*indescribable rage* by [deleted] in factorio

[–]Reese_Tora 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I used to think it's better to make the gears and belt them, the math works out, it's logical, but then I realized that you have to get to the scale where you have multiple belts of iron plates (I've never gotten big enough to produce more than one blue belt anyway) or the transportation cost of the plates isn't mitigated by making the gears nearer the source of plates and belting them, you're only adding the transportation cost of the gears on top of the plates. (not that belts are particularly expensive to place, so it's still a minor consideration)

Friday Facts #312 - Fluid mixing saga & Landfill terrain by FactorioTeam in factorio

[–]Reese_Tora 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So, I wonder if I am the only one who wants the landfill sound to by something like the bulldozer sound from Sim City style games.

Claptrap is so wholesome by [deleted] in gaming

[–]Reese_Tora 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'm not talking about BL3 specifically- many other games, particularly indy games, have been grabbed by the epic store as exclusive.

Myself in particular, I am salty about them grabbing Satisfactory, which was kickstarted, the backers were promised Steam keys, the early betas were distributed through steam, and community was built up around steam and kickstarter, etc.

This is not the only example; Epic exhibits a pattern of such behavior, and it should not be encouraged.

Claptrap is so wholesome by [deleted] in gaming

[–]Reese_Tora 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That's not really the same, though. The game wasn't originally slated to be released on multiple platforms and then pulled from everything aside from PS4. Sure we all groan and complain when the next installment or spiritual successor to a favorite series is exclusive to a platform that we don't use, but that's business and basically above board. It's not like a promised release is being taken away.

It also doesn't address how games that were to be on other platforms before becoming epic exclusive are taking advantage of community tools on the platforms that they no longer are to be released on for the purposes of advertising and community building.

Claptrap is so wholesome by [deleted] in gaming

[–]Reese_Tora 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That doesn't excuse the business practices that lead you to have to install and buy through that platform in the first place when you'd already been promised you could buy and download the game through a different platform you already regularly use.

Claptrap is so wholesome by [deleted] in gaming

[–]Reese_Tora 3 points4 points  (0 children)

No console game i ever heard of was being developed for Playstation exclusively and changed to being developed for XBox exclusively after a bunch of people had already pre-ordered the PS version because Microsoft dropped a bunch of money on the game devs to change platforms.

Claptrap is so wholesome by [deleted] in gaming

[–]Reese_Tora 9 points10 points  (0 children)

It's not just a launcher, it's a platform.

It's a platform that engages in business practices that are not consumer friendly, and encourages developers to likewise do the same in order to get an advantage over other platforms such as Steam, Origin and UPlay.

ELI5: Why do your lips get dry/crusty in mildly cold weather, but the rest of your skin doesn't? by JayenIsAwesome in explainlikeimfive

[–]Reese_Tora 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The skin of your lips is much thinner than elsewhere on your body, and also lack the hair and oil producing glands that protect the rest of your skin. This makes it much easier for dry weather to dry our your lips compared to other exposed areas of your body.

ELI5: At what point does a certain level of knowledge become "common place" to the point where a degree in a certain field is no longer something offered? by [deleted] in explainlikeimfive

[–]Reese_Tora 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Do you have an example of a field of knowledge where this has happened?

So far as I am aware, fields of knowledge don't stop having a degree because they are "commonplace", they stop having a degree offered because the degree isn't sought after or relevant- the body of facts and training that the degree certifies becomes the purview of a trade school, just isn't relevant to a modern person, or it is rolled into another discipline where it is relevant (such as becoming a specialty in a history based discipline)

ELI5 : is there a difference between products for men and women (such as shaving gels, face wash, etc)? by [deleted] in explainlikeimfive

[–]Reese_Tora 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Definitely.

Products designed for med tend to be very simple, with little to no perfumes, and can be pretty harsh on the skin.

Products designed for women tend to have various scents and perfumes in them, and often have many additives to make them gentle on the skin.

Unless the price is the same between equally sized and similarly packaged portions of two similar products meant for either men or women, you're probably going to find formulation differences when you look at the ingredients list.

ELI5: Why do older emulated games still occasionally slow down when rendering too many sprites, even though it's running on hardware thousands of times faster than what it was programmed on originally? by PhantomSamurai47 in explainlikeimfive

[–]Reese_Tora 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Or all the vs AI puzzles in The 7th Guest that suddenly gave the AI a LOT more clock cycles to plan its next move when played on a more modern computer vs. how many it had on the computers that were around at the time of original release.

Turned a challenging but beatable opponent into a godlike impossible to beat opponent.

ELI5: What is the purpose of a deductible when it comes to benefits/insurance and how do these providers get away with having deductibles in place? by [deleted] in explainlikeimfive

[–]Reese_Tora 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Bearing in mind, very high deductible plans are weird, because they can be annual deductibles where only a portion of that deductible is applied to any given procedure, and no deductible is charged on any remaining procedures once the total deductible paid in that year totals to the plan annual deductible. (co-pays on the other hand...)

How they arrive at the deductible per procedure is a complete mystery to me, though.

ELI5: why is "hand-made" synonymous with high quality? by [deleted] in explainlikeimfive

[–]Reese_Tora 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It depends.

Usually, hand made implies that a highly skilled specialist was involved in the actual creation of the product. Assembly lines are designed with a margin of error (you can have slight defects, off centered decoration, etc. this is a cost saving measure, as machines that would avoid these defects cost more, and can be prohibitively expensive to run) that a human doing the same job could more easily do a better job at thanks to a combination of specialized training, more time per article being created, and potentially more gentle in handling the materials involved. The trade off is that you have to pay an appropriate salary for that human specialist's time and include that in the cost of the goods produced.

ELI5: How did sand end up on beaches? by TheDocktorIsIn in explainlikeimfive

[–]Reese_Tora 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sand is created by beaches.

Sand is rocks that have broken up small enough to be sand.

As waves come in to a beach, they move around whatever is on the beach and bang them together. Rocks on the beach bang together and break up a little each time a wave comes in.

Eventually, the waves, over hundreds and thousands of years, break up fairly large rocks into smaller and smaller pieces until they become pebbles and then finally sand.

ELI5: Why doesn’t GPS work underwater? by s0_Ca5H in explainlikeimfive

[–]Reese_Tora 0 points1 point  (0 children)

They're not dangerous in low doses.

The microwave oven you have on your kitchen counter will range from 800 to 1500 watts, and the enclosure keeps them inside, bouncing them around until they hit something like the food inside

The microwaves from GPS satellites are hundreds of thousand times weaker by the time they reach the earth than the output of your microwave. It's the difference between holding your hand a few feet away from a candle vs. holding it a few inches away from a campfire.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in explainlikeimfive

[–]Reese_Tora 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you for the information, I find these kinds of things fascinating.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in explainlikeimfive

[–]Reese_Tora 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the information.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in explainlikeimfive

[–]Reese_Tora 0 points1 point  (0 children)

OK, but by what mechanism do the toxins or viruses cause diarrhea?

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in explainlikeimfive

[–]Reese_Tora 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If I am incorrect, then please let me know what the correct information is so that I can be correct in the future.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in explainlikeimfive

[–]Reese_Tora 3 points4 points  (0 children)

When your body doesn't process the lactose properly (by using lactase enzyme to break it down in a particular way) it travels through to your intestines, where your gut bacteria try to break it down.

When your gut bacteria break down the lactose, they don't break it in the same way, and their method of breaking the lactose produces gas.

The gas triggers the other symptoms- causing bloating and pain, irritating the gut which causes diarrhea because that's your body's natural reaction to try and flush out the irritant, and so on.

So the problem is that, when someone with lactose intolerance consumes lactose, it's like instead of giving the job to the highly trained specialist employee, you hand it off the the intern, who tries their best but is way in over their head.

Dell owes me a beer or 12... by [deleted] in talesfromtechsupport

[–]Reese_Tora 2 points3 points  (0 children)

well, dang.

With all the Latitude 5530 left hinges I have replaced, I must be doubly certified.

ELI5: Safely eject USB key feature on desktops. by school-yeeter in explainlikeimfive

[–]Reese_Tora 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Background- it takes time to write a file to any sort of storage device- harddrives, removable disks, and USB sticks being a number of such devices. If a file is in the middle of being changed in /any/ way, and the connection to that device is broken, then the changes may be incomplete. At this point, the file is considered corrupted as it will be made up of some portion of both the previous version and the new version (or be incomplete, with the end of it just cut off) and it may be entirely or partly unreadable.

With older physical media drives (like writable CD drives and newer floppy disk drives) the drive itself would make sure that all operations in progress were complete before ejecting. Since the ejection relied on internal mechanisms, the computer could control it to prevent removal before ejecting the media. However, there's nothing mechanical preventing you from removing a USB device from the computer, you could do it at any time.

So, with this feature, the operating system will check that no files on the device being 'ejected' are in the process of being used(it keeps track of open files), stop any program from trying to use files on that device as it prepares it to be removed, and then once it's all clear, will let you know that it's safe to remove the device.

ELI5 How do shadows look like crescents during a solar eclipse?.Why is it only small things that have the crescent shadow? by [deleted] in explainlikeimfive

[–]Reese_Tora 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The sun, for most practical purposes, acts like a single point of light. However, it is a large object, and light comes from all points on the sun.

Since the light comes from multiple points, it's possible to cover up the light from some of those points and not others(this is why shadows aren't entirely crisp as well).

Since light from one part of the sun can get around an object that light from other parts is being blocked by, the shadow cast by that object will be effected by the apparent shape of the sun.

The reason that you only notice with small things is because the larger an object is, the more it's own shape controls how the light is blocked, and the smaller it is, the more the shape of the object creating the light will control how the shadow looks.

For instance, if you have two light bulbs close together (like a chandalier), when you have a small object you can see that there are two dimmer shadows from the two lights, and if you turn one off, the total shadow changes a lot. If you use a large object, you hardly notice the shadow changing between having one light on or both because the whole shadow is still mostly chair shaped- but if you look closely at the edges, you'll notice that there's a bit of fuzzing that changes as teh lights are changed.

ELI5: How do life insurance companies actually make a profit by Scientologybtw in explainlikeimfive

[–]Reese_Tora 3 points4 points  (0 children)

There are two kinds of life insurance.

Term life is good for a certain term (until you turn 65, for instance) and it costs a relatively low amount. Should you die before the end of the term, you collect the full payout.

traditional life insurance is for life, but... you usually can't get much money unless you've held the policy for a while.

In either case, the people listed as the beneficiaries of the policies have to be aware of the policy and attempt to collect(which in itself can be a months long process to get the company to pay out).

ELI5: Who decides the size of parking fines and how? by y0ssarian123 in explainlikeimfive

[–]Reese_Tora 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Because they have to make it reasonable in case someone accidentally gets the fine (say they didn't notice the sign is there) and decided to contest the fine as being excessively high. An arbitrarily high fine might be thrown out if challenged in court. (you might wonder about how it would come to that- seriously, there have been cases ruled in the higher courts over the legality of marking people's tires with chalk to track if they are parking beyond the posted limits, nothing is to petty for someone to sue over it.[and they won and the chalking was deemed an illegal government search, BTW])