{
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    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "0",
      "endTime": "6.037",
      "body": "My first official job in tech was as a help desk technician during my winter, summer, and spring"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "6.037",
      "endTime": "11.934",
      "body": "breaks from college. I had my A-plus certification, so I thought I knew everything, and I couldn't have"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "11.934",
      "endTime": "20.498",
      "body": "been more wrong. But it was at this job that I learned how sticks of RAM can cause so many issues. The main part"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "20.498",
      "endTime": "26.023",
      "body": "my job was working on tickets from users. This was just a shared inbox in Outlook where users"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "26.023",
      "endTime": "32.949",
      "body": "would send emails. A common complaint was my computer won't turn on. So I would make the"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "32.949",
      "endTime": "37.493",
      "body": "hike to the users, wherever they were in the corporate complex, and bring their computer"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "37.493",
      "endTime": "43.199",
      "body": "back to the help desk. This is when I learned from the help desk administrator how to troubleshoot"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "43.199",
      "endTime": "49.905",
      "body": "RAM. We would pop open the computer case, blow out the dust, unseat the RAM sticks from the"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "49.905",
      "endTime": "57.172",
      "body": "motherboard, blow it out again, and plug them back in. Nine times out of ten, this would fix the issue."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "57.652",
      "endTime": "62.497",
      "body": "Other times, we would replace one stick of RAM at a time until we found the bad one."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "63.418",
      "endTime": "69.263",
      "body": "This is where I learned that the real world was different from school. Yes, there were programs"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "69.263",
      "endTime": "74.828",
      "body": "you could boot from removable media, test the RAM, and determine which one was having issues, if any."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "75.229",
      "endTime": "79.813",
      "body": "But in reality, it was quicker and easier just to replace them and see if that fixed"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "79.813",
      "endTime": "85.398",
      "body": "the issue. The part that was truly enlightening to me is that the first time I saw this happen,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "85.598",
      "endTime": "92.125",
      "body": "I said to the help desk admin, wow, this must be a rare issue. And he told me, nope, happens about"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "92.125",
      "endTime": "97.47",
      "body": "once a week. That's when I learned that when you scale something up to thousands of computers,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "97.99",
      "endTime": "104.196",
      "body": "uncommon issues become common. The piece of your computer that looks like a stick of forbidden gum,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "104.756",
      "endTime": "107.099",
      "body": "on this episode of In The Shell."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "107.919",
      "endTime": "113.525",
      "body": "The wrong thing to do is just go out and buy a computer and then learn about it. You'll learn,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "113.685",
      "endTime": "116.267",
      "body": "but you'll learn a lot of things that maybe you didn't want to learn."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "116.447",
      "endTime": "122.473",
      "body": "A computer that you buy today will likely be obsolete six months from now, and there's not"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "122.473",
      "endTime": "124.215",
      "body": "a dang thing that you can do about it."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "126.136",
      "endTime": "132.823",
      "body": "My name is Josh, and I'm able to keep this podcast independent and advertisement-free because of support"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "132.823",
      "endTime": "138.348",
      "body": "from listeners like you. If you are finding value in what I'm doing here, consider becoming a paid"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "138.348",
      "endTime": "145.635",
      "body": "supporter at members.sideofburritos.com. And as a thank you, members get early access to new videos,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "146.135",
      "endTime": "151.44",
      "body": "ad-free versions of everything, bonus content, and access to a live monthly Q&A."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "151.94",
      "endTime": "154.823",
      "body": "Thanks for considering. Now let's get back to the show."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "156.084",
      "endTime": "161.389",
      "body": "RAM, or random access memory, is essentially your computer's short-term working memory."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "161.95",
      "endTime": "167.675",
      "body": "It's where the computer holds the data and programs it's actively using right now so that the CPU can"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "167.675",
      "endTime": "173.781",
      "body": "access that information as quick as possible. The random access part of the name isn't about"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "173.781",
      "endTime": "180.027",
      "body": "doing things haphazardly. It means the CPU can read from or write to any part of the memory in"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "180.027",
      "endTime": "186.253",
      "body": "roughly the same amount of time, no matter where that data lives in the RAM chips. This is in contrast"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "186.253",
      "endTime": "192.258",
      "body": "to old-school storage like magnetic tape, or even your hard drive, where the time to fetch the data"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "192.258",
      "endTime": "198.544",
      "body": "depends on its physical location. Tape reels have to wind, and drive heads have to move, which makes"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "198.544",
      "endTime": "204.87",
      "body": "for much slower speeds. In simpler terms, RAM is like the workbench or table, where you lay out the"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "204.87",
      "endTime": "209.935",
      "body": "papers you are working on, whereas your hard drive, or SSD, is more like a filing cabinet."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "211.036",
      "endTime": "216.721",
      "body": "If you know exactly which file cabinet drawer has the info you need, it's still slower to walk over"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "216.721",
      "endTime": "220.725",
      "body": "and dig it out, compared to grabbing a paper that's already on your desk."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "221.766",
      "endTime": "227.391",
      "body": "RAM is that desk. It gives the CPU quick access to the stuff it needs, without fumbling through"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "227.391",
      "endTime": "233.657",
      "body": "long-term storage every time. It's made of electronic components, tiny transistor-capacitor pairs,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "233.657",
      "endTime": "239.903",
      "body": "on silicon chips, which means it operates at electrical speed. We're talking nanoseconds for"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "239.903",
      "endTime": "247.25",
      "body": "the CPU to get data from RAM, versus milliseconds or worse from a spinning disk. For perspective,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "247.91",
      "endTime": "253.415",
      "body": "reading data from RAM might take on the order of 100 nanoseconds, whereas even a fast SSD,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "253.956",
      "endTime": "262.063",
      "body": "solid-state drive, takes around 100 microseconds, which is 1,000 times slower. And that old hard disk drive"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "262.063",
      "endTime": "262.104",
      "body": "...."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "262.104",
      "endTime": "262.124",
      "body": "..."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "262.124",
      "endTime": "262.144",
      "body": "..."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "262.144",
      "endTime": "262.164",
      "body": "..."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "262.164",
      "endTime": "269.092",
      "body": "might take 10 milliseconds, around 100,000 times slower than RAM. This is why modern computers try"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "269.092",
      "endTime": "274.411",
      "body": "to keep as much data in RAM as possible. If you see high RAM usage on your computer or phone,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "274.635",
      "endTime": "281.645",
      "body": "this is not necessarily a bad thing. So what actually is RAM made of? If you open up your"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "281.645",
      "endTime": "287.595",
      "body": "computer, you'll see thin rectangular sticks plugged into the motherboard. A typical desktop"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "287.595",
      "endTime": "294.259",
      "body": "RAM module is a slim circuit board with multiple black integrated circuit chips on it. Each chip"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "294.259",
      "endTime": "301.045",
      "body": "contains millions or billions of tiny memory cells that store data as electrical charges. Essentially,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "301.269",
      "endTime": "307.831",
      "body": "each memory cell holds a bit, a zero or a one, by either having a tiny electric charge or not."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "308.87",
      "endTime": "314.637",
      "body": "In the most common type of RAM in PCs today, DRAM, which is short for Dynamic RAM,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "314.637",
      "endTime": "321.425",
      "body": "Each bit is stored in a tiny capacitor that leaks its charge over time and needs to be refreshed thousands of times per second."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "322.429",
      "endTime": "325.18",
      "body": "This design is why RAM is volatile memory."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "325.763",
      "endTime": "329.799",
      "body": "Volatile means that when the power is turned off, RAM forgets everything."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "330.422",
      "endTime": "334.498",
      "body": "All those electrical charges dissipate, and any data in RAM is gone."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "335.603",
      "endTime": "339.94",
      "body": "This is why unsaved work disappears if your computer crashes or loses power."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "340.242",
      "endTime": "344.318",
      "body": "The data was only in RAM and never got written to persistent storage."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "345.242",
      "endTime": "351.889",
      "body": "By contrast, your storage drive, whether a solid state drive or hard drive, is non-volatile."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "352.893",
      "endTime": "359.56",
      "body": "It keeps information stored even with the power off, which is why your files and programs are still there when you reboot."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "360.705",
      "endTime": "367.111",
      "body": "A fun fact, those little sticks of RAM you plug in are often called DIMS, dual inline memory."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "367.111",
      "endTime": "373.635",
      "body": "modules. So if you have a laptop, you might have a smaller version called SODIMS, small outline"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "373.635",
      "endTime": "379.436",
      "body": "dual inline memory modules. These are standardized modules that make it easy to add or replace memory."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "381.163",
      "endTime": "386.703",
      "body": "So why do people keep saying upgrade your RAM when your PC feels slow? What difference does"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "386.703",
      "endTime": "392.705",
      "body": "it make if you have, say, 16 gigabytes of RAM instead of 4 gigabytes? With more RAM, your"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "392.705",
      "endTime": "398.507",
      "body": "computer can keep more stuff in that quick access space, meaning it can handle more open applications,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "399.089",
      "endTime": "405.734",
      "body": "more browser tabs, and more large files. As a result, multitasking is smoother and overall"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "405.734",
      "endTime": "411.736",
      "body": "performance improves. The CPU isn't any faster in gigahertz, but it spends less time waiting around"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "411.736",
      "endTime": "418.822",
      "body": "for data to load from the slow drive because the data is already in RAM. Conversely, if you don't"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "418.822",
      "endTime": "419.585",
      "body": "have enough RAM,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "419.585",
      "endTime": "422.489",
      "body": "The system will struggle when you try to do too much."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "422.909",
      "endTime": "430.74",
      "body": "You might have noticed this if you've ever had, say, only 4GB of RAM and open a ton of browser tabs or a big application."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "431.101",
      "endTime": "433.825",
      "body": "At some point, things get really sluggish."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "434.946",
      "endTime": "437.31",
      "body": "What's happening is your RAM filled up."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "437.63",
      "endTime": "446.202",
      "body": "To avoid crashing, the computer starts using parts of the hard drive as pretend RAM in a process called swapping or using a page file."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "446.202",
      "endTime": "450.768",
      "body": "Now, swapping data to disk is painfully slow next to actual RAM."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "451.189",
      "endTime": "456.416",
      "body": "As a result, when your system is forced to swap, you get slowdowns, freezing, and delays."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "457.117",
      "endTime": "460.282",
      "body": "This is why having more RAM can speed up a system."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "461.704",
      "endTime": "463.246",
      "body": "But let's rewind a little bit."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "463.647",
      "endTime": "465.489",
      "body": "Computer memory has come a long way."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "465.81",
      "endTime": "470.717",
      "body": "The first generation of computers in the 1940s didn't have RAM as we know it."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "471.257",
      "endTime": "472.058",
      "body": "They used a..."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "472.058",
      "endTime": "476.868",
      "body": "devices like delay lines or mechanical drums that could only access data sequentially."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "477.336",
      "endTime": "481.432",
      "body": "You can think of this like forwarding through a cassette tape to try and find a song."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "482.349",
      "endTime": "488.952",
      "body": "By the 1950s, we had a form of true random access memory called a magnetic core memory,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "489.4",
      "endTime": "496.206",
      "body": "which was basically a grid of tiny magnetic donuts, rings, strung on wires. Each little"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "496.206",
      "endTime": "501.138",
      "body": "ferrite ring stored one bit, and you would flip its magnetization for a zero or a one."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "502.014",
      "endTime": "507.292",
      "body": "Core memory was durable and non-volatile, it remembered data with the power off,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "507.598",
      "endTime": "511.755",
      "body": "and terms like core dump from a memory error still echo that era."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "513.141",
      "endTime": "517.196",
      "body": "But core memory was also relatively bulky and expensive to make."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "517.746",
      "endTime": "524.532",
      "body": "The big revolution came in the 1960s and 70s with semiconductor memory using silicon chips."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "524.532",
      "endTime": "532.246",
      "body": "In 1966, an IBM engineer named Dr. Robert Denard figured out a way to store a bit using a single"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "532.246",
      "endTime": "540.1",
      "body": "transistor and a tiny capacitor. A few years later, in 1970, Intel released the first commercial DRAM"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "540.1",
      "endTime": "548.295",
      "body": "chip, the Intel 1103, with a capacity of 1,024 bits. That's just one kilobit, which is only"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "548.295",
      "endTime": "555.708",
      "body": "128 bytes of data. 128 bytes is around the size of a short tweet or a couple sentences of text."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "556.469",
      "endTime": "561.899",
      "body": "It's almost laughable by today's standards, but at that time it was revolutionary to have a solid"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "561.899",
      "endTime": "566.868",
      "body": "state memory chip that could hold that many bits and be randomly accessed at high speeds."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "567.789",
      "endTime": "572.718",
      "body": "From there, memory density and capacity exploded as chip manufacturing improved."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "573.139",
      "endTime": "577.006",
      "body": "We went from kilobits in the 70s to megabits in the 80s."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "577.006",
      "endTime": "578.888",
      "body": "to gigabits in the 2000s."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "579.73",
      "endTime": "584.617",
      "body": "The modules in your PC likely use DDR4 or DDR5 DRAM,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "584.817",
      "endTime": "586.86",
      "body": "DDR stands for double data rate,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "587.36",
      "endTime": "589.563",
      "body": "which are all just successive generations."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "590.284",
      "endTime": "592.768",
      "body": "They are all still based on Denard's principle"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "592.768",
      "endTime": "595.372",
      "body": "of one transistor and one capacitor per bit,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "595.672",
      "endTime": "597.875",
      "body": "just vastly scaled up and sped up."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "598.776",
      "endTime": "602.742",
      "body": "Modern RAM modules transfer data at many gigabytes per second"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "602.742",
      "endTime": "604.024",
      "body": "within the PC."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "604.705",
      "endTime": "607.729",
      "body": "Yet interestingly, as fast as main memory is,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "607.909",
      "endTime": "609.972",
      "body": "it's never fast enough for the CPU."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "611.194",
      "endTime": "613.637",
      "body": "That's why CPUs also have even smaller"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "613.637",
      "endTime": "615.64",
      "body": "and even faster memories called caches,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "615.92",
      "endTime": "618.003",
      "body": "sitting right inside the CPU chip."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "618.945",
      "endTime": "622.229",
      "body": "Those caches are usually made of SRAM, static RAM,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "622.43",
      "endTime": "625.514",
      "body": "which doesn't need refreshing and is blazingly quick,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "625.734",
      "endTime": "628.438",
      "body": "but SRAM is too expensive and bulky to use"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "628.438",
      "endTime": "629.48",
      "body": "for all system memory."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "631.017",
      "endTime": "638.184",
      "body": "So the hierarchy goes, tiny super fast caches inside the CPU, then the larger DRAM, your RAM"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "638.184",
      "endTime": "645.558",
      "body": "sticks, as the next level, then the much larger but slower storage. It's a balancing act of speed,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "645.766",
      "endTime": "653.556",
      "body": "cost, and size at each level. I truly find RAM fascinating. Most people know it as the option"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "653.556",
      "endTime": "659.165",
      "body": "you select when building or buying a computer, but there's so much more to it. When you don't"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "659.165",
      "endTime": "664.317",
      "body": "have enough of it, it's always on your mind. But when you have more than you need, it never"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "664.317",
      "endTime": "671.94",
      "body": "gets the attention it deserves. In the Shell is written, researched, and recorded by me,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "672.314",
      "endTime": "679.627",
      "body": "the non-volatile podcaster. If you are listening in an app that lets you rate shows, please"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "679.627",
      "endTime": "683.49",
      "body": "take a minute to rate this one. I would truly appreciate it."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "683.832",
      "endTime": "690.77",
      "body": "I told my friend a joke about RAM, but he didn't get it."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "692.457",
      "endTime": "694.527",
      "body": "What a dimwit."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "697.517",
      "endTime": "698.821",
      "body": "That's it."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "699.357",
      "endTime": "703.919",
      "body": "Take care, and I'll see you next time."
    }
  ]
}