Computer Architecture - a very dry lecture on parallel processing

Today I covered the last chapter of the textbook of 337 computer architecture.  It is so dry and tedious and irrelevant that half of my brain and half of the class is sleeping.  Not the best experience and not the best use of our time.  I should have assign a reading assignment, plus a few OK video clips.

It is a challenge to teach the computer architecture class, especially the pure hardware parts, it is probably important to computer engineers, who try to eke out the last drop of performance from the CPU hardware, but for software developers, which most of the students are planning to be, the hardware issue is hidden and not very interesting. Need architects to know the chemistry of concrete?  Not sure.

I pride myself on giving interesting, engaging, relevant lectures.  But today's is not.