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Cake day: June 17th, 2023

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  • 5g is a lot more capable and flexible compared to older generations. The main one is a massive increase in capacity, for the same frequency allocations. Compounding with this is that it can be directional. This allows several phones to use the exact same channel simultaneously, so long as they are positioned at different angles to the tower.

    5g also uses more frequency bands, allowing even more data to be moved around. Unfortunately, 2g has most of the lower frequencies, higher frequencies carry more data, but have less penetration into buildings.

    Finally, 5g allows for priority and context awareness. E.g. the police can have their phones prioritised, or VoIP calls given priority over video streaming. It can also trade bandwidth for range. This allows a tower to either reach further to cover a larger area, or focus down, to provide more bandwidth locally.

    In theory 5g could have a similar range to 2g. However, that rarely happens. It requires it using the lower frequencies, that 2g currently uses, and well as dropping its data rate to improve range. Most of the time it’s optimised for shorter range, and more towers using higher frequencies. This gives impression of a far smaller range. But give a huge increase is available bandwidth.





  • cynar@lemmy.worldtoMemes@sopuli.xyzDelightfully so
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    8 days ago

    I had a Welsh work colleague years ago. A few times he was on the phone and spoke Welsh. None of the mental markers on what language he was speaking seemed to change. It sounded like English, spoken with a Welsh accent. Until my brain tried to interpret it. It was like I had had a stroke. It parsed as English, but wouldn’t make sense. It took a conscious effort to remind myself that he wasn’t speaking English.





  • cynar@lemmy.worldtoComic Strips@lemmy.worldEntropy
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    9 days ago

    Entropy is the tendency of systems to move from order to disorder. It’s intrinsically tied to energy and its flow.

    Basically, if I gave you a box with 1000 dice, all showing 6, bar 1 showing 5, it has an extremely low entropy. If you shake it, the entropy will tend to increase. You’ll likely get an event spread of values. This is a high entropy state. The chances of all 6s is tiny, and gets everything smaller as the number of options gets bigger.

    Gas expanding into a space is another example. The entropy of the gas increases as it expands.

    The rule of thumb is that entropy always increases in a closed system. If it seems to decrease, you’ve likely missed something.

    Increasing entropy can also be harnessed for energy. An expanding gas can drive a piston upwards. We can even work out the amount of energy that can be extracted from a system, based on the entropy change involved.

    That about covers the basics of entropy, without diving into the maths.