Daily Dose of English 94
Hardware
Daily Dose of English 94
Intermediate
Hey everyone, my name is Ben and you're listening to a Daily Dose of English. This is a short, simple podcast that you can listen to every day to improve your English. You can find the transcripts for all episodes and more on benslanguagelab.com. I'm glad you could make it today. In this episode, we're going to be talking about hardware. Another where episode. This is gonna be the last one, I promise. But I thought it would be fun to talk about hardware today, because we started by talking about, or no, we talked about software a couple days ago. And software is a very important part of our lives, and we deal with it every single day. But hardware is also a very important piece of our lives in many different ways. Hardware is usually referred to as a couple of different things. It's either tools, so like for making stuff like a hammer and nails and screws, or it's computer parts, essentially. It can be used to mean more than that, right? Car parts, any kind of like parts really that goes into something larger, a machine or something can be hardware. But the two most common ways that we use it when speaking are to talk about computer parts or stuff for building things. Because the hardware store is where you go to buy stuff like nails and drills and carpeting, and paint. All these different things that you might buy to maybe build a house, or build a project, or even redecorate a lot of things are sold in hardware stores. They started by mostly selling screws and bolts and nuts and nails and things like that. But nowadays they sell much more, especially the larger chains. So things like Home Depot or Lowe's are the big brands here or there in the US and here actually in Mexico. And so that kind of hardware is everywhere in our lives, right? We all have screws in our homes, in the places that we work, in everywhere there's screws and doorknobs and what else can I see from my seat? Shelves, closets, doors, all these things you would might buy at the hardware store. Same thing goes for plumbing. There's plumbing hardware that you go and you get a, like a tube. I don't really know plumbing terms that well. What else? A drain or a faucet, a tap, a toilet. You can get toilets at the hardware store. There's so many different pieces of hardware that we use in our day-to-day lives. Light bulbs as well, that's a big one to buy at hardware stores. I used to enjoy going to hardware stores as a kid because where we would go close to my house, you would get popcorn. They would have popcorn for the kids. And so I liked to go and get popcorn, but also for another fun reason. When I was, I don't know, maybe like 10 or 11 or 12, somewhere in that range, I got some Heelys. Heelys are a now old, shoe for kids and there was a little wheel in the back on the heel, right? So if you have your foot, the part that is right under your leg is called your heel. And so the heelies, the joke there is heel plus wheelie because a wheelie is when you kind of go up on your wheels and you ride your bike like that. And so heelies had little wheels in the back of the shoes. and you could kind of ride along them. I definitely suggest you look them up if you haven't seen them before. But they're really hard to ride on concrete or asphalt because it can be like really, you sort of are jostling around as you're riding on the rocks. And so going to big open buildings that have really smooth floors, like Home Depot, like the hardware store, is really fun to ride them. because it's like having little wheels in your shoes. And so you can kind of ride around and zoom around. And so at a certain point, I remember that my dad took me to the hardware store, not really to get anything, but he was like, oh, you know what would be fun? Is to go to the hardware store and ride around on your Heelys. I think he probably did get something. I don't really remember. I was mostly riding around on my Heelys, but that's something that I remember about hardware stores specifically. There's not a whole lot else that I use them for. I don't really build things that often, pretty much ever. Occasionally, I'll go to get some supplies or new stuff for an apartment. So when I moved into my apartment, I went to the hardware store to buy some things like lights and laundry hampers and that sort of thing. Actually, that's a great reason to go, is to get lights and light bulbs. Because they often have tons of options for light fixtures, so like the entire thing. But then also light bulbs and light colors. Because my last apartment had the most horrific lights I've ever seen. They were bright, and they were white, and it was just this awful light. And there were like six of them in every single room. And so I went to the hardware store and I found alternates for them. I found different bulbs that fit in the same system because there were this weird like non-standard light bulb. And so I go and I get them in a different color temperature so they're in a much warmer tone. And you can't find those at like regular corner stores because they don't stock a ton of light bulbs. And so that's a really nice reason to go. The funny thing about that is that I actually only used, each light fixture in the room, there was two in each room, had three light bulb spots on them. And so there was six light bulbs in each room, and it was horrible. It was so much light, it was terrible. I replaced them with a much, warmer tone, much warmer color and less powerful bulb. And I still only put one into each fixture. So I used one third of the lights that were already there and that were lighter. It was crazy. I still don't understand how you can ever decide to put that into your apartment. Anyways, getting on to the other name of hardware. So computer parts. is often talked about as your hardware, like what kind of, what sort of hardware that your computer has, and you might have to get some different hardware, because the opposite is software. So there's a couple of different parts of a computer. They're actually not, okay, they're very complicated, but the different sections that you might buy as a consumer, as a person, aren't that complicated. There is the motherboard, the RAM, the GPU, the CPU. There's more to it, like you can get fans and a case and a power supply, but those are the main parts of the computer as we think about it. Oh, and storage. So an SSD or an HDD, those are all pieces of hardware. Same thing goes for your phone, which are pretty much the same kinds of parts, just much smaller and different shapes, which is kind of interesting when you think about it, right? Computers, while they're very, very complicated and intricate, they're also, in some ways, pretty simple. There's this thing that does math, this thing that does special math, this thing that holds onto information, and this thing that gives it all power, and this thing that makes it all talk together. And that's kind of all it. Yes, there's so much more going on in like the actual realms of computer science and what a GPU does as hardware. But if you're trying to buy a new computer, that's what you have to worry about. You might also worry about things, um, like external hardware can also be important for a computer, right? So your monitors are important. Um, compute, uh, computer, uh, keyboard, mouse, those sorts of parts are also important to a computer. My microphone is a piece of hardware that I have here. I've got lights in my room, a camera, a bunch of different pieces that I use every single day. But the most recent piece of hardware that I got, actually got here today, is not big or expensive, but I'm really excited about it. It is a simple little USB remote control for my computer. It's in the shape of an old NES controller, so the Nintendo Entertainment System. And what I've done is I've set it up to connect to my language learning TV shows and stuff. And so when I'm gonna watch TV tomorrow and when I learn Czech in the morning, I'm gonna use this controller instead of my computer. Because I've been having to use my computer for the past my keyboard forever to go to the next subtitle line or repeat it or whatever. But now I have a little controller that I can hold to do that all for me. And so it's gonna be a little more comfortable and convenient, especially when my cat decides to join me and sits on my lap to immerse with me. So I'm really excited about this tiny little piece of hardware. And yeah. But that's all that I have for this video. I don't want to make it too long. I hope that you enjoyed this goofy little where series and maybe learn some words and ideas about what hardware and software is. And I'll see you again tomorrow for a special holiday episode. See you then.
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