{
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "segments": [
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "0",
      "endTime": "2.177",
      "body": "It was the year 1999."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "3.677",
      "endTime": "7.713",
      "body": "My family had what everyone had at the time, the family computer."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "8.283",
      "endTime": "14.75",
      "body": "I had recently left Fry's Electronics with my mom, a store which is, sadly, no longer"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "14.75",
      "endTime": "15.32",
      "body": "in business."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "16.799",
      "endTime": "21.047",
      "body": "She let me pick out a computer game for Christmas, and I picked NASCAR 2000."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "21.047",
      "endTime": "26.434",
      "body": "I was never into NASCAR, but I wanted a cool car game that promised the best graphics."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "27.215",
      "endTime": "31.781",
      "body": "If you saw it now, you'd wonder how those graphics could have been considered good,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "32.161",
      "endTime": "38.87",
      "body": "but it was the 90s. I made sure to check the back of the box to make sure our family computer met"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "38.87",
      "endTime": "46.861",
      "body": "the requirements. RAM, CPU, it all looked good. But when I got home and installed it, it didn't"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "46.861",
      "endTime": "53.329",
      "body": "work. So my dad started looking into it. He talked to some people at work to get some ideas on what to"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "53.329",
      "endTime": "63.583",
      "body": "do. He kept tinkering for the next few days until finally, on December 31st, 1999, around 8pm, I was"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "63.583",
      "endTime": "70.011",
      "body": "able to play my game. Ivan had a joystick that one of our family friends gave us, so playing this game"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "70.011",
      "endTime": "77.681",
      "body": "was a blast. And the part that ended up being the issue was the graphics card. And on a side note,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "77.921",
      "endTime": "84.09",
      "body": "this was Y2K, and as everyone sat around with flashlights and emergency supplies for when the"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "84.09",
      "endTime": "89.457",
      "body": "computers that tracked the year with only two digits instead of four would turn over to the year 2000"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "89.457",
      "endTime": "97.307",
      "body": "and reset to 00, bringing the entire system as we know it crumbling to the ground. But hey,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "97.307",
      "endTime": "105.217",
      "body": "my computer game worked. The piece of a computer that turns bits into graphics, on this episode of"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "105.217",
      "endTime": "111.946",
      "body": "In The Shell. The wrong thing to do is just go out and buy a computer and then learn about it. You'll"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "111.946",
      "endTime": "116.732",
      "body": "learn, but you'll learn a lot of things that maybe you didn't want to learn. A computer that you buy"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "116.732",
      "endTime": "123.021",
      "body": "today will likely be obsolete six months from now, and there's not a dang thing that you can do about it."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "124.863",
      "endTime": "130.471",
      "body": "My name is Josh, and I'm able to keep this podcast independent and advertisement-free"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "130.471",
      "endTime": "135.497",
      "body": "because of support from listeners like you. If you are finding value in what I'm doing here,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "136.038",
      "endTime": "142.086",
      "body": "consider becoming a paid supporter at members.sideofburritos.com. And as a thank you,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "142.386",
      "endTime": "147.473",
      "body": "members get early access to new videos, ad-free versions of everything, bonus content,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "147.473",
      "endTime": "153.341",
      "body": "and access to a live monthly Q&A. Thanks for considering. Now let's get back to the show."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "154.422",
      "endTime": "161.591",
      "body": "A GPU, or graphics processing unit, is essentially a specialized processor designed to handle lots of"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "161.591",
      "endTime": "167.94",
      "body": "calculations at the same time, especially for rendering images and videos. The graphics part"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "167.94",
      "endTime": "173.627",
      "body": "of its name comes from its original purpose, which is taking on the heavy lifting of drawing everything"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "173.627",
      "endTime": "179.455",
      "body": "you see on your screen, from the 3D landscapes in video games, to the smooth playback of videos,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "179.755",
      "endTime": "184.622",
      "body": "so that the main processor, the CPU, doesn't get bogged down."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "185.543",
      "endTime": "191.671",
      "body": "In simple terms, if the CPU is the brain of your computer, that can tackle many different tasks"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "191.671",
      "endTime": "198.32",
      "body": "one by one, then the GPU is like a muscle that excels at performing hundreds of thousands of tiny tasks"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "198.32",
      "endTime": "204.728",
      "body": "simultaneously. Modern GPUs contain hundreds to thousands of smaller cores"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "204.728",
      "endTime": "209.675",
      "body": "that work in parallel, which means they can crunch through data with massive throughput."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "210.596",
      "endTime": "215.382",
      "body": "This makes them ideal for tasks that can be broken into many parts done at once,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "215.763",
      "endTime": "221.05",
      "body": "like coloring millions of pixels on a screen, or doing the math for 3D graphics and images."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "221.05",
      "endTime": "228.96",
      "body": "For example, in a video game, the GPU rapidly calculates lighting, textures, and geometry for"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "228.96",
      "endTime": "236.69",
      "body": "every frame, drawing complex scenes many times per second. Without a GPU, your CPU would struggle"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "236.69",
      "endTime": "244.22",
      "body": "to draw graphics and run the game logic at the same time. Over the years, GPUs have also become"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "244.22",
      "endTime": "250.949",
      "body": "more programmable and flexible. This means that beyond just drawing images, people found ways to use"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "250.949",
      "endTime": "259.12",
      "body": "GPUs for other computation-heavy tasks, not just graphics. Today, GPUs aren't only for pretty visuals,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "259.44",
      "endTime": "262.164",
      "body": "they are central to fields like AI, artificial intelligence, and AI."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "262.164",
      "endTime": "267.712",
      "body": "intelligence, which is just a bunch of if statements, I am just kidding, scientific"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "267.712",
      "endTime": "275.663",
      "body": "simulations, video editing, and more. In fact, the recent AI boom is largely fueled by GPUs"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "275.663",
      "endTime": "281.211",
      "body": "because training AI models involves tons of math that GPUs handle really well."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "282.532",
      "endTime": "287.199",
      "body": "So what's inside a GPU, and how is it different from a CPU under the hood?"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "287.199",
      "endTime": "294.469",
      "body": "The key is parallel processing. A typical CPU might have 4 to 8 cores, or a dozen or two"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "294.469",
      "endTime": "300.017",
      "body": "in high-end chips, each designed for general purpose computing, and optimized for doing"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "300.017",
      "endTime": "307.908",
      "body": "one thing at a time very quickly. A GPU, by contrast, has many more cores, often hundreds"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "307.908",
      "endTime": "313.236",
      "body": "or thousands, but each core is a bit simpler and focused on a specific kind of operation"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "313.776",
      "endTime": "314.637",
      "body": "that can be done in-"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "314.637",
      "endTime": "320.827",
      "body": "parallel. For instance, an advanced graphics card today might have over 20,000 individual"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "320.827",
      "endTime": "327.62",
      "body": "processing cores on one chip. For comparing GPUs and CPUs, you can think of it this way."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "327.861",
      "endTime": "333.951",
      "body": "If you have a huge task that can be split into lots of identical subtasks, a GPU shines."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "334.795",
      "endTime": "340.804",
      "body": "Imagine painting a giant mural composed of thousands of small tiles. A CPU is like a"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "340.804",
      "endTime": "348.3",
      "body": "single master painter who paints each tile one by one with great precision. A GPU is like 1,000"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "348.3",
      "endTime": "353.445",
      "body": "painters working side by side, each quickly coloring their own tiles simultaneously."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "354.149",
      "endTime": "359.233",
      "body": "The GPU's approach would finish the mural much faster for this kind of repetitive task."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "359.916",
      "endTime": "366.388",
      "body": "In technical terms, GPUs use architectures that allow them to perform the same operation on many"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "366.388",
      "endTime": "367.111",
      "body": "pieces of data."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "367.111",
      "endTime": "373.959",
      "body": "once. This is something called SIMD, Single Instruction Multiple Data or Vector Processing."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "374.843",
      "endTime": "378.719",
      "body": "It's perfect for graphics, where say the same shading calculation"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "379.321",
      "endTime": "385.607",
      "body": "needs to be applied to millions of pixels, or the same geometric transform to thousands of vertices."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "386.229",
      "endTime": "390.968",
      "body": "To enable this parallel processing, GPUs are optimized in a few ways."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "390.968",
      "endTime": "397.897",
      "body": "They have wide memory buses and specialized memory, VRAM, to feed the data to all those"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "397.897",
      "endTime": "405.387",
      "body": "cores at high speed. VRAM, or video RAM, is the dedicated memory on a graphics card that stores"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "405.387",
      "endTime": "412.155",
      "body": "things like textures, images, and other data the GPU is working on, so that the data is close by"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "412.155",
      "endTime": "418.46",
      "body": "and can be accessed extremely quickly. If the GPU had to constantly reach out to your regular system"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "418.46",
      "endTime": "419.585",
      "body": "RAM over the motherboard."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "419.585",
      "endTime": "426.294",
      "body": "it would be too slow. The trade-off with the GPU's design is that its cores are not as flexible"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "426.294",
      "endTime": "434.025",
      "body": "or as fast at single threaded tasks as a CPU's core. It's not an exaggeration to say that GPUs"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "434.025",
      "endTime": "441.996",
      "body": "are in high demand today. Gamers covet powerful GPUs because a better GPU means higher game detail,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "442.377",
      "endTime": "447.504",
      "body": "smoother frame rates, and the ability to play at high resolutions or on multiple monitors."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "448.125",
      "endTime": "455.035",
      "body": "But beyond the traditional graphics uses, GPUs have entered the godlike tier because of AI and"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "455.035",
      "endTime": "461.003",
      "body": "machine learning. Because how are you supposed to survive without a fridge that has AI built in"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "461.003",
      "endTime": "466.691",
      "body": "to tell you that you are running low on something? You can't possibly be expected to open the door"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "466.691",
      "endTime": "472.059",
      "body": "and look. Training a modern deep learning model involves doing billions of dollars."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "472.059",
      "endTime": "480.676",
      "body": "of math operations. CPUs can do this, but GPUs do it far faster. This has made GPUs indispensable"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "480.676",
      "endTime": "486.86",
      "body": "for AI research and development, and for companies committed to losing money, never making a profit,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "487.144",
      "endTime": "495.721",
      "body": "and stealing information, also known as open AI. This exploding AI demand, since around late 2022,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "496.288",
      "endTime": "502.006",
      "body": "has led to companies grabbing as many high-end GPUs as they can, often before they even leave"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "502.006",
      "endTime": "508.596",
      "body": "the factory. Another big demand driver a few years ago was cryptocurrency mining. Certain"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "508.596",
      "endTime": "514.516",
      "body": "cryptocurrencies could be mined efficiently with GPUs, and during crypto booms, miners purchased"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "514.516",
      "endTime": "522.444",
      "body": "GPUs in large quantities, causing prices to skyrocket. The mid-1990s saw the rise of the"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "522.444",
      "endTime": "524.532",
      "body": "first 3D graphics cards for PCs."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "524.532",
      "endTime": "531.833",
      "body": "Companies like 3DFX, with its Voodoo cards, and ATI, which is now part of AMD, created"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "531.833",
      "endTime": "537.762",
      "body": "add-in cards that could render 3D graphics much faster than any CPU could, enabling a"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "537.762",
      "endTime": "541.251",
      "body": "new era of PC gaming with smooth 3D visuals."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "541.674",
      "endTime": "546.595",
      "body": "The term GPU itself was popularized in 1999 by NVIDIA."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "547.543",
      "endTime": "554.702",
      "body": "That year, NVIDIA introduced the GeForce 256, marketing it as the world's first graphical"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "554.702",
      "endTime": "555.73",
      "body": "processing unit."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "556.174",
      "endTime": "562.748",
      "body": "Over about two decades, GPUs went from a niche add-on for playing Quake 3 Arena in high detail"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "562.748",
      "endTime": "565.37",
      "body": "to a cornerstone of modern computing."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "566.378",
      "endTime": "573.033",
      "body": "GPUs have truly graduated from being the graphics sidekick of the CPU to driving the future of"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "573.033",
      "endTime": "573.356",
      "body": "tech."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "575.595",
      "endTime": "577.006",
      "body": "In the Shell is written,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "577.006",
      "endTime": "583.83",
      "body": "Researched and recorded by me, the Parallel Processing Podcaster, PPP for short."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "584.864",
      "endTime": "590.224",
      "body": "If you're listening in an app that lets you rate shows, please take a minute to rate this one."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "590.869",
      "endTime": "592.828",
      "body": "I would truly appreciate it."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "593.948",
      "endTime": "597.349",
      "body": "I miss the days when GPUs used to generate graphics."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "598.016",
      "endTime": "600.535",
      "body": "Now, they just generate opinions."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "601.827",
      "endTime": "605.594",
      "body": "That's it. Take care, and I'll see you next time."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "Josh",
      "startTime": "609.296",
      "endTime": "609.985",
      "body": "Thank you."
    }
  ]
}