BC and Alex are back! BC had to take a couple weeks off to get over a bug, but they’re back and talking about the Bidens’ animal idiocy, Johnson and Johnson covering themselves in vaccine glory, BASEBALL, and they end the show going all fanboi over Brandon Sanderson. Again.
Enjoy!
Wear headphones!
Drift Compatible 
So I just started listening so I have a feeling of doing a bit of bragging at Cochran’s expense. So apparently the WWE to Peacock network deal is partly affected by the billing cycle. Guess who’s WWE Network subscription isn’t up for renewal until April 13th, two days after Wrestlemania? 😛
Hey, first time in about five months I’ve listened…
First of all, Brent, what did you mean re: “Back when we were business owners?”
Second… I wish I knew what the whole deal with the video cards was about. AFAIK bitcoin (the most valuable cryptocurrency) can’t be cost effectively mined with a video card, the miners went to all ASICs years ago. The second most valuable cryptocurrency, Ethereum, is moving to a “Proof of Stake” model in the near future, thus making mining using anything less valuable. I suspect there’s second order or third order effects somewhere or someone’s found some nefarious use for video cards but saying it’s all for cryptocurrency mining instead. I dunno.
Even if it’s not the most efficient they still are using them. The nvidia 3000 series cards were supposed to be designed and have drivers that made it not worthwhile to use them to mine crypto. Well they’re cracking those drivers. So it is still a thing.
There are any number of calculations that are best done using a non-von-Neumann architecture. Sure, you can whip up something with an FPGA, (I don’t think most people would use ASIC’s when you can get the same work done with an FPGA and get reprogrammability and a much lower cost and way shorter lead time) but there is a standard interface for doing those sorts of calculations with a video card. And that interface uses languages that are a whole lot closer to what most programmers know how to use.
At Hewlett Packard Enterprise, I am given to understand that we sometimes put multiple high end video cards into computers that don’t even have a way to plug in a monitor. They’re used for seismic *mumble* and CFD and finite-element analysis and a whole bunch of stuff like that.
However, I suspect that the real problem with video cards has been the whole Covid panic and the associated supply-chain disruptions. All industries are having trouble getting orders filled. It will get straightened out eventually. High prices bring people into the market which brings increased production capacity which brings low prices.
Now I remember what the video cards are being used for. They’re useful for doing artificial intelligence stuff. Big data. Neural nets. That sort of thing.
Ah, Brandon Sanderson. Making me feel like a lazy bum since 2011, the first time I heard him say that you need to write 100,000 words before you can really write.
Picked up Edgedancer last week and intend to get the download for Rhythm of War soon. I don’t see myself re-reading the Stormlight Archives as often as I do The Belgariad, so Edgedancer will probably go to Pookette’s school library when I’m done with it. I also grabbed the first book of Mistborn, since you guys have been raving about it for ages. This is what happens when I get let loose in a Barnes and Noble with a gift card…..