The Tao of the Processor

I had this computer related conversation with my niece and she didn’t understand the correlation between RAM and processors. I don’t know anything about which processor is best and what have you, but this was the best analogy I could come up with. I give you “The Tao of the Processor.”

Empty your mind. You better recognize that’s a segue into Bruce Lee. Imagine Bruce Lee is a single processor for a computer. What kind of processor? A fuckin Intel dragon-kicks-your-Centrino-ass processor, how bout that? Anyways…so we have a gigantic computer that’s actually a large dojo, presumably 1600 square feet. So Bruce can do whatever he wants…he can go do some chi sao on the wooden dummy, punch a bag a few times…gets kinda boring with these small processes, huh? It’s like playing fuckin minesweeper where the mines can’t detonate cause your dragon-kicking-ass-processor destroys ‘em. So let’s open up a program, say something basic like Internet Explorer.

Now of course we need RAM to actually get data and actually open such programs. So let’s get some RAM: karate students or what have you. One karate student = 1 megabyte of RAM. Just to make things interesting, we’ll give him 10 MB of RAM. Now this is probably an insufficient analogy, but hold on. Of course Bruce Lee will take out 10 MB of RAM easily. He’s the fastest fuckin processor taking on one process: pwning 10 karate kids. So if we have him doing that for a while, gets kinda boring. Actually, we’ll have to wait a full 10 minutes until more data comes in cause quite frankly, 10 MB of RAM makes everything fairly slow and boring.

So let’s give him one gig of RAM (1,000 karate kids). For all intents and purposes, Bruce Lee is about 1000x faster and more inhuman than ever and kicks all their asses, just as a worthy processor should with 1 gig of RAM. The reason we add RAM is to allow the processor get data and information faster. So Bruce Lee is kicking ass until…we upgrade to 2 GB of RAM! For one lil processor like Bruce Lee, he can’t handle 2,000 opponents. Sorry Bruce, but we need to get a second processor to help you carry out the data. Let’s grab Jackie Chan and he’ll be the second processor. Now we have dual core processors. Jackie Chan can be…Intel-drunken-master-processor. Not as cool as Bruce, I know, but no one tops Bruce. So with these two processors kicking ass, more RAM runs in to take their place until we upgrade to quad-core processors. Now we have Jet Li, the Intel-I’m-Nobody’s-Bitch-Processor and Tony Jaa, the Intel-Ong-Bok-Processor (all my processors were made in Asia, ok?) and we have them taking on 4 gigs of RAM. Can you believe it? 4 guys take on 4,000 students! It’s not a 1:4000 fight let me tell you now. 1:1 is an MMA caged fight, ok? This is a battle of 4 kickass martial artists whose philosophies are so intertwined with their lifestyles that they blow the competition of the fuckin ports that the computer actually loses RAM. Another upgrade? I think so. Who’s gonnaa be the next processor? Well you tell me!