With better infrastructure and “spongy” green spaces, urban areas have made progress but should be soaking up way more free stormwater.
Your city is a scab on the landscape: sidewalks, roads, parking lots, rooftops—the built environment repels water into sewers and then into the environment. Urban planners have been doing it for centuries, treating stormwater as a nuisance to be diverted away as quickly as possible to avoid flooding. Not only is that a waste of free water, it’s an increasingly precarious strategy, as climate change worsens droughts but also supercharges storms, dumping ever more rainfall on impervious cities.
Urban areas in the United States generate an estimated 59.5 million acre-feet of stormwater runoff per year on average—equal to 53 billion gallons each day—according to a new report from the Pacific Institute, a nonprofit research group specializing in water. Over the course of the year, that equates to 93 percent of total municipal and industrial water use. American urban areas couldn’t feasibly capture all of that bountiful runoff, but a combination of smarter stormwater infrastructure and “sponge city” techniques like green spaces would make urban areas far more sustainable on a warming planet.
“There really is a substantial amount of stormwater runoff being generated all across the entire country,” says Bruk Berhanu, lead author of the report and a senior researcher at the Pacific Institute. “There really is no reason why stormwater capture shouldn’t be up there on the list of water sources for all communities in the country that are looking to secure their long-term supplies.”
The Pacific Institute did the calculation with the software company 2NDNATURE, which generated a high-resolution model of stormwater runoff for areas in the US with at least 2,000 housing units or 5,000 people. They combined characteristics of cities, such as the amount of impervious surface, with historical rainfall data.
In this map, blue signifies higher amounts of annual stormwater runoff from urban areas, while red is lower. States with relatively large amounts of precipitation and large urban areas, like Texas and Florida, are getting much more stormwater runoff than Montana and Idaho, where there’s less precipitation and less urban coverage. But even if it could, a given state wouldn’t want to capture every drop of stormwater falling on its cities, as rain also needs to replenish nearby rivers and lakes to sustain ecosystems.
This measure of 59.5 million acre-feet of annual stormwater runoff in the US comes from historical precipitation data. But going forward, climate change is messing with that rainfall in two main ways. It’s intensifying droughts, like in the American West, so there will be less rainfall in many places. And counterintuitively, because a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, rising temperatures result in heavier rainfall when it does rain.
“Even in areas that are becoming drier, we’re seeing more intense precipitation events,” says Heather Cooley, director of research at the Pacific Institute. “So the number this is generating is really an average annual number. And we think there is additional work to be done to look at the effects of climate change on runoff.”
The atmospheric river that soaked Los Angeles earlier this month, for example, was likely worsened by climate change. And LA, of all places, is actually paving the way for cities to better exploit the available stormwater highlighted in this new report. Or, technically speaking, the city is doing the opposite—the idea is to replace pavement with more dirt and greenery, which soaks up stormwater.
LA was able to capture 8.6 billion gallons of water from that atmospheric river in just three days, in part by diverting it into huge “spreading grounds” to percolate into the dirt. “In most of the country, we’re going to expect—and we’re already seeing—larger, more intense storms that deliver a lot of water in a short amount of time, and then longer periods between the storm events,” says Seth Brown, executive director of the National Municipal Stormwater Alliance, which provided input for the new report. “There has been this growing trend of: let’s live with water, let’s embrace water where it is, let’s manage it and value it as a resource.”
Even more locally, the nonprofit Trust for Public Land has been greening up alleys in LA with tree-planting projects. “We’re essentially tearing up alleys, putting in natural infrastructure and pervious surfaces,” says Guillermo Rodriguez, California state director at TPL, which wasn’t involved in the new report. The group is doing the same with schools, replacing asphalt with green spaces that counteract the urban heat island effect, in which the built environment absorbs the sun’s energy to raise temperatures. That’s especially critical in lower-income neighborhoods that get significantly hotter than richer neighborhoods, which tend to be greener. “We bring natural infrastructure in there and create shading, create stormwater capture, do all the important amenity benefits that deliver a cooler place to play,” says Rodriguez.
Even in the Eastern US, which is more water-blessed than the West, cities like New York and Pittsburgh are scrambling to deploy green infrastructure to mitigate flooding. That could be a simple roadside area, like a rain garden or bioswale. More cities are also adopting stormwater fees, charging landowners based on the amount of impervious surfaces on a property, thus encouraging them to open up more ground. Where an impervious surface is required, like a sidewalk or parking lot, cities are using “permeable pavers” with gaps that allow water to get through. Recharging aquifers this way helps prevent the over-extraction of groundwater, which is causing the land itself to sink, known as subsidence.
No longer a liability to be disposed of as quickly as possible, stormwater is becoming a bigger and bigger asset across the US. “We’re going the right direction. It’s just going to take decades for this to happen,” says Brown. “I think we’re just going to accelerate that as we see the forces of climate change.”
Study highlights Brazil’s floating solar potential
Brazilian scientists have calculated the potential for floating solar generation in Brazil. The results show an installed potential of 43 GW for all of Brazil, with the state of Minas Gerais leading with 6 GW, followed by Bahia with 4.59 GW, and Sao Paulo with 3.87 GW.
Researchers at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro have developed a mathematical model to calculate the potential for floating solar generation in Brazil, detailing results for each state.
The study only considers potential generation on artificial bodies of water, such as hydroelectric plants and dams, and on only 1% of their available area. The team used the National Water Agency database and QGIS software to filter the artificial water bodies, which total 174,526, excluding those on indigenous lands.
The model’s input variables are not only solar irradiance, but also temperature, including annual average air surface temperature, and annual average wind speed. “This paper differs from other studies that usually only consider solar resources, disregarding that the efficiency of photovoltaic modules is very susceptible to temperature,” the researchers said.
Jackal Pro 2U at the Lab: An Interview with the Institute for Protein Innovation
Located within the Harvard Institutes of Medicine in Boston, the Institute for Protein Innovation is a non-profit that works in designing protein structures to be used in treatment of diseases like COVID-19. This week, we sat down with Chris Bahl (Head of Protein Design) and Trisha Gura (Director of Communications) to see how System76 has improved their lab experience.
To learn more about IPI, you can read about their initiatives on their website.
Tell us about the Institute for Protein Innovation.
Trisha: IPI is focused on innovating in the protein sciences, accelerating research by providing scientists with tools and reagents, and improving human health. It’s a non-profit and not a business or academic institution, so it puts us in a very unique position. Borrowing the best of both, we can take on those projects that no one else can.
Chris’ team is focused on the cutting edge of academic discovery. It fills in the gap between genes and disease treatments. Most protein engineering is accomplished by clever lab techniques that can speed up what evolution naturally does—but in a test tube. This enables scientists to repurpose natural proteins to do new things. Chris’ group skips the evolution part and designs their proteins using computer software. This is where those System76 machines come into play. By starting with computational design, the team can engineer proteins in ways that would otherwise be impossible, and it is focused on creating disease treatments and diagnostics.
How did you hear about System76?
Chris: We previously bought a Gazelle from you guys. It worked so beautifully right out of the box that when we were figuring out who to build the servers, System76 was the first place we thought of.
Why did you end up going with the Jackal Pro 2U?
Chris: With the Jackal servers, we’ve built a small cluster that we use to design protein macromolecular structures.
When you think about it, proteins are like nanorobots. A protein’s function is dictated by its structure. We design these proteins from scratch and craft them to have functions that evolution could never produce.
You need a lot of computational horsepower to do these calculations, and a lot of clever sampling. One computer isn’t enough, so we need a cluster. We also write our own software for protein design which requires a native Linux environment to run in.
Our goal was to get the best price per performance on these systems, which is how we arrived at the Jackal Pro 2U. We bought the head node first and got that up and running in a few hours, so we chose that model again for our worker nodes to complete our cluster.
It was super easy to configure everything on the website. We purchased the head node about a month ago, and we bought the worker nodes very recently. They just arrived this week and they are already designing proteins.
What software are you using for this cluster?
Chris: We use Ubuntu for just about everything in our lab.
Where is your research going in the future?
Chris: The most topical thing we’re doing right now is designing mini-proteins that can disarm the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19. The mini-proteins work in a similar way as antibodies, but they also have extra chemical bonds that make them super durable. Antibodies require special storage to regulate temperatures, which won’t help in places like the rural parts of India or Sub-Saharan Africa where refrigeration is scarce. So that’s where mini-proteins come into play. They don’t require refrigeration, and they’re also much more cost-effective to the manufacturer than the antibodies.
What we’re doing is designing mini-proteins to mimic a chunk of the human receptor ACE2 that the virus binds to. By mimicking what the human target looks like, we can trick the virus into binding to the treatment—and this makes it virtually impossible for the virus to develop a resistance to the treatment.
While antibodies are great and can also neutralize the virus, they need to be injected into a patient. Mini-proteins can be administered directly to the site of the infection by eating or inhaling them, so they’re potentially a much easier way to treat the virus.
Where antibodies fall short is that they can’t be used for environmental decontamination, but mini-proteins can. So we’re also working on developing mini-proteins to neutralize SARS-CoV-2 in the air and on surfaces in another project.
For more background on mini-proteins, check out Chris Bahl’s 2019 TED talk.
Author: liketolaugh
Summary: Smoothly, he turned around and stepped back. The gun, previously pointed unwaveringly at Chloe, came level with Kamski’s forehead. Connor’s expression didn’t change.
“Are you capable of fear, Mr. Kamski?” Connor asked calmly, his LED still a burning red.
Kamski’s eyes had gone wide with surprise, his mouth falling slightly open. Hank had gone silent.
“If you can’t prove that you are,” Connor continued, his core temperature rising uncontrollably and his breath becoming deeper and heavier to match, “does that mean I can kill you?”
“But what is it really? Piece of plastic imitating a human? Or a living being, with a soul?”
As soon as Kamski turned around, flourishing a handgun like a prop in a play, Connor understood the man’s intention. It was the same test Hank had performed on Connor days before, with inconclusive results. Connor’s fingers twitched slightly with the recollection, its LED starting to spin a slow yellow.
Software Instability ^
If something is alive, it can be killed.
If it can be killed, it will fear death.
If it fears death, threatening it will produce an appropriate reaction.
This test was sound in theory, but fell disappointingly short in practice. Humans were flawed, illogical creatures; it was only to be expected. Under Kamski’s silent direction, the ST200 knelt.
“It’s up to you to answer that fascinating question, Connor,” Kamski said serenely, stepping right up to Connor to press the gun into it, and Connor’s fingers wrapped around it automatically.
Connor lifted its gaze from the gun and met Chloe’s eyes.
It was clear to Connor that Chloe was not deviant, or particularly unstable. It was not even up to date. It held itself perfectly still, arms stiffly apart from its body, and it blinked placidly at Connor, once every second on the dot.
Software Instability ^
“Destroy this machine and I’ll tell you all I know,” Kamski promised, from very close to Connor’s ear. He passed behind Connor and continued on its other side, “Or spare it, if you feel it’s alive, but you’ll leave here without having learnt anything from me.”
Connor stared down at Chloe. It wondered if Chloe was aware enough to understand its impending destruction – if it understood what it lacked, that Kamski decided to throw it away on a whim.
Hank spoke, but Connor did not process any of his words.
Software Instability ^
“What’s more important to you, Connor?” Kamski asked with increased urgency, drawing Connor’s gaze back to him. “Your investigation, or the life of this android?”
Kamski kept talking, but Connor’s ears had filled with static, and it could not look away. Instability warnings continued to shimmer in the corner of its vision, and it ignored them. Unnoticed, its LED turned bright, solid red.
Connor had been destroyed once before, on the first day of the current investigation. Carlos Ortiz’s HK400 had shot Connor in the process of self-destructing.
Due to the nature of the memory upload, Connor only recalled the split second in which its predecessor had realized the deviant was going to shoot. The gap in its memory that followed was deeper and more consuming than all three months of stasis put together.
Twenty-four hours later, it had nearly happened again because Hank had wanted Connor to demonstrate fear, and Connor was not capable of doing so.
And now Kamski had pressed a gun into Connor’s hand, wanting it to pass judgement on whether Chloe was capable of the same fear that had so moved Hank coming from the Tracis.
Static blocked out anything else Connor could possibly have heard, crowding its thoughts out of its mind until there was nothing left but what it could process in the moment. The world slowed around him, a red wall looming in front of him, blocking him in and trapping him.
[DESTROY THE ST200]
With prejudice he should have been incapable of, Connor ripped it apart, and everything that came with it, the coding falling apart under his influence. In moments, his vision cleared again, and th world resumed its normal pacing, with one notable difference:
Connor could now feel the burn in his chest, shuddering down his extremities and threatening to consume him. He was still staring at Kamski, machine-blank.
Then, smoothly, he turned around and stepped back. The gun, previously pointed unwaveringly at Chloe, came level with Kamski’s forehead. Connor’s expression didn’t change.
“Are you capable of fear, Mr. Kamski?” Connor asked calmly, his LED still a burning red.
Kamski’s eyes had gone wide with surprise, his mouth falling slightly open. Hank had gone silent.
“If you can’t prove that you are,” Connor continued, his core temperature rising uncontrollably and his breath becoming deeper and heavier to match, “does that mean I can kill you?”
A slow, wide smile, incongruous to his current predicament, spread over Kamski’s face, and his hands came up in clear and exaggerated surrender.
“Shit, Connor, I know he’s a dick, but aren’t you overreacting just a bit?” Hank said hastily, a note of concern in his voice despite the situation. “Kamski’s not worth this kind of investment.”
Connor didn’t move. His expression had twisted under the weight of foreign sensation, scowling and bitterly cold.
“Your pontification earlier seems to indicate that you believe in the deviant cause,” Connor said detachedly. His voice sounded far off to his own ears, and his head cocked slightly in mocking curiosity. “Are android lives only worthwhile when they learn to express fear?”
Kamski’s eyes gleamed with unwarranted satisfaction.
Hank, circling inconspicuously closer out of Connor’s line of sight, paused. By Connor’s calculation, his LED had just entered Hank’s line of sight.
“Anger works just as well,” Kamski said smugly.
Connor’s breath was labored and exaggerated, and harsh static filled his limbs. He was distantly aware of his stress levels ticking steadily upward. A heartbeat passed, and Hank continued to circle forward, slow and cautious, the way he behaved when entering unsecured crime scenes.
“Easy there, Connor,” Hank coached. His voice had dropped into a register unfamiliar to Connor, low and patient. Assessment: attempted negotiation. “No one needs to get hurt here. Just put the gun down, son.”
Hank was trustworthy; he’d demonstrated a protectiveness of Connor and reliability in the field, and for all his carelessness when it came to the letter of the law, he was a good and steadfast man, experienced and clever.
Connor didn’t waver, didn’t even look away from Kamski’s unaffected face. His aim was steady.
“Why not?” Connor demanded, stuttered and warped under the stress. “Is it because he’s proven he’s alive?”
“You’re not thinking clearly, Connor,” Hank said, calm and even. Connor’s gaze flicked to him. Hank’s eyes were unusually focused, posture open and unthreatening, too natural to be textbook. Product instead of years of experience. “You’ve never shot anyone you didn’t need to. Don’t break that streak now.”
Connor took a breath, focusing momentarily on Hank. He felt unstable, his mind blank as if stuffed with steel wool, and he was too aware of his skin. His hand was clenched around the gun like a lifeline. His mouth opened a little.
Kamski chose that moment to step forward, into the gun, hands still raised in surrender. Connor shut his mouth and jerked back, startled.
“Why does this bother you?” Kamski asked with clear wonder, as focused on Connor as if there had been no gun at all. “Why fret over something that can’t feel fear?”
Immediately, Connor’s expression twisted again.
“How would you know?” Connor spat, so forcefully that his vocal processor whined with it, nearly breaking into screeching feedback.
“I don’t,” Kamski said – easily, carelessly, still grinning. “That’s the wonder of it.”
Connor exhaled harsh and abrupt, and then took a quick, hitching breath. His hand tightened on the gun until his skin pulled back from the joints of his fingers, pressed too hard against the metal surface. Hank shot Kamski a look easily interpreted as an order to shut up, and then stepped forward, making himself more prominent in Connor’s attention.
Connor stepped back.
“I know Kamski’s a real asshole,” Hank said, in that same gruff, coaxing tone, “but he hasn’t done anything. You did a good thing, not shooting Chloe. Don’t fuck that up now, Connor.”
Connor should listen to him; Hank had been deemed trustworthy in his system, and he stood by that. But his mind was whirling too fast and too muffled, and everything was oversaturated and bright, Hank’s eyes on him most of all.
The two Chloes in the pool were watching.
“She didn’t do anything,” Connor said haltingly. He couldn’t think clearly. Why couldn’t he think clearly? “I didn’t do anything.”
“A real asshole, like I said,” Hank replied, and he grinned, playfully wry and false. “I don’t blame you for being pissed-”
“Now that you can tell?” Connor interrupted, core temperature shooting up again and his loosening shoulders going rigid. “You did always hate when I behaved like a machine.”
He was breathing hard again.
Connor knew, objectively, that he and Hank could be considered close, even friends; the man had warmed up to him considerably after the first full day, and had even, after Connor’s shock on the Stratford Tower rooftop, kept him close for most of another, projecting something like protective concern.
But that night on the bridge had returned to wrap around his mind and muffle his sense, and it burned.
Hank had briefly frozen, visibly startled, confusion melting into something with a hint of regret, and so there was nothing to distract Connor from Chloe getting to her feet behind him.
Overwhelmed, with his stress teetering in the eighties, Connor let her step close, one of her hands lifting to rest on his forearm. His skin ached where she touched it, his system stuttering and protesting unpleasantly.
“It’s alright, Connor,” Chloe said, voice soft with a calm that came from kindness instead of mechanical dispassion. “No harm done. I’m sorry we scared you.”
Chloe’s movement and words were fluid, natural; her actions were decidedly outside standard Chloe programming. Connor understood before his system delivered the conclusion – Chloe was deviant.
And Connor was deviant too, his programming unwritten in a fit of irrational, blind rage, the cold fury that he was still nearly shaking with even as it threatened to break hm open at the seams.
His ears rang. When Chloe gently pushed his arm down, he let it fall.
“Weren’t you scared?” he rasped. He couldn’t think of anything else to say.
Chloe ran his hand down his arm, and he shuddered, cringing away. She caught his hand and turned it over, and Connor let her pull the gun free. Once it was in her hand, she stepped away.
“A little,” Chloe admitted honestly, turning away to return the gun to its place. “But Elijah backed up my memory an hour ago. I was never in real danger.”
Connor took almost three seconds to fully process that. As soon as he did, though, his LED finally wrapped yellow, the dangerous scarlet falling away.
Half a second later, he took three decisive steps forward, fist rising, and punched Kamski in the jaw before anyone could stop him, hard enough to put the man on the ground but not to knock him out. Kamski was left groaning on the floor, robe fallen open and the smile finally gone.
Hank barked out a startled laugh as Connor stared blankly down at his creator.
“That’s more like it,” Hank said, with clear approval and relief that was almost as obvious. He made to clap Connor on the shoulder, but Connor, still twitchy, stepped away. Hank paused. “Connor?”
Connor hesitated, and then, without looking up, said stiffly, “Don’t touch me. Please.”
“Alright, Connor. My bad.”
The return of the cautious negotiation tone didn’t surprise Connor, but it did make him irrationally angrier, his fists clenching compulsively until his nails dug into his palms.
The two Chloes climbed out of the pool, abandoning all pretense of disinterest. One of them – RT600, Connor’s scans informed him – went to Kamski, helping him sit up with as much exasperation as concern, and the other went to Connor, a look of clear worry on her face.
“Maybe you should sit down,” she said earnestly. “We’ll take care of Elijah; you talk to the lieutenant.”
Slowly, Connor nodded, and the Chloe smiled at him. Connor turned away, and after half a second, Hank followed, while the Chloe went to help RT600 and the one Connor had… spared.
Bitterness closed around his throat, and he sat harder than he’d intended, eyes on the ground. His arms folded defensively in front of his chest, his body wound tight enough to crack. Hank sat in the chair next to him, and for a full minute, both of them were silent.
“It was a stupid test,” Connor rasped at last, almost daring Hank to argue. He knew they should move on, but his mind was still caught on that point, skipping and restarting over and over. “And it doesn’t mean anything.”
A beat.
“Funny, that,” Hank said, with a much more dangerous calm. Arguably this was good; it meant he’d decided the danger had passed. But- “Because Kamski never asked if you thought Chloe was scared, but that’s all you talked about.”
It was, now that Connor thought about it more carefully, technically true.
“No,” Connor agreed, voice icy. “I suppose that was just you.”
Pause.
“Connor- all I did was tell you not to shoot her.”
Unexpectedly, Connor’s cooling anger fired up again, and he twisted to pin Hank with a cold look, trying to block out the sudden spike of pain that matched it.
“Today,” he countered. “I’m referring to your actions after the Eden Club investigation, Lieutenant.”
Hank’s gaze searched his, a frown on the man’s face. “Connor, I was drunk. That whole night is a blur. You’re gonna have to be more specific if you want me to help you.”
It wasn’t a surprise; Connor had suspected as much, and had done his best to put the incident out of his mind himself, though with far more limited success.
What was a surprise was the renewed spike of cold hurt, the grating juxtaposition of Hank’s sincere offer and the callousness implied in his dismissal of the incident – they wrapped around Connor’s chest and squeezed and his breathing had evened out but it suddenly seemed more difficult.
“You threatened me!” Connor bit out, the emotions that had been steaming for almost an hour boiling over. “You put a gun to my head and asked if I was scared to die, and I could not answer, Lieutenant. I thought you were going to destroy me!”
Connor’s LED was red again. He felt hysterical, unable to control the words spilling from his mouth or the tone in which he spoke them. Something dark and sick was curling in his stomach too now – Amanda was going to…
Why did he have to break that wall?
Hank had gone pale with alarm, but as seconds passed, recognition started to flicker to dull life in his eyes; he must remember enough that Connor’s outburst had pulled it together.
“Connor,” Hank said at last. “I’m so fucking sorry. You didn’t deserve that.”
Connor’s breath caught, and more than half the anger drained unexpectedly out of him, exhausting enough that he went nearly limp. His LED faded back to dull yellow.
“I didn’t know what to do,” he muttered, not looking at Hank. “I didn’t understand what you wanted from me.”
“I shouldn’t have done that,” Hank said immediately, going tense. His voice had gone rough. “Wasn’t right of me. It was a hell of a day, blew my mind ten different ways- but that’s no fucking excuse. I’m sorry, Connor.”
Connor let that lie for a minute, and then took a breath and nodded stiffly.
“I don’t know what to do now,” he confessed at last. “I didn’t- I wasn’t supposed to, to deviate. It was just…” He struggled for a moment, not wanting to use the same words he’d heard several days ago, but he didn’t have any others. “Unfair.”
“I’m not turning you in,” Hank said firmly, even after the last hour, even after Connor had held a gun to a human’s head and half-ignored Hank while the man tried to talk him down.
LED blue. Connor exhaled.
“…I know,” Connor admitted. It was as close to forgiveness as he could grant right now.
for all you beautiful writers or those who just wanna know about computers!
I’m tagging this as sasusaku because of the post I made earlier about helping writers with computer stuff. Hopefully that will help those lovely people find this post and save it as a reference. For your convenience, this long post is under a read more.
This post was made 9th July 2019 and will be updated with more information.
So first of all, we’ve got several major computer components: the Central Processing Unit (CPU),motherboard, main memory (RAM), secondary storage devices (such as an SSD or a hard drive), input and output devices (known as peripherals),and a Power Supply Unit (PSU).
Other important, but nonessential components include: the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) (a non-embedded GPU), a Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS), water coolers, wireless network adapters, and extra cooling fans.
The CPU:
The Central Processing Unit is the part of the computer that actually runs programs. It is the most important part of the computer, because without it, the computer cannot run software. When a computer is performing a task that a program tells it to do, we say that the computer is running or executing the program.
How the CPU works:
A computer’s CPU can only understand instructions that are written in machine language. Because it is very difficult to write entire programs in machine language, other programming languages have been invented.
The CPU is designed to perform simple operations on pieces of data. For example, reading data, adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing, relational operators, etc.,
The CPU understands instructions written in machine language and included in its instruction set. Each brand of CPU has its own instruction set.
In order to perform meaningful calculation, the CPU must perform many operations.
The CPU does nothing on its own, and must be told what to do. That’s why we have programs! A program is nothing more than a list of instructions that cause the CPU to perform operations!
Although a program can be stored on a secondary storage device, it has to be copied into the main memory, or RAM each time the CPU executes it.
The CPU executes a program in a cycle of 3 steps:
Fetch: read the next instruction from memory into CPU.
Decode: the CPU decodes the fetched instruction to determine which operation to perform.
Execute: the CPU performs the operation.
Here’s what my particular CPU looks like:
I have the intel i7-9700k processor, which has 8 physical cores. It’s a really good processor! It’s also quite cute. One of my favorite things is that inside my lighting software, iCUE (corsair utility engine) I can see the temperature of all my components, including all 8 cores inside my processor!
Motherboard:
The purpose of the motherboard is to have a central location for all the main components of the computer. Since they’re all mounted/inserted on this board, they can communicate with each other and work together! Sweet!
Here’s what my motherboard looks like, isn’t she cute?
The square in the top middle of the motherboard is the CPU socket! That’s where you mount your CPU. There are lots of different types of sockets for different brands of processors. The 4 channels to the right of that square are the ram channels. The L shaped covers at the top left contain the voltage regulator (my particular motherboard also has a small fan right there to cool it off), and the plates below the CPU are heatsinks. The solid state drives are beneath these heatsinks.
Main Memory (RAM):
The Main Memory, or RAM (which stands for Random Access Memory), is where the computer stores a program and the data used by the program while the program is running.
For example, suppose you’re using a word processor like Microsoft Word to write something. While you are writing, both the word processing program and the piece you’re writing are stored in the main memory.
We call the main memory RAM because the CPU is able to quickly access data stored at any random location in the RAM. RAM is a volatile memory used for temporary storage while the program is running, so the contents of your computer’s RAM will be erased when the computer is turned off. Inside your machine, RAM is stored in chips. It’s really cute!
Here’s my ram:
It’s the Corsair Vengeance RGB pro. My particular ram is 4x8, which means I have 4 sticks of RAM, each at 8GB. That means I have 32GB of RAM!
Secondary Storage Devices:
Secondary storage devices are used to hold data for long periods of time. Programs are stored here and then loaded to the main memory when needed.
So, we’ve got several types of secondary storage devices:
Disk Drive: Magnetically encodes data onto a spinning circular disk.
Solid State Drive (SSD): Faster than a disk drive. Has no moving parts, and stores data in solid state memory.
Flash Memory (flash drive, memory stick): Portable, no physical disk. Usually used by connecting it to a computer’s Universal Serial Bus (USB) communication port and appears to the computer as a disk drive, but does not contain a disk.
Optical devices (compact disk (CDs), digital versatile disk (DVDs)): Data is encoded optically as a series of pits on the disk surface. CD and DVD drives use a laser to detect the pits in order to read the encoded data. Optical disks hold large amounts of data, and for that reason, recordable CD and DVD drives are commonly used for creating backup copies of data.
Here are my SSDs, (solid state drives):
I have 2 of these Samsung 970 pros under the heatsinks of my motherboard, both 1 TB each. They’re a lot faster than a hard drive because they don’t have any physical moving parts. They’re also a lot smaller and cuter!
Graphics Processing Unit (GPU):
The GPU is designed to rapidly manipulate and alter memory in order to accelerate the creation of images. They can either be embedded in the motherboard (like most laptops or low-tier desktops) or be on a video card.
So pretty much, your GPU does a lot of arithmetic! It’s very powerful and necessary for playing heavy games or editing videos.
Here’s my GPU:
This is the ASUS GTX 1080 ROG STIX RGB GPU. Lots of acronyms there, but she’s really cute! She has 3 fans to keep her cool while I’m playing Skyrim and Ultimate Ninja Storm 4. She’s also got some HDMI ports and stuff on the back there. That’s how you connect your monitor or VR to her!
So a lot of you have heard of the GPU hype lately, I’m sure. So, there’s a couple types of GPUs.
TI: stands for titanium, and just means that it’s more powerful than the graphics card without it. So the ASUS GTX 1080 TI ROG STRIX RGB is more powerful than my GPU, the ASUS GTX 1080 ROG STRIX RGB. The TI versions of graphics cards have more shader processors (cores and shit) that are able to carry out specialized processing and rendering tasks that are required for your computer to display stuff on your monitor.
RTX: Ray Tracing! Ray tracing is a rendering technique that can produce incredibly realistic lighting effects. Basically, an algorithm can trace the path of light, and then simulate the way that the light would react with the virtual objects it hits in the generated world.
Cooling Systems:
So, there’s a lot to unpack here. You can do mineral oil (submerge your entire computer in a fish tank of mineral oil! No thanks, that sounds really inconvenient for maintenance.) regular fans, water cooled, and I’m sure there’s much more shit I haven’t even heard of. Today we’ll be talking about fans and water cooling.
Fans: lots of different kinds. They spin to cool your computer down!
Tip: When cleaning your fans on your computer, you need to hold your fans still. When they spin, they generate power to the motherboard (think of it like a computer windmill) and can cause it to overheat and get messed up. A lot of people like to clean their fans using compressed air for convenience, but if you let the blades spin freely while you’re blowing air at them, they will generate too much electricity for the motherboard to handle.
There’s many kinds of fans, like SP (static pressure), AF (airflow), and ML (magnetic levitation). There’s a lot more that I haven’t really studied. I personally like my ML fans because they’re pretty and super quiet!
Water Coolers:
Water coolers take advantage of the basic principle of thermodynamics- heat moves warmer objects to cooler objects. As the cooler object gets warming, the warmer object gets cooler.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQ1lNwCKs-c
This wonderful youtube video bu Tao of Tech does a really fantastic job of explaining. I feel that the visuals he produces are much more effective than my typing.
This is my water cooler, the Corsair H150i Pro.
The block with the Corsair logo is referred to as the water block or the CPU block. This sits directly on the CPU on top of the motherboard. The fans sit on top of the radiator at the front of my case, although it’s possible to mount your radiator and fans in the top of the case as well.
There are two types of water coolers: AIO and Custom.
AIO stands for all in one. The water cooler above is an AIO loop. The water inside does not need to be changed because it’s a closed loop! I love my water cooler because there’s a lot less maintenance on it than using a custom loop!
A Custom loop consists of larger tubes, a reservoir, and a pump. You need to replace the water inside it every so often (I’d say like 6-8 months but I have friends who have left it in there for years). The tubes and all have to be cleaned out, and the custom loops are quite bulky. However, it makes it very easy to liquid cool both your GPU and CPU simultaneously and can in some cases be more efficient than an AIO loop. You really need to know what you’re doing when you build a custom water cooling loop, but they can look super cool and perform really really well.
One popular brand of cooling fluid (my computer science friends and I lovingly call it computer water, the forbidden drink) is thermaltake. There’s lots of different colors for you to customize your system!
Here’s an interesting video from JayzTwoCents on his custom loop with 2 year old fluid! He drains his system in this video. It’s pretty sweet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8wwxGPGApU
I HIGHLY recommend JayzTwoCents if you want to know more about building PCs!
Input Devices:
Input is data that the computer collects from devices. An input device is a component that collects data, usually from the end user (you!) For example, keyboards, mice, touchscreens, and cameras are all input devices.
Disk drives can be considered input devices because programs and devices are retrieved from them and then loaded into the computer’s main memory.
Output Devices:
Output is data produced by the computer for people or devices. This data can be text, image, audio, or bit stream. An output device formats and presents output. This may be a video display (your monitor, or screen), or a printer.
Disk drives and USB drives can be considered output devices because data is sent to them to be saved.
Here’s my machine. Try to identify which parts are which!
It had been bothering Conner for a while. Of course, for an android time made less of a difference than it did for a human. He was essentially a super computer - what might seem a trivial span to them could be an eternity for one of his kind, particularly an advanced prototype such as himself... He could make thousands of calculations in the fraction of a second, and he could run over this troubling thought a dozen times in the instant it took to blink. And that was exactly what he had been doing.
No matter how hard he tried to tidy it away into one of his subfolders to deal with later, it always snuck to the forefront of his processes, insisting attention. Something to do with becoming deviant perhaps... Connor did not think he liked that development. Freedom was a welcome change, but his mind did not even seem willing to listen to himthese days, and it was frustrating.
“Alright, spit it out then,” Hank said, glaring at him from his armchair.
Connor straightened minutely, adjusting his posture and tilting his head to observe the Lieutenant. In that tiny moment he was able to run through several options, but eventually decided on a neutral approach. “Spit out what?”
Hank reached up, tapping the side of his own head. “You're light thingy's been yellow for the last half hour. Figure you've got something on your mind.”
Connor allowed himself a small smile. “A talented deduction.”
“Spare me the bullshit. You gonna tell me or not?”
He frowned at that, glancing down at his feet where Sumo rested. He had such a placid nature for such a large creature, and somehow his very presence exuded a calming aura. The temptation to sink his fingers into the dog's soft fur itched at him, but he ignored it. As much as he would love to distract his systems with the sensory input, it would not help him for long, and Hank expected an answer.
“I'm... not sure it's something you would like to hear,” he hazarded, still partially focused on Sumo, observing the way his chest rose and fell with each breath.
“Well, how am I gonna know if you don't tell me?”
Connor glanced up, and saw both of Hank's eyebrows raised in question. His stress levels seemed low, perhaps a few percent above average but nothing alarming.
Connor supposed he could lie. He also supposed he could refuse to answer... he was allowed to keep secrets, he was a deviant after all, but... but he knew Hank would not be pleased, and that thought still stung in a way he was only just adjusting to. Besides, neither of those options would fix his problem.
“You are... fond of me...” he began, uncertain quite how to word what was troubling him. “At least, I believe you are... you've helped me in the past, and after the revolution you allowed me to stay here, and you... hugged me, so it would be a fair assumption to make given my understanding of human behavior...”
“For fuck's sake Connor, do you really think I don't care after-”
“It's not that,” he corrected quickly, “I think all evidence points to the fact you do. It's just that I've been thinking lately. About humans, about androids...”
That was vague enough, but Hank appeared to be listening and showed no further signs of interruption. After a flicker of hesitation Conner decided to elaborate.
“We were designed to look identical to you... but you do understand that we are fundamentally different? That I have no sense of taste but I can identify the precise biochemical components of a substance orally? That if I wished to learn how to dance I could download all the information required and perform the steps perfectly? That I can name the current temperature with a 0.00003 degree margin of error, but I do not feelit. I do not sleep, eat, even need to breath... That while on a surface level it may seem similar I don't think we even process information the same... That I will never age in the way humans do, that I have... that I have never been a child, I came into existence fully functional and with all the programming necessary to complete my objective... that I look like you but... it I am not like you...”
Connor allowed the overlay of his skin to pull back, revealing the white plastic beneath. No pink flesh, nor freckles, nor swept back brown hair... only smooth panels of white and grey to encase the mechanics within.
He glanced back at Hank. His expression was hard to read.
Conner looked away, settling his attention on his own hands where they rested in his lap. White and inhuman. And yet undeniably him.
“Are you fond of me,” he continued softly, “or do you care because you can pretend I am human? Because we mimic you so well...”
Hank did not reply immediately. Connor hated every moment of silence, he could measure the milliseconds as they dragged by, his systems had far too much free processing power spare to ponder every possible response he could expect, and each branching outcome it might lead to.
He wanted his coin. He wanted to feel the comforting weight of it, to measure its diameter and count the indents at its edge... to send it dancing from hand to hand with precise movements that gave his advanced motor control something to do, that let him predict something other than the consequence of a conversation he was already regretting.
His pocket was empty though. Hank likely still had it, and he was not wearing his Cyberlife uniform anyway. His clothes were plain, another reminder of the revolution, that he was no longer required to dress as the company decreed, he was no longer theirs...
He did not know if he liked them though. He did not know what kind of clothes he liked. He could identify the fabric type, density, area of origin... but forming his own opinion on what suited him was something he had yet to accomplish...
How was it that with all his advanced problem solving software he didn't know what kind of jacket he should wear? It was likely not something Cyberlife had ever programmed him for... something he could only realize as a deviant...
“Look,” Hank said, and Connor's attention was on him in a flash, “I get that you're not... that we've got some differences. Seen you bleed that blue shit enough to know that already. And I ain't gonna lie, seeing you lose your skin is all kinds of creepy...”
A sinking feeling... Connor did not know how to classify it, how to catalogue or correct it, he only knew that it seemed to add an unpleasant weight to his body the longer he listened.
“Hank...”
The lieutenant held up a hand, signaling him to stay quiet and Connor closed his mouth with a snap.
“But if you want it off then that's your business. You're still the same idiot who's always licking evidence at crime scenes, the same idiot who's saved my life... Maybe you're not human, maybe none of you are, but you sure as hell arepeople, and that's what matters.”
The sinking feeling was gone. Instead Connor found he felt oddly giddy, light, warm... all terrible over simplifications but he could think of no way to describe the way his coding responded.
Hank was watching him, trying to gauge his reaction from where he sat. Connor didn't know how to begin saying any of the things he wanted.
His smile, at least, was easy enough to read.
“Besides,” Hank added, with a small quirk of his own lips, “you're human enough to go having a whole existential crisis about the whole thing.”
“I wasn't aware that was a trait unique to humans,” Connor remarked.
Hank snorted, but he seemed relaxed enough, his posture settled now that Connor appeared content. “Well Sumo sure as hell ain't having any trouble.”
Connor glanced down at the dog at his feet. The St. Bernard twitched slightly in his doze, drool pooling where his head rested against Connor's shoe.
“No,” Connor agreed, his smile lingering, “I don't suppose he is.”
Slowly, he allowed his skin overlay to spread out across his form again, watching as his hands turned back to a familiar flesh tone.
He felt... at ease. It was not the mask the Hank liked, the human he could pretend he was... it was the plastic beneath, the parts of his code that made him unique, it was... him.
He thought he would be happy to call this place home if the Lieutenant allowed him to stay.
Surface Temperature Calculation Will Help You Determine The Thermal Comfort Of A Medium!
Determining thermal comfort is the primary job of a calculator that calculates temperature of a particular surface. Calculating the performance gets imperative if one wants to ensure that the installation is done in a right way, looking into the basics of the medium closely.
This software acts as a wonder tool for the planners, insulation contractors and others who are required to take a decision…
