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  • New Nvidia GPUs, Are they Worth Your Time?

    Hey there fellow Nvidia fans, today I wanted to answer a common question that many new PC builders have, what GPU should I get? In one of my previous posts, I talked about the GPU I own, that being the Geforce RTX 2070 Super. In this post, I discussed statistics of the card and how they perform in practice. I however did not include personal experiences with this card but wanted to do so here. I will then discuss some things to consider about what GPU you should get.

    Image from Engadget

    When it came to deciding the kind of PC that I wanted to build, I knew that I would primarily use it for general uses and gaming. The main issue with this is that a lot of games require strong hardware to run properly. This meant that I need a strong and effective GPU to process graphics effectively. In this situation, I chose the RTX 2070 Super as I felt it was an efficient piece of hardware that would get the job done and still be affordable. The main reason I chose this upgraded rendition was that benchmarking this card against its previous rendition (the 2070) shows that it does outperform it in every category. What is also so amazing is the card is capable of delivering frame rates of about 60 FPS in demanding games like Battlefield 5 and the Witcher 3 at 4K resolution. On top of this factor, I knew I was going to get the CPU, Ryzen 3600X, which would require a fairly substantial GPU to pair with it to avoid bottlenecking. Bottlenecking is one of the most annoying issues when it comes to building a PC as you can be limited on the capabilities of a computer part just because another one isn’t just quite as good. Luckily, with these two parts, bottlenecking can pretty much be completely avoided.

    Image by GeekFlare

    Another major contributing factor to my decision was my budget. This is another major conflict that develops when trying to build a computer. I wanted to spend only about 2000$ on my build, so some cutbacks had to be made. Since the 2070 Super is priced around 499$, which is an excellent price, I knew this was the right choice for me. This left a good amount of room for other parts such as a good monitor, and CPU to pair with this GPU.

    Now to answer another question that a lot of readers may have about GPUs, that being what is the right one for me? To answer this question one must consider what kind of tasks they plan on doing with their computer and their allotted budget. Today I will look at 2 kinds of budgets, that being a 1000$ and 2000$ budget. When it comes to the kind of tasking that can be done there are 4 general categories. 1.) Simple and general use. 2.) Computer coding. 3.) Gaming. 4.) Animation, video production, and rendering. We will take a look at each of these categories to determine how strong of a GPU should be bought with the corresponding budget.

    Section 1 General Use:

    General uses today do not require much PC power. At most these users will just need to use their computer for work or other recreational tasks like video watching. For this kind of build an expensive GPU is not really needed and one could definitely “cheap out” on it (this goes for both budgets). However, one may want to consider a strong CPU as most tasks related to these functions are mostly exclusive to a CPU.

    Section 2 Computer Coding:

    Now unless you plan on coding a video game, most general coding only requires a strong CPU as a GPU is generally not involved in this kind of function. If you plan on just using a computer to code college assignments or for a job that doesn’t connect the coding to some type of rendering, you should be good on saving money on a GPU.

    Image by TechCrunch

    Section 3 Gaming:

    Here is the reasoning most people have for obtaining a strong GPU. When it comes to gaming, most modern games require a good GPU to handle the large amount of graphics that the game requires to run. For the case of the 1000$ budget, I would recommend an older, but still adequate, Nvidia 1080Ti. Or, at most, an Nvidia RTX 2060 if you can find one for cheap. Now if you have a little more money to spend and want to really see those games run at high framerates with good resolution, I would suggest the Nvidia RTX 2070 Super. I personally think this is one of the best market values at the moment as most of the newer models of GPUs are a bit unnecessary in their capabilities. When you are gaming, almost any game you get will have the capacity to run at +60fps on a standard 1920×1080 display. To me, this is enough for my games.

    Image by NBC News

    Section 4 Animation, Video Production, and Rendering:

    This last section is probably not most people’s reason for buying an expensive GPU, but if it is, definitely don’t cheap out here. I personally would not even recommend spending less than 2000$ on a computer that is going to be doing this, especially on a professional level. This is mainly because that almost every part of a computer doing these functions needs to be the best it can possibly be. So I would recommend the newest and most powerful GPU you can find on the market, if possible.

    Image by Cascadeur

  • A Reflection of Writing

    UWP (Introduction to Academic Literacies) was an outstanding class that I had the pleasure of taking during my time at UC Davis. The UWP course is comprised of multiple assignments and activities that all work towards a few guidelines. These of which are, Rhetorical Knowledge development, Processes, Knowledge of Conventions, Research, and Metacognition. Today I want to give an example of all five of these guidelines that I employed and how they helped me better understand reading and writing.

    Image taken from UC Davis Website

    For starters, the first category that I thought I learned the most about was the rhetorical knowledge guideline. Here I was able to learn about understanding and applying key rhetorical concepts like revision, purpose, audience, genre, etc. One immediate assignment that comes to mind here is the Discussion in which we discussed Rhetorical Analysis Practice. Here we were tasked to take a medium like a cartoon and analyze its uses of ethos, pathos, and logos. These three are excellent drivers of purpose. In my case, I used a propaganda poster from the 2nd world war. In this analysis, I was able to discover how the United States employed both pathos and logos in its propaganda. I learned that they use strong emotions of loss to convince their audience to accomplish certain tasks and on top of that they also use logos to drive those points with logic. By completing this assignment, I was able to have a greater understanding of rhetorical knowledge and more specifically rhetorical purpose in writing.

    Image by Wikimedia

    Another category that I would like to discuss is the “process” of writing. This is defined as “reading and composing as recursive, social processes” and “practice reading, researching, and composing as a social process and revise and edit multiple drafts based on feedback from peers and the instructor.” This means that the processes are how we pushed through to make our writing better and our ability to adapt. For this section, the assignment called, “Research Proposal Draft/Peer Review.” In this assignment, we were tasked with developing our first ideas as to what our course research paper was going to be and what types of resources we could use. We were then assigned two peers to review our work and give good criticism on what should be done with our proposal. I wrote about the Team Fortress discourse community and theorized the idea of connecting a Youtuber’s influence to community actions. After receiving criticism from my peers, I was able to better adapt my paper to the given assignment. By completing this action, I was better introduced to the idea of a process in the writing world. This assignment taught me how to better revise my work and apply it better to its unique social situation.

    Image taken from my Canvas page

    The next category to cover is the “knowledge of conventions” guideline. The conventions are a writer’s “expectations of form, language, and format that are shaped by composers, genres, and discourse communities.” Here one assignment stands out the most. This being the “The Boat” discussion. Here we were tasked with reading a simple exert from a novel, and then comparing our initial reactions to the reading with an online variant that had music, sound effects, and images to set a proper tone to the reading. For this assignment, I was able to grasp the idea of conventions. I was able to create an expectation of the language and format used by the composer of this work.

    Image from sbs.com

    Another interesting section that we were able to cover was the Research guideline. This was arguably the most heavily emphasized section of the guidelines in which it is detailed to be, “research to evaluate, analyze, and synthesize prior knowledge on a subject and create new knowledge through primary research.” It also expects students to collect and analyze research. Without a doubt, the best assignment to reference for teaching this guideline is the research paper assignment. Here I wrote about the Team Fortress Two community and wrote about how the “Team Fortress Two discourse community fosters a culture where popular content creators can wield influence with ease so long as they are perceived as entertaining and have a large follower count.” I then gathered multiple secondary sources that I used to better rationalize how a Youtuber was able to generate influence in his discourse community. For example, the Youtuber Uncle Dane saw a surge in people completing a suggestion he had made in the past. I then used a scholarly article to rationalize why this influence occurred. It happened due to both his ability to entertain and the fact that his YouTube account has several hundred thousand followers. Here I was able to learn how to better connect secondary sources to primary source information. This has helped me become an excellent argumentative writer. It also helped me to better learn how to analyze data.

    The last section of guidelines that should be discussed is the Metacognition section. The best example of this guideline being taught is also from the Research paper assignment. After completing the rough draft of my paper, I was given some time to think about the choices I had made for my writing and one particular issue arose. I originally only wanted to argue that influencer follower count is the leading cause for better influence, but this was restricting. I then had to make an executive decision to add another element to this argument. I did some research and quickly found a person’s ability to entertain is a huge factor to influence and immediately added it to my paper. By doing this action I was able to exemplify my learned ability to criticize myself and demonstrate rhetorical awareness of my writing. By choosing to add more elements to my paper I was able to better my metacognition and decision-making.

    Image from spencerauthor

    After completing this course, I think that I have become a better writing student. By mastering these 5 guidelines I will be able to better write future research papers/writing assignments. This class will be an excellent teacher in writing discipline. On top of this, my professor’s decision to let us investigate discourse communities has led me to better understand the rhetorical purpose and how influence is generated in a community. This newfound skill will come in handy to determine how a discourse community works. Now that this class has been completed the greatest strength that I have developed is my ability to analyze. In my opinion, this is the most important category to learn as a future research paper writer. On the other hand, the section that could use the most work is the conventions guideline. This section did not quite click for me, and I need to better understand how to predict language. This is important, as understanding these conventions can better help you understand rhetorical knowledge which allows you to better understand argumentative writing. I will work on this in the future by writing works done by composers I don’t know and getting a better feel for how they write. I will then practice predicting other writing languages they have done. Some key points that I will take away from this class are the idea of ethos, logos, and pathos, the writing process, and how to have better metacognition. By better understanding these points I will be able to succeed better as a writer and a critique. Also, having better metacognition is great for life as it allows you to be the best person you can be. It also assists in your ability to critically think in other UC Davis courses.

  • A History of Nvidia GPUs

    Gif by Tenor

    Nvidia is a leading manufacturer of Graphics Processing Units (GPUs), which are essential components for any modern computer system. The company has had a long history of innovation, and their GPUs have become synonymous with high-performance graphics and parallel computing. Nvidia was founded in 1993 by Jensen Huang, Chris Malachowsky, and Curtis Priem. The company initially focused on producing graphics cards for PC gaming, which were powered by the first-generation GPUs. These early GPUs were limited in their capabilities, and it was not until the release of the GeForce 256 in 1999 that Nvidia began to establish itself as a leader in the GPU market.

    Image by TechPowerUp

    The GeForce 256 was an amazing new product to hit the industry, as it was the first GPU to include hardware support for Transform and Lighting (T&L). This feature allowed the GPU to perform complex mathematical calculations that were previously performed by the CPU, resulting in improved graphics performance. Basically it would attempt to cut the middle man out of certain processes to achieve maximum efficiency.

    Since creating the 256, Nvidia has made major strides in an attempt to create new innovations on each new iteration of GPU. For example, in 2006, Nvidia created the Compute Unified Device Architecture program model. This more commonly known as the CUDA program model. The primary purpose of this invention was to allow developers to write software that can run on Nvidia GPUs for parallel computing tasks. This has opened up a new field of applications for GPUs, including scientific simulations, machine learning, and data analytics. Another amazing innovation that has taken place recently was the development of RTX also known as ray tracing and AI technologies. This technology is tasked with the ability for, “ray tracing, which simulates how light behaves in the real world” in real time. This kind of technology is what separates Nvidia from the rest of the GPU producer pack.

    Gif by GIPHY

    As Time moves on, Nvidia keeps on attempting to push the bounds of what can make a GPU amazing. The company’s commitment to research and development has resulted in significant performance improvements over the almost 30 years past, making its GPUs ideal for a range of applications. These include gaming, scientific simulations, machine learning, and data analytics. With the release of the CUDA technology and the latest RTX 40 series GPUs, Nvidia has once again raised the bar for GPU performance, and it will be interesting to see what the future holds for this exciting technology.

    Image by u/SaberHaven on Reddit to compare the 256 to the newest Geforce 4090

  • Creating Influence Through Follower Count

    In the world of the Team Fortress Two community, there is no shortage of opinions held by the player base. Through it’s time in the video game world many players have tried and tested the limitations of this game in an effort to push it to its limits. In this world, one player and YouTube content creator comes to mind immediately, that being the YouTuber “Uncle Dane.” This specific YouTuber has shared a large number of opinions pertaining to the game over the past few years, and what is quite interesting is how these opinions have been adopted by the majority of the community. Here we will be taking a look at some opinions and what might be the leading cause to how those opinions have been adopted by the majority of the game’s population.

    During Uncle Dane’s blockbuster video, “You and Your Engineer,” Uncle Dane explains how players should assist the engineer class who can build something like teleporters which are described as, “Players who stand on a fully charged Teleporter Entrance are instantly transported to the corresponding Teleporter Exit in a flash of light and team-colored particles,” (Valve, 2022) to better help the team. While talking about the engineer’s teleporter device, Uncle Dane proclaims, “In fact, since I’ve already mentioned this multiple times across many videos over the years, I’ve personally noticed a huge increase in teleporters getting upgraded in casual mode” (Uncle Dane, 2017). He then continues with, “Nowadays I think I see it automatically happening in about four or five games, and it’s awesome” (Uncle Dane, 2017).

    Image from Uncle Dane’s vide You and Your Engineer

    As Uncle Dane states here, he has since seen a massive increase in the number of people participating in assisting the engineer ever since he started talking about it in his videos. Obviously some type of influence must be at play here. In a study done by multiple researchers, they were able to find, “These results place the usual intuition about influencers
    in perspective: individuals who have been influential in the
    past and who have many followers are indeed more likely to
    be influential in the future; however, this intuition is correct only on average” (Bakshy et al., 2011). Here an answer could not be more clear, influencers with more followers and intuitively more views are capable of creating more influence in their communities. This is exactly what we are seeing in the Team Fortress 2 community. An influencer who has a large follower count, in this case 736,000 thousand subscribers and multiple videos with upwards of 3 million views, is able to create a statement/argument and get others to think the same way. Uncle Dane’s actions have obviously had some type of impact on the community that no other random person could have. If someone who had less than 100 followers were to try and create this same type of influence right before Uncle Dane, they would have done so to no avail. While a great argument could have been made by this person, it just will not see itself have actual impact in the community without a large influenceable audience.

    Image from Uncle Dane’s YouTube Channel

    Citations:

    Uncle Dane. (2017, December 17). You & your engineer. YouTube. Retrieved February 23, 2023, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvD3Cxg0Yrs

    Valve. (n.d.). Team Fortress Wiki. Retrieved February 23, 2023, from https://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Main_Page

    Bakshy, E., Hofman, J. M., Mason, W. A., & Watts, D. J. (2011, February 1). Everyone’s an influencer: Quantifying Influence on Twitter. ACM Conferences. Retrieved February 23, 2023, from https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/1935826.1935845

  • A Rhetorical Analysis of “Remove Random Crits From TF2”

    Hey there, today I wanted to bring you a quick documental analysis on the YouTube video “Remove Random Crits From TF2” by Uncle Dane. The first major category that needs to be covered is Content/Authorship. When it comes to what is being communicated in this video it is trying to create an understanding of the function of random critical hits in TF2. For some background, random critical hits, or random “crits,” are a function in the game TF2 in which whenever someone fires/uses a weapon, it has a small chance to do 3 times the normal amount of damage. The main author is a veteran TF2 player and content creator known as Uncle Dane who has been a part of the community for about 10 years now. The main reason that Uncle Dane had for creating the video was in the community there has been much debate to if the random crit function has any place in TF2 and Uncle Dane wanted to provide his own input.

    When it comes to imagery and symbols in this video Uncle Dane primarily uses data charts and gameplay imagery. The main idea behind this usage is to illustrate his own arguments against random crits. For example, during the first 2 minutes of the video, Uncle Dane provides multiple images of players discussing their opinions about the gameplay function itself and even provides two separate polls with the communities opinion. The primary function of this image is to convey the fact that at the time, the community was fairly divided on the topic. Both of the polls showed near dead even 50-50 splits on if random crits were enjoyable or not. Another interesting image that Uncle Dane uses is a picture of one of the game’s characters known as Scout. The main function of this photo is to represent Uncle Dane’s “Devils Advocate” for his arguments. Basically it will represent the opposing sides opinion about the topic so that he can create a retort of that opinion. One last image that is used is the %chance to hit a random critical hit chart that Uncle Dane uses. The main function of this image is to simply represent factual information on how the random crit function works. The general idea the graph shows is that the more damage you have done recently causes the % chance of a random crit happening.

    Another key topic that must be discussed in the video is the Audience and Purpose. When it comes to the audience Uncle Dane is obviously addressing the TF2 community as a whole. This is evident as the video discusses a gameplay function that is only found in the game TF2. On top of that, Uncle Dane’s argument is centered around the games balancing as a whole, meaning this video is for everyone in the community. Along with this audience, Uncle Dane has one clear reason for creating this document. The game function of random crits in his opinion should not be present in this game.

    The next topic is Form and Tone. Uncle Dane’s video is set up in a interesting way. Instead of a standard argumentative paper format of writing about your arguments and then retorting the opposing side, Uncle Dane’s entire video is centered around retorting the opposing side. He goes through each individual argument one step at a time and picks apart each argument to show why it’s logic is not sound. This provides the viewer with a fair representation of the other side, while understanding Uncle Dane’s prospective on these arguments. Now when it comes to tone, Uncle Dane does his best to create an analytical tone that is free of a condescending or biased voice. He does this by talking about more statistical data, and moves away from more emotional storytelling methods.

    Now comes the main appeals (ethos, pathos, and logos) of the video. Throughout Uncle Dane’s video 2 appeals are used to some extent; however, logos is without a doubt the most used appeal. Logos is used throughout this video with the usage of raw data, logistical explanations, and interestingly another videogame allegory. The main usage of these is to formulate Uncle Danes main argument behind the random crit debate. Uncle Dane uses raw data and logical explanations to explain why random crits are dangerous to the environment of the game. On top of this, Uncle Dane also uses an allegory to another videogame known as Pokémon to explain his points. Here he uses the standard turn based Pokémon gameplay style to represent a single 5 second TF2 engagement between two enemies. The main point illustrated here is to point out how without random crits, two enemies can be educated on how to play the game better by having this engagement. However, with random crits the entire engagement can be ended with one lucky click of the button completely diminishing the value of the engagement. Another appeal that Uncle Dane uses is the Ethos appeal. This is primarily represented with Uncle Dane representing how long he has played the game, and the ability to influence an original voice actor from the game to help him create the video. The main function of these two actions help provide Uncle Dane with credibility. In a videogame environment, you would trust an experts opinion more than just some random person you met. By having these two things Uncle Dane helps present himself as a reliable/valid opinion holder. The last appeal pathos is not used in his video. This is mainly done so that his argument remains unbiased and to the largest extent logical. This step is taken so that the audience understands that Uncle Dane is acting completely unbiased in this situation and is being a reliable narrator. In this type of situation, emotional argumentation is not looked highly upon as this is not an emotional argument. This is an argument that requires logical reasoning and factual data.

    Based on this video and the comments left under it, it is clear to say that the community agrees with Uncle Dane’s opinion. Without a doubt, this community strives for the most fair game environment possible, and something like random crits goes against this idea. The community clearly values statistical reasoning over emotional as the majority of viewers agreed with the logical argument side over the side that had mostly emotional based arguments. Overall, Uncle Dane’s video was truly masterful in explaining his argument for the game function and is an excellent example of rebuttal based arguments.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHvwijT2ss8&t=147s&ab_channel=UncleDane

    Citation:

    “Remove Random Crits from TF2.” YouTube, YouTube, 21 July 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHvwijT2ss8&t=147s&ab_channel=UncleDane.

  • A Critique of the GeForce RTX 2070 Super

    Hey there, good to see you all again. Today I wanted to talk to you all about the GeForce RTX 2070 Super GPU Nvidia product. For those of you who don’t know, the 2070 Super GPU is a Graphics Processing Unit for a computer in which it is tasked with rendering video and 3-dimensional graphics.

    Image from Engadget

    Originally the 2070 Super was released in July of 2019 and was a part of the company’s “RTX” 20-series of cards. These types of cards are specially designed to provide an excellent amount of performance for any task including gaming, rendering, work, etc. The Super variation means that this type of GPU is a revitalized version of the first iteration of the 2070, with some improved capabilities.

    The 2070 Super has a base clock speed of 1605 MHz, base clock meaning the guaranteed minimum clock speed that you’ll see when you load a game or GPU-accelerated application. This increased clock speed, combined with its 8GB of GDDR6 memory, results in a substantial improvement in graphics performance. The card also supports real-time ray tracing (RTX), which is a new cutting-edge technology that provides more realistic lighting and shadows in games. The 2070 Super also supports Nvidia’s Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) technology, which uses artificial intelligence to upscale images to improve performance in games without sacrificing the quality.

    Image from TechPowerUp

    When it comes to the look of the 2070 Super, it is quite the looker! The standard rendition has a beautiful slick silver cover with dark black fans of the top. A great addition of the fans is that they have superior cooling capabilities while the fans stay silent. On top of this, the card can also be programmed to Red-Green-Blue (RGB) lighting. Lastly, the 2070 Super comes with Nvidia’s GeForce Experience software, which allows you to easily optimize settings for different games, as well as keep your drivers up-to-date.

    Now when it comes to the performance of this card, it truly does live up to industry standards! Benchmarking this card against its previous rendition (the 2070) shows that it does in fact outperform it in every category. What is also so amazing is the card is capable of delivering frame rates of about 60 FPS in demanding games like Battlefield 5 and the Witcher 3 at 4K resolution.

    With all of these amazing upsides, you must be wondering, what are the downsides? Luckily, there is only one, but it is quite a large one and it has to be its pricing/availability. Currently, the pricing for a 2070 Super at standard prices is about 499$. On top of this, there is currently a GPU shortage which is due in part to the sudden boost in interest to crypto currency mining. Now while the pricing may seem like a lot, it is important to mention that compared to other GPUs this is actually quite affordable. On top of that, you also still get excellent performance from you card. In conclusion, the 2070 supper is an excellent consumer friendly product that I highly recommend to anyone interested in building a new computer for high end graphics capabilities.

    Image by nasdaq.com

  • Computer Building Community

    Hey there! Today I wanted to talk to you all about the PC building discourse communities. The two main ones that I want to highlight today are two that basically belong together when considering one specific community itself. These are the r/buildapc and r/battlestations subreddits which are critically managed by experienced pc builders alike. So for starters, who are the majority of people in these groups in the first place. We would first have to consider who actually holds an interest in modern computer building. When looking this information up, the answer is not quite clear. The answers given are those who hold an actual workplace position as a builder. In an article created by Zippia they tell us that the majority of builders make up ~80% men. Other numbers like age and race seem to vary to a large degree. For the sake of simplicity, these numbers will be relatively assumed to fall in line with the subreddit here.

    Image of the r/buildapc subreddit

    So now, what are the main goals or values of this community? The primary goals here are to discuss how to build computers, how to modify them, ask building questions, and to show their computers off to other enthusiasts. The main reason that many of these people share these goals is because they all share one main one of building a computer effectively and to expand on their computer knowledge. In the case of the r/buildapc subreddit, this is where people initially go to ask questions on what they should do. This area also tries its best to assist others in their questions. For example, in this post a newer builder was asking what the difference is between 6 and 6e wifi on a motherboard are and if they are effective. Another user responded and could be found as the most popular response. In this environment people try to help one another and help one another grow their knowledge. Now in the r/battlestations world, that goal is slightly altered. With the remaining goal of expanding upon their computer knowledge, here people post their completed computer builds, a monument of their knowledge and achievement.

    Image found on r/battlestations from u/ttthefineprinttt

    Now how does one enter the group? Well to be honest it can be quite simple, and that is mainly due to the generosity of the moderators of these groups. For instance, on the r/buildapc subreddit, they have an entire pinned post that leads to simple questions that you can follow. This section allows you to quickly ask any questions you don’t want to make an entire post for. But for those who want to get into the meat of the world of computer building and more specifically this community, there is the resources tab. Here, any newcomer can familiarize themselves with this new whimsical world of technology. r/battlestations does not have this type of newcomer welcoming as it is expected that most of the users are in fact knowledgeable before they visited.

    The resources tab on the r/buildapc subreddid

    Now in these sense of critically analyzing and writing about a place like this, this may come as a bit of a challenge. First of all, there may not be much to write about here. At surface level, this place is an area that people come to talk about a simple interest and become more developed in their knowledge of that interest. At a deeper level, that is still what this community is. So, dissecting and analyzing it would be quite limiting in the long run. Another issue that may arise is the ability to reference to article material in this field. There is not much information on the topics of building computers. Lastly, this topic may not provide much interest too many readers.

  • The Evolving Art of Home Computer Building

    Hey there, today I wanted to bring you information on the community of at home personal computer building. This is an ever changing topic in the computer world as new computer parts are being developed every day in order to fit some type of niche function of the builder. At home computer building has technically existed as early as 1965, but did not receive much major attention until the turn of the century. I still remember the computer my father built around the time I was born in 2002. He used some of the best technology of that time which by todays standards would be laughable. From this time period, the craze only got bigger.

    Immage by Steemit

    Companies like Nvidia, AMD, and Intel started working extremely hard to mass produce more and more pieces of technology while improving them via specific means. Two major groups then started to form that these companies began to target with their products, the videogame fans and video/entertainment production people. When it came to videogames and their ever evolving ability to look more amazing by the day, came the demand for better hardware. This required constant updates to your own computer’s parts. With the video/entertainment group this demand required the same changes. Below is an example of some graphical advancements for the past two decades.

    Image by Techspot

    With the evolving need for better computer parts in order to handle more intense projects, people had to start replacing their computer parts. Now in order to get customized builds of computers made, this requires a lot of manual labor and knowledge, so people in the early days of home computers would mostly just by pre-built designs. The problem was that many of these computers did not always have the best parts that you may have specifically wanted and in a lot of cases were much too overpriced. So in response, many people started to figure out how to build them themselves. This is where the computer building community was founded. People started to band online discussing what parts were best for what processes and did their best in explaining how to actually build the computers properly. People then started uploading videos on YouTube on the tedious process of building a home computer from scratch, but simplified it so that almost anyone could follow along. A great example of a video that I used is from a user called Bitwit. In this video he does an amazing job in explaining every little step in the process of building most computers.

    Video by Bitwit

    With this ever evolving industry a lot of interesting perspectives on what are the best parts and brands for computers began to rise. This mainly stemmed from people having different tastes and different goals with their computer’s functions. People also have to consider their budget options as well to make their computers. Here’s a great guide on that below.

    Image from Pinterest, originated from Behance

    Some serious groups that emerged were some discourse groups that back up certain companies computer products. For example there were reddit groups dedicated to AMD’s products. They mostly post about new updates with software and hardware. They also discuss their opinions about AMD products and how they compare with other tech companies. Another example is of the Nvidia reddit group which does the same as the AMD group but for Nvidia products. Interestingly despite product overlap, these groups tend to have a similar overlap in userbase.

  • Home Computer Technology

    Hello there again, my name is Luc Wilson and today I want to discuss another topic that I think I am going to make the high focus of my blog. Today I want to discuss with you about the amazing world of home computer technology. I first want to make it clear that I am in no way an expert on this topic, but a big enjoyer of the subject matter. So in order for me to start talking about this subject, we first need to cover a short history lesson of how computers came to be in our own homes. Currently, there are roughly 5 generations of computers in the history of mankind. The first generation lasted in the 40s and 50s in which the first steps were being taken in production of building a computer. What’s quite interesting is that in this era actual punch cards of coding were required to communicate with a computer.

    Photo from Computerhistory.com

    The next generation which continued in the 50s and till the early 60s was primarily identified by making computer smaller, faster, and stronger through technological advancements. These advancements primarily centered around actual physical changes to the computers. The third generation then continued through the 60s and until 1971. Here the main advancement was the implementation of a device known as an integrated circuit. These allowed the computers to once again minimize in size and ability. What’s also amazing is this little advancement greatly reduced the cost of computers as a whole. The fourth generation then lasted from the 70s and ended in 1980. This is when many coding languages we know today began to be highly utilized across multiple computers. These are coding languages like Java and C. Lastly, we come to the fifth generation. These computers have been around since the 80s and upgraded till today. This is the generation that I will mostly focus on in my blogging page as I find it the most interesting one.

    Throughout the world of computers there are a countless number of communities that have arisen. Some of these include, the computer building communities, computer customization communities (for example the mechanical keyboard communities), software fans/groups, coding students, etc. For this blog I will focus on these 4 primary sections of computer building, customization, software, and coding.

    Image by Tom’s Guide

    Computer building. This is usually the first step into the personalized computing world for many people. With the help of many Youtubers like Linus Tech Tips, and many sites that help you build PCs like PC part picker, this task has never been easier. On top of that, the challenge is quite fun! Many people who participate in this type of community are people just like you and me. They are just your everyday computer user who wants to build their own customized computer. By customizing your computer you can better optimize it for what function you want it to complete. For example, many people who enjoy videogames will focus on getting a computer with a better graphics card and CPU to better handle videogames. Another example could be people who want to animate will need a supper powerful CPU for processing.

    The next section for computers is the aesthetic of their looks. This is for more experienced users who use their computers a lot more frequently than most. One example of this is the mechanical keyboard community. This is an entire group dedicated to the idea of customizing just their keyboards for their computers. This at a surface level sounds like there would be hardly anything to customize; however, this is not true. There is a near infinite amount of ways that these groups have come up with to customize their keyboards even down to the way the button sounds when you click it.

    Image by NewEgg

    Another section for computers that I personally find quite interesting is the software. This section of computers also has some communities surrounding it, but not nearly as large as the two previously mentioned sections. This section primarily looks at the advancements of computer software and how to use them effectively. One very interesting example to me is the recent surge in AI. One of which is known as open AI in which it uses a database to try and answer any question you can think of. Do you have a couple of things in your fridge, but have no idea on what you want to cook? Simply type in the ingredients and ask for a recipe and the AI can figure one out for you.

    The last section is the coding community. This one builds off of the software group, but is relates more to the core of these software. For this blog page, I will mostly focus on talking about the coding behind videogames as I personally find this more interesting. I think that talking about videogame coding is also easier for most people who are not invested into the topic to better understand coding.

    Image by ComputerScienceDegreeHub

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