phone or computer you're reading this on. Without an electronic computer, though, running through the millions of calculations required to crack the day's code for the enigma machines would have taken months, years, or possibly decades depending on how many people you could organize to work on it - in short, there would have been no point by the time you finished.",
"A common way of cracking a simple code is to look at which letters occur the most. Those are probably common letters like n or e. Knowing that for example x in the code means e, you can figure out some simple words, where you get more letters. For example „weather“ has two e‘s which you can identify, so once you figure out its weather, you also know what a w, a, t, h, and r look like in the code. While this strategy works, it takes a lot of guessing work and especially time. Now the enigma machine allowed the user to change the system every 24 hours, without making it harder for the intended recipient to decode. It did however make every progress useless if you didn’t figure out the code before than, as you had to find out again which letter in the code might be e and so forth.",
"IIRC it wasn’t that it was impossible to crack but there were just so many combinations that by the time a code was cracked it was hours or days past usefulness.",
"The way the enigma machine machine worked was by substituting letters. So in a certain configuration, A might be swapped with F, B with T, C with X and so on. Press a key, and the corresponding enciphered letter lights up. Each time you press a key, a rotor moves around and it changes every single one of these substitutions. So type AAAAA, and the machine will give you FJQGS. Reset the machine to the initial settings and type FJQGS, and the machine will give you AAAAA. Bob wants to break this code. So he receives an encoded message that says \"QBRPDTMIT\". He things perhaps the message starts \"HEIL HITLER\". So he tries every initial setting, types \"QBRPDTMIT\", and when it comes up as \"HEILHITLER\" he knows he has the right settings and can read every message sent that day. Sadly it's not that simple. There are 3 rotors, each of which can be in any of 26 positions. so that's 26x26x26=17576 initial settings. But those 3 rotors are selected from a set of 5 that can each be put in any position. So that multiplies the number of settings by 60. That gives about a million settings. You can then adjust the wiring positions inside the rotors. That effectively multiplies the number of combinations by 676. Finally, you can insert wires between pairs of letters to swap them around. That increases the number of options considerably. Something like 150,738,274,937,250 settings. So we have to try 17576 x 60 x 676 x 150,738,274,937,250 settings. That's a lot of settings to try. & #x200B;"
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9uc0rs | What happens to lost or abandoned nukes? | Throughout history a small number of warheads have been lost or stolen, at least one of them in the ocean. What will happen to these devices over time? Is there a risk that decades or centuries of neglect could cause a lost warheads to explode? Leak it's radioactive contents into it's local environment? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"> Is there a risk that decades or centuries of neglect could cause a lost warheads to explode? No. To make a nuclear bomb go off you have to shove one piece of radioactive material into another very hard. > Leak it's radioactive contents into it's local environment? Much more likely.",
"They're not going to explode. Nuclear weapons are basically impossible to set off accidentally, both because they're designed that way for obvious reasons and because the process of pushing enough fissile material together fast enough to create a chain reaction without sputtering out or just blasting a bunch of plutonium all over the place requires a surprising amount of precision. However, it's pretty likely that they'll leak their contents out, given enough time; basically everything wastes away if you leave it alone for long enough. That wouldn't be great for the local environment, though it wouldn't be a Chernobyl-style disaster (there just isn't that much radioactive material in a nuclear weapon).",
"They'll corrode. That's about it. There's 0 chance they'll detonate. Detonation of nuclear weapons requires a number of extremely precise things to happen at once. It's really hard to detonate one by accident, and impossible for one to spontaneously detonate. There could be some local radioactive contamination depending on the condition of the bomb casing. Mostly, they're just going to sit there until they're found, if that ever happens."
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9ucrd2 | Why do bug companies base themselves in California? | I was watching the Social Network and one character urged another to base themselves in California. Why do companies like to operate themselves out of California and why is there so many there? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"(bug companies?? Bug companies???) Anyway assuming your question is about _big_ companies then your point is pretty flawed 1. Facebook _wasn't_ big at that point? They were just a small company 2. Most of the US's biggest companies aren't based in California! [The top 10 of Fortune 500]( URL_0 ) has companies based in Texas (Exxon Mobil), Arkansas (Walmart) & Michigan (Ford & GM) I think what you are asking is why are lots of tech companies based in California (specifically around san francisco bay)? And the answer is because lots of tech companies are based in California! It makes sense to have your company near other similar companies so you can share from the same pool of employees and other resources. It's why GM and Ford are both based around/in Detroit, why all the financial firms were historically on Wall Street, why film companies are all in Hollywood... Now why those places became centres for certain industries in the first place - well, that's a different question."
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9udl2n | We have an air drying unit attached to our air compressor at our shop. The pipes bringing air in air normal. The pipes bringing air out of the unit are rusted, what causes this? Shouldn’t it be reversed? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"When you compress air, you take a large volume of air and make it smaller. That small volume of air still has the same amount of water in it as when it started. When it cools, that water will condense and settle out The air dryer is used to get most of the water out of the air but it doesn't get it all. If your pipes are setup right then all the water should funnel back to a single point, but if they aren't then over time you'll end up with water sitting in the pipes and rusting them out. Consider how many cubic feet of air you use and how humid normal air is. If it only gets 99.99% of the water from the air that can still leave a sizable amount of water behind in industrial applications",
"I believe the way it works is that it gets fed compressed hot air (because raising the pressure makes hotter), and then cools it down to get the moisture out, because cold air holds less water, since the air comes out colder, water from the air around may condense on the pipe itself"
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9ujexp | We sent voyager 1 from earth in 1977 hoping another civilization will find it and decode the disc on board. How are we looking for similar things an intelligent civilization may have sent our way? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"There's almost no way we'd detect an unpowered voyager-sized alien probe flying through the solar system from interstellar space due to the small size and immense speed. In fact, we barely detected a 600+ foot long interstellar object for the first time in 2017, called [Oumuamua.]( URL_0 ) Instead, we hope that such a probe emits some detectable radiation.",
"Let's say and alien civilization launched a spacecraft like Voyager, and it ended up in our solar system. There aren't many ways we could track that individual spaceprobe - let alone catch it. A quick Google search tells you that pluto's orbital radius is 40 astronomical units (i.e. 40 times the distance from earth to sun), and the sun's sphere of gravitational influence is *way* bigger than that. A single spaceprobe would be lost among the billions/trillions of other, larger objects. & #x200B; Our best chance for finding proof of intelligent life right now is through telescopes - specifically telescopes that work outside of the visible spectrum. Similar to how an infrared camera can \"see\" heat, these telescopes can see radio waves, heat, ultraviolet waves, etc. If we were to have any proof of intelligent life, it would likely be from a transmission picked up by one of those telescopes. This wouldn't be any ordinary transmission like a TV show or a podcast though, since these transmissions aren't strong enough to get far beyond Earth, and even if they did, it would be like trying to listen to a person whispering in the middle of an orchestra - not easy. & #x200B; Instead, we might pick up a transmission purposefully sent into space. The idea of sending specific radio transmissions into space isn't absurd - it's been done in the past. I forget the name of the project, but there was an attempt a couple decades ago to launch a radio transmission that had similar data to the Voyager disc encoded in it. When read correctly, it looked like an 8-bit mosaic with the basic human shape and a few other details on it. & #x200B; TL;DR: we don't have the technology to pick up a physical copy of data sent by an intelligent civilization, but we could hear them if they decided to send us something.",
"No. Voyage 1 was send to explore Jupiter and Saturnus and it's largest moon Titan. The first variant was on the Pionere 10 and 11 launched in 1972-73 URL_1 The idea to carry a message was a journalist Eric Burgess that approached Carl Sagan in a conference about communication with intelligent extraterrestrial. He approached people at NASA where he was advisory and it was approved and the design was finished in 3 weeks. Carl Sagan was in charge of the records on Voyager. So they are not why the satellites was launched but added to the. So the are in part to perhaps work but primary to influence human on earth and make us thing about our place in the universe and how we might contact with aliens. Carl Sagan was good a and interesting in communicate science to people like in the TV show Cosmos. He also convince NASA to take a picture of all planets in our solar system in a mosaic from Voyage 1 in 1990 URL_0 what have no scientific used but useful in education and to draw interest. So I would argue that the most important part of the disc are the discussion and interest the create on earth. The probability that the are found by aliens are close to 0 So they are a good PR move for a a low cost and draw the interest towards space and NASA. That is there primary function"
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9uk0hl | why pictures of computer screens have weird, changing patterns when you zoom in and out? | An example is [this picture. ]( URL_0 )The black and white patterns change and I’ve never known why. | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"e94uwiq"
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"text": [
"These are called [moire interference patterns]( URL_1 ) and are caused by non-uniformly sampling the grid of pixels on the screen. In computer graphics, we use [mipmaps]( URL_0 ) to combat this."
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9ukxew | How do calculators work? | So all I know is I push the buttons and something electrical inside the calculator makes math happen. I would like a better explanation than that. | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"When numbers are entered into a calculator they are first converted into binary code which transistors on and off (0 and 1). So you press the number 2 and the electrical signal turns one transistor on and another off. In binary, 00000010 = 2 Then you press \"+\" and the electricity sends the command to turn on whatever transistors signal addition. Also, the number 2 is stored in memory. Then you press 2 again and the signal goes to the processor again turning on one transistor and another off. Then you press \"=\" which tells the processor to execute everything in memory 2+2 The processor takes the first unit in memory, 00000010, and applies the function \"+\" (add), and then the second unit 00000010 which is 00001000. Then it converts 00001000 from binary to a number which is 4, and displays it on the output (LCD). The abilities of a calculator are proportional to the number of transistors present. more transistors on a chip allows more functions.",
"When you enter a number, that number is stored in binary form in the form of activated circuits in the calculator. Most operations, like addition, require two numbers; they're stored in separate sections of the circuitry. When you hit the = key, the calculator combines those two separate sets of lit-up circuits to perform a calculation. It's possible to design circuits (using transistors) which can add two binary numbers; other calculations involve using this circuit over and over (e.g. multiplication is just activating addition many times).",
"This is a fairly complex question to be honest. As is common in complex questions, it is difficult to answer your question without asking many questions of you that will allow me to understand what you're really asking. Further compounding the problem, the answer technically depends on what kind of calculator you're asking about. The simplest answer is that the calculator has a microprocessor. Microprocessors have an assortment of operations that they support. Microprocessors also have data storage locations called registers. First, the calculator invokes the MOV instruction with a destination register name and the binary representation of the first number. Second, the calculator invokes the MOV instruction with a different destination register name and the binary representation of the second number. Third, the calculator invokes the ADD instruction with the two register names. The result of the addition is then stored in one of the original registers which can be read and displayed on the screen. 2 + 3: `MOV eax, 0010` `MOV ebx, 0011` `ADD eax, ebx` If you want to know how the addition actually happens, you'll need to learn a little bit about transistors, logic gates, combination of logic gates to create something called a half adder, and the combination of half adders to create a full adder or just adder. I think that [this video does a good job of explaining these more complex concepts]( URL_0 ) in a semi-simple manner. I would expect a beginner to need to pause and re-watch sections of that video multiple times as well as watch the whole video multiple times to even get close to understanding the complexity involved. & #x200B;"
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9ul13n | How come mp3 file qualities from Youtube Converters deteriorate with time? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"You'll have to clarify what you mean by \"deteriorate with time.\" Once a file is downloaded to your computer, unless you mess with it, the only thing that can happen to it is degradation of the medium containing the data, colloquially called \"bit rot.\""
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9ul8a6 | In the context of video games, what exactly are unused assets, and how are they discovered by gamers? | I've been getting back into Bloodborne recently, and recently on r/bloodborne I saw a post about an unused boss that had the AI intact and it occured to me how little i knew about game developement. | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"What are unused assets? images, sound files, algorithms, data (items, areas, characters, etc) and other stuff that isn't used and doesn't appear during normal gameplay. It may have been intended for inclusion in the game but removed at some point for any number of reasons. How are they discovered by gamers? By poking around in the actual files the game stores on your computer. These are often compressed with standard packaging tools so they can be uncompressed/unpackaged with free tools. A lot of games are built around universal engines (e.g. the Mass Effect series was built on Unreal Engine 3) which have freely available specifications, including ones for how files get processed by the engine.",
"You know when you're in school writing answers in pen and you cross out something because it's not quite right? That's an unused asset that can be discovered. Initially it WAS going to be used (part of the answer) but later you decided you didn't like it, maybe it didn't flow with the game well or something, so you changed it appropriately (crossed it out) and went with the improved idea you came up with. That crossed out word/sentence is still IN the answer you wrote, so people see it, but it's now not used in the final answer so it shouldn't be read as part of the answer. Of course it's much easier to hide unused assets in games, since you just leave the model/code/whatever in the game files, but don't link that to anything in the game. It can still be discovered, but requires a bit of looking around for it. Just like a crossed out word can be found too. The reason unused assets are left in the game files is because they COULD be used later on. So if you have 500mb of a boss that is unused in a game, it could appear in a future DLC or something. If it does make its appearance, instead of making people download that 500mb, they just download the files with the code that put that boss in the game, which is often not as large as all the sounds, animations, models, etc."
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9ulhpu | How does a digital camera know when something is close or far away? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The passive form of autofocus analyses the image until the edges are sharp. If the focus area is wrong, the picture will be blurry where you want it to be crisp. The lens itself moves around to find the right focus. Active autofocus uses a different type of light (or even ultrasound) to focus. If there are two lights, the object's position can be triangulated. The autofocus then sends the information to the lens to focus the image.",
"The simplest way is to use contrast auto-focus. The camera moves the focus around until it finds the point where the image is sharpest. This is a relatively slow technique because there's no way to tell which way to change the focus to fix a blurry image; you just have to try one way and, if that makes it worse, go back the other way. A better technique is to have sensors that look at the image through different parts of the lens, i.e., left and right or top and bottom. The camera can then triangulate to work out whether it needs to focus in or out. These sensors used to be separate from the camera's main sensor; they'd only work in a DSLR when the mirror was down, so autofocus wasn't possible when taking movies with the mirror locked up. In the last few years manufacturers have been using split pixels on the main sensor to overcome this limitation. This is the technology enabling the new EVIL (Electronic Viewfinder Interchangeable Lens\") cameras that are challenging DSLRs. Some old cameras did try to use active ultrasonic range finding, like sonar, for focus control. These systems were prone to focusing on the wrong subject. Modern autofocus can be smart and selective about what to focus on, or at least allow the photographer a range of choices. It can do things like recognise objects in the field of view (e.g., faces) and automatically focus on those."
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9uljao | What made CD music region free, but not DVD movies? | Most DVD movies i bought are strictly region locked, it is rare to see a region free DVD movie. Meanwhile CD music are not, is it technical limits? Or something more than that? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Compact disk audio is a much older standard (published around 1980) than DVD (first published around 1995). CD audio disks are not encrypted in any way, and such there would be a huge technical limitation to having implemented region coding, and such a feature could be bypassed, or risk breaking existing player/disc compatibility."
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9um52n | What exactly is software maintenance? | As far as i know code does not degrade over time like a car does so what would a maintainer of software be doing? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"e95aqsx"
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"text": [
"1. Bug fixes. No software is perfect, and sometimes bugs are only found after the software has already been deployed for years because some user used it in an unexpected way. 2. Adaptation to updating environments. Perhaps certain features provided by the operating system have changed or some features the program uses became deprecated, so the software needs to be changed accordingly. For example, before Windows Vista, any program could easily run with Administrator privileges, so many programmers just did that by default. In Vista they added \"User Account Control\" which prompted the user whenever a program wanted Administrator privileges, so lots of programs had to be fixed so they wouldn't bug the user so much. 3. Implementing new features from user requirements, like supporting a new file format or a new technology. 4. Increasing software maintainability and reliability for the future, i.e. fixing problems before they might happen."
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9uo83r | how do different analog media formats make sound? Particularly Vinyls and the wiggly lines on film? | For some reason CDs and digital files don't surprise me, I kind of just add that up to computer magic. But I really can't wrap my head around how bumps on a vinyl and a little needle can result in a full blown symphony or replicate the intricacies of a person's voice. Furthermore, I'm equally baffled by film, my friend gave me a piece of the 8mm film that is projected in cinemas (its Spirited Away, I use it as a book mark). On the side there are the sound waves, how do these make sound? I'm really finding myself dizzy with this so please ELI5, Reddit. | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"All the sounds you hear are actually just changes in air pressure. As the air pressure in your ear rises and falls, it makes your eardrum vibrate, and your brain recognizes those vibrations as sounds. Even if there are 100 different instruments all playing at the same time, all of the pressure waves from each instrument combine to create a specific pattern of air pressure changes & vibrations in your ear. You can use a microphone to record the pattern of air pressure over time, and you can print that pattern onto something like a record. Then the record player uses the pattern to move a speaker, which creates changes in air pressure to match the recording.",
"It might help to look at how the first recordings were made, which were done on completely mechanical machines. No electronics were involved. The first machines had a large horn that would be aimed at the sound to record. At the narrow end of the horn was a membrane rather like a drum head. The horn and the membrane worked like your ear: the outer ear and the ear canal focus the sound down onto the ear drum, which vibrates with the sound. In the same way, the horn focused the sound down onto the membrane, which vibrated with the sound. Attached to the membrane was a sharp needle. That needle would wiggle with the vibrations of the membrane. The record itself would be spinning underneath the needle, with the tip of the needle cutting a groove in the soft material of the record. Since the needle is wiggling with the sounds, the groove it cuts wiggles in the same way. Playing the sound back works in reverse... using almost identical equipment. The record would spin, with the playback needle riding in the groove. The wiggling groove makes the needle wiggle, which vibrates the membrane, which makes a sound that travels back up the horn and out into the room. In a way, you can think of records as carving the sound waves more or less directly into the vinyl. & #x200B; & #x200B; For film, the process is a bit different and required electronics. I don't recall all the details of how it's recorded, but essentially, the sound is picked up by a microphone and passes through electronics to amplify it and drive a lamp. The vibrations in the membrane of the mic get turned into flickering in the intensity of the lamp. The light from this lamp passes through a narrow slit and focused onto the film as it's being exposed. The sound track you see is a serious of strips of different intensities, showing how bright the lamp was at that point in the film. When the film is played back light passes through the sound track, through another narrow slit to a sensor that measures how bright the light is (the slit makes sure it only looks at the sound track's light level for that one moment in the film). The sensor sees the sound track flickering and converts that flickering light into a changing electrical signal, which it processes and sends to the speakers. An unnecessary detail: if I recall correctly, the sound track is offset from the movie frames. That is, the sounds recorded in the sound track on a particular frame are actually not the sounds at that point in the movie. I won't make this longer by going into that, but it has to do with how film projectors have to work to project a nice stable image."
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9uql78 | How do Satellites handle the millions if not billions of devices outfitted with GPS chips? | I know that they use radio waves to communicate, but every device needs 3-4 satellites to triangulate it's position. With the popularity of smart phones in every ones pocket now how are these satellites handing millions of "requests"? Not all satellites in orbit handle GPS communication either, right? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"GPS chips don't \"request\". They're passive devices. They listen to a continuous broadcast from each GPS satellite and use some crazy math to figure things out themselves. It's a one way transmission from the GPS satellite to the receiver.",
"That's not how GPS works. The satellites simply broadcast a signal. I forget what it's contents are, but I know it has a timestamp in it. Your device receives these signals and uses the difference in time from when it was sent to when you received it, some trig, and bingo-bango, you know your position. It's one-way communication.",
"GPS isn't a two-way communication. The satellites broadcast their signal for all to hear, and the devices listen out for it."
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9uqq50 | What is 5G? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"The next generation of wireless cellular service that will allow providers to continue to overcharge us, yet only give us 1/10th of its theoretical speeds, as well as limit how much of it we can use while calling it \"unlimited\" service.",
"**disclaimer: i am not a researcher in the field** 5G is the fifth generation of wireless mobile telecommunications technology. This is the technology that will replace 4G(LTE) and 3G which are widely used today. (the technologies that your smartphone uses today) **Whats so great about it?** (in comparison to previous generations) * higher data rates (max 20 Gbps for single channel or 40 Gbps for an aggregated dual channel compared to max 50Mbps with 4G) * reduced latency (tests showed 3ms latency when using peak rates of 15 Gbps) * more energy efficient (tests shower 4 times less power use compared to the 4G reference network) * higher connection density ( 5G is expected to support up to 1 million connected devices per square kilometer, compared to 2,000 devices with 4G.) **how is it achieved?** * wider bandwidths - on the higher frequencies we have a lot of unused bandwidth, so wide channels of 400MHz can be used for a single channel (think the wider the channel the more information can go through at a time) * beam-forming - multiple input and output antennas are used to create a more concentrated signals and receive cleaner transmissions (this one is tougher but think about it as using speakers, you can place speakers in a room in such a way that a single person will hear their signal very clearly in a single spot while they are actually using low volumes to play it, and are almost silent in different spots at the same time)",
"It is the 5th generation of wireless cellular technology. Currently the vast majority of cellular connected devices (phones, tablets, watches, hotspots etc) connect to 4G (typically an LTE, which stands for long term evolution) networks. You know how your phone may occasionally connect to 3G, or E, or something else besides 4G or wifi, and the experience usually sucks (loading web pages, trying to stream music or video), well 5G is the next step. Stealing from a [PCMAG]( URL_0 ) article on the subject \"5G brings three new aspects to the table: greater speed (to move more data), lower latency (to be more responsive), and the ability to connect a lot more devices at once (for sensors and smart devices).\""
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9uqutd | Why does Windows create input lag when not in fullscreen? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"The full answer to this is pretty complicated, but in simple terms, it's because in fullscreen your PC has less to do. When a game (or any other application) renders in fullscreen, it essentially \"owns\" the display. 100% of your computer's graphics power can go to it. When you're in a windowed mode, your computer is still generating the desktop \"behind\" the game, even if you can't actually see it, such as in a windowed borderless mode. That means there's not as much processing power available for the game, so you might get lag and FPS drops. If your PC has enough power to handle it, though, windowed mode can be nice because it lets you seamlessly minimize the game to do other stuff if you want. Sometimes that can cause all sorts of glitchy behavior in fullscreen applications."
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9ur660 | how were wisdom teeth removed before the advances in modern dentistry | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"Pliers. To be fair, a lot of people just kept their teeth in if it wasn’t causing them pain. Wisdom teeth usually crowd the mouth in those who need them removed, but it would only be pulled if it was painful. Whiskey, pliers, and a few minutes will get that pain right out of your mouth."
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9urf58 | How does the toilet without water that Bill Gates presented works ? | [ URL_0 ]( URL_0 ) & #x200B; | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"It is a bowl where the waste is scraped out by a battery-powered mechanism, covered in wax, and allowed to dry out. A technician comes around periodically to empty out the dried feces for incineration and the waste urine/water can be used for other things."
],
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9uryd6 | If you block someone on your phone, and they send you a message, do they know they're blocked? | For example, if I block an ex, does he get any notification if he sends me a text that the text didn't go through? Not that I want to get back with him, but I'm curious if he's texted me. Also, if I unblock him and he DID text me, would those texts suddenly come through? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"No there is no notification. Depends on your phone but some phones have the messages from blocked contacts saved in a spam section.",
"No. Nothing will come through to you, nothing will tell him you blocked him, and you wont receive any texts he sent you while he was blocked. Same with phone calls.",
"For the first part, if you both have an iPhone. After you block him, if he sends you a message. His phone will not show any status, such as delivered, read, or sent. If he calls you after he is blocked, the phone call will go to voice mail after 1 or 2 rings. He will not receive any notification when you actually block him. Not sure how it works with android to android or iPhone to android. I learned this through experience."
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9uun6v | How do YouTube to mp3/mp4 converters work? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"The video/audio data has to get sent to the user somehow. Even if it’s not obvious for the average user, people familiar with the technical details of the internet and sending data know how to intercept the video stream. In many cases it’s as simple as finding and accessing the video file on YouTube’s servers directly (again, possible to do by poking around in the data that gets sent to the user, even if it’s not obvious how to most people). In other cases (not necessarily YouTube, but various streaming services) you collect the incoming video data in order and build up the full video bit by bit on the user’s end. For extracting the audio or converting filetype, there are tons of methods and software. A video file is really a bundle of multiple data streams, including an audio stream, so you can usually just chop it off and rebundle it into a familiar audio file (really, file extension isn’t as important as codec, but that’s another story). Once you collect the data from YouTube or whatever other site, you’re free to run whatever other processing you want on it, which is what these downloader sites and apps do."
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9uv4u7 | How do people make compilation videos? | Do people just download every single videos through mp4 downloader, one by one and just pile it up? If they do then that sounds really exhausting. Or is there another method? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"In most cases, yes, people download or gather all the source footage (download a movie, download internet videos from YouTube, etc). In some cases, they record the screen during the part of their footage that they know they want. This is much better for people with limited space to work with. They might search up a memorable clip on YouTube if it’s available. Then, if they’re on a phone, there are plenty of apps to make compilation videos. On a computer, any video editing software will do the trick. Editing is a long and tough job. If you’re referring to compilation creators like WatchMojo, those people are paid to do that. I assure you they don’t do it because it’s fun. From my experience working with film, for every minute or two of a video that you watch, they probably spent at least 10 to 20 minutes editing. At least!"
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9uvybe | How can NFC chips be read without batteries being attached to them? | Like apparently the thing reading the chip gives it power, I think, but how? Or am I just completely wrong? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"While the reader emit enough electromagnetic energy to power the microchip, it is actually too weak for the chip to emit anything back on its antenna. The way it works instead is by back scattering: the reader emit on two frequencies, one is strong and is the power lane and the other one is weaker and is the data lane. The power lane is harvested on the NFC tag antenna to provide enough juice to power the chip. The data lane however is expected to normally bump on the antenna and be reflected, like on a mirror. When the chip want to emit something all it have to do is to instead absorb the data lane too, and the reader seeing the reflection being surprisingly attenuated, understand the chip \"sent\" a signal. So the tag only have to absorb energy, either to compute or to communicate. Easier to see why it can run on such low power.",
"You're correct. The small amount of electromagnetic energy from the reader powers the tiny circuit in the chip, which then sends back its signal."
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9ux3y9 | why arent motorcycles front propelled? | Seems much safer that way | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"When you lose grip on a tire on a two-wheeler, you really, really want it to be the rear tire. If the front starts to slip, you lose control, and you lose most of your ability to balance it. When I was a kid, I tried to learn to use the front brake on my bike on ice. Spent half a day doing it, and the only thing I learned was that it was painful.",
"Because you don't really have a front (or rear) axle pretty much the only practical way to power it is with a chain or belt, but since the front wheel also has to turn, the chain would get loose of stop you from steering, depending on which way you turn.",
"Because you would not be able to steer as well since motorcycles use a chain or belt to provide power to the drive wheel. If the front wheel was the drive wheel then the chain or belt would get in the way of being able to turn the wheel even a slight amount.",
"What is your logic for assuming front wheel drive is safer on a motorcycle out of curiosity? To answer the question, if you drive from the front, setting aside the mechanical difficulties of doing so (which are reasonably considerable), you increase the chance of the front wheel slipping, because you're asking the same small contact patch of rubber to pull the bike forward as well as change its direction. As /u/ElMachoGrande has said, on a bike you absolutely do not want the front wheel slipping, because a slipping front wheel now has zero ability to steer, and zero ability to steer on a bike now means you can't balance it."
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9uxuyl | What does a SOC Analyst actually do? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Monitor and dig thru data from specialized tools to catch bad guys doing bad things in your network."
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9uy09x | why do our phones charge faster when they have low battery? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"When your phone is dead, it requests lots of power to fill it up quickly. But once it starts to fill up, it requests less and less as not to damage the battery with too much power. Think of it like filling a bucket to the brim. At first, you might run the water at full pressure to fill it fast, but if you don't want the water to over flow, you'll want to lower the pressure as it's about to reach the top.",
"* Batteries charge via the difference in voltage between the battery and the charger. * When the battery is very low, there is a much bigger difference between its voltage and the voltage the charger puts out. * As the battery gets closer to full, its voltage goes up getting closer to the voltage of the charge so the process slows down."
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9uzeay | How does a projector project black light? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"They don't. The \"black\" parts of the projected image just don't have any light. So you're just seeing the absence of light on parts of the screen which looks black in contrast to the rest of the image.",
"It doesn’t. The blackness is only perceived *relative to the other brightnesses/colors* that you see. If there’s no other light in the room, and the projector doesn’t put out any, that location on the screen might be really close to black. But this isn’t because it’s being darkened, it’s just not being illuminated. If there is some light in the room and the image is being projected onto a white screen or wall... dark areas may be enough for your brain to understand that they’re meant to be black, but in these cases projectors usually *don’t* outperform computer screens in producing deep black."
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9uzxmg | Why does hitting a flashlight when the batteries are low keep it working for a short time? | If a flashlight is getting dim or having trouble turning on due to low power in the battery, it's common to bang on the flashlight a few times and it will start working. The same goes for batteries in a TV remote, except for banging on the batteries, just running your finger over them and making them roll in their slots back and forth seem to make the batteries start working again. | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Corrosion on the battery contacts creates resistance that reduces the current delivered. Vibration can wipe off some of the corrosion.",
"Most batteries stop working due to buildup of non conductive material on the internal plates of the battery or the plates falling apart. Hitting them knocks some of this build up off, exposing plate. Or potentially rejoining cracked plates. It is not generally due to external corrosion, as batteries and battery contacts are often plated with metals that do not easily corrode like nickel. Hence why only nearly dead batteries suffer from this and you'll find a brand new battery never needs to be hit.",
"On tv remote or computer mouse open the battery compartment and spin each battery a couple times. It breaks away the corrosion without beating the electronics up.",
"As an aside to the corrosion aspect, warming up batteries in your hand can give you a small burst of power as well. Temperature can help to create charge between the anode and the cathode, although does so at the expense of the batteries lifetime. If you want to make your batteries last longer, store them in the fridge when not in use. Source: Used to work in a battery lab.",
"Could be a loose connection or corroded contacts as some has mentioned. When batteries are low on charge it means that charge carrying ions inside the battery have built up around the positive cathode inside the battery. This can prevent further charge transfer and cause the light to lose power. Hitting the battery can help dislodge particles from the cathode and allow for more charge transfer. Pro life tip; If your TV remote isn't working (and you still use a TV) try hitting it. Sometimes this can breathe life back into your remote for minute.",
"To add to the battery notes, it could also be the bulb. If the bulbs connection isn't set properly, then it could take a jostling to wiggle it into place.",
"Electricity can jump a gap and continue on its way to complete the circuit (turn the flashlight on). The stronger current, the larger the jump. So, you have fully charged batteries, and they aren't perfectly lined up, the flashlight will work without a problem. As the batteries loose charge, having them slightly out of alignment will cause the flashlight to go out. By knocking it, everything jostles around, you better connection, and the circuit is completed."
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9uzzng | Why do horses need horseshoes? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Depending on what type of surface/work your horse will be doing, they don't always need to wear shoes. Also some horses have healthier stronger hooves genetically than others. It just depends on different factors. Currently my horse doesn't wear shoes but she also doesn't do super strenuous work and is usually in a soft surface area. I do have protective boots (think rubber shoes) that I put on whenever I take her riding or somewhere that could be hard on her feet. She used to wear shoes but has been without for a while because she does fine without them and her hooves are healthy. That said- some horses absolutely need shoes no matter what depending on circumstances or medical issues with their feet and I am in no way advocating a horse always going barefoot. Also, I do have a trimmer come out regularly about every 4-6 weeks to trim, file, and evaluate the health of her feet. As mentioned, domestic horses feet do need to be trimmed often. It's very very important to take care of their feet proactively and address any issues as they come.",
"The ancestors of the domestic horse didn't, necessarily. Domestication has changed the wear patterns for horses, they pursue different activities, they move across different surfaces, and they travel at different rates, than their ancestors did. This contributes to increased and/or uneven wear on natural hooves, which predisposes the horses to various forms of injury or discomfort. The horseshoe is meant to help account for this, and protect the hoof.",
"They don't. We need horseshoes to allow the horses to walk on surfaces they wouldn't naturally walk on. If we left the horses alone, they'd manage just fine without.",
"Also just as interesting fact, if we equate horseshoes with steel toe boots, we can draw another corrollary: along with protection for the hooves, this added a stronger weapon to the warhorse's arsenal. These animals were trained to bite and kick in combat, and some horseshoes were smithed with knobs or spikes to further amplify the force of a kick.",
"They have a soft sensitive spot in the middle of their hoof. They can step on pointing rocks and hurt themselves. And other stuff too.",
"To protect their hoofs, they need it or they're screwed. Have you seen a hoof starting to peel off of a horse? Not a pretty sight. It's basically the same reason why we need shoes, so that rocks and other things that are found in nature/roads don't get stuck to the skin.",
"Most horses do not need shoes just their hooves trimmed regularly. Your average horse will do better barefoot as nature intended. In fact shoes cause a lot of damage to the hooves and legs. Horses have a built shock absorber, called the frog and when they wear shoes it doesn't do it's job. Hooves also expand and contract When making contact with the ground and shoes limit that function. When horses wear shoes holes are being created that allow bacteria and fungi in that weakens the hoof. Horse shoeing has been going on for hundreds of years and it's a practice a lot of people have moved away from because it's not good for the animal. A lot of people still do it \"because that's how it's always been done\" but we need to move away from it for the sake of the animal. A good diet low in sugar and regular trimming off excess hoof growth the animal can't wear off is what they need."
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9v00bc | In terms of technology and programming, what is an API? Hearing that the homebrew scene is working on porting OpenGL to the Nintendo Switch, so makes "OpenGL" different than others? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"API stands for [Application Programming Interface]( URL_0 ). When someone writes a big computer program, like Windows or Linux or the DirectX graphics library or the OpenGL graphics library, that program includes an API that lets other programmers tell the big computer program what to do. For example, when you launch the game Overwatch on your Windows PC, the Overwatch program uses the Windows API to tell Windows to draw a window and load a bunch of graphics into memory. Then the Overwatch program uses the DirectX API to tell the DirectX graphics library to draw a bunch of 3D graphics within that window. The Overwatch program doesn’t have to care about what things exactly get drawn when the window is shown, or how exactly graphics get drawn using different kinds of graphics chips – it lets Windows and DirectX take care of the details. OpenGL is a huge program that can draw 3D graphics on the screen. There are already many games that use OpenGL to draw their 3D graphics. By porting OpenGL to the Switch, these homebrew people are saying that game developers can port their OpenGL-using games to the Switch, and the graphics will just work, or work with very small changes. The game developers don’t have to learn all about how the Switch’s graphics chips work, because the games already use the OpenGL API. For a dirty example of how the API is used, below is a line of code, in the C++ programming language, that uses the Windows API to create a window on the screen. This of course is gibberish, but the programmer uses the [API documentation]( URL_1 ) to find out what \"API call\" to use to create the window, and what all the below items mean. myWindowHandle = CreateWindowExA(dwExStyle, lpClassName, lpWindowName, dwStyle, X, Y, nWidth, nHeight, hWndParent, hMenu, hInstance, lpParam);",
"TL;DR : it's all the functions that a library provides to a programmer The OpenGL API should be the same regardless of the device, but the implementation will be different, e.g. to take hardware specifics into account The other posts have go more into details 😉"
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9v0nse | best audio resolution (m4a, flac, mp3) | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"First off, “resolution” = fidelity. When music is recorded digitally it is done by sampling the audio so many times a second then reconstructing the waveform based on the data it gathers. This is why people think analog is better - particles on a tape will have so many more samples per second it’s essentially pushing to infinity in terms of rate. When you compress audio to a smaller size, the amount of samples used to construct the waveform goes down which lowers the quality, but that’s what makes the file smaller - less info. So it really is simple science, of those three from best to worst: FLAC, mp4a, mp3.",
"That's going to depend on what your goal is. What is \"best\" can vary. If your goal is maximum fidelity, then you'll want a lossless format like [FLAC]( URL_1 ) or [ALAC]( URL_0 ). * Brief digression: when I refer to lossless and lossy formats, I'm talking about whether data is being discarded in the process of making the file smaller. A *lossless* format doesn't get rid of any data; a *lossy* format does. If your goal is filesize reduction, you start to look at, primarily, the [MP3]( URL_2 ) format. There are different levels of lossiness available depending on how much you need to save space, and the more space you save, the further away from the original content you go. That said, what is your goal here? What does \"best\" mean to you?"
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9v0y78 | What is the difference between Linux and BSD? | I have been told by many people that it is not safe to use Windows XP on a computer with internet access anymore and that I need to switch. I do not like Windows Vista, 7, 8 or 10 and I do not like Mac OS X, so I am considering switching to a Unix system. The ones recommended to me were Slackware, Debian and ArchLinux (Linux) and FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD. I have used 3 computer operating systems in my life, Mac OS 8 and 9 on a PowerMac G3 (our family’s first computer, from 1998 until 2005), Windows XP on an IBM NetVista and then my IBM ThinkCentre M55p which I am on right now, and Solaris at work. Mac OS 9 was my favorite of them all. Thanks for your answer! | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Both BSD and Linux are open source Operating systems based on UNIX. Modern BSD OSs are descended from a UNIX distro directly while LINUX started out as an attempt to rebuild something like UNIX from scratch. Linux in its various distributions is far more popular and widely used. BSD, especially FreeBSD does enjoy some popularity as a desktop OS, but is more widely found embedded in devices and appliances. It also indirectly forms the basis of the modern Apple OS. While the various BSD types are very secure and arguably more secure than Linux or Windows, they are not exactly the sort of thing I would recommend to a novice enduser. If you are familiar with Solaris than UNIX is not completely a new thing to you, but I would not expect to be able to transfer too much knowledge to BSD and even less to modern LINUX distros. Debian probably will be the most user friendly of your choices followed by the other Linuxes and then the BSDs. A lot of it comes down to personal preferences and taste.",
"So, Unix was not the first operating system in existence but it is arguably the most influential to the modern day. With the exception of Windows/anything Microsoft makes, OS's today are either direct descendants of the Unix code or heavily inspired by its design philosophy. This was largely due to its design philosophy, a very modular code, a single filesystem even with multiple drives, and probably its most defining feature, the fact that \"everything is a file.\" Want random data? The file /dev/random always spits out random data for you to use for whatever you want. Want to clone one USB drive onto another? Read the entirety of one usb drive file and write it to the other USB drive file. The key thing was that the way to interface with anything in the computer was to do so through a file, and while it wasn't actually \"writing and reading\" to a file under the hood, it looks that way from the top. Anyways, in the 1970s, UC Berkeley got its first computer running Unix, students and staff immediately began making software for it. People became interested since this software had very useful tools in it, so this began with some at Berkeley compiling this software into what they called Berkeley Software Distribution, or BSD. This was not an operating system as this point, but rather just tools to run with Unix, just as we have software today we download. Anyways, a newer computer is soon installed at Berkeley and is not completely compatible with Unix. So the solution was that students completely rewrote the code to Unix, essentially now making BSD its own operating system, and most importantly, a free version, as before this, AT & T owned Unix. AT & T later tried to sue Berkeley for it but Berkeley won the case and this allowed for BSD to live on as free open source software. Berkeley slowly stopped developing BSD as Linux becomes a dominating Unix successor, but some of the open source community still keep on the project as successors such as OpenBSD. Linux originates from a Finnish lad by the name of Linus Torvalds, who made a Unix inspired OS for a largely irrelevant platform back in the early 90s. He didn't expect it to explode as much as it did, but he put the code for it into a mailing list and it actually got popular. Linus mixed his own name with that of Unix to call it Linux, and the rest is history. Its important to mention that neither one of these are a single operating system. Unix has a very modular design philosophy, that is to say you can make changes to one aspect of the OS without breaking everything else. So this results in many versions of the actual operating system itself. BSD tends to be a bit more consolidated and developed more as an OS, while Linus mainly focuses at least what he does on the kernel of the OS, the core part running everything, while leaving the specifics of its implementation to others, resulting in there being 10 thousand versions of the damn thing. I suggest Linux over BSD. More support these days. LUbuntu was mentioned somewhere and its a solid choice.",
"If you want to try out a distro before \"buying\" make a live disc and test run the os to see if it will play nice with our rig. I like using old HW to reuse is to keep it out of the tip/landfill.",
"linux and BSD are different derivatives of unix. they have partial software compatibility, for example freeBSD includes compatibility layers that let it run a lot of software that was made for linux. they're released under different licenses that determine how you're allowed to modify and redistribute them. depending on what you want to do with it, the differences may be negligible or life-altering you'd probably get the best answers from the people who made those recommendations, by telling them what hardware you have (or intend to get) and how you want to use it"
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9v1glp | What’s the significance of AMD’s 7nm GPU? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The smaller it is it consumes less power, produces less heat and is physically smaller, which, altogether lets you cram more stuff in the same cpu, all while using the same amount of power, the same size and producing the same heat. Or you could make the same cpu but smaller and more efficient, very useful for mobile devices",
"Three questions, three answers. & #x200B; 1. There is little significance. It's a routine die shrink of the older Vega (\"Greenland\") GPU. There are some bug fixes on die, but other known issues aren't fixed. 2. The common person, right now, it does not. It's only in extremely high end enterprise products and even then only with extremely expensive HBM2 memory (and four stacks of it!). In the longer run, it'll help bring a lower cost GDDR6-powered version to market, as the ASIC's die area is far more reasonable, but that is not this one. This should bring video card pricing back to something reasonable, although the collapse of Ethereum mining will help more. 3. The industry probably doesn't much care. It's a fairly routine release. AMD and, before it, ATI, was often first on a new process. Nvidia would wait until it matured more and the costs came down. Edit: The other thing I can think of is that all previous Vega cards have been horribly thermally limited. Even with higher clocks (around 1.8 GHz on this one), Vega 20 will be able to hit them more consistently and run faster than you'd otherwise estimate as a result."
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9v6n3n | How does Samsung's Fast Charger Wall Adapter charge so much faster compared to a regular wall adapter? | EDIT: I did not mean to come off like an advertisement, I just happen to have a Samsung. | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The phone and charger talk to each other and negotiate a voltage and current to be allowed to the device. If Samsung is producing high-quality batteries that can take more charge power, it can negotiate a higher amount of power to be fed in. Each company has their own choice on what USB charging level they aim for, Samsung is probably aiming for a higher one."
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9v6z8u | When a website asks you to prove you are not a robot by identifying storefronts/busses/streetlights/etc, how is it determining you are not a robot? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Those tasks are not easy to solve for computers without reasonable effort put into making robust algorithms that probably aren’t worth the time for spammers, etc. Without such obstacles, websites receive a lot of automated garbage and fluffed up web traffic"
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9v7h0n | how do traffic lights work? | this is such a stupid question and im 18 so i should probably know! how the hell do traffic lights know when to change color?? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Traffic lights are programmed on timers. The times change based on time of day, changing more often during high traffic times.",
"They use a combination of timers, in-ground sensors, and commands from city-wide traffic control centers. At the lowest level, the most basic lights are programmed to hold each color for so many seconds. In reality, this programming is much more complex with different directions having different timers, adjustments if the crosswalk button is pushed, and timers that change based on the time of day. More advanced lights also incorporate in-ground sensors. You can sometimes see the places where these sensors were installed--they are a ring of tar that covers the sensor, sometimes a rectangle, sometimes more octagonal. These sensors allow the control unit to adjust the timers based on actual traffic load and respond to unanticipated traffic events like accidents or road closures. At the other end, some traffic light controllers can be networked to each other and to a city-wide control station. This allows for things like \"timed lights\" during rush hour, where a green light at one intersection will happen so many seconds after a green light at the previous intersection. It also means that a traffic engineer can monitor all the intersections in a city, make real-time adjustments to improve traffic flow or even directly control lights to aid in public safety. Usually, the control system depends on the importance of the light. A two-lane crossing with little traffic will likely always be timed, even if it happens to be in a large metropolitan area, while major intersections are more likely to be monitored and use a full host of sensors and advanced technology."
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9v81nq | If Ancient Romans and Greeks used short swords, why in the middle Ages did Swords become 'bigger'? | We're told that the Ancient Greeks and Romans were very advanced in their practise of warfare, and the short swords were preferred as they offered the wielder more control, as well as having other advantages. & #x200B; So why did we end up with Broad Swords and Long Swords? Was it to pierce armour? Surely these swords were very very difficult to use? Couldn't a short sword practitioneer have beaten a long sword one? & #x200B; Ty for any information. | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"There are a few factors that caused this to some extent. The development of ironworking allowed for the creation of larger weapons. The tactics of the classical era (tight formations and well trained warriors) were the ideal place for short swords to be used, the armies of the middle ages tended to be less disciplined levies of untrained soldiers who would never have the experience to use a sword properly but could manage a simple spear. In the middle ages, swords had become somewhat of a status symbol. Since the peasants forming the majority of the army would never be able to own one, they were a way to show your wealth and power (the fact they're shaped a bit like a crucifix was probably a part of it too in European Christendom. With the swords belonging to the rich and powerful, they were inevitably wielded by knights, who would normally fight on horseback. Using a sword from horseback requires much greater reach, therefore, a longer sword.",
"Metallurgy. Our ability to work with metals greatly improved. (Someone will correct me if I'm wrong on any details.) In the earlier part of Rome they used cast bronze. If you google and read about the gladius you can see stone moulds into which they poured the molten bronze. 1.5' was probably found to be the best balance between length and strength. A longer bronze sword might not break so easily, but it would bend or deform with the pounding of a day in battle. Later, iron was used. Which could go either way; more brittle, or easily bent if not made properly. The Roman longsword Spada (spatha) wasn't really their own idea. Places absorbed into the empire had to pay tribute, not just with funds, but with men and arms. As they moved further North into Europe, they encountered places where they could work metals better (I think they brought steel, but I'm not entirely sure if it was yet). Some Romans began to adopt the longer swords, Legates and officer types at first, because of money costs; the spada needed to be made by smiths, hammered out and not cast, quenched properly, and while iron and steel might hold an edge better than bronze, putting an edge on it was also more labour intensive. The longer sword was fine for these officer types also because they weren't part of the shield walls where you really wanted everyone to have a uniform length gladius (a longer sword could be dangerous within their Legion perfect spacing. Friendly fire? Try a friendly sword to the face during a cohort's back-swing.). The longer spada was also more useful from horseback, which very few Legionnaires would ride (outriders, scouts and officers). IIRC, cavalry was also adopted into use from tribute troops. e.g. Horse clans from the Eastern edge of Europe. They would have a good use for longer swords to justify the expense.",
"There are numerous reasons that add together to make weapon choice. Specific to the Greeks was that they made their weapons out of Bronze. Bronze is a relatively soft metal and that means that it has to be thicker in order to not bend in combat which in turn limits the length that you can make the weapon and still use it in combat. For both the Greeks and the Romans infantry fought in tight formations called a phalanx. In a phalanx there is not enough room for soldiers to wield a large sword without hitting the soldiers standing next to them. A phalanx is also a formation that utilizes a shield, and long swords are primarily a two handed weapon. Some of the smaller ones can be used one handed, but you will tire faster and still have the space issue of a phalanx being too crowded. The Romans did use different weaponry depending on the type of soldier too. Those that did not fight in phalanx such as cavalry soldiers did often utilize long swords.",
"Throughout history and all over the world, weapons like spears, pikes and pole arms were almost always the preferred melee weapon for infantry troops, and daggers and swords backup weapons. Something like a medieval long sword or Japanese katana was extremely expensive to make, and only the wealthiest warriors could even afford them - but even then they were mostly dueling and backup weapons. These warriors were also often fighting on horseback, where the longer reach of a long sword is most useful. The Romans were an exception to that. They famously used infantry with throwing spears and short swords for their most elite and professional troops. But throughout the medieval era, we're back to spears, pikes and polearms for the most part. Even the vikings, famous for their axes and swords, usually used longer weapons on the battlefield.",
"During pre-medieval days, warriors mostly wore light armor with leather straps and simple armor. A short sword allowed full mobility in a very nimble confrontation. Speed was the deciding factor in many confrontations. The medieval ages introduced mail that made slashes by a dagger or sword almost useless. This meant a quick sword thrust could both be ineffective and leave you open for an attack. While a larger weapon reduces mobility, it offers greater range and power. This allows skills fighters to utilize the range of their weapon to prevent nimble fighters from closing in too easily, and also provides adequate power to quickly subdue opponents in basic armor. Other changes were taking place as well, various other combatants would be on Horseback, using pole weapons like Pikes or Halbeards, and the rise of wooden structures. A simple short sword would be no match against many combat situations here. A similar issue would rise with cannons throughout the middle ages. As they increasing grew in size to overcome defenses and quickly win wars with sheer firepower. It would finally stop around the time of modern guns and mechanized combat. This talks a bit about armour and its ability to protect you in the medieval days. [Medieval Warfare - Armour]( URL_0 )",
"As I understand it: The roman sword was intended for military use. Many many warriors in close formation using shields, on foot. The Longsword broadsword, rapier, and many other swords, were not used in the same conditions. Most weren't used with shields either, and often were used in horseback - the longsword being the most prominent exception I can think of, in regards to shields.",
"It's not that Romans and Greek didn't want bigger swords, the metalworking technology just wasn't there to make a long blade sufficiently light, sharp and sturdy, so they had to make do with spears if they wanted reach.",
"Longer swords are better than short swords, up to a certain point. As metalworking technology advanced, we could make swords thinner, stronger and thus longer for the same weight. Instead of using softer bronze, we transitioned to iron, then steel."
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9v874a | Why do image file sizes differ if the lens and camera are the same? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Images are compressed. Compression depends on the contents, some content can be more easily compressed than other content. This is because compression works mainly by removing repetitions in the data, so if the data has lots of repetitions (for example if the image is just a big black square) then it is easier to compress, resulting in a smaller file."
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9v8nqo | How do we currently or plan to in future navigate through the solar system? | I understand how we use GPS and innertial navigation on Earth but is there a plan to eventually have a much wider constellation in the solar system to navigate? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Same way we navigated the seas before GPS: the most accurate clock we can make and measuring the angle to stars. The most accurate clock we can make has gotten insanely accurate since the age of sail, and as far as stellar observation a go pro on a satellite does that better than portable instruments from back then, too. Computers are pretty awesome at the calculating positions based on angles."
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9v9fir | How do Mesh Wifi sustain speeds when a Repeater drops a speed to half? | I understand that, using a Repeater results in our internet speed being cut in half as it has to re-encode the packets before broadcasting. But, isn't mesh wifi basically a primary router coupled with a number of repeaters? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"mesh wifi has 2x2 or 3x3 antennas that means they can communicate with each other on a separate channel leaving a channel free for clients old repeaters didn't have multiple antennas (MIMO), so speed was cut in half or worst",
"The answers given contain part of the truth, but miss one of the biggest which is different frequencies. “Repeater” mode is where the AP in relay mode is a client of the base stations wireless network and then also serves clients that connect to it (because they are receiving a higher power signal from the Relay AP). Because Wi-Fi is half duplex this doubles the traffic within that wireless network (all in one channel). See: URL_0 Mesh mode is where the APs will typically utilize a separate radio and channel to establish a backhaul connection to the other APs and eventually reach an AP that has uplink to the wired network. The earliest method was utilizing dual band APs, serve clients on the 2.4Ghz radio and then utilize the 5.8Ghz radio for backhaul or vice versa. Modern mesh will sometimes utilize multiple special streams for simultaneous traffic forwarding (though this is more difficult as RF environment are changing constantly and it is still technically is within the same collision space). Sometimes they may have a dedicated backhaul radio on 5.8 and then service clients on both 2.4 and 5.8 but use different channels for the two 5.8 radios. *edit* See my actual ELI5 version in reply to another comment: URL_1",
"Using a repeater does not necessarily need to cut the speed in half. Many repeaters and mesh routers use different channels and sometimes frequencies to communicate with each other. So you could have full speed on client side and between the APs.",
"Also, a good mesh system will natively support ethernet backhaul, allowing you even more utilisation of the wifi if you are able to run cable."
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9v9ryy | How are videogames stored on a blue ray disc? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Like any other computer data, the optical disc (including CD, DVD, BD, Laserdisc and others), uses a laser-etched reflective groove, like an old record to record the programs in binary.",
"CD, DVD, and Blu-Ray all work the same way: data is stored on the surface of the disc as a series of pits and smooth places. A pit is a 1, a smooth space is a 0 (or vise-versa, I'm not sure). The other side of the disc is then coated with something reflective (It used to be aluminum; I don't know what it is now). When you put the disc in a player, the machine shines a laser on the surface of the disc. The laser shines right through the plastic, hits the reflective layer, and comes back to the reader. If it encounters a pit on the surface it scatters, and doesn't reflect right back to the reader. Smooth spaces don't scatter the laser. A computer inside the player reads the resulting flashes of light and dark as the zeroes and ones of binary code, and converts the code to video and/or audio."
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9va4v4 | Do RGB LED's have the ability to display a wide range of colors. What causes the color to change, is it the voltage? | I am planning to build an Arcade Cabinet and I have been thinking of wiring up led's to the Joysticks and Buttons. For the life of me, I can't understand what makes the led's change colors. There is so much information out there but I seem to be having trouble understanding it. | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"An RGB LED is actually 3 LEDs in one package. One each of Red Green and Blue. But changing the intensity of each of the 3 LEDs you get a unique color from the single bulb. The human eye doesn’t see the individual colors but a mix into a single color. Lots more details: URL_0"
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9vaw0i | How does my remote car key know which car to unlock even in the presence of other similar makes/models | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It sends a coded signal, which your specific car is configured to look for. If the signal does not match, it doesn't unlock. While it is entirely possible the signal is not truly unique, there is enough variety to make it unlikely you'll unlock any other car in the vicinity. The key doesn't know which car to unlock, and the car doesn't know what key to unlock for, the key just broadcasts \"hey, 1 2 3 4!\" and the surrounding cars hear \"1 2 3 4? I don't care.\" or \"1 2 3 4? That's me! /unlock\"",
"Nobody has mentioned the concept of a rolling key here. If it was just a static \"here's a code, does it match\", you could very easily just record the signals of everyone's keys and collect hundreds of codes you can use to unlock their cars. All you'd need to do is set up a radio receiver tuned to the right frequency, listen for the signal, then replicate it. It's for this reason that car keys don't do this. Instead they work on a \"rolling key\", where the key will generate a new number every time. The car remembers what codes have been used and rejects ones that it's seen before. This way if you just record what the key says, you'd be rejected since the car has already seen that code.",
"Every car has like its own \"password\" your key sends out that signal (password) at the exact frequency and then your car knows it is the right key, sometime in the past car manufacturers mad this kinda short with those nearby automatic unlock keys allowing them to be hacked by copying the singal or just bruteforcing (trying random codes until it works) the system",
"Interestingly enough, my dad told me once that when the tech first came out, there were a small number of codes. As such the issue you are visualizing was real. You could (not always but sometimes) wall through a parking lot and randomly open a door.",
"it doesn't. the keys are coded to the car, but the way they generate the codes means there are more cars than codes. the companies make a point of distributing these cloned codes away from each other, but you can find the occasional news story of someone popping a car that isn't their's."
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9vaxs5 | Why do some USB-C Cables have different functionality than others? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"USB-C is the physical port on the end of the wire. It doesn't imply anything about the actual capacity of the wire it's connected to. That's what 2 vs 3.1 is about.",
"The biggest change introduced in USB 3.0 was the new superspeed mode for USB. However this mode no longer uses a single cable pair for data but now use different cable pairs for transmit and receive. This allows for much higher data rates. But you still have the same high speed mode that were introduced in USB 2.0 using the original data pair. The USB-A and USB-B plugs as well as the Micro-B plug were modified to have extra pins while still being backwards compatible. In addition the new USB-C connector comes with the superspeed pins. However not all cables includes the superspeed wires as this more then doubles the manufacturing cost of the cable. And for most use cases there is no need for superspeed. There is also issues with impedance matching for the higher transfer rates. In general if there is some variations in the cable along the way this will be visible on the signal as additional noise which makes data transfer difficult. So low quality cables or damaged cables can produce errors in the signals which causes the devices to fall back to lower speed modes.",
"Your assumption that they have the same amount of wires is incorrect. The whole standard is a bit of a minefield for what speeds you get with what. TO make it even more confusing when you start talking about the actual speed of the cable the naming conventions are awful. USB 2 USB 3.0 USB 3.1 gen1 (now the same as USB 3.0 - 5Gbps) USB 3.1 gen2 (10Gbps link speed) Then you roll in thunderbolt 3 as well. This uses an optical link (I think) and has a chip in the end of the cable converting signals. & #x200B; You can usually tell what speed the cable is by what is printed on the cable. USB 3 is \"SS\" USB 3.1 gen2 is \"SS10\" TB3 has a lighting symbol. & #x200B; ELI5: Well, if you imagine a big pipe then USBC refers to the ends of the pipe that act as connectors. Depending on how much money gets spent on the pipe it can be a lot of different widths. The wider the pipe, the faster the contents will travel. The ends of the pipe are capable of delivering a LOT of contents, but often the pipe itself is too thin so the contents get slowed. USB2 is a very thin pipe, thunderbolt 3 is a very large pipe.",
"USB2 is carried through different pins/wires than USB3/TBT is on. To make a cheap charge cable, all you really need to run is the USB2 wires. The USB3/TBT/DP high speed pairs can be left out of the cable. & #x200B; TBT3 cables are required to be \"marked\" for TBT3 with the use of a PD controller inside the cable. This basically certifies that the cable is 20gbps/40gbps capable. Without the TBT3 marker, the host system shouldn't negotiate a TBT3 link over the cable. & #x200B; Length constraints and re-timing can further constrain a cable to a certain subset of protocols. To further complicate the type-c cable ecosystem, there are new cables and connectors coming out that specifically support nVidia \"Virtual Link\" VR ports."
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9vb6uk | How my phone charger lets me play music though my car | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"That USB or Lightening cable you plug into your stereo actually has tiny power and headphone cables inside of it.",
"USB cables have several different parts to them. Some transfer power, some transfer data. You're probably used to only using USB for power transfer.",
"It honestly never occurred to me that people are using USB but have possibly never in their lives used a flash drive or any sort of cable to transfer data. Its just slowly becoming obscured, to me its USB and to people who don't own/use computers its just a \"phone charger\".",
"Your phone is probably an iPhone. Your phone charger is simply a USB cable, which can charge the phone and transfer data/aux. Some modern cars have iPhone compatibility which will automatically let you play your iTunes songs through the USB cable. Not as common, but some cars will allow the same thing for Android phones."
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9vc64p | Why do phones require you to delete hundreds of megabites just to install a little 5mb update? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"Likely it needs to “unpack” the update, probably take some backup procedures in case something goes wrong and then install the update"
],
"score": [
6
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9vcmlj | Why do fireworks look so bad on film/video, yet look good irl? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"e9b2nh4"
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"text": [
"Fireworks can look great on video if you have a good enough camera. Cheap cameras, like the ones in our phones, can't handle low light conditions very well and have a hard time focusing on the rapid flashes coming from a firework. The camera is constantly trying to auto focus but can't, resulting in a blurry image."
],
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9vcogz | Why do you have to “return” an e-book from an online library service. Why can’t you just download it if they’re already letting you read it for free whenever you want? | My library has an e-book service where you can ready any book they have in their catalog as an e-book. The only thing is, you have to “borrow” it, and then return it in 7 days. But as soon as you “return” the e-book you can just hit “borrow” again. So how is that any different than just letting the library users download the e-book and store it locally on their device? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"Copyright and licensing. Same reason you can't just go to a library, take a book home, and photocopy every page so you have your own personal copy.",
"Because of licensing, they can only have so many users “check out” a book at a time. If they are only licensed for five copies of a book, the sixth person is out of luck until someone “returns” their copy.",
"I was also wondering about ebooks. Specifically when I want to check out a book at open URL_0 , I have to go on a waitlist even though they are all ebooks. So I don't understand why more than one can't be checked out at a time",
"Others have already commented on the simulated-scarcity angle. I'll speak to the technical nature of how this works. The file you download is encrypted such that it cannot be read without help. The software you use (sometimes an e-reader, sometimes Adobe Digital Editions, sometimes something else) looks up your account information and downloads a sort of helper file (certificate) that decrypts the file so that you can read the book. However, all of this depends on rules such as the time and date you checked out the book versus the time and date you're trying to read it, and how long you're allowed to have the book before it's due back. The helper file contains a record of when you checked out the book and will only decrypt the file during the allowed checkout period. Once it expires, you do technically still have the e-book file. However, since it's encrypted and the reader software now refuses to decrypt it, you can't really do much with it. When you hit \"borrow\" again, you download a new helper certificate with a new time-and-date stamp that reflects the new checkout time and is good for another 7 days. That said, there are plugins like DeDRM for Calibre that will capture the decrypted content and create a permanent readable file that will last forever, but that's outside the scope of your question."
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9vctbh | How do video streaming services like Netflix or Amazon obtain the original video files from their license providers? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"Depending on the service, licensor, and contractual agreements, they either receive the file from a digital distributor or they receive a direct upload from licensor to licensee via a portal or API. Digital distributors need some explanation, so: Digital distributors are like physical distributors, but for digital products; if you're a record label, you don't upload your music to 20 different music stores yourself and then collect the money, you pass your work to a digital distributor, check some boxes on a web form to indicate the formats and regions where you want it licensed, and they do all the work of uploading your music to iTunes/Google Play/Tidal/etc and collecting the revenue for you."
],
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9vdat6 | Why does the screen of a calculator turn a blue colour when you press in on it? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"e9ba8v8",
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"text": [
"You must be talking about a Liquid Crystal Display (LCD). If that is the case, then the actual crystals that bend the light are essentially liquid, so if you press down, you deform them, and they half-turn, and begin reflecting random bits of light.",
"The screen is called an LCD, which is a liquid Crystal display. When you press the screen, you move the liquid around when it shouldn't."
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9vdl7p | How Google expands their databases so that they can supply the customers' storage demand? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"e9bapl1"
],
"text": [
"They go to Best Buy and buy more hard drives... But seriously they either add more data centers once it looks like they are nearing capacity or expand their current ones/bring online existing hardware to fill the demand."
],
"score": [
5
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|
9ve2lc | Relay car theft | I understand that the signal from the key-fob inside the house is boosted, then relayed to the car to open it. But, surely, the key-fob button would need to be pressed. No? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"I believe that this only works with hands free opening. Either the key or car is constantly emitting",
"Cars with keyless opening only need the key to be in range of the car, so key emits a signal saying \"hey I'm here\". Car goes \"awesome, I'll open up\". If you can pick up the signal from the key and relay to the car with the relay box the car thinks the key is present and opens.",
"The key fob gives off a radio signal that the car is listening for all the time. It’s secure because the key fob signal is pretty weak and only goes out a few feet. What thieves do is use a range booster that basically picks up the radio signal, and amplifies it. Sort of like when you’re in a room and giving a speech. Without a microphone, those at the back won’t hear you. Using the microphone (amplifier) those at the back hear you loud and clear. When the thieves get the booster in the right place, it then makes that signal louder and it reaches the car from about 20/30 feet away. Only problem is, if they stall the car they’re buggered 🤷🏼♀️"
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9ve7q0 | Tor - why aren't exit and relay nodes liable for all the illegal stuff? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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],
"text": [
"If that were the case, then every ISP would be liable for everything on the Internet, since all of your information passes through your ISP's computers even if you're not using a proxy. So in order to make the Internet work, the law had to be written so that passthrough nodes aren't liable for the content, only the person that sent it and the person that requested it."
],
"score": [
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9vg6ed | Why do our eyes turn red in pictures, and how did they fix it?? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"e9c4ui4",
"e9bwqgi"
],
"text": [
"The back of your eye is red. If your flash is right next to your lens (as it is on smaller cameras) then the flash lights up the back of your eye, and it shows up really well in the picture as red. Pro photographers avoid red eye by putting their flashes further from their cameras (which also looks more natural, and makes for better pictures). Cameras with red eye reduction either flash twice (once to make your pupil react to the light and get smaller, the second time to take the photo), or digitally alter the photo to turn small spots of red into black.",
"Red eye is the blood vessels reflecting back from the flash into the picture. Use “red eye fix” in any digital camera to fix it."
],
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5
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9vgr69 | Why do an all electric car needs a 12V battery. | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"Because they don't want to reinvent everything that's already developed for cars. Window motors, headlights, radios, various sensors and every electronic device you can think of that your car needs to run all run off 12v power. There's no reason to redesign a new one of everything when it alread exists just for the sake of it running off the high voltage battery.",
"The 12 volt system is for control, the high voltage system is for propulsion. Also, the 12 volt system must be active to close the switch to connect the propulsion battery. This way, the emergency crew can disable the entire car by cutting the ground cable from the 12 volt battery.",
"Cars used to be 6vdc then manufacturers realized that you could be more efficient with 12vdc by simply adding more cells to the battery. So batteries became bigger in voltage and amperage over time. Heavy duty currently uses 24vdc pretty much across the board (except for most on Hwy trucks for the reasons the first commented supplied) However manufactures have looked into 36vdc applications in the auto world simply because we use more electronics in today’s cars, and higher voltages result in lower currents, reducing the amount of copper needed to carry the power and this save costs and weight. For now though, 12vdc is the standard but we’ll see how long that lasts..."
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9vhjg1 | How does “the clapper” work for switching lights on/off? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"e9ca3uz"
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"text": [
"There is an internal microphone that picks up all the sound \"happening\" around the clapper device, and sends it to what is essentially a small computer that translates that sound to information. If that sound is a clap, it will know. (Claps usually fall between the range of 2200 to 2800 hertz, which the little chip will identify. All other sounds are ignored.) When it \"hears\" a clap, and the computer realizes the sound is indeed a clap, it will send an electrical signal to the switch, that will either switch on or off."
],
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7
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9vi8p3 | How does YouTube accurately suggest what I want to search when I’m typing a video title into the search bar? | This has happened to me multiple times with a variety or topics, but I’ll provide an example. I was watching a JRE video on voting, and someone in the comments mentioned George Carlin’s skit on voting. I wanted to see what the comment was referring to, and proceeded to type ‘George Carlin’ into the search bar and the title ‘George Carling voting’ was the first suggested item before I even finished the sentence, as if the algorithm accurately read my mind and suggested a video that I was looking for. | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"e9cevpx",
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"text": [
"It has an algorithm that can track what other people search for after watching a certain video, and then will optimize it's search to keep you engaged on their site.",
"Youtube tracks what other people search for while watching the same video. Many people likely had the same though as you and searched the same thing."
],
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6
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9vl0pq | What is the Zenneck Wave? How does it work? How can Zenneck Wave transfer "utility-scale" electrical power wirelessly? | Please explain this to me. We were recently informed that we might be getting this technology at work and I don't understand it... | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"> We were recently informed that we might be getting this technology at work Oh darn, prepare your resume because your company is getting scammed. In theory a \"Zenneck Wave\" is a special kind of wave which uses the Earth's surface as a wave guide to... tack together word salad apparently. The idea is basically identical to the classic \"Tesla's wireless power\" idea and while that at least isn't entirely impossible it suffers from being incredibly inefficient over longer distances. We can charge a phone wirelessly provided you lay it directly on the charging antenna but powering a home from 1000 yards would be wasting 99% of the energy. You can be absolutely sure that this Zenneck Wave isn't ready for commercial applications because even if it did work, which it certainly does not, there wouldn't be any way to charge customers for its use. What is to keep someone from setting up their own wireless receiving node and stealing electricity? Getting back to the importance of updating your resume, we can assume that if upper level management is saying your workplace will be getting this technology then your company is likely investing in the scam itself (there is no reason for this to exist than to gather funding prior to actually delivering on a product). This means when it falls through you won't be getting your Christmas bonus this year."
],
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10
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9vmhwp | How does computer code get "bugs"? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"Programmers add them, in a process called embugging. No, kidding, the process is called \"trying to get the program to work\". People are not perfect, and they don't always understand all the possible inputs to a program. They presume that certain inputs won't happen, or that their program will only be used certain ways. These presumptions are then violated by future programmers and/or users. When the behavior is not what the future folks desire, they call it \"a bug\".",
"The computer does exactly what it's told (mostly), not what the programmer means for it to do. The classic younger sibling trick: \"Stop touching me!\" \"I'm not, I'm touching your clothes\" etc",
"There are some jokes you may have seen around. Here's one: # A programmer's wife tells him, \"While you're at the grocery store, buy some eggs.\" He never comes home. What happened is that \"While\" he is at the grocery store, he must buy some eggs. The programmer's wife (The programmer in this example) never tells him what to do after he buys the eggs, so instead of buying eggs and leaving he is always at the grocery store and therefore always buying eggs. He is unable to leave the grocery store because he doesn't have a condition to leave on. As others have said, programmers sometimes can't think of everything or have a minor oversight that has huge ramifications. Think of a video game and how holding an item and jumping on it can make a character fly. The programmer didn't think about the player using the item he/she is standing on as a platform, and made the game bring the item to Y position if it is being held. If you jump on the item then it moves the item to the new, higher Y position and the character can stand on it and hold the item in place."
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9vmji1 | Why does so much banking software have you enter dollar amounts without a decimal key? | Say you're entering $150, it goes like this: .01 .15 1.50 15.00 150.00 I can sort of understand this on an ATM where the keys kind of suck but why keep it on the bank websites or something like paypal? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"It enforces the entry of a valid, full amount of money. Suppose you entered \"150.0\", what does that mean? Did you mean $15 or $150? Should the system just reject the entry entirely (bad interface design), or should it default to the lowest value for safety? If we assume that default down is the best behavior then why not make the feedback of what it will do immediately visible, such as by locking the entry to two digits to the right of the decimal? And that is what they did."
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9vqpc5 | How do websites remember your password if its only secret to you? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"They run it through a machine (algorithm) that scrambles text into an unrecognizable pattern. This machine is special. It can’t unscramble, it always scrambles things the same way, and it will never scramble different text into the same pattern. So, they run your password through the machine and hold onto the pattern. You log in, they scramble what you typed in, and if those scrambles match the scrambled pattern they held onto, then you’re in.",
"The software installed on the webserver takes the data you submit (password) and then transforms it into a \"hubff4455545ggy\" stuff using the crypto functions. Then they save it in their database. They don't know your password per se, but their machines know, for instance, the \"md5 hash\" of your password, md5 is like a one-way function that can not be \"re-made\", decoded into a password, into the original symbols back, while it can get the weird set of symbols from the password you remember and enter every time and thus it compares it with the hash stored in their database and either allows you in or doesn't"
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9vr0rg | How do CPU manufacurers print circuts so small? | I just learned that the actual dye is like 1/10 the size of the CPU, so how do they put so many circuits in there? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It is a pretty complicated process, but the three main steps are: mask, deposition, and etch. First you apply a layer to the silicon wafer using a mask to cover certain areas. Then you deposit material that sticks to the wafer but not the protective layer. Then you etch away the layer. Then you start over with a different mask, building up the transistors. As for the nano scale, everything is usually done in a vacuum and at high temp so that you can get deposition control down to the angstrom levels.",
"I think that when you say \"dye is like 1/10 the size of the CPU\" you are referring to the die + package as \"the CPU\". If so, you are correct. The Integrated Circuit (IC) has such small features that connecting it to the motherboard essentially requires an intermediate-sized set of connections that is what we call the \"package\". The package also historically provides some other things, such as partially protecting the die from the environment (moisture etc.). The IC features are made very small by \"masking\". This mask (actually many separate masks) blocks or allows ultraviolet light to pass through it to make the small features on a light-sensitive chemical layer. That layer masks off or does not mask off an etching process, the way masking tape blocks off a painter's lines. The mask itself starts off with very small features because it is made using a finely focused electron beam hitting a sensitive chemical layer. These features are made even smaller yet when the UV light is focused through the mask with lenses."
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9vr4d8 | why do computer screens look weird on camera? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Because the screen refreshes at a faster rate than the camera records. Same reason LED headlights seem to blink in videos."
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9vvi0t | Why is 16:9 Aspect Ratio so preferred over 4:3 Aspect Ratio? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Two reasons: - 16:9 is a compromise between 4:3 and 2.35:1. Material formatted in either format will occupy roughly the same amount of area on a 16:9 screen. - 16:9 is approximately 1.78:1. Most movies produced since the 1950’s, when the movie studios began producing widescreen features to try to compete with television (which was seriously pulling audiences away from movie theaters) were produced in two aspect ratios: 2.35:1 and 1.85:1. While the 2.35:1 movies still require a little letterboxing to show the full picture on a 16:9 television, movies shot in 1.85:1 are so close to 1.78:1 that little to no letterboxing is required to display them. And a little more than half of the movies produced since the 1950’s are 1.85:1. [This YouTube video]( URL_0 ) is a friendly, easy-to-follow history of widescreen film ratios.",
"Human vision is much wider than it is tall, so it feels more natural to us. It also lets us put a human face on screen in close up while still seeing the background on the side(s) which looks less strange than a face taking up the entire screen, or lets us have a medium-distance shot of two people side by side, and allows for more interesting compositions generally. Just think about filming two people walking side by side and having a conversation. If your image is square, then pulling out far enough to fit both side by side means you're also filming a ton of empty space on the top and bottom that isn't visually interesting and makes the characters look smaller and more distant. In widescreen you can get close enough to just have them waist-to-head but still show both of them at once. Pay attention to the way you look around in day to day life, too. You move your eyes and head side-to-side *way* more than you move them up and down. The real question should be why we didn't *start* with a shape closer to 16:9.",
"Because most scenes can show additional detail to the sides, whereas more up and down is usually just more sky and ground."
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9vxv2r | How did Google Chrome become so popular? | Wikipedia says that Chrome has a 60% market share of web users. This is the top of all the browsers, and over 4x the number of users that Safari has, which is 2 on the list. How did Chrome manage to do this? I know that it is the superior browser, especially compared to Internet Explorer. But internet explorer is shipped with Windows, and Safari is shipped with mac. So why arent they the most popular? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"* First Google became a very very popular search engine. * Google started promoting Chrome on their browser page. * Google also released Gmail which became very popular. * This built up brand trust which made it easier for people to try out Chrome * Once they tried it, many people found they had a much better experience than using Internet Explorer or Safari.",
"Because unlike Firefox it was clearer a lot faster at the time. It was also heavily marketed and coming from a source with a solid reputation. Google's reputation of do no evil was stronger at that time.",
"For me it was because a crashed tab in firefox could take down the whole process, and hence, all your tabs. The ability to recover the tabs of a crashed session helped, but the crashing was annoying. Chrome offered a browser where each tab was its own process, so when an individual tab crashed, only it was killed, not all the tabs.",
"Internet Explorer back then was absolutely horrible. It was really insecure and many websites didn't even work with it correctly so you pretty much had to use another browser. When Chrome came out it was much faster than Firefox and had many new features so a lot of people switched over.",
"When chrome came out it was revolutionary, I was very young when it came out, but I remember the sheer uglyness and how terrible it was. By comparison Google Chrome with its clean omnibar was amazing. This comic shows all of the innovations that Google Chrome made: URL_0 The most impressive to me is that before chrome each tab was loaded in sequence. That means you couldn't load another tab until the tab you had open was done loading."
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9vypng | Why is it that when electronics die, you plug them into a power source and they reboot instantly, but with an iPhone, it takes ages to gather up enough charge before it actually reboots and starts up? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The situation that the iPhone is designed to avoid is that you plug your phone in, it starts back up and you immediately unplug it and the phone shuts down without having enough energy to properly close everything. If you notice, when you iPhone dies, it doesn’t just click off. It’s performing some sort of shut down routine. By delaying when the phone can turn back on, the phone guarantees that there is enough electricity to run that routine again.",
"What /u/004forever said is correct, but you're also wrong about your premise. Some devices consume more power when powering on than is supplied by the charger, so they need some charge in the battery as well. An example of this is a car when its battery has died. If the charge is completely drained, there's not enough juice even when being jumped by a running car. You need to let the battery recharge a bit before it actually turn the engine. Electronic devices that power on instantly when charged have a power-on current draw less than what the charger can supply, and either don't have or don't need to run a shutdown routine."
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9w0c5v | How do certain websites know that you have AdBlock Enabled? | How do some websites notice that you have AdBlock? When you open a few websites, you are sometimes told that AdBlock was detected and it must be turned off. How do they detect that AdBlock is active? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Their pages include a script that looks (to your adblocker) like an ad. If that script is NOT run, the site gives you a 'please turn off your adblocker' message. tl;dr they include a script likely to get blocked by adblockers and detect that script not being run."
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9w1fm5 | Why do some analog watches contain quartz/rubies/other gems? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Synthetic rubies are used to mate moving parts to prevent metal-on-metal contact and wear. The reduced friction created by the rubies' hardness increases the lifespan of the tiny metal parts. Quartz is used in most modern electronic movements as a way of keeping time because it vibrates at a very precise frequency when exposed to current.",
"The \"rubies\" are Jewel bearings. These are tiny sleeves and thimbles which support the rotating shafts of various parts. Note that they're more often clear synthetic sapphire, ruby is simply a red colored variety of sapphire. Ruby is traditional in the clock industry, and may also be used for cosmetic reasons in watches with clear cases with the inner parts exposed. In terms of performance it's the same as clear sapphire. The high hardness and rigidity of sapphire/ruby means it has low friction and reduces metal-on-metal sliding wear of parts. Rolling type bearings like balls wouldn't be practical for tiny watch parts. However it's not as hard as diamond, so diamond abrasives can be used to grind, drill and hone the parts into shape. Quartz is used for electronic watches, likely your smart phone has one too for various reasons. Quartz has the unusual property that if a voltage is applied to it, it resonates at a very regular frequency. This can be accurately tuned by carefully grinding the crystal in length. Smaller crystals oscillate faster. This doesn't vary based on temperature, a problem with mechanical clocks. An electronic counter can then used to count the number of of vibrations, and this can be used to measure the length of one second very reliably. Quartz and sapphire front panels have also been used on expensive watches instead of glass, due to increased scratch resistance.",
"Those jewels are used whenever you need a moving piece; as jewels are really hard, they present little or no wear over time."
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9w20vn | How did live TV broadcasts work before the invention of digital cameras? | When video cameras used to work via film, how did they transmit the footage in real time to far away places if the footage is captured on a physical film? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Old TV cameras used a specialized form of cathode ray tube called a video tube to scan the image and convert it into an electrical signal, which could then be broadcast and converted back into video by an image-forming cathode ray tube in the viewer's television. URL_0",
"It's not film. The images where captured and sent electronically, in analogue, not digital. Much the same way a VHS tape works.",
"The cameras had special vacuum tubes that captured images (one trade name was Vidicon). The first color cameras had a tube for red, green, and blue along with their own electronics section. You'd know which section belonged to which color, they had either red, green or blue stripes on the wires. From there, the signal was sent back through an enormously thick cable (because each color output had its own coaxial cable along with power, sync and control) to a camera control unit (CCU). These were persnickety beasts, because the tubes performed and aged differently. Each time the camera was powered up, you'd have to let it get good and warm, and then go through a calibration for each color. The calibration would drift, so it wasn't uncommon to have to touch them up during a show break. Earlier tubes were especially sensitive to strong light. Accidentally pointing the camera into studio light or the sun would immediately cause a dark spot on the photosensitive coating on the tube. As the technology progressed, more of the work was done inside the camera eliminating the thick cable and incredible weight of earlier cameras, but still requiring a CCU and an operator to control the black levels, iris, color sub-phase while the cameraman controlled the shot. The CCU operator not only looked at the video output, they looked at a pair of oscilloscopes monitoring the video signal from the camera. TV camera test charts provided a reproducible scope pattern that would allow finishing calibration of the camera. During the show, the CCU op would spend a lot of time controlling camera iris. For some shows such as live outdoor sports, there is still a CCU operator Tube studio cameras were used well into the 1990's. At the start of my TV career, I worked for a station that used them in one of their smaller studios for a couple of weekly shows. By then the cameras were well over twenty years old and took a lot of time to get calibrated and show ready. Old TV technology is amazing in that all of that was designed to work initially with vacuum tubes. Everything. But even more amazing are the images coming from tiny cameras dangling from radio controlled flying toys, with the camera and toy costing a tiny fraction of the price of fully digital cameras just 15 years ago."
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9w3kqa | How do those table saws that stop when you touch them with your finger work? | Just saw a gif of one where they showed the saw completely stopping the second it was touched by a hot dog. How does it know what to stop for? Edit: Like the one in this gif: URL_0 | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The blade carries a small electrical signal, which the safety system continually monitors. When skin contacts the blade, the signal changes because the human body is conductive. This activates the safety system.",
"In a related note, how do the saws work that cut off a cast without damaging the skin underneath?",
"Would it also stop coming in contact with metal or water for that matter?",
"Side question - in every demo that I've seen, the demonstrator carefully puts just the tip of their fintlger into the blade and demonstrates that the blade indeed stops. What would happen if I \"threw\" myself at such table? What would be the expected scope/level of damage?",
"I work with these every day and have replaced 10 or so cartridges that have activated. Thankfully they have all been tripped due to misuse or cutting an unauthorized material. Next to the blade is a spring loaded aluminum block, it is even curved to match the radius of the saw blade, this curve allows it to sit extremely close to the blade (about 1/4” away). If the sensor is tripped, the spring is ‘unlocked’ and pushes the aluminum block into the blade. There is another mechanism that drops the blade down below the table surface at the same time. What triggers the sensor to trip is conductivity. Wood, plastic, cardboard are not conductive. However, there are a number of things that will trip the sensor (besides fingers), they include metal (even tiny staples/screws in wood), mirrored plastics, and wood with a high moisture content.",
"Have one here. It is like a capacitive touchscreen. Any path-to-ground trips it, but also, any touch even if you're not touching a ground. It will not work through gloves but that's actually good, it still stops once flesh is in danger. There is an aluminum brake pawl with holes drilled in the side to ensure the sawblade digs into it on first contact. It's on a HEAVY compression spring (like 100 lb), held back only by a thin wire keeping it compressed. The pawl is only like 1/8\" from the blade normally. To \"fire\", it doesn't use a pyro charge, it just triggers a lot of electrical current through the wire and it vaporizes instantly, the spring kicks out the pawl hard, and once the pawl touches the blade the blade digs into it and only wedges the pawl in further/tighter. It is very, very fast, only a few degrees of turn from contact before it halts. Also the blade retracts into the table. At most it can nick you. EVERYTHING magic is on the firing cartridge. The signal generator, touch-sensing magic, and firing circuit are all integrated. It also has an onboard cap which holds enough charge to vaporize the wire even if you have a poor connection to main power that is insufficient to fire it. The system does a self-check and will not start with the cartridge not responding correctly. If fired, you lose a $70 cartridge and whatever the blade costs ($40-$90). You generally cannot recover the blade, they fuse together. It will lose carbide teeth almost always. But, you do have a fresh, sharp blade by the end of it. It is essentially 100% effective on flesh contact blade injury. It does NOT protect against kickback, where the blade throws wood violently, usually due to doing something \"wrong\" (being stupid). It can throw wood close to 100mph and can injure in many ways, but losing fingers is rare. Breaking a finger is more common. It can injure someone 50ft away inline with the blade. Normally, kickback comes with a significant risk of blade contact injury due to kicking your hands too- but that element really isn't a problem with Sawstop. It WILL \"misfire\" on conductive stock and that eats the firing cartridge and blade: wet wood (it has to be really wet, no one needs to be cutting wet lumber) foil-backed radiant barrier roofing plywood mirrored acrylic etc There is a Brake Disable mode that requires a special key, but it's a pretty bad idea The Sawstops run $1600-$4900. They are also a top quality table saw. Other comparable top-quality saws like Powermatic (no safety brake) run $1000-$5200 anyways.",
"I've always wondered about this. I assume there has to be some skin penetration, correct? The saw is not going to instantaneously stop the second it makes contact with your finger, there must be at least a cut or a graze, correct? Sure as hell beats losing a finger or three, whatever the case.",
"Principally it works similarly to a phone screen. The phone will activate when a finger or similar moist conductive thing is touching it, but not say a pencil or in this case a piece of wood. When the blade detects that something capacitive is touching is like a finger, it shoves a big piece of metal in the blade causing it to nearly instantly stop and fall from the finger.",
"There is electricity in the human body. The saw has a machine that watches for an electric signal like the one we have and when it senses this a very powerful break is applied stopping the saw so quickly the blade doesn't cut you. This video does a great job of giving a fairly simple yet in depth explanation on how the saw works. Near the end of the video a guy actually demonstrates with his finger. It stops that fast. URL_0",
"It's almost identical technology to capacitive lamps. Ever had a lamp that you turn on by just touching the surface? Same principle. There is a standing electric signal which is disturbed (grounded for the purposes of this discussion). The response is, in this case, jamming the saw black into a solid block of delrin by releasing a spring-loaded arm. Source: studied implementing this technology for other industrial applications.",
"Exactly the same way as a smartphone touchscreen. It has a small electrical charge running through it. Human fingers are mildly conductive. When you touch it, it senses the voltage drop and triggers a pyrotechnic charge that drives an aluminum shoe into the blade, fouling it and stopping it immediately. The angular momentum of the blade is conserved, and redirected to retract it into the table instantly. You touch it, you pull a tiny bit of juice out of it, and it deploys the boom-brake.",
"It was released along time ago, they released lots of promotional materials on it at the time. it works based on conductivity basically the moisture in your skin. Not sure how it would work with wet materials or anything somewhat conductive, imo it would probably make more sense to have special gloves that work with the machine that way it only responds to the glove being cut. To stop it it just jams a special block into the blade. Having to spend a hundred bucks everytime something conductive touches the blade would suck."
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9w499o | How do touch lamps work? | Also, how do touch lamp adapters work? My friend made his regular lamp into a touch lamp by plugging it into an adapter which baffles me. | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The same way your phone's touchscreen works. An electric charge is sent to the lamps housing. The lamp can store a set number of elections based on its size. It has an electrical *capacity*. Basically, it builds up a slight static charge just like a sock in a dryer. You can measure how many elections it's storing by how long you can send it electrons before they start slowing down as it fills up. If you reverse the flow of elections and empty it out, you can reverse it again and measure how long it takes to fill the second time. If it takes longer the second time, something has changed. Anything conductive that touches it will allow it to store more because you effectively made the lamp larger by adding more conductive material. People are conductive. So when you touch the lamp, it takes much longer to fill with electrons because some of them flow into you. The plug can measure the lamp wirelessly, the same way wireless chargers work. The fast switching electric current in the lamps wire induces a magnetic field which induces an electric current in the nearby lamp housing. This field should switch at the same speed of the capacity of the lamp stays the same. But the capacity goes up when you add yourself to the field. This is also how a theramin works.",
"It has a low powered oscillator whose frequency is determined (in part) by the capacitance of the lamp's housing. When you touch the housing, you increase that capacitance which lowers the frequency. A circuit senses the change in frequency and switches the lamp on or off.",
"I’m curious as well, and did some quick searching. The best I could determine is that Touch lamps use the same technology as your smartphone screen, and detects “Touch” by detecting a change in the electrical current of the object. How this can happen by using a different plug is probably because of the EMI of a Touch, and the plug is checking for an irregular fluctuation on the line. I’m not entirely certain if that is why, though. Just a best guess. ELI5 version: your body causes electrical “noise” and the lamp listens for a noise that is different from itself."
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9w70qc | Why first iPod was such an revolutionary device? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Instead of carrying around a collection of CD's or tapes with you it was now possible to have your entire music collection in a device the size of the palm of your hand. Keep in mind this was also before wifi and Cellphones were ubiquitous so you couldn't just go on spotify or youtube whenever you felt like it either. But In short, it really wasn't that innovative. Portable MP3 players like the Diamond Rio and Creative Zen were already commercially available when the iPod made it's debut. The iPod arguably had worse quality audio, had less storage capacity, and cost more than the other devices on the market. Plus you couldn't replace the battery and iTunes was (and still is) clunky proprietary software. Compared to the Zen which allowed you to drag drop files directly onto the device from Windows and used a common USB cable instead of a proprietary Apple cable. The secret sauce of the iPod wasn't the technology, it was really clever marketing + the ecosystem. Apple threw tons of money into a celebrity based marketing campaign that established the brand. That and iTunes allowed you buy and download MP3's in a perfectly legal and convenient manner. The Zen meanwhile forced you to buy CDs and rip them to MP3's manually, although you could argue the device encouraged you download MP3's illegally, which was very common at the time. (See Napster) That's why you've never heard of a Creative Zen, even though it had arguably better hardware."
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9w7dn5 | Why are smart phone cameras lacking an IR filter? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"e9ic0ga"
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"text": [
"Because somewhere in design phase, a product engineer or a product manager said....no we aren't going to put one in. Why they did that, because they're cost constrained, not convinced of the benefit, didn't find a good vendor, etc etc etc."
],
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9w7z4k | Does every digital device with UI have an OS? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"No to maybe depending on how you define OS and UI. The simplest User Interface would be some buttons and status LEDs. These devices probably wouldn't have an OS. If you meant a Graphical User Interface that can draw some sort of complex graphics on a screen many of these devices would be running QNX or Linux, but that is not a requirement. Many simple devices would be using an OS like FreeRTOS. But that is not a general purpose OS that can run different programs. It would all be compiled into one program. But even if the device is running just one program, the programmer would probably divide it into OS like functions and application like functions. So you might be able to argue it's running a custom, single purpose OS. The line between application and OS gets blurry, you might say it's only running a program that knows how to access the hardware you you might say it's only running a very simple OS."
],
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9w8ngk | How does silk-screen printing work? | How does the artist make sure that the colors end up in the right places? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"Krystar has got a very simple version, but I can give you a longer one. I used to do both art and t shirt printing, so I've got a lot of explanations. First, there are a lot of ways to get things lined up. Some printers use \"registration marks.\" Those are little shapes... Maybe X's or cross hairs... that can be used when lining up screens. Those marks are taped off when the real printing begins, so you usually don't see them. Each color is printed, and the printer uses the cross hairs to line up the next color. For art based prints... I just printed a color, then let it dry. Using cardboard and tape, I would make little corners for the paper to butt into, in almost the exact same spot every time. When the first color was done, I'd put the paper back into the tabs, one sheet at a time. Then, I'd line up the next color on top of it. Since the screen and emulsion are so thin and translucent (almost perfectly see-through), just pressing it down allowed me to see where to scooch it to. Run a test, adjust, and then go! Some people use big sheets of clear plastic to test, which allows the plastic to be cleaned in between prints. I never liked that method, but I get it. There are also devices sold for big league printers... Like M & R's Tri-lock system. It ensures the transparencies used to burn each screen are really really close to lined up on the screen itself before it even gets to the press. After that, there's a locking system that puts the screens on the press in a really close position. For any version, the last steps are test prints and eyeballing. Run a test, check out where things are. Big auto presses will have knobs for micro-adjustments. That way, things can move just a bit to get it perfect. Once the tests look great, you can get rolling. Presses are made to hold screens in the right spot for the rest of the job. Also, as a final note... A good artist will make \"traps\" and overlaps in the design. This allows inks to cover one another, or to butt up against each other with no problems. Essentially working in a little wiggle room, in case things don't line up perfectly."
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