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BIT

Like a Surgeon

Unlike most parody songs by “Weird Al” Yankovic, the original artist—Madonna—was partly involved in the creative process for turning her “Like a Virgin” into Yankovic’s “Like a Surgeon.”

Released in 1984, “Like a Virgin” was followed by the parody, “Like a Surgeon” one year later in 1985.

In the United States, “Like a Surgeon” peaked at number 47 on the Billboard Hot 100. While in Canada, it broke into the top 40. It’s up to you to decide—based on this information—which metric reflects a better sense of humor. If you’ve never heard it before or it’s been a while, I recommend giving it a watch!

BASE PAIR

Cores vs. Threads

Have you ever been confused about the terminology of “cores” vs “threads” when it comes to talking about the central processing unit (CPU)?

If you are like me and have been in search of an article that can—without too much technical detail—explain the difference between the two, I recommend Carl Olafson’s article, Socket vs. Core, CPU vs. Thread.

While I am no computer architecture expert, here is my takeaway—and probably gross oversimplification—of cores vs threads:

A CPU can have multiple cores. Each core can execute a single instruction from the operating system. So, if your CPU has 10 cores, it can execute 10 instructions simultaneously.

Cores can have a queuing system, called “threads.” In general, each core can have two threads, one for the instruction being executed and one for an instruction on deck. This queueing decreases the latency time for the core when moving from one instruction to the next.

So, if you have a CPU with 10 cores, you would have 20 threads—capable of executing 10 instructions and having 10 instructions on deck.

Thank you for reading and have a fulfilling weekend!

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Views my own.