The High Performance Computing PodcastTopics including (but not limited to)....
Radio Free HPC (RFHPC) started in 2012 and, after a short break of 193 months, has returned to the airwaves (cyber waves?) with co-hosts Dan Olds, Henry Newman, and Shahin Khan.
The podcast covers a wide range of topics but is particularly focused on data center technology and challenges. These include high performance computing, power and cooling, new technology, and, really, whatever the hell they want to talk about.
Quick FAQ
"Why are you just covering HPC? There's this new thing called AI, have you heard of it?"
Yeah, we've heard of it and we do cover it. To us, HPC is a broad term used to refer to a very broad group of apps/workloads that have common characteristics.
- They are computationally intense
- Time to solution and quality of solution are critical
- The output is important enough to justify investment in high-end clusters and associated hardware/software
AI meets all of the criteria above just like bioscience, aerospace, weather prediction, and several other domains. In fact, AI is or will soon be folded into the workflows of nearly every 'traditional' HPC and enterprise application over time. This is going to put a lot of pressure on data centers and we'll be talking about how to deal with it.
"Was the old version of Radio Free HPC popular? I've never heard of it..."
Yes, it rose from obscurity to being mildly popular and, at times, entertaining. At our peak, we had as many as 16 sustained listeners and as many as 19 theoretical max listeners.
"I listened to the old show a couple of times and liked the arguing. Will there be more of that in this reboot?"
Yes, in fact we expect as much as 29% more arguing and a significant increase in the number of personal insults per episode.
"How often will this thing come out and how do I find out about it?"
We used to try to do weekly shows but failed due to other commitments, travel, etc. And there were just weeks when nothing important happened. But to answer your question, could be every couple of weeks, could be once a month, or we could record a marathon 8-10 hour single episode. Depends on what's happening and our mood.
We're getting together our RSS feeds and such but in the short term we'll be publicizing the episodes through the RFHPC X account and our individual social media accounts.
Ok, enough questions. If you want to learn more about the show and hosts, check out the "About" page.
Here are our most recent episodes along with the 345 or so previous editions, enjoy!
Latest Episode
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18th Listener Awards!
Run-of-the-mill start as we introduce the team. Henry has quite a bit of echo since he’s now firmly ensconced in his rammed earth survival compound.
Big news this week! We finally received our 18th email in our first ever RadioFreeHPC email-to-win contest. First, let’s see what they win…
The first item in our Grand Prize bundle is a circa 1999 suede leather IBM S/390 laptop bag. It’s roomy at a generous 16”x14”, large enough to house the biggest 17” laptop or maybe 15 or 20 tablets. If that’s not enough room, it also expands an additional 4-5” on the bottom. There are compartments galore under the flaps and you’d better fill them up with soft foam since there’s really no padding around the laptop compartment.
The suede leather is a nice touch that adds weight to the bag, it’s not a lightweight in any sense of the word. We’d advise covering the bag if you’re going to be out in the weather, because the suede is sure to stain if it is exposed to water.
This bag is in brand new condition and has never been used. Ever.
The second piece of this cornucopia of delight is a IBM Mainframe 50th anniversary medallion. It’s a very light weight metal medallion housed in a stunningly clear plastic frame. Put it on your mantle at home and impress your friends and family with how important you must be to have such a keepsake.
The final gift is a cassette tape of an IBM Talk S/390 episode covering S/390 integrated solutions. If you still have a cassette player, this will provide minutes of mainframe tech talk, marketing tips and keys to closing that big deal.
So you want to know who won this amazing collection of swag? Listen to the show and find out, or follow us on Twitter and look a couple of weeks back!
Government Bills Aim to Up the Ante for Science
In the rest of the show we discuss some recent government news. First is that the US House is looking to devote an additional $1.25 billion over the next five years. But even bigger is the proposal to expand the US National Science Foundation by $100 beeelion – which is more than 4x the size of the existing organization. We discuss the implications of this and how this might change the game in terms of base research. There is also a bill to significantly dial up funding for Quantum Information Science. All good and the team s excited to see these moves and hopes they'll proceed swimmingly!
Reasons Why No One Should Ever be Online. Ever.
Brace yourselves, GitHub has been attacked! Developers and users alike unaware that they’re downloading malware when they’re getting their open source on. Ouch.
Catch of the Week
Jessie: Campaign Zero and Police Scorecard aim at reducing police violence.
Henry: UK broadband performance is holding up in these virus-rampant times. Yay for the UK, great job.
Dan: Skinny gene discovered! Eat all you want and never gain weight. Is it true?
Join us!
Recent Episodes
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Episode 346: SC22 Preview
We’ve got the whole crew here as we look at the upcoming SC22 event. How many will be there? What will be happening? We answer only some of these questions.…
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Episode 345: Dow Gets Cloudy
Dan rides alone on this one as he interviews the HPC folks from Dow who are behind their move to cloud bursting. Interesting and informative. *Download the MP3 * Follow…
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Episode 344: Finally back! And with a new co-host!
We introduce new co-host Ben Carr and talk some NIST and Intel trevails. RadioFreeHPC is distributed in partnership with HPCwire. *Download the MP3 * Follow us on Twitter * Subscribe on Spotify * Subscribe…
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Episode 343: It’s GTC, Baby
In this episode of RadioFreeHPC, Dan and Jessi talk GTC along with special guest Todd Weiss. RadioFreeHPC is distributed in partnership with HPCwire. *Download the MP3
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Episode 342: Jazz, Melting Diamonds, and Schrödinger’s Cat
In this episode of RadioFreeHPC, the crew round up the most intriguing batch of recent HPC topics including Graphcore, HPC efforts to better understand melting diamonds and Jazz, as well…
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Episode 341: Ponte Vecchio
In this episode of RadioFreeHPC, the crew talk Intel’s Ponte Vecchio. RadioFreeHPC is distributed in partnership with HPCwire. *Download the MP3 * Follow us on Twitter * Subscribe on Spotify * Subscribe on…
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Episode 340: HPC with Trish Damkroger and Brent Gorda
In this episode of RadioFreeHPC, Dan and Jessi are joined by Trish Damkroger and Brent Gorda to talk HPC topics, thoughts, and intriguing trends. RadioFreeHPC is distributed in partnership with HPCwire.…
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Episode 339: 12 Cores Per Soul
In this episode of RadioFreeHPC, the crew discusses Intel’s investment into RISC-V, the 2022 Winter Classic student cluster competition, and quantum computing in Canada. RadioFreeHPC is distributed in partnership with HPCwire.…
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Episode 338: NVIDIA Slinks Away, Meta Bulks Up, And We Zap Bugs
In this episode of RadioFreeHPC, the crew talks Meta’s new AI supercomputer, NVIDIA abandoning ARM, and our latest competition winners. RadioFreeHPC is brought to you by the Surfs Up Hippie and…