Recent comments in /f/explainlikeimfive

PM_ME_A_PLANE_TICKET t1_iubo12l wrote

Reply to comment by F4L2OYD13 in ELI5 how they balance competitive video games by [deleted]

Simulations might be used, but they're of little help because the devs need to balance based off of how players actually play the game.

So for that, they track all sorts of statistics about what characters are used, howe they're used, how effective they are against other characters in general, and specific other characters, and much more.

They take that data and then see if something is too strong, too weak, etc, and try to adjust for fairness.

Or in the case of Riot, they release new characters that are strong so people buy them, then lower the power after.

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sjiveru t1_iubnx4b wrote

Reply to comment by mirxia in Eli5: How is it possible for someone to speak English, but not be able to read or write it ? by Aboutfun

For 1, it is relevant, because the most straightforward way to decide on the character to use for a given word is to use the character used to write its Middle Chinese ancestor (unless this is a Min language, and then it gets complicated). When you can't do that for whatever reason, you're left with not a lot of options; in theory the best one is just to make a new character, but until the Unicode Consortium decides to include your new character in Unicode and you get good font support for it, you can only use that character in handwriting. So if you're trying to create a system for writing a Sinitic language that has even one novel grammatical function word that doesn't have a straightforward preexisting character that's appropriate, adapting the script for it is not going to be a simple process! I've actually seen examples even of Taiwanese Mandarin using pinyin or even kana to write words that exist in Taiwanese Mandarin but don't have an obvious Chinese character for them. Imagine if half your grammatical machinery has that problem!

For 2, that was just an example of one way in which being knowing what a character means in one language may not help you understand its use with another language. In that particular example the alternative meaning may still be well enough known, but that's not guaranteed to be the case in every such instance!

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mirxia t1_iubmcb4 wrote

Reply to comment by sjiveru in Eli5: How is it possible for someone to speak English, but not be able to read or write it ? by Aboutfun

Two things:

  1. We are talking about dialect here, so what it meant in Middle Chinese is sort of irrelevant. Middle Chinese is considered an ancient form of Chinese, not a dialect. I'm not aware of any Chinese subculture that still uses Middle Chinese as the main language. When speaking about dialect, I believe we are talking about Mandarin, Cantonese, Hokkien, Shanghainese etc (yes, I understand it's debatable whether they are dialects or languages on their own). Even though some dialects might find some word/character choice inappropriate. It is not generally difficult to extrapolate the general meaning of written sentences.
  2. Just because the more common modern usage of "闻\聞" has the meaning of "smell", it doesn't mean that the "hearing" aspect is completely abandoned. It is very common in Chinese language to incorporate some form of Middle Chinese into modern communication (Chengyu for example). I'd argue most people who speaks Chinese understand that "不闻不问" means "not listening, not asking" in a literally sense rather than "not smelling, not asking".
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IsilZha t1_iubk2fw wrote

Reply to comment by whereameye in eli5: What is a firewall? by This_Caterpillar_330

Pfft, to ensure your WAN has no issues with your IPSec mesh, make sure your ACLs are set, get OSPF or BPG working, and be sure to set your TCP MSS so that you don't get DF flags causing issues due to MTU. And to ensure your VoIP QoS setup the VLANs with appropriate CoS to ensure your RTP is smooth, and that your SIP ALGs are setup properly

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p33k4y t1_iubjs0i wrote

Reply to comment by imnotsoho in ELI5: Morse code is made up of dots and dashes. How did telegraph operators keep from losing track of where one letter ended and another began? by copperdomebodhi

This.

A family member also operated Morse around that timeframe.

He told me in comm rooms there were constant chatter of Morse code in the background from traffic meant for other stations.

Yet at times even when he was half asleep / dozing off from fatigue while on duty, his hand would automatically reach for the Morse key "clicker" and start to respond subconsciously whenever his station's "dit-dit-dah" code came on air.

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Ahnamal t1_iubiit2 wrote

Reply to comment by MembershipFew989 in Eli5 why do pregnancy testers not have a yes or no indication on the screen instead of the symbols and then matching them? by googleimages69420

Well but sometimes the line is really faint and also you can to some degree track how the pregnancy is progressing by testing over repeated days to see a progression in darkness. HCG, the hormone that they test for, is supposed to double every day. So especially if you’ve had losses in the past, it can be very reassuring to see a darker and darker line. Sometimes the test line will even pull die from the control line, those are called die stealers.

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Glum_Butterfly_9308 t1_iubi9ou wrote

Reply to comment by tweakingforjesus in Eli5 why do pregnancy testers not have a yes or no indication on the screen instead of the symbols and then matching them? by googleimages69420

Not everyone has an easy time conceiving. Some people take years, and eventually those tests add up.

Personally it took us 20 cycles before we had a single positive. I had lots of months where I didn’t test at all, some where I tested once, some where I really had a feeling they were it and I tested a couple of times (testing early can give a false negative).

It is common when you do finally conceive to keep testing and watch the lines get darker. Many people have chemical pregnancies. These are very very early miscarriages that we only know about because the tests have gotten so good. Back in the day where you had to wait several days to a week after a missed period to test, you would never even know that you had a chemical. Now, you may get an early positive but have the lines get lighter over the next few days. If you’re having fertility struggles, it’s helpful to know whether you are conceiving and losing pregnancies early or not conceiving at all.

When we did conceive I think I took about 4 tests over the course of a few days but online I often see people do 6-8. Many people will test until they get a “dye-stealer” which means that the test line is darker than the control line. People take this as a positive sign that it is progressing well.

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Tomi97_origin t1_iubhx65 wrote

Reply to ELI5 why do you need a lot of money in your account to get a US tourist Visa? by strongr_togethr

Countries don't want people on tourist visa to stay or work there.

So they keep a list of how much it cost per day to live there and how much it will cost you to get back to your country.

They will use it to calculate the amount you need to afford your stay and get back home. They also generally expect/want you to spend extra so they add more money on top of that.

That's how they got the minimum amount you need to have.

It's not something exclusive to the US. It's pretty common practice around the world.

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