Tech links of January 2025

Death and Life in Silicon Valley

Erik Lindholm’s retirement talk about his 35-year career at SGI and NVIDIA. Covers his early personal life, work in Japan, SGI and move to NVIDIA. Creation of T&L unit in GPU (instead of CPU), launch of GeForce 256 (Geometry Force) GPU, vertex/pixel shaders, unified shaders, warp to work on packed 16 vertices/pixels and road to SIMT/CUDA. Highly recommended watch for graphics and CUDA enthusiasts.

Is XYplorer really written in VB6?

Short history of Visual Basic, why XYplorer is written (and successful) in it to this day and some of its real limitations.

Stop Trying To Schedule A Call With Me

Humorous telling of the journey of a typical relationship between an engineer and the startup whose product he tries out to solve a problem. I have been on both sides of this relationship, so I know it’s true.

Furnace - How to Relight a Pilot Light

This video shows the pilot light and thermocouple in a gas furnace used for heating homes in the US and how they work.

How A Gas Furnace Works

Animated schematic of how a gas furnace works at home.