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186: Becoming a Manager Intro topic: plastic welding kits News/Links: Parse.bot, turn any website into an APIhttps://www.parse.bot/Gemini 3https://blog.google/products/gemini/gemini-3/Depth Anything 3https://github.com/ByteDance-Seed/Depth-Anything-3Wan 2.2 (run on runpod)https://www.runpod.io/Book of the Show PatrickThe Thinking Game (DeepMind documentary)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d95J8yzvjbQJasonPlato: The Republichttps://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1497 Patreon Plug https://www.patreon.com/programmingthrowdown?ty=h Tool of the Show PatrickCore KeeperPc/Switch/Xbox/Playstation JasonWorkers & Resources: Soviet RepublicPC Topic: Becoming a Manager What is a ManagerOpportunityResults + RetentionSizingHiringPhilosophyInterviewsDownsizingHow to ManageCompany Goals / OKRsBreaking down & claiming company goals.Balancing inspirational & practical goalsCoachingOne-on-onesCareer planningPerformance MotivationPerformance Management ReviewCompensationChoosing to become a managerBalancing personal and company incentivesWhy ManageMentorshipBuild relationshipsWhy to not manageLess time for your original joy (coding)Less technical influenceMore uncertainty and less closureHow to transition back to EngineerTake the time/energy to get ramped upAct as an advisor to your manager ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Intro topic: Asymmetric Returns News/Links: NanoChat by Andrej Karpathyhttps://github.com/karpathy/nanochatPydantic AIhttps://www.marktechpost.com/2025/03/25/pydanticai-advancing-generative-ai-agent-development-through-intelligent-framework-design/1000th Starlink this yearhttps://spaceflightnow.com/2025/05/16/live-coverage-spacex-plans-morning-launch-of-starlink-satellites-from-california/ChatGPT Apps SDKhttps://openai.com/index/introducing-apps-in-chatgpt/Book of the Show PatrickThe Will of the Many by James Islingtonhttps://amzn.to/43IfU8QJasonInterview with DHH (Founder of Ruby on Rails)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vagyIcmIGOQ Patreon Plug https://www.patreon.com/programmingthrowdown?ty=h Tool of the Show PatrickFactoriohttps://www.factorio.com/ Jasonnip.io  Topic: Workflow Orchestrators WhyBatch jobs (embarrassingly parallel)Long-running tasks (e.g. transcoding video)Checkpointing/resumingHowMessage QueuesContainerizationWorker Pools & AutoscalingHistory & BackfillSteps to run workflows:Containerize the workflow definition and send to the cloudContainerize all the individual tasksSubmit job(s)ExamplesAirflowLegacy but dominantDagsterGreat UX for python developersTemporal: https://temporal.io/The new hotnessRayLow-level but very powerfulKubeflowDesigned for ML workflows, integrated dashboard ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

184: Asynchronous Programming Intro topic: AI Scams News/Links: Coding Adventure: Ray-Tracing Glass and Caustics (Sebastian Lague)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wA1KVZ1eOuABoson AI announces Higgs Audio V2https://www.boson.ai/technologies/voice The Misconception that Almost Stopped AI [How Models Learn Part 1] (Welch Labs)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrO20Jb-hy0A mind-bending conversation with Peter Thielhttps://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/11/podcasts/interesting-times-a-mind-bending-conversation-with-peter-thiel.htmlBook of the Show PatrickThe Hobbit (JRR Tolkien)https://amzn.to/4mevuzEJasonNYT Word Games Patreon Plug https://www.patreon.com/programmingthrowdown?ty=h Tool of the Show PatrickEscape Academyhttps://escapeacademygame.com/enJasonMulti-modal LLMs to make calendar meetingswww.chatgpt.com Topic: Asynchronous Computing What/WhyMulti-threading in between the linesMany of the benefits of multiprocessing without the overhead/complexityHowCoroutinesThread-Local MemoryBlocking vs Non-Blocking operationsBlocking: arithmeticNon-Blocking: Reading from the network card into thread-local memoryInterpreter lockingTypescript: Single threadedPython: GILImplementationsPolling (not-Asynchronous)Callbacks (interrupts)Multithreading (with queues/message passing)Promise/FuturesAsync/Await  ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

00:00:00 Intro00:01:58 Introducing Mark Cunningham00:07:01 How Do You Find A Job?00:15:43 How to Get the Best Interview00:33:06 Tips on How To Pass An Interview00:38:38 How to Have a Good Interview00:48:12 What is the Reverse Interview?00:54:24 What Is The Hiring Manager's Role?00:57:12 Reverse Interviews: Red Flags01:14:45 How to Negotiate a Tech Offer01:23:02 When to Negotiate Your Compensation01:35:21 Interview Horror Stories01:39:29 How Do You Deal With Fake AI Applicants?01:45:32 The Bidding Network ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Intro topic: Getting an entry-level job News/Links: Mario Kart 64 Fully Decompiledhttps://gbatemp.net/threads/mario-kart-64-decompilation-project-reaches-100-completion.671104/Q-Learning is not yet scalablehttps://seohong.me/blog/q-learning-is-not-yet-scalable/Grover’s Algorithmhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQWpF2Gb-gU&vl=enOrangePi has a RISC-V SBChttps://linuxgizmos.com/orangepi-rv2-a-cost-effective-risc-v-board-with-m-2-2280-slot-and-dual-gigabit-ethernet/Book of the Show PatrickThe Will of the Many (James Islington)https://amzn.to/44DznszJasonThe Intelligence Traphttps://amzn.to/3TqoKCB Patreon Plug https://www.patreon.com/programmingthrowdown?ty=h Tool of the Show Patrick Pokemon Odysseyhttps://www.reddit.com/r/PokemonROMhacks/comments/1l9zdta/pok%C3%A9mon_odyssey_final_release/JasonNetflix Gameshttps://play.google.com/store/apps/dev?id=6891422865930303475&hl=en_US Topic:  WhySpeed up developmentCatch errors faster than type checking/compilingWriting tedious boilerplate codeAsk questions and learn local informationLook good for hiring managersHowExtensions for VSCode & other IDEs for inline suggestionsChat with a selection/fileCommand-line Tools run at the root directoryLocal vs CloudExamplesCopilot (VSCode extension)Use the experimental modeCursor (Custom IDE)Jumps to suggest changes in other placesSimilar to copilot experimental modeRooCode (VSCode extension) ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Intro topic: Video Game Prices News/Links: Step one: Jump in the Lava - Abyssofthttps://youtu.be/WdadpHLAfdA?si=oXYnhB0EdkR_RaPEScalable world models for continuous controlhttps://www.tdmpc2.com/Clever code is probably the worst code you could write - Engineer’s Codexhttps://read.engineerscodex.com/p/clever-code-is-probably-the-worstA new, open source text-to-speech model called Dia has arrived to challenge ElevenLabs, OpenAI and morehttps://venturebeat.com/ai/a-new-open-source-text-to-speech-model-called-dia-has-arrived-to-challenge-elevenlabs-openai-and-more/ Book of the Show PatrickThe Muscle Ladder - Jeff Nippardhttps://amzn.to/44DznszJasonMetaphysics of Warhttps://amzn.to/4jMjvZ5 Patreon Plug https://www.patreon.com/programmingthrowdown?ty=h Tool of the Show PatrickPokemon Trading Card Game PocketJasonPhi-4https://huggingface.co/spaces/microsoft/phi-4-multimodal Topic: Memory Management MotivationAvoid thrashing / crashesAllocate resources efficientlyKeep high uptimeWhereOS LevelHeap managementVirtual MemoryLanguage/Compiler LevelCppGarbage collectionOwnershipToolsInstrumentationExport to Datadog / GrafanaPython: psutil & tracemallocValgrindWhat to do when your program uses too much memory?Reduce data sizesCompressionReferencesLazy initializerGenerators & Back PressureRing buffersArena allocatorsDisk based caching ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Intro topic: Grills News/Links: You can’t call yourself a senior until you’ve worked on a legacy projecthttps://www.infobip.com/developers/blog/seniors-working-on-a-legacy-projectRecraft might be the most powerful AI image platform I’ve ever used — here’s whyhttps://www.tomsguide.com/ai/ai-image-video/recraft-might-be-the-most-powerful-ai-image-platform-ive-ever-used-heres-whyNASA has a list of 10 rules for software developmenthttps://www.cs.otago.ac.nz/cosc345/resources/nasa-10-rules.htmAMD Radeon RX 9070 XT performance estimates leaked: 42% to 66% faster than Radeon RX 7900 GREhttps://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/amd-estimates-of-radeon-rx-9070-xt-performance-leaked-42-percent-66-percent-faster-than-radeon-rx-7900-gre  Book of the Show Patrick: The Player of Games (Ian M Banks)https://a.co/d/1ZpUhGl (non-affiliate)Jason: Basic Roleplaying Universal Game Enginehttps://amzn.to/3ES4p5i Patreon Plug https://www.patreon.com/programmingthrowdown?ty=h Tool of the Show Patrick: Pokemon Sword and ShieldJason: Features and Labels ( https://fal.ai ) Topic: Reinforcement Learning Three types of AISupervised LearningUnsupervised LearningReinforcement LearningOnline vs Offline RLOptimization algorithmsValue optimizationSARSAQ-LearningPolicy optimizationPolicy GradientsActor-CriticProximal Policy OptimizationValue vs Policy OptimizationValue optimization is more intuitive (Value loss)Policy optimization is less intuitive at first (policy gradients)Converting values to policies in deep learning is difficultImitation LearningSupervised policy learningOften used to bootstrap reinforcement learningPolicy EvaluationPropensity scoring versus model-basedChallenges to training RL modelTwo optimization loopsCollecting feedback vs updating the modelDifficult optimization targetPolicy evaluationRLHF &  GRPO ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Intro topic: Lego event space & retail store: https://www.instagram.com/bambeecave  News/Links: StackOverflow Question Count Going Down https://gist.github.com/hopeseekr/f522e380e35745bd5bdc3269a9f0b132DeepSeek claims its ‘reasoning’ model beats OpenAI’s o1 on certain benchmarkshttps://techcrunch.com/2025/01/20/deepseek-claims-its-reasoning-model-beats-openais-o1-on-certain-benchmarks/ Computer Science Papers Every Developer Should Readhttps://newsletter.techworld-with-milan.com/p/computer-science-papers-every-developerNvidia Cosmos - an AI platform to change the future of robots and cars - wins Best of CES 2025https://www.zdnet.com/article/nvidia-signs-largest-car-maker-toyota-to-use-its-self-driving-tech/  Book of the Show Patrick: Alice’s Adventures in a differentiable wonderlandhttps://www.sscardapane.it/alice-book/Jason: A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (Hulu/Netflix/etc) Patreon Plug https://www.patreon.com/programmingthrowdown?ty=h Tool of the Show Patrick: Digseumhttps://store.steampowered.com/app/3361470/Digseum/Jason: Sqlitedict - Python dictionaries saved to disk Topic: Project Planning and Management Why?Gathering feedbackIdentifying risksDeciding future headcountDocumenting / discovering dependenciesCritical pathScheduleReduce the bullwhip effectHow it worksSMART goalsspecific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-boundMT is most importantGantt ChartsScrumAgileKanbanToolsWhiteboard (the generic IRL one)Post it notesJIRAAsanaOpenProjectDealing with uncertaintyBufferingIssues with recursive paddingProject planning Post-Mortems ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Intro topic: Smart homes News/Links: SpaceX Starship Flight Test Five / Sixhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIKI7y3DTXkShareDBhttps://github.com/share/sharedbOrion AR Glasseshttps://about.fb.com/news/2024/09/introducing-orion-our-first-true-augmented-reality-glasses/Blade and Sorcery 1.0 is outhttps://www.meta.com/experiences/blade-sorcery-nomad/2031826350263349/Book of the Show Patrick: The Book that Wouldn’t Burn by Mark Lawrencehttps://amzn.to/4fry2XWJason: Masters of Doomhttps://amzn.to/3YxuD3c Patreon Plug https://www.patreon.com/programmingthrowdown?ty=h Tool of the Show Patrick: Balatrohttps://www.playbalatro.com/Jason: Cursor IDEhttps://www.cursor.com/Topic: Working from Home IntroBackground & WFH experiencesIs it Panacea?Realizing it works better for some than othersInternally MotivatedSchedulingCommunicationsHome SetupDedicated spaceHandling Non-work DistractionsKeyboards, Monitors, Music, … Desk related thingsThe specter of RTO ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Intro topic:  Buying a Car News/Links: Cognitive Load is what Mattershttps://github.com/zakirullin/cognitive-loadDiffusion models are Real-Time Game Engineshttps://gamengen.github.io/Your Company Needs Junior Devshttps://softwaredoug.com/blog/2024/09/07/your-team-needs-juniorsSeamless Streaming / Fish Speech / LLaMA OmniSeamless: https://huggingface.co/facebook/seamless-streamingFish: https://github.com/fishaudio/fish-speech LLaMA Omni: https://github.com/ictnlp/LLaMA-Omni  Book of the Show Patrick: Thought Emporium Youtubehttps://youtu.be/8X1_HEJk2Hw?si=T8EaHul-QMahyUvQJason: Novel Mindshttps://www.novelminds.ai/ Patreon Plug https://www.patreon.com/programmingthrowdown?ty=h Tool of the Show Patrick: Escape Simulatorhttps://pinestudio.com/games/escape-simulator/Jason: Cursor IDEhttps://www.cursor.com/Topic: Vector Databases (~54 min) How computers represent data traditionallyASCII valuesRGB valuesHow traditional compression worksHuffman encoding (tree structure)Lossy example: Fourier Transform & store coefficientsHow embeddings are computedPairwise (contrastive) methodsForward models (self-supervised)Similarity metricsApproximate Nearest Neighbors (ANN)Sub-Linear ANNClusteringSpace Partitioning (e.g. K-D Trees)What a vector database doesPerform nearest-neighbors with many different similarity metricsStore the vectors and the data structures to support sub-linear ANNHandle updates, deletes, rebalancing/reclustering, backups/restoresExamplespgvector: a vector-database plugin for postgresWeaviate, Pinecone Milvus ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

James Morse: Software Engineer at CiscoSystem Administrator to DevOpsDifference between DevOps and MLOpsGetting Started with DevOpsLuke Marsden: CEO of Helix MLHow to start a business at 15 years oldBTRFS vs ZFSMLOps: the intersection of software, DevOps and AIFine-tuning AI on the CloudSome advice for folks interested in ML OpsYuval Fernbach: CTO MLOps & JFrogStarting QwakGoing from a jupyter notebook to productionML Supply ChainGetting started in Machine LearningStephen Chin: VP of DevRel at Neo4JDeveloper Relations: The JobWhat is a Large Language Model?Knowledge graphs and the Linkage ModelHow to Use Graph databases in EnterpriseHow to get into ML Ops ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

175: Resume Writing Intro topic:  DSLR Photography vs Camera Phone News/Links: Free Internet while flying by abusing edits to your profile namehttps://robertheaton.com/pyskywifi/Making Animated Characters with AI Arthttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSN76gb_Z28On 10x Engineershttps://stackoverflow.blog/2024/06/19/the-real-10x-developer-makes-their-whole-team-better/The Beauty and Challenges of AI-Generated Artistic Gymnasticshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwJIYj3hPAUBook of the Show Patrick: The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liuhttps://amzn.to/3xNEoRBJason: The Checklist Manifestohttps://amzn.to/3W2JjpM Patreon Plug https://www.patreon.com/programmingthrowdown?ty=h Tool of the Show Patrick: Super Mario Bros. Wonder (Nintendo Switch)https://amzn.to/3S9VJLfJason: Amazon Qhttps://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=AmazonWebServices.amazon-q-vscode Topic: Resume Writing (Courtesy of Matthew C.) Why have a resume?Many jobs require it to get into the considerationToday many are screened for keywords automaticallyLog for future youWhat is a resume?One-page descriptionKey accomplishments & experiencesComparison to CVReferencesHow to write a good resume?Do’sInclude your github if it has good contributionsBe specific (dates, locations, skills)Isolate your specific contributionsBe accurate/honestBe conciseBe ready to discuss any point you have on the resumeList hobbies/activities/extracurricularsDon’tsHave mistakes (especially dates)Use images (most companies use text extraction)Use it as a design portfolioPut social qualities (e.gs. hard-working, motivated, friendly)Use fancy templates/toolsResourcesManager Tools: How to scan resumes https://www.manager-tools.com/2016/05/how-scan-resume-part-1 Google docsLatex/Lyx for CVsHow to think about your career and how it impacts your future resume writing (career planning)Technologies and architectures more than specifics of project detailsHow various choices may age over time ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Intro topic:  Social Media Auto Responder LLM News/Links: Amazon releases Amazon Qhttps://press.aboutamazon.com/2024/4/aws-announces-general-availability-of-amazon-q-the-most-capable-generative-ai-powered-assistant-for-accelerating-software-development-and-leveraging-companies-internal-dataCheap RiscV “Super Cluster” from BitluniDIY 256-Core RISC-V super computerhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4d3PgEXhdYCH32V203Phi 3 Vision Releasedhttps://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/new-models-added-to-the-phi-3-family-available-on-microsoft-azure/OllamaChatGPT 4ohttps://openai.com/index/hello-gpt-4o/Book of the Show Patrick: MyFirstMillion Podcasthttps://www.mfmpod.com/Jason: A Path Towards Autonomous Machine Intelligencehttps://openreview.net/pdf?id=BZ5a1r-kVsf Patreon https://www.patreon.com/programmingthrowdown?ty=h Tool of the Show Patrick: Dave the Diverhttps://store.steampowered.com/app/1868140/DAVE_THE_DIVER/Jason: Turing Completehttps://store.steampowered.com/app/1444480/Turing_Complete/  Topic: DevOps What is DevOpsDevOps vs SREWhy DevOps is importantEngineering time is expensiveOutages can hurt company metrics & reputationBuild & Testing InfrastructureBazel & Build/Test IdempotencyBuild/Test FarmsBuildBarnGithub ActionsJenkinsInfrastructure as codeTerraformBlue Green DeploymentContinuous Everything!Continuous IntegrationContinuous DeploymentHow to Measure DevOpsBuild TimesRelease cadenceBug tracking / round trip timesEngineer SurveysTime spent doing what you enjoyDevOps Horror Stories ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

173: Mocking and Unit Tests Intro topic:  Headphones News/Links: Texas A&M University Physics Festivalhttps://physicsfestival.tamu.edu/Rust vs Cpp at GoogleLars Bergstrom (Google Director of Engineering): Rust teams at Google are as productive as the ones using Go and 2x those using Cpphttps://youtu.be/6mZRWFQRvmw?t=27012Is Cosine Similarity Really About Similarityhttps://arxiv.org/abs/2403.05440Xz utils supply chain attackAndres Freund at Microsofthttps://arstechnica.com/security/2024/04/what-we-know-about-the-xz-utils-backdoor-that-almost-infected-the-world/ Book of the Show Patrick:80/20 Running by Matt Fitzgeraldhttps://amzn.to/3xyEKLoJason: A Movie Making Nerdhttps://amzn.to/49ycDJj Patreon Plug https://www.patreon.com/programmingthrowdown?ty=h Tool of the Show Patrick: Shapez Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.playdigious.shapez&hl=en_US&gl=USShapez iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/shapez-factory-game/id6450830779Jason: Dwarf Fortresshttps://store.steampowered.com/app/975370/Dwarf_Fortress/ Topic: Mocking and Unit Tests What are Unit TestsBalance between utility, maintenance, and coverageUnit Test: testing small functionsRegression Test: Testing larger functionsSystem Test: End-to-end testing of programsWhat are mocks & fakesWhen to use mock vs. fakeMocking libraries in various languagesPython: https://docs.python.org/3/library/unittest.mock.htmlJava: https://github.com/mockito/mockitoC++:  https://github.com/google/googletest ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

172: Transformers and Large Language Models Intro topic: Is WFH actually WFC? News/Links: Falsehoods Junior Developers Believe about Becoming Seniorhttps://vadimkravcenko.com/shorts/falsehoods-junior-developers-believe-about-becoming-senior/Pure PursuitTutorial with python code: https://wiki.purduesigbots.com/software/control-algorithms/basic-pure-pursuit Video example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYR7mmcwT2w PID without a PHDhttps://www.wescottdesign.com/articles/pid/pidWithoutAPhd.pdfGoogle releases Gemmahttps://blog.google/technology/developers/gemma-open-models/ Book of the Show Patrick: The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan (Wheel of Time)https://amzn.to/3uEhg6vJason: How to Make a Video Game All By Yourselfhttps://amzn.to/3UZtP7b Patreon Plug https://www.patreon.com/programmingthrowdown?ty=h Tool of the Show Patrick: Stadia Controller Wifi to Bluetooth Unlockhttps://stadia.google.com/controller/index_en_US.htmlJason: FUSE and SSHFShttps://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-use-sshfs-to-mount-remote-file-systems-over-ssh Topic: Transformers and Large Language Models How neural networks store informationLatent variablesTransformersEncoders & DecodersAttention LayersHistoryRNNVanishing Gradient ProblemLSTMShort term (gradient explodes), Long term (gradient vanishes)Differentiable algebraKey-Query-ValueSelf AttentionSelf-Supervised Learning & Forward ModelsHuman FeedbackReinforcement Learning from Human FeedbackDirect Policy Optimization (Pairwise Ranking) ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★