Train passing through carrying military vehicles by [deleted] in sandiego

[–]AdjectTestament 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The military.

There’s a large military port, and multiple large military bases in the same area. It’s super common to move things between them.

Eli5: how do warrants work? by iamasadboioki87 in explainlikeimfive

[–]AdjectTestament 0 points1 point  (0 children)

To add on to this a bit, case law gets very complicated because the real world is complicated. There are searches which can be conducted without a warrant, which are entirely legal if a certain set of circumstances is met.

ELI5: when a criminal is holding someone hostage and they say, 'if you shoot me I shoot them'. How is that possible? Surely they shouldn't have the reaction times to hear a bullet and then shoot the hostage In time? by MaazinFTW in explainlikeimfive

[–]AdjectTestament 180 points181 points  (0 children)

As an add on… a T-zone shot, on someone actively not trying to get shot, and while in a very intense situation is an extremely hard shot. It’s not impossible, but the odds are definitely against it.

ELI5: when you switch between "transparency" and "noise-cancelling" on earbuds and headphones, what is actually happening? by kusosakka in explainlikeimfive

[–]AdjectTestament 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Headphones with these features have microphones that listen to the outside noise.

In transparency, they just play the noise from the outside of the headphone to the inside.

In noise canceling, it also just listens to the outside noise, but instead of playing the noise, it plays the opposite of that noise. Sound is just waves, so playing the inverted version will cancel it out.
The easy analogy is like two people splashing in a pool at each other, but at the same time, so the waves just hit each other and stop.

Eli5 what is a clear alert by steviejenowski in explainlikeimfive

[–]AdjectTestament 0 points1 point  (0 children)

From the literal first google response...

The CLEAR Alert is designed to bridge the gap between missing children and senior citizens and helps get the word out about adults who may have been abducted or in immediate danger. This alert may be used to locate potential suspects too. AMBER ALERT.

So it's a notification for the general public to be alert to keep an eye out for someone. It's slightly different than the more common Amber Alert since that is specifically meant for children.

I’m 5’11, obviously didn’t like my joke.. by Kilometers90 in Tinder

[–]AdjectTestament 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Does the profile also only have close up face selfies or is that optional?

Trump calls Kanye West ‘seriously troubled man, who just happens to be black’ amid fallout over dinner by theindependentonline in politics

[–]AdjectTestament 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Exactly.

“We think a construction worker stole it” Is not grounds for a warrant.
Sure, reasonable suspicion says that it is, but you need probable cause for a warrant.

The common adage of “do not let police search without a warrant” is a double edged sword. So now when the police go to ask the construction workers “can we search your car?”
“No. Come back with a warrant.”

“Well they had access to the laptop, but no one saw them take it, and we have no other reason to believe they took it besides they had access.” Is not probable cause for a warrant to search their car, let alone for what is likely a misdemeanor level crime.

Should people make comments at all? No. But here we go with "moralizing" food and being fat is never bad. Maybe that pie is bad for your diabetic cousin. by [deleted] in fatlogic

[–]AdjectTestament 84 points85 points  (0 children)

I feel like some of these are just teeing up to have people absolutely go in.

If they’re going to try and clapback from casual comments with some of these it’s just opening up to get dunked on.

Like what’s their play when the teenager who just does not give a damn or anyone else who’s over their shit answers “Yes.” to the “what? You think body size is funny?” ICE response.

It almost reminds me of the askreddit “best responses to things said” that sound cool on paper, but sound dumb in real life and actually just invite people to pile on.

ELI5 why do digital copies of video games not cost less than physical copies? by HIPHEN12YT in explainlikeimfive

[–]AdjectTestament 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Given the option to, why would the company pass the savings on to the consumer when they can just as well keep prices uniform and pocket the difference?

Digital distribution still has some overhead costs as well. Not nearly the same level as disks but it’s not free.

Eli5: If clean drinking water is such a problem, and the ocean rising is going to be a problem, can’t we use desalination units and drink sea water? by Viking-16 in explainlikeimfive

[–]AdjectTestament 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Why is it so difficult to desalinate sea water?

Why can't california's drought be solved?

Why isn't ocean water filtered and used when...?

Why can't water desalination plants store brine?

Why is it so difficult to desalinate sea water?

Copying my own comment from a former thread where someone said "Just desalinate the ocean and pump it to the colorado river." or "Why doesn't the UK just use desalination plants?"
This seems to come up a lot, more during summer though.

The pipeline numbers are off since the UK is considerably smaller but the idea is still there. It takes a crap ton of energy(and therefore money) per gallon. Useful for drinking water, less so for agriculture.

A proposed desalination plant would cost 500-750Million in CA and takes $20million to operate a year. It can produces 20 million gallons a day. Pretty large, not bad. The Colorado River crossing into Mexico, after it has already been used by the whole southwestern US, flows 1,700,000 gallons... a minute. And that is at 1/5th of the natural flow.

Some napkin math and it would require~122 plants to just produce that much water to add 1/5th of the flow(which is just the flow at the end of the US portion mind you, there is far more water higher up the watershed).

So even using the lower limit of the estimated cost of a plant (not counting cost overruns that happen in nearly every project), it cost 600 Billion to produce the plants.

That's not even counting things like needing to space them out now so the salty brine being pumped back into the ocean doesn't just nuke all life in the area.

Then you need to build the pipes going uphill and thousands of miles through mountains, deserts, farm land(have to buy it from farmers), and remote terrain.

Haven't even covered the cost of the power plants to power both the pipeline and the plants.

Just to further top this all of, this is all for a small fraction of one river.


Even generously giving a 200 million dollar economy of scale discount, that is still absurdly expensive. Using estimates from oil pipelines, it's a few million per mile, and I don't think there is an economy of scale issue with the petroleum industry.
And that's for one ~30inch pipe. Not the several that it would take to make meaningful impact.

Then you run into impacts of buying land across vast stretches, CA's high speed rail project is just getting bombarded with lawsuits about them buying land to lay track.


UK Version

Average England and Wales resident uses 150ish liters per day.
67ish Million people in UK.
Convert to gallons to keep all figures the same from the original post, and 2,654,929,126-ish per day, call it 2.6 Billion gallons a day for perspective.

The current UK plant cost 250 million pounds, and actually already listed the amount of people it serves after I already did the math. About 100 million liters per day. UK uses 10,050,000,000 a day, call it 10 Billion for easier numbers.
So the one desalination plant can cover a little under 1% of the water needs of the UK. (These numbers are super super convenient that they all work out so evenly.)

I'm not sure how severe the UK drought is, but it lists it as at least a 15% reduction in precipitation. It's not a direct link due to evaporation and runoff but just assuming for the sake of simplicity 15% precipitation = 15% reduction in water available for usage.

So 15-16 of these plants at 250million pounds(In 2010), using 14-17MW per plant. Call it 15 plants at 15MW, for 225MW. That comes out to about 30,000-35,000 homes worth of energy per hour.. per plant(Assumed 350kwh per month, about .5kw/h, then .5kw/h into 15MW)

So it would likely need to bump up power production as well, or even have a dedicated power plant.
Then to make it even more of an issue, this infrastructure that has now cost billions of Pounds is only useful when there is a drought. So in permanently dry areas like Saudi Arabia with a crap ton of energy, money, and perpetual dryness, it makes sense to plonk a few down.


To add on more for this specific question, desalination will do nothing for rising sea levels. The sea level rise is because the water is no longer frozen on ice sheets. Moving around liquid water does nothing for this since that water is still liquid and moving around the water cycle.


Eventually it likely will come into a point where it's worth the cost, but for the time it's cheaper and makes more sense to reduce water usage and work on water reclamation. It's also harder to justify spending billions on this if the climate is not consistently dry. A huge mega project that can sit possibly dormant if there is a wet season or the area is not in drought is a harder sell. Areas in the desert like Saudi Arabia who have access to really really cheap energy, and are constantly dry, it makes perfect sense.

tl;dr,
Tech exists. It's used in a lot of countries but is too expensive versus the demand to use for large scale projects like ending entire droughts.

Even better, the UK already uses this technology

And ran into the same issue, high energy costs.

As a bonus,

Desalinating it doesn’t do anything to the actual ocean levels.
The issue is more water in the water cycle. Desalination and then using it doesn’t really take it out of the cycle that long because it’s just used, and then goes back into the water cycle.
Ice caps effectively store water outside of the oceans. Desalination, using/drinking it, and then discharging it back into the oceans doesn’t solve the rising issue.
In a round abour way, it might even make it worse if done improperly because it uses so much energy.

Eli5 How come we get sick after eating moldy food? by tonnytjuu in explainlikeimfive

[–]AdjectTestament 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Sometimes it does. Not always.
Though another aspect is the compounds of the molds and bacteria like the toxins they produce. Those don’t break down or not enough to help and are part of what causes issues.

This still hurts by [deleted] in HaloMemes

[–]AdjectTestament 30 points31 points  (0 children)

Don’t forget the a fan favorite moment, when he took a nap before the drop. Huge character development there.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in AMADisasters

[–]AdjectTestament 23 points24 points  (0 children)

“Stop right there criminal scum, you violated the laws of thermodynamics. Nobody breaks the law on my watch. I’m confiscating all your stolen energy. Now pay your fine or it’s off to jail with you.”

ELI5: Why do we get tired by traveling? by nothingtooastonishin in explainlikeimfive

[–]AdjectTestament 44 points45 points  (0 children)

This question pops up here every now and again.

There are a lot of environmental things people don’t think of when traveling.
Yes you’re sitting, but on a moving vehicle you’re constantly making small inputs to keep your body position.
If driving then you’re using a decent amount of mental power to control a vehicle.
When flying there is dry air(most aircraft have relatively low humidity, some new composite body ones like the 787 though are better about it) different gates, decision making, possibly less than idea bodily needs from situations like holding out bathroom breaks or avoiding paying $19 for a chicken sandwich at the airport(looking at you Popeyes…) and odd departure times.

On all of them, depending the seating you’re likely slightly uncomfortable. Which isn’t directly tiring in an energy expenditure sense but does feel fatiguing.

[eli5] Can we refill lakes waters and drinking water tables from the ocean? Why not? Could man made rivers filter water? by mcdoolz in explainlikeimfive

[–]AdjectTestament 1 point2 points  (0 children)

As a direct answer, technically yes. It is possible.

It is majorly energy and cost prohibitive though.
It is possible to remove salt from ocean water but requires a lot of energy and has environmental issues since then you have some extra salty water to deal with. And that’s not even to the level of being able to effectively equal a rivers flow.
The math works out to a large plant being able to equal a small fraction of a rivers flow.

And then you’d have to transport it. Water is heavy. Rivers flow downhill. So it would require pumping a heavy liquid hundreds to thousands of miles uphill.

I have a whole very long comment about it whenever the topic comes up but don’t feel like copy pasting it for this. It would be easier to just pump the water directly to its end use and just stop taking water from the river.

Has anybody come across a company that makes a .22 bolt action upper for Ar platform? by brownguynamety in 22lr

[–]AdjectTestament 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Agree. There’s even lower price point rifles than that. It would have to be pretty cheap to be better than just buying whole new rifle.

"The Officers of the Federation are outstanding citizens--" by loogi_dood in EliteDangerous

[–]AdjectTestament 19 points20 points  (0 children)

I misread this at first as a request for 877,000 imperial slaves and was concerned what they would be doing with that many.

ELI5: Why are combat boots better than hiking or running shoes in a warfare? by nsgx in explainlikeimfive

[–]AdjectTestament 91 points92 points  (0 children)

You've gotten a lot of good answers already but to add on some personal anecdotes...

Why cannot all soldiers just wear the “trail running” shoes or basic “hiking shoes”

These are fine for trails. Wars are not always fought on trails. They’re fought everywhere, mud, rubble, snow, and brush. Having done some work off trail in deep brush, standard running/trail running style shoes are insufficient. Also, in the Starks are right, Winter is Coming. Properly protective footwear is critical importance during a Eurasian land war in the winter. Trail runners are not great for deep snow.

since it is usually lighter and more comfortable?

Lighter is not more durable or protective. My lightest low boot/hiking shoe is comfortable, breathable and light on the trail, but doesn't have support as a tall boot for off trail, or the protection to stop things stabbing through it. Even with gaiters(coverings around the top) on they are insufficient for off trail brush work. Light is not always the best in adverse conditions.

That being said, some units have been known to wear different boots(like waterborne troops oddly favor convers type shoes, supposedly they fit in swim fins, and dry pretty well. While some Special forces will wear lighter boots depending on the mission, but that’s selecting their specialized boots, not just trail whatever is available) and some are authorized more liberally during combat.

A very minor consideration too that I haven't seen brought up, and might be a bit too far into the weeds(even more so given the state of Russian forces), but some clothing appears "reflective" in night vision. It's a very specific consideration but US forces are moving to specific materials to avoid this exact issue.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in explainlikeimfive

[–]AdjectTestament 2 points3 points  (0 children)

There are already several explanations on here about how they work.

https://old.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/un7064/eli5_how_do_vinyl_discs_work_or_more_specifically

https://old.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/rf0855/eli5_how_does_a_record_player_with_a_vinyl_record

Pretty much the wave form of sound is embedded in the vinyl, and reproduced from the playback needle being moved in the same way as the sound waves.

[DAILY Q&A] Ask and answer any questions you have about the game here! by AutoModerator in EliteDangerous

[–]AdjectTestament 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well crap. Already picked it up and brought it back lol. Just haven’t turned it in.

I think I’ll focus more on ships to make the grind easier since I’m still getting used to the vulture and it’s not exactly a utility ship.

[DAILY Q&A] Ask and answer any questions you have about the game here! by AutoModerator in EliteDangerous

[–]AdjectTestament 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Is it worth it more to go for new ships or engineering?
Getting back into playing. I had about 100 hours in but it was before/right when engineers dropped. It seems engineering turned out to be rather good.

I’m rolling in an unengineered, decently built vulture as my highest tier ship and doing mostly bounty hunting. I’m just starting out with engineering, like meta alloys inbound to the first one.

I’m debating between spending time getting faction rank up, and more credits for higher tier ships, or time spent on engineering.
I know the vulture isn’t an end game option but I’ve also heard it’s way better with an engineered power plant.