After all the awards were handed out at the closing ceremony, Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman, as seen on TV's MythBusters, came on stage to give a demonstration of how a GPU differs from a CPU. And in true MythBuster's style they did it with a combination of robotics, devices that would make Rube Goldberg envious, and things that go "boom" (in this case, paintball guns).

First up was their concept of the serial processing of a CPU. They devised a robot, which they dubbed "Leonardo," that rapid-fired paintballs at a target, creating the image of a smiley face. It was a pretty impressive sight, at least until the audience saw what came next. Leonardo did a good job, but wasn't up the challenge of creating a more complex work of art.

Then they unveiled their machine to simultaneously fired 1102 paint balls, a metaphor for the parallel processing power of a GPU, producing a copy of that most famous smile of all, the Mona Lisa.

It was an original, entertaining, and insightful end to a great conference.

See you all at NVISION 09.