GPU shortages deepened my existential fear
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Of the son of my priests the laptop had been warning him for months that he was ready to leave forever. He stopped charging the battery properly, as the hinge was loose and had been on for many years Minecraft orders, W the key fell. When he finally died on New Year’s Day, West was terrified. His eyes widened as he looked at me and whispered in horror, “Oh no.”
After the closure of our schools last spring, online games became his lifeline, the only source of connection between equals. I tried to convince him that it wasn’t so bad: he has been saving money to build a gaming PC for a year. Now that his laptop is dead, I would help him with the cost. But West did not calm down. He explained that he could buy almost any piece for a gaming computer, but it would be difficult for us to find the graphics card he needed to complete it. Covid-19, he told me, increased demand and directed it scarcity. “I’m sure he’ll be fine,” I told him. I assumed that the shortage of graphics cards we saw last March would be like a shortage of toilet paper: an elusive problem that the market would address. I was completely wrong.
If I had done my research, I would have learned that multiple factors he called for a shortage of graphics cards, starting with manufacturing and shipping delays in the early days of the pandemic. As supply declined, demand increased exponentially as people stuck in the home went to online games for entertainment and connection. The problem has been exacerbated, as my son has repeatedly explained to me with moral anger, when boats that buy a limited offer are available and sell at astronomical markup. The shortage would continue in the long run, which is also not to mention people who buy graphics cards for cryptocurrency mining purposes.
Many parents like me have seen their children retire in the last year, hurt and angry, and have difficulty sleeping and eating. For the first few months of social distance, West spent hours locking the bathroom door and turning on the fan. When we shouted at the door to ask him to join us, he told us he wanted to be alone. It took intense negotiation for him to shower and eat. He seems to be cheering on Txiki, and yet I heard a clear voice as he played Minecraft while he was talking more than discord with friends. He often carried his laptop downstairs and into the headset while he finally offered me a sandwich a few hours earlier while he ate.
West was growing so many inches in the quarantine that he hardly looked like his predecessor Covid. Her voice dropped and her feet grew to size 3, but while she was playing, I could see who my son would be if Covide hadn’t turned our routines upside down. For the West Minecraft the server was a world outside of Covid, an unrestricted area that defined social distance. Citizens didn’t have to be on the 6-meter side for a while or wear masks, and players could change their way of life in a creative way.
I was amazed at how much his usual social development continued there. It was loud Minecraft; made new friends in Minecraft. I listened to him and his teammates while they were playing while resolving social conflicts Minecraft. When a player complained that my son’s oldest friend had stolen a cobblestone and a fire rod, West intervened on his behalf and threatened to shut down his server temporarily. I was proud that he took a stand, and I was grateful for that Minecraft he offered me a window to show who his son was among his classmates.
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