#the image on this card is a RAM

[ladycatashtrophe]

Me in my dorm room on the evening of the Autumn Equinox: What is something I need to let go of, release, or change this season?

Tarot deck: The Emperor is the archetype of the FATHER

[corvideer]

POV you stopped his infinite combo...

[casataco]

This is you right now it feels cuz if you talked to me about the specifics of aerospace machining id be like damn this dude is super smart.

Im always shocked at how interested people on here end up being when I discuss my job as an areospace machinist, for me its been my life for six years now. Ive climbed the ladder and now am at the highest position currently available at my shop. For me machining and thinking in these terms comes so natual that I dont even consider it noteworthy.

Then I explain it and half way through the explanation I always stop and think, jfc this is reading like some high level super complex work...oh righhhhhht areospace machining is under the umbrella of rocket science. Still will never internalize the fact im actually extremely talented and have an incredible amount of information in my head, my inner voice just wont let me believe im anything other than a idiotic loser who got a bit lucky

[noirscript]

My Valentine

details: yandere!husband x AFAB!reader | Mentions of female genitalia, detailed sexual scenes, breeding,

note: I forgot where I got the image.

Despite the questionable setup and job description of your current job, your husband did not question it and even supported your endeavors. He cook your breakfast on the dot and even prepared your lunch and some snacks.

The warm touch of his soft lips against yours as soon as he sees you, somehow made you guilty of what you're getting yourself into. Truth be told, you haven't told him about the entire truth about your job. Only that you work as an agent.

You let him make an assumption about your job. Perhaps you'll never be able to tell him all about your job.

"Are you sure you still want to work there?" he asked while resting his firm hands on your hips. "I can support us both. We can even start our family and live comfortably."

You smiled as you cup his cheeks. "Val..."

He sighed before pulling away. "I don't really get why you're doing this," he said before meeting your gaze. "It's been two years since we've been married, you even begged me to let you enjoy for awhile before starting our family."

"Val, it's not that! I just..." you sighed. "I want to have my own money. I can't rely on you everytime. It... It doesn't feel right."

You looked up and feared what you've seen. His jaw clenched while his hold on your hips tightened.

"Was it my mother?"

Your brows furrowed. "What, no!"

"My grandma? My sister?" He closed the gap between you two. "Who was it, huh? Who influenced your decisions this time?"

You removed his hands from your body before taking one step away from him.

"Let's... just talk later." You tiptoed to reach his cheek before grabbing your packed lunch.

Maybe it's time to submit your two-week notice.

—

Your husband, Valentin, could get clingy at times. He'll tightly wrap his arms around your body, never missing the chance to feel the warmth of your skin.

It starts with gentle caresses against your skin, then the next thing you knew, you're being screwed and under his mercy for the next hours.

His honeyed voice that you love to hear turns to something deeper as he whispers the nastiest threats you've ever heard from him.

"Gonna make you a mommy... hngg... gonna be round and full..." He buries his face against the crook of your neck as he sensually grind his thick cock against your tight and creaming pussy.

"Pleasepleaseplease... make me cum... wanna cum..." you begged as you claw the arm that's been keeping you in place. "Val... Val... please... cumming..."

"Ah-ah... such a naughty girl." He took a deep breath against your neck before ramming his cock against your tightening pussy. "You don't get to treat me like a toy. I'm not a fucking dildo. You hear that?"

"M'srry... cumming please... please..."

"You're cumming, hm? You're gonna take my cum? All of it? Hm?"

You frantically nodded as you match his movements. It didn't take long until his cum painted your insides.

He nozzles his face against your skin. Peppering kisses against your neck, nipping it at times.

"We're gonna start our family soon..." he whispered while lazily grinding his dick inside you. "You, me, and our baby."

You chuckled. "We've talked about this before, Val..." The sheets rustled as you turn to face him.

"I still want to work. You know, to save up a bit." You pushed yourself up and looked into his eyes. "I also want to spoil them."

"You can spoil them with my card. What's mine is yours too, you know?" He responded while pulling you close to him. "We can have just one child. We'll take care of them. Raise them well..."

"Val... at least give me some time to think about it." You slowly run your finger against his chest down to his abs before barely touching the tip of his erect cock. "Besides... don't you want us to have some more time together?"

You slowly grind your moist pussy against him before he pulled you down with him. He aligned his cock and swiftly penetrated your pussy.

He doesn't hate the idea of getting you all to himself, but still. Your feelings might change once you learn more about him. He's not gonna have that. You're his for eternity, even if that meant having to share you with your child.

[mechanisedbrainrot]

MECHANISMS REF IMAGE MASTERPOST

Okay, so I put together refs for each of the mechs as best I can. I tried to avoid anything in a show lighting, but sometimes it can't be helped. Notes will be underneath each section

Whole cast

Ivy is the only character leaning on the wall in the second image, but is roughly as tall as Ashes

Jonny D'Ville

Jonny in earlier shows like TTBT wears a black shirt underneath instead of the white. He occasionally has red or black painted nails and his goggles are either black or bronze. He has a black 7 of diamonds. He often holds a mic - which is a Shure Super 55

Drumbot Brian

He usually has just the flower in his hat, but sometimes it's replaced with RAM or his drumsticks. His goggle has a very small crack at the base. The rings seem to be a bit of a motherboard and screws? The visible heart is something I can only find in one picture, but it's cool

Gunpowder Tim

Sometimes wears jeans instead of dark brown trousers. His eye scars are more geometric than Jonny's, and he has dark eye shadow around the eyes where Jonny uses just eyeliner

Raphaella la Cognizi

The top is three layers: a white/cream shirt, a brown puffy shirt and a a top layer which has a halter neck. Occasionally one or both of the undershirts won't be worn (see HNOC liveshow). Tights can be blue or black. Light up wings from DTTM

The leggings/tights are sometimes black and sometimes deep blue

Ivy Alexandria

A few different outfits, in liveshows they're also wearing some outfits not shown here - but always black and red with a waistcoat of some kind.

Nastya Rasputina

The necklace is a little cat :3

Marius von Raum

Kneepads in DTTM. The cards are a jack and ace of hearts. Necktie either has a white or gold pattern on it, but they don't always wear it. The green jacket has a tailcoat

The Toy Soldier

Hair varies a lot. Sometimes it's worn down, in a ponytail or hidden under the hat. Sometimes nails are painted red or black

Ashes O'Reilly

In live shows they often wear this eyeliner which has thick bars that go behind the ears - but I couldn't find any clear pictures of this. Though their outfits changes, always mostly black with some red in the hair

Dr Carmilla post can be found here

I hope this was in some way helpful to anyone who wants to draw the mechanisms. If you have questions feel free to ask me in the ask box and I will do my best to answer them and provide some photos <3 have a great day

[lunar-system]

Edward Teach: The Star.

Adapted from the traditional Ride-Waite-Smith tarot, this version of the Star shows Ed kneeling down serenely by the spring of life, bare to the world, ready to heal after tumultuous events.

Stede as the Sun to follow, Izzy as the Moon can be found here.

Longer exploration of the card's symbolism under the cut.

***

The Star: Hope, openness, especially after a crisis. Renewal, healing, restoration.

Rachel Pollack writes: "This is the calm after a great change, whether it comes after a drastic planetary shift or a personal upheaval. There are still difficult times ahead, but the Star tells us to trust."

In the card Ed is depicted with a short, growing beard. Multiple personal upheavals and great changes have already happened, and he is settling into a new reality. Who is he when he is stripped from titles, uniforms and roles? In the space of the Star, he has enough trust to try and find out.

Pollack continues: "In Star, we find our inner strength and belief. The Star teaches us to accept whatever it is, to drop all our shields, to believe. The water poured out signifies healing, emotional and physical."

Ed as the Star is learning to shine his own light after witnessing Stede shine as the Sun. Trust and belief don't come easy, but as the Star he can be vulnerable enough to try again. The water flows from an infinite source, letting the emotions come and go.

Even though the Star opens up towards a bright future, Ed carries his history with him. His tattoos, pictures from other tarot cards, tell about his past:

Chest: Three of Swords, the infamous card of heartbreak. "Trust no one."

Left side thigh: the face of the Devil from the Devil card. One of the largest tattoos he has, projecting his self-image. "I'm the devil."

Right side thigh: Lobster from the Moon card, a beast that lurks under the surface, in the unconscious. "I'm the Kraken."

Right side: wolf from the Moon card. In my depiction of the Moon, Izzy stands for the wolf. Here the loyal wolf is cast to the side, left howling after the broken heart.

Belly: Ram from the throne of the Emperor, a symbol of masculine power. The placement on the lower belly suggest a trans reading of the character.

Chest, around the heart: birds from Ace of Cups, suggesting new beginnings even for a broken heart.

With his past carved to his skin, Ed is kneeling at the edge of land. One of his feet is planted firmly on the ground while the other graces the water. In Tarot, earth is often connected to the material, such as the body, and the conscious mind. Water is the element of emotions and the subconscious. At the edge of the water, Ed is in balance, grounded both in his body and in his emotions, the conscious and the subconscious. The water he pours rejuvenates them both.

TL;DR: After great personal upheavals, Ed as the Star is ready to heal and trust. He carries his past with him, but is ready to shine his own light and have faith in himself and for the future. He is vulnerable and at peace, and he is connected both to the ground and the water, nourishing them both with the water he pours.

***

Sources

Image source: Pamela Colman Smith, 1909, republished as Tarot of A. E. Waite, 2016, AGM-Urania, Germany

Text source: Rachel Pollack, A Journey of 78 Steps, 2011, as cited in the booklet for instruction and guidance of Tarot of A. E. Waite, 2016, AGM-Urania, Germany

[headphonemouse]

we finally have them all so I tried identifying all the things that could help determine what the hell these cards are trying to represent. Under the cut is just the alt text copypasted.

Senkuu holding up test tubes, standing before a lab table. Behind him is the medusa device. In the background is the moon rising over the earth.

Ryusui sitting cross legged over a throne, featuring a ship's wheel over the backrest and two ram figureheads at the arm rests. In the background is the ocean and the horizon.

Chrome sitting cross legged in the air. He's inspecting a green stone in his hand and holding a bindle over his shoulder. Behind him is (?) one of the copper plates that he made for the hand crank generator. The background features distant rock formations on the horizon.

Ukyo standing holding his bow and nocking an arrow. Behind him is a set of scales. Behind that is a radar display. The background is the ocean floor.

Kohaku posing in a golden field. In the foreground is bunches of red and white flowers. The red flowers are larger, I'm uncertain if it's five or six petals. They look similar to lilies or amaryllis but the leaves are ovate rather than linear. The white flowers are tiny, with five petals and no discernible stem structure. Behind her is a male lion, followed by an image of her iron shield. The background is field, green hills, then sky.

Tsukasa standing, holding a shell necklace in one hand. He is framed by a wreath of leafy vines. In the foreground is clouds framing the bottom part of the picture. The background is a blue sky.

Suika standing in ankle deep water, near the shore of what looks like a river. In the foreground are leafy vines. The leaves have three distinct lobes and the leaf margins are entire rather than undulated, so they're unlikely to be watermelon leaves. They look more like passionfruit. Surrounding Suika are six floating 8-pointed stars. The one directly over her head is gold while the others range from white to pale blue. The background is land scattered with sparse vegetation, and a night sky.

Yuzuriha and Taiju standing together under their camphor tree. They are holding a large red ribbon that twists over their heads.

Hyoga standing holding his spear. He is surrounded by ice shards blowing off of the glacier around his feet.

Kirisame and Moz standing before a cliff. Kirisame is holding a small club while Moz is holding a spear. There are stylized clouds surrounding them. Behind them is an image of the Petrification Kingdom's emblem.

Kinro and Ginro standing before Ishigami Village's entrance bridge, crossing their silver and gold tipped spears. A circular image of an Ishigami village home's entrance with its dark purple curtains is behind them. Save for Chrome's tower, all the village buildings have these purple curtains for doors.

Nikki and Minami sitting together. Behind them is an image of the ISS crew's glass record cut into the shape of a crescent, behind which is Minami's camera lens. The background glows orange surrounding the record/camera image, and it's hard to tell what exactly it is. It could be the sun.

Gen sitting criss-cross on the ground. There are five 8-pointed stars floating around him. He is holding up one hand, above which floats a glowing purple crystal. It seems to be night time.

[talonabraxas]

“As you dissolve into love, your ego fades. You’re not thinking about loving; you’re just being love, radiating like the sun.” — Ram Dass

XIX - Galactic Sun Talon Abraxas The Sun card is about the self — who you are and how you cultivate your personality and character. The Sun's radiance is where one's original nature can be encountered in health and safety. The limitations of time and space are stripped away; the soul is refreshed and temporarily protected from the chaos outside the garden walls. Under the light of the Sun, life reclaims its primordial goodness, truth, and beauty. If one person is shown on this card, it is usually signifying a human incarnation of the divine. When two humans are shown, the image is portraying a resolution of the tension between opposites at all levels. It's as if this card is saying "You can do no wrong — it's all to the good!"

[onefleshonepod]

ID: A digital collage of "The Emperor” tarot card as John from the Locked Tomb series. The card shows a daguerrotype portrait of John framed in wood at a bone altar flanked by cow skulls and books. John is a bearded Māori man wearing the Lyctoral robes of office and a crown of finger bones. Below the shrine are images of The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. In the background is an abstract halo of yellow, pink, and blue, from The Womb of the Universe by Delta Venus. John’s image is from a photograph in the collection of Te Papa of an unknown Māori man from the 1870s. The bone altar is from the Sedlec Ossuary in Prague. The left side of the card shows the upright meaning of The Emperor and reads, “Authority | Structure | Control | Fatherhood | Stability | Law | Leadership | Power” in all caps. The right side of the card shows the reversed reading and reads “Tyranny | Rigidity | Coldness | Stubbornness | Manipulation | Loss of Authority” in all caps. The base of the card reads "The Emperor | John” in a retro 1970s-style font. Before “John” is a list of his titles in smaller text: “His Celestial Kindliness, The First Reborn, King of the Nine Renewals, Our Resurrector, and the Necrolord Prime, the Emperor of the Nine Houses.”

I paired the design for this card with my design for the Empress card, inspired by the “portrait of the Emperor as Kindly Master” in Silas’ rooms in Canaan House, and the “waterproof portrait of the Emperor, here portrayed as the Merciful Resurrector” from Tamsyn Muir’s house sorting quiz. I imagined this scene as a necromancer's altar. The cow skulls are a nod to the ram skulls adorning the Emperor's throne in the Rider-Waite-Smith card, tweaked slightly to fit John's story. The Very Hungry Caterpillar was referenced in Nona the Ninth in John’s narrative of his apotheosis and is also an apt metaphor for empire.

[xinyuehui]

[ENG] Love and Deepspace PC tutorial

When I wrote the original tutorial, I didn't notice the emulator was available in English too! It can be downloaded on their official website.

https://www.mumuplayer.com/en/games/simulation/love-and-deepspace-on-pc.html

Mumu is an officially licensed emulator for Love and Deepspace. What the emulator does essentially is to host the game on a computer. Other games can also run on this emulator, such as MLQC, Nikki series, Arknights, Genshin etc...

Availability: Windows, Mac

Recommended configuration: CPU 4-core + RAM 4G+ System i5+ Graphics Card GTX750Ti+

Game size: 20-30 GB

The instructions on the website appears to be quite clear, I am assuming it's more or less the same as the Chinese one. I suggest looking up if your computer supports VT first before downloading the emulator.

It should be fairly straight forward once VT is enabled in BIOS. If the instructions on the mumu website is unclear, find a tutorial on google/youtube for your PC type, try looking up "how to enable virtualization in bios".

Any questions feel free to drop me an ask with images ദ്ദി(˵ •̀ ᴗ •́ ˵ ) ✧

───── ⑅ ♡ ⑅ ─────

More like this:

Original Deepspace PC guide + tips // Deepspace live wallpaper guide

[lehguru]

RUGBY + GENSHIN IMPACT MEN

how i think genshin men would be like if they were rugby players ft. alhaitham, itto, diluc, wriothesley

info: this is mostly superficial (i won't be talking about positions and things like that), im way too passionate abt this it's basically a non-stop ramble, will do deeper dives into all the regions + more characters later; mentions of physical injuries and things like that – not proofread as always!! (maybe romantic hcs coming later too??)

alhaitham is the brain behind it all. rugby might be a sport that is, for the most part, physical and the biggest men win, but alhaitham makes the impossible, possible. the amount of try's this man have on his career is unmatchable; somehow, he always knows how to bring his team to the try zone and score them those sweet five points. his turquoise eyes are sharp and his quick reactions are even sharper, he can see the best plays in a fraction of a second. even if he isn't one of the biggest in the leg department, he definitely have stronger shoulders and arms than a normal player, giving his tall build a really triangular shape (his shoulders make his tackles a lot more amazing too). not the type to brag or boast about his accomplishments, a low-profile man that usually just appears in the team's official social medias or during matches.

arataki itto is one of the most unique players in the rugby world. he possesses such talent for the sport, he would be quickly recognized as one of the best of his generation – and granted the title of 'oni' ('beefcake' for people closer to him). the only problem was, he often got himself some yellow cards and even red cards; the reasons ranged from foul play to straight up almost starting fights with his opponents or even the referee themselves. whenever he had to wait for the decisions on his yellow cards, he would sit on the side with the biggest and cutest pout on his face. if he is in game, he's a absolute behemoth of a player; his tackles are simply the strongest you could ever get hit by – and there's no 'if' he will tackle you, he will tackle you –, teams often have to make a strategy to hold him down for as long as they can. his muscles are well proportional all over his body, what do i mean by that? as a big man, he have bigger muscles everywhere (every week a new picture of his glutes go viral). not the brightest man on the field, but he is okay with just being the one holding back any attackers or being a battering ram for his team. hates having to kick the ball more than anything, rather have one of his teeth broken (again).

diluc is a exemplary leader. he might not be like alhaitham and have strategies for everything and anything, but diluc brings more physical prowess into the game. he's often seen starting plays by himself, but he doesn't mind to help other people on his team when they have the ball. he might be physically strong, but his forte is his mind; after a lot of work, he managed to be able to stay calm even in the worst situations – one of his craziest games was when he managed to turn a 34-3 difference into a win. in the beginning of his career, his long hair used to get into his way – even in a ponytail –, so he started to braid it and it became part of his image. somehow, he never got a single yellow or red card on his career and the amount of offenses he commited are abnormally low too. he have a strong neck and torso, but he's overall very muscular and he have a healthy layer of fat (yes. im saying he have a little tummy). everyone, from his teammates to opponents, compliment his behavior and actions; even if he needs to tackle and stop people, he is still very polite and he always make sure to help them to get up and make sure they are okay if someone needs to b tended by a medic.

wriothesley is a lot like itto in the physical sense. he's shorter than itto, but he is equally muscular. he have veiny hands and arms; if he didn't play often, his body would be hairy, but he shaves his legs and arms every time he have a match (he trimms his chest hair and his lower abdomen hair too). he have all the characteristics to be the leader of his team, but he settles for being a battering ram so the other less strong players can shine too. he is able to hold two to three men on his own, often being able to run even if they try to bring him down or hold him. wrio is the type of guy whose weaknesses are almost non-existent, but he never brags about being a good player; he said more than once: "'m just doing what I'm supposed to. i don't know how i manage to be good at it too". out of everyone in this list, he's probably the one that got more injuries during his career. his knees are never fully okay, but he somehow still manages to be at his top form all the time. he is often seen with elbow and knee protections even off-games. (don't try to tell him to rest, he won’t listen and just brush it off with a teasing comment and a smirk)

2023 © content belongs to lehguru, but the characters used in them belong to their respective creators!!

[bunnithechubs]

FAR: Frequently Asked Resources

Editing/Computer Specs

What Reshade/Gshade do you use? sumahama What are your computer specs? processor: AMD Ryzen 9 7950X 16-Core Processor graphics card: GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 4080 Super Windforce ram: 32 GB How do you edit your pics? crop image to desired size (i like using ratio 7x9) use the “smooth sharp(no topaz)” action from here use the “super smooth” action from here use the “add on: richness” action from here (adjust intensity) use the “bright and saturated” action from here (adjust intensity) Add Noise (settings amount: 2.5% distribution: gaussian)

Mods

essential for gameplay: health care redux basemental drugs dine out reloaded brawl override control any sim less intrusive sims grannies cookbook oni's food mods child birth mod RPO (formally known as woohoo wellness) cute romance wicked whims more kisses kiss and grind steady sit

other useful mods: UI cheats MCC CAS columns Better BB TOOL

WCIF?

all answered WCIF's can be found here. I am WCIF-friendly, if you see something and want to know where to find it please send an ask (anon or not). replies on post won't be answered cause I can't actually link in them.

How do you find cc?

I follow a few CC Finds blogs, check the ccfinds and ts4 cc tags on tumblr often, google search, and check pinterest.

[frakyeahbattlestargalactica]

Monty Jaggers McGraw:

I am writing new BASIC programs to demo at my VCF Southwest 2025 exhibit of my 1979 Tektronix 4054A color vector graphics computer.

One of the programs I am writing is a 1978-1979 Battlestar Galactica TV demo. That TV show had $500,000 of Tektronix vector graphics computers and test equipment and many screenshots of their green vector storage CRT displays - some stills - some animated. These computer graphics were generated on both 1975 4051 and 1976 4081 vector graphics computers - predecessors to my 4052 and 4054A computers (see first photo attached).

Miami Herald TV 1978 magazine interview with the Battlestar Galactica set designer indicated extras on the set stationed in front of the 4051 computers were playing games during filming to increase realism and were so absorbed they kept playing after the cut! (article page attached).

The 4051 and second generation 4052 were the same physical size and used the same CRT and same Display board, but the 4052 and 4054 computers replaced the 800KHz Motorola 6800 CPU with a custom four AMD2901 bit-slice CPU to create a 16-bit address and data bus ALU which emulated the 6800 opcodes and added hardware floating point opcodes to speed up these computers 10x over the Motorola 6800, doubled the BASIC ROM space to 64KB and doubled the RAM space to 64KB!

I created these vector bitmap graphics using a "3D CAD" picture I found on the web of the Battlestar Galactica (last attachment).

As far as I know - there was never any 4050 BASIC program to view bitmap pictures on any of the 4050 computers. The 1979 4014 vector graphics terminal had a grayscale bitmap mode in the Extended Graphics option board, but I have only found a couple of bitmap 4014 images on a single Tektronix demo tape cartridge.

My 4050 BASIC program to display bitmaps works on all 4050 series computers - with an optional Tektronix 4050R12 Fast Graphics/Graphics Enhancement ROM Pack. This ROM Pack speeds up displaying vector images (including vector dot images) 10x over using BASIC MOVE and DRAW commands.

The Battlestar Galactica bitmap image in R12 binary format is 332234 bytes - slightly larger than would fit on a DC300 quarter-inch tape cartridge in the internal tape drive of all three 4050 computers, but would have fit on a 3M DC600 tape cartridge with a capacity of 600KB - it would have been very slow to load.

I designed an Arduino board to emulate the Tektronix 4924 GPIB tape drive - with the help of my software developer. My GPIB Flash Drive board contains a MicroSD card with gigabytes of storage and the Flash Drive emulates a GPIB tape changer, storing all the files of a "tape" in a single directory. I have also attached to this post a photo of my GPIB Flash Drive.

I have recovered almost 100 Tektronix 4050 Tapes and posted the ones I think are the most interesting at this time on my github repository for Tektronix 4051/4052/4054 computers: https://github.com/mmcgraw74/Tektronix-4051-4052-4054-Program-Files I included Tektronix published MATH volumes 1, 2, and 3 and Electrical Engineering, but I don't think they have a lot of use today. I have in my collection but not recovered tapes on Project Management, Statistics, and over 100 more tapes from the very active user group, which Tektronix made collections and published abstracts in their newsletter and the newletter customer got the tape for free. Commercial software like CAD programs were likely encrypted to eliminate copying - since Tektronix 4050 BASIC included a SECRET command which would then encrypt the program file as it was recorded to tape and add a SECRET flag in the tape header that would signal to BASIC ROM when that file was accessed to decrypt the program when it was loaded into memory. One big limiter to the size of the program was RAM in the 4051 was limited to 32KB and the 4052 and 4054 were limited to 64KB of RAM, although Tek BASIC did include commands to allow program "chunks" to be overlayed as necessary. Tektronix used those commands in their 4050 System Tape which was shipped with every system and included a tutorial on many of their BASIC commands. The tutorial ran on the original 4051 with 8KB of memory, and if the program detected 16KB of memory it would APPEND larger program files to speed up the tutorial.

[kremlin]

could you explain for the "it makes the game go faster" idiots like myself what a GPU actually is? what's up with those multi thousand dollar "workstation" ones?

ya, ya. i will try and keep this one as approachable as possible

starting from raw reality. so, you have probably dealt with a graphics card before, right, stick in it, connects to motherboard, ass end sticks out of case & has display connectors, your vga/hdmi/displayport/whatever. clearly, it is providing pixel information to your monitor. before trying to figure out what's going on there, let's see what that entails. these are not really simple devices, the best way i can think to explain them would start with "why can't this be handled by a normal cpu"

a bog standard 1080p monitor has a resolution of 1920x1080 pixels, each comprised of 3 bytes (for red, blue, & green), which are updated 60 times a second:

~3 gigs a second is sort of a lot. on the higher end, with a 4k monitor updating 144 times a second:

17 gigs a second is definitely a lot. so this would be a good "first clue" there is some specialized hardware handling that throughput unrelated the cpu. the gpu. this would make sense, since your cpu is wholly unfit for dealing with this. if you've ever tried to play some computer game, with fancy 3D graphics, without any kind of video acceleration (e.g. without any kind of gpu [1]) you'd quickly see this, it'd run pretty slowly and bog down the rest of your system, the same way having a constantly-running program that is copying around 3-17GB/s in ram

it's worth remembering that displays operate isochronously -- they need to be fed pixel data at specific, very tight time timings. your monitor does not buffer pixel information, whatever goes down the wire is displayed immediately. not only do you have to transmit pixel data in realtime, you have to also send accompanying control data (e.g. data that bookends the pixel data, that says "oh this is the end of the frame", "this is the begining of the frame, etc", "i'm changing resolutions", etc) within very narrow timing tolerances otherwise the display won't work at all

3-17GB/s may not be a lot in the context of something like a bulk transfer, but it is a lot in an isochronous context, from the perspective of the cpu -- these transfers can't occur opportunistically when a core is idle, they have to occur now, and any core that is assigned to transmit pixel data has stop and drop whatever its doing immediately, switch contexts, and do the transfer. this sort of constant pre-empting would really hamstring the performance of everything else running, like your userspace programs, the kernel, etc.

so for a long list of reasons, there has to be some kind of special hardware doing this job. gpu.

instead of calculating every pixel value manually, the cpu just needs to give a high-level geometric overview of what it wants rendered, and does this with vertices. a vertex is very simple, it's just a point in 3D space, for example (5,2,3). just like a coordinate grid on paper with an extra dimension. with just a few vertices, you can have models like this:

where each dot at the intersection of lines in the above image, would be a vertex. gpus essentially handle huge number of vertices.

in the context of, like, a 3D video game, you have to render these vertex-based models conditionally. you're viewing it at some distance, at some angle, and the model is lit from some light source, and has perhaps some shadows cast across it, etc -- all of this requires a huge amount of vertex math that has to be calculated within the same timeframes as i described before -- and that is what a gpu is doing, taking a vertex-defined 3D environment, and running this large amount of computation in parallel. unlike your cpu which may only have, idk, 4-32 execution cores, your gpu has thousands -- they're nowhere near as featureful as your cpu cores, they can only do very specific simple math with vertices, but there's a ton of them, and they run alongside each other.

so that is what a gpu "does", in as few words as i can write

the things in the post you're referring to (V100/A100/H100 tensor "gpus") are called gpus because they are also periperal hardware that does a specific kind of math, massively, in parallel, they are just designed and fabricated by the same companies that make gpus so they're called gpus (annoyingly). they don't have any video output, and would probably be pretty bad at doing that kind of work. regular gpus excel at calculating vertices, tensor gpus operate on tensors, which are like matrixes, but with arbitrary numbers of dimensions. try not to think about it visually. they also use a weirder float. they're used for things like "artificial intelligence", training LLMs and whatever, but also for real things, like scientific weather/economy/particle models or simulations

they're very expensive because they cost the same, if not more, than what it cost to design & fabricate regular video gpus, but with a trillionth of the customer base. for every ten million rat gamers that will buy a gpu there is going to be one business buying one A100 or whatever.

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[utopicwork]

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Pretty interesting project