For those of you that are not as old as me, Geraldine was a character created by Flip Wilson on his own variety show. One of Geraldine's favorite lines was "The devil made me do it!". That phrase was on tshirts, coffee mugs and church signs (saying Don't let the devil make you do it) during the height of the show's popularity.
The main point of the devotional today is that WE are the ones who make us sin. Not the devil. Not God. I have been dealing with some areas in my life where I constantly put myself in the wrong place at the right time that leads to doing things I was not proud of. Some of them felt great at the time, but I then had to admit to God that I had sinned. I put aside my desire to serve God and deliberately sinned. That is not a good thing! Like the scripture says, "don't be deceived". Call on God for strength and wisdom during times when you are tempted. We all understand that there are times when we can't leave the situation. We can ask God for the strength to serve him and avoid sin.
Technology Thursday
The topic for today is "multi-core processors". What? To quote another popular show from long ago "What u talkin' 'bout, Willis?" hehehe There are two major manufacturers of computer processor chips -- Intel and AMD. They both have very powerful chips out right now that are called multi- or multiple-core processors. I will try to briefly explain what those are.
The best analogy I can t think of is a multi-core processor is like a self-contained RV. It has heating and cooling, power, a mechanism for moving (the engine, transmission and tires), and a specific size or footprint (some of those things are huge!). Please think about my specific examples below and not all the questions that may be running through your mind right now!
The original computer processors had one "core". Think of a core as a single person in the RV. The single core did all the processing work for the computer like a single person would do all the work inside the RV on a trip. Intel and AMD bulked up the single core processors as much as they physically could due to manufacturing limitations, much like a man or woman could max out his or her size at the gym with convention workouts. To increase the processing power of processors, they came up with the idea of putting multiple cores on the same chip. Sort of like putting another person in the RV to help with the work. Processors now can have two, three, four, six or eight cores on a single processor. Just like an RV doesn't have unlimited space for people, processors don't have unlimited space for cores. The biggest problem is heat. More cores means more heat, just like cramming a lot of people in a small RV can heat things up! If you ever looked inside a multi-core processor computer, you would see lots of fans or maybe even a liquid cooling system to reduce the heat from the rest of the system! The end result is that multi-core processors can add more processing power to a computer.
I have a problem with the way multi-core processors are marketed. Intel tried to simplify their marketing use the I3 = Good, I5 = Better and I7 = Best strategy. That is not the case. Some of the newer I5 chips are faster than the I7 chips! What is up with that? If you decide to purchase a new computer with a multi-core processor, you can use the three part scale above to keep things simple. Even the I3 chips, which are usually dual core chips are faster than the older Core 2 Duo chips from a few years ago (though Intel still sells some of those chips as well).
I hope this helps you understand this stuff a little better. And, no, you don't have to have a computer large enough to hold an RV! A computer processor is still about the size of a fig newton, only thinner.
Other Stuff
I am enjoying having some free time during the month of August. I am reading some stuff for fun like "The Power of 2" about collaboration. I will start studying again for the retake of my test in the next day or so. I hope to retake the test next week.
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