Technology
Exploring "Why" questions about Technology
491 articles
Why is programming still done using text commands? Everything else switched to GUI’s!
There are some graphical software development tools, or flow charts for scripting, but they are usually used for learning or beginners. The GUIs you're referring themselves are powered by back-end cod
Why can’t your phone use wifi and 4G/3G together?
[You can do it on Android](_URL_0_) In general it's undesirable because mobile bandwidth is far more limited. Something like watching youtube in high quality could easily use up all your limit in very
Why do call-ins and phone interviews on radio and TV shows sound so much lower in quality than actual phone calls?
In audio engineering, there is a saying that goes 'anything louder sounds better' - it's something a producer has to take into account when mixing a track. In this case, it is likely that when you tal
Why do VPN companies not get sued for downloading illegal torrents?
For the same reason syringe manufacturers aren't sued for enabling heroine users; these companies have perfectly legitimate uses for their services, it's not their fault that some of their users are a
Why aren’t all words spelt phonetically? Wouldn’t it be easier?
English is a Germanic tongue with a French vocabulary thanks to the Norman Conquest period we then borrowed a number of words and Order roots from Greek and Latin, as well as adopting words wholesale
Why do phones sound so much worse when on speaker?
The energy in a sound signal dies off pretty fast the farther away you get from it. This is fine for really small speakers that you put *very* close to your ears like headphones, earbuds, and telephon
Why phones can have 8 cores and sometimes more but even most high end computers half only 4 cores.
All cores are not created equal. The cores in phones are generally ARM-based cores, which are optimized for small size, low cost, low power consumption, and OK processing power. In a PC, they are x86-
Why are JPEG files still used today when internet speeds have increased which would allow for less compression to be needed?
It is desirable to have compression no matter how much speed you have, since this allows more photos to be sent in less time and stored in less space forever. A popular website may send out the same p
Why did some old programming languages like PL/I and “real” BASIC completely die out, while some like Fortran and COBOL never get replaced?
The rise of Unix brought C and C++ to the fore, and these replaced many languages. Fortran and COBOL have been on the decline for a long time. They stay alive because of large code bases that would be
Why do we enjoy watching televisions shows that involve drugs/killing/relationship drama/anything else that we would never want to happen to us in real life?
The same reason we have nightmares. It's emotionally healthy to explore dangerous and upsetting situations in a healthy and safe setting.