Intro topic: Video Game Prices



News/Links:



 * Step one: Jump in the Lava - Abyssoft
   * https://youtu.be/WdadpHLAfdA?si=oXYnhB0EdkR_RaPE
 * Scalable world models for continuous control
   * https://www.tdmpc2.com/
 * Clever code is probably the worst code you could write - Engineer’s Codex
   * https://read.engineerscodex.com/p/clever-code-is-probably-the-worst
 * A new, open source text-to-speech model called Dia has arrived to challenge ElevenLabs, OpenAI and more
   * https://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

 * Patrick
   * The Muscle Ladder - Jeff Nippard
     * https://amzn.to/44Dznsz
 * Jason
   * Metaphysics of War
     * https://amzn.to/4jMjvZ5
       
       



Patreon Plug https://www.patreon.com/programmingthrowdown?ty=h



Tool of the Show

 * Patrick
   * Pokemon Trading Card Game Pocket
 * Jason
   * Phi-4
     * https://huggingface.co/spaces/microsoft/phi-4-multimodal
       
       



Topic: Memory Management



 * Motivation
   * Avoid thrashing / crashes
   * Allocate resources efficiently
   * Keep high uptime
 * Where
   * OS Level
     * Heap management
     * Virtual Memory
   * Language/Compiler Level
     * Cpp
     * Garbage collection
     * Ownership
 * Tools
   * Instrumentation
     * Export to Datadog / Grafana
   * Python: psutil & tracemalloc
   * Valgrind
 * What to do when your program uses too much memory?
   * Reduce data sizes
     * Compression
     * References
     * Lazy initializer
     * Generators & Back Pressure
   * Ring buffers
   * Arena allocators
   * Disk based caching



★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★ [https://www.patreon.com/programmingthrowdown]

181: Memory Management

Intro topic: Grills



News/Links:



 * You can’t call yourself a senior until you’ve worked on a legacy project
   * https://www.infobip.com/developers/blog/seniors-working-on-a-legacy-project
 * Recraft might be the most powerful AI image platform I’ve ever used — here’s why
   * https://www.tomsguide.com/ai/ai-image-video/recraft-might-be-the-most-powerful-ai-image-platform-ive-ever-used-heres-why
 * NASA has a list of 10 rules for software development
   * https://www.cs.otago.ac.nz/cosc345/resources/nasa-10-rules.htm
 * AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT performance estimates leaked: 42% to 66% faster than Radeon RX 7900 GRE
   * https://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 Engine
     * https://amzn.to/3ES4p5i
       
       



Patreon Plug https://www.patreon.com/programmingthrowdown?ty=h



Tool of the Show

 * Patrick: 
   * Pokemon Sword and Shield
 * Jason: 
   * Features and Labels ( https://fal.ai )

Topic: Reinforcement Learning



 * Three types of AI
   * Supervised Learning
   * Unsupervised Learning
   * Reinforcement Learning
 * Online vs Offline RL
 * Optimization algorithms
   * Value optimization
     * SARSA
     * Q-Learning
   * Policy optimization
     * Policy Gradients
     * Actor-Critic
     * Proximal Policy Optimization
 * Value vs Policy Optimization
   * Value optimization is more intuitive (Value loss)
   * Policy optimization is less intuitive at first (policy gradients)
   * Converting values to policies in deep learning is difficult
 * Imitation Learning
   * Supervised policy learning
   * Often used to bootstrap reinforcement learning
 * Policy Evaluation
   * Propensity scoring versus model-based
 * Challenges to training RL model
   * Two optimization loops
     * Collecting feedback vs updating the model
   * Difficult optimization target
     * Policy evaluation
 * RLHF &  GRPO

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★ [https://www.patreon.com/programmingthrowdown]

180: Reinforcement Learning

Intro topic: Lego event space & retail store: https://www.instagram.com/bambeecave 



News/Links:



 * StackOverflow Question Count Going Down 
   * https://gist.github.com/hopeseekr/f522e380e35745bd5bdc3269a9f0b132
 * DeepSeek claims its ‘reasoning’ model beats OpenAI’s o1 on certain benchmarks
   * https://techcrunch.com/2025/01/20/deepseek-claims-its-reasoning-model-beats-openais-o1-on-certain-benchmarks/ 
 * Computer Science Papers Every Developer Should Read
   * https://newsletter.techworld-with-milan.com/p/computer-science-papers-every-developer
 * Nvidia Cosmos - an AI platform to change the future of robots and cars - wins Best of CES 2025
   * https://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 wonderland
   * https://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: 
   * Digseum
     * https://store.steampowered.com/app/3361470/Digseum/
 * Jason: 
   * Sqlitedict - Python dictionaries saved to disk

Topic: Project Planning and Management



 * Why?
   * Gathering feedback
   * Identifying risks
   * Deciding future headcount
   * Documenting / discovering dependencies
   * Critical path
   * Schedule
   * Reduce the bullwhip effect
 * How it works
   * SMART goals
     * specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound
     * MT is most important
   * Gantt Charts
   * Scrum
   * Agile
   * Kanban
 * Tools
   * Whiteboard (the generic IRL one)
   * Post it notes
   * JIRA
   * Asana
   * OpenProject
 * Dealing with uncertainty
   * Buffering
     * Issues with recursive padding
   * Project planning Post-Mortems

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★ [https://www.patreon.com/programmingthrowdown]

179: Project Planning

Intro topic: Smart homes



News/Links:



 * SpaceX Starship Flight Test Five / Six
   * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIKI7y3DTXk
 * ShareDB
   * https://github.com/share/sharedb
 * Orion AR Glasses
   * https://about.fb.com/news/2024/09/introducing-orion-our-first-true-augmented-reality-glasses/
 * Blade and Sorcery 1.0 is out
   * https://www.meta.com/experiences/blade-sorcery-nomad/2031826350263349/
     
     

Book of the Show

 * Patrick: 
   * The Book that Wouldn’t Burn by Mark Lawrence
     * https://amzn.to/4fry2XW
 * Jason: 
   * Masters of Doom
     * https://amzn.to/3YxuD3c
       
       



Patreon Plug https://www.patreon.com/programmingthrowdown?ty=h



Tool of the Show

 * Patrick: 
   * Balatro
     * https://www.playbalatro.com/
 * Jason: 
   * Cursor IDE
     * https://www.cursor.com/
       
       

Topic: Working from Home



 * Intro
 * Background & WFH experiences
 * Is it Panacea?
   * Realizing it works better for some than others
   * Internally Motivated
 * Scheduling
 * Communications
 * Home Setup
   * Dedicated space
   * Handling Non-work Distractions
   * Keyboards, Monitors, Music, … Desk related things
 * The specter of RTO

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★ [https://www.patreon.com/programmingthrowdown]

178: Working from Home

Intro topic:  Buying a Car



News/Links:



 * Cognitive Load is what Matters
   * https://github.com/zakirullin/cognitive-load
 * Diffusion models are Real-Time Game Engines
   * https://gamengen.github.io/
 * Your Company Needs Junior Devs
   * https://softwaredoug.com/blog/2024/09/07/your-team-needs-juniors
 * Seamless Streaming / Fish Speech / LLaMA Omni
   * Seamless: https://huggingface.co/facebook/seamless-streaming
   * Fish: https://github.com/fishaudio/fish-speech 
   * LLaMA Omni: https://github.com/ictnlp/LLaMA-Omni 

Book of the Show

 * Patrick: 
   * Thought Emporium Youtube
     * https://youtu.be/8X1_HEJk2Hw?si=T8EaHul-QMahyUvQ
 * Jason: 
   * Novel Minds
     * https://www.novelminds.ai/
       
       



Patreon Plug https://www.patreon.com/programmingthrowdown?ty=h



Tool of the Show

 * Patrick: 
   * Escape Simulator
     * https://pinestudio.com/games/escape-simulator/
 * Jason: 
   * Cursor IDE
     * https://www.cursor.com/
       
       

Topic: Vector Databases (~54 min)



 * How computers represent data traditionally
   * ASCII values
   * RGB values
 * How traditional compression works
   * Huffman encoding (tree structure)
   * Lossy example: Fourier Transform & store coefficients
 * How embeddings are computed
   * Pairwise (contrastive) methods
   * Forward models (self-supervised)
 * Similarity metrics
 * Approximate Nearest Neighbors (ANN)
 * Sub-Linear ANN
   * Clustering
   * Space Partitioning (e.g. K-D Trees)
 * What a vector database does
   * Perform nearest-neighbors with many different similarity metrics
   * Store the vectors and the data structures to support sub-linear ANN
   * Handle updates, deletes, rebalancing/reclustering, backups/restores
 * Examples
   * pgvector: a vector-database plugin for postgres
   * Weaviate, Pinecone 
   * Milvus

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★ [https://www.patreon.com/programmingthrowdown]

177: Vector Databases

 * James Morse: Software Engineer at Cisco
   * System Administrator to DevOps
   * Difference between DevOps and MLOps
   * Getting Started with DevOps
 * Luke Marsden: CEO of Helix ML
   * How to start a business at 15 years old
   * BTRFS vs ZFS
   * MLOps: the intersection of software, DevOps and AI
   * Fine-tuning AI on the Cloud
   * Some advice for folks interested in ML Ops
 * Yuval Fernbach: CTO MLOps & JFrog
   * Starting Quark
   * Going from a jupyter notebook to production
   * ML Supply Chain
   * Getting started in Machine Learning
 * Stephen Chin: VP of DevRel at Neo4J
   * Developer Relations: The Job
   * What is a Large Language Model?
   * Knowledge graphs and the Linkage Model
   * How to Use Graph databases in Enterprise
   * How to get into ML Ops

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★ [https://www.patreon.com/programmingthrowdown]

176: MLOps at SwampUp

175: Resume Writing



Intro topic:  DSLR Photography vs Camera Phone



News/Links:



 * Free Internet while flying by abusing edits to your profile name
   * https://robertheaton.com/pyskywifi/
 * Making Animated Characters with AI Art
   * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSN76gb_Z28
 * On 10x Engineers
   * https://stackoverflow.blog/2024/06/19/the-real-10x-developer-makes-their-whole-team-better/
 * The Beauty and Challenges of AI-Generated Artistic Gymnastics
   * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwJIYj3hPAU
     
     

Book of the Show

 * Patrick: 
   * The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu
     * https://amzn.to/3xNEoRB
 * Jason: 
   * The Checklist Manifesto
     * https://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/3S9VJLf
 * Jason: 
   * Amazon Q
   * https://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 consideration
   * Today many are screened for keywords automatically
   * Log for future you
 * What is a resume?
   * One-page description
   * Key accomplishments & experiences
   * Comparison to CV
   * References
 * How to write a good resume?
   * Do’s
     * Include your github if it has good contributions
     * Be specific (dates, locations, skills)
     * Isolate your specific contributions
     * Be accurate/honest
     * Be concise
     * Be ready to discuss any point you have on the resume
     * List hobbies/activities/extracurriculars
   * Don’ts
     * Have mistakes (especially dates)
     * Use images (most companies use text extraction)
     * Use it as a design portfolio
     * Put social qualities (e.gs. hard-working, motivated, friendly)
     * Use fancy templates/tools
   * Resources
     * Manager Tools: How to scan resumes https://www.manager-tools.com/2016/05/how-scan-resume-part-1 
     * Google docs
     * Latex/Lyx for CVs
 * How to think about your career and how it impacts your future resume writing (career planning)
   * Technologies and architectures more than specifics of project details
   * How various choices may age over time

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★ [https://www.patreon.com/programmingthrowdown]

175: Resume Writing

Intro topic:  Social Media Auto Responder LLM



News/Links:

 * Amazon releases Amazon Q
   * https://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-data
 * Cheap RiscV “Super Cluster” from Bitluni
   * DIY 256-Core RISC-V super computer [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lh93FayWHqw]
   * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4d3PgEXhdY
   * CH32V203
 * Phi 3 Vision Released
   * https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/new-models-added-to-the-phi-3-family-available-on-microsoft-azure/
   * Ollama
 * ChatGPT 4o
   * https://openai.com/index/hello-gpt-4o/
     
     

Book of the Show

 * Patrick: MyFirstMillion Podcast
   * https://www.mfmpod.com/
 * Jason: A Path Towards Autonomous Machine Intelligence
   * https://openreview.net/pdf?id=BZ5a1r-kVsf



Patreon https://www.patreon.com/programmingthrowdown?ty=h



Tool of the Show

 * Patrick: Dave the Diver
   * https://store.steampowered.com/app/1868140/DAVE_THE_DIVER/
 * Jason: Turing Complete
   * https://store.steampowered.com/app/1444480/Turing_Complete/ 



Topic: DevOps

 * What is DevOps
   * DevOps vs SRE
 * Why DevOps is important
   * Engineering time is expensive
   * Outages can hurt company metrics & reputation
 * Build & Testing Infrastructure
   * Bazel & Build/Test Idempotency
   * Build/Test Farms
   * BuildBarn
   * Github Actions
   * Jenkins
 * Infrastructure as code
   * Terraform
   * Blue Green Deployment
 * Continuous Everything!
   * Continuous Integration
   * Continuous Deployment
 * How to Measure DevOps
   * Build Times
   * Release cadence
   * Bug tracking / round trip times
   * Engineer Surveys
     * Time spent doing what you enjoy
 * DevOps Horror Stories

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★ [https://www.patreon.com/programmingthrowdown]

174: Devops

172: Transformers and Large Language Models





Intro topic: Is WFH actually WFC?



News/Links:



 * Falsehoods Junior Developers Believe about Becoming Senior
   * https://vadimkravcenko.com/shorts/falsehoods-junior-developers-believe-about-becoming-senior/
 * Pure Pursuit
   * Tutorial 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 PHD
   * https://www.wescottdesign.com/articles/pid/pidWithoutAPhd.pdf
 * Google releases Gemma
   * https://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/3uEhg6v
 * Jason: How to Make a Video Game All By Yourself
   * https://amzn.to/3UZtP7b



Patreon Plug https://www.patreon.com/programmingthrowdown?ty=h



Tool of the Show

 * Patrick: Stadia Controller Wifi to Bluetooth Unlock
   * https://stadia.google.com/controller/index_en_US.html
 * Jason: FUSE and SSHFS
   * https://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 information
   * Latent variables
 * Transformers
   * Encoders & Decoders
 * Attention Layers
   * History
     * RNN
       * Vanishing Gradient Problem
     * LSTM
       * Short term (gradient explodes), Long term (gradient vanishes)
   * Differentiable algebra
   * Key-Query-Value
   * Self Attention
 * Self-Supervised Learning & Forward Models
 * Human Feedback
   * Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback
   * Direct Policy Optimization (Pairwise Ranking)





★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★ [https://www.patreon.com/programmingthrowdown]

172: Transformers and Large Language Models

Intro topic: Monitor setups



News/Links:



 * BlueScuti, Willis, beats Tetris
   * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuJ5UuknsHU
 * PalWorld accused of being an AI Product
   * https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2024/01/22/palworld-accused-of-using-genai-with-no-evidence-so-far/?sh=26a9651b4239
 * 4 Billion if-statements to determine if a number is even or odd
   * https://andreasjhkarlsson.github.io/jekyll/update/2023/12/27/4-billion-if-statements.html
 * Seamless M4T
   * https://ai.meta.com/blog/seamless-m4t/
     
     



Book of the Show

 * Patrick:
   * Foundation by Isaac Asimov
     * https://amzn.to/3SrmgnP
 * Jason: 
   * Propaganda by Edward Bernays
     * https://amzn.to/47JUCXJ



Patreon Plug https://www.patreon.com/programmingthrowdown?ty=h



Tool of the Show

 * Patrick: 
   * The Room Game
     * https://www.fireproofgames.com/games/the-room
 * Jason:
   * Incredibuild
     * https://www.incredibuild.com/
       
       



Topic: Compilers and Interpreters (Request by Jessica W.)



 * Machine Code
   * Architecture Specific
 * Assembly
   * Single vs Two Pass Compiler
 * High level Languages
   * Intermediate Representation
   * JVM ByteCode vs Machine Code for portability
 * Scripting/Interpreters
 * JIT
 * Profile Guided Optimization
 * Resources
   * https://www.craftinginterpreters.com/
   * https://nandgame.com/
   * Turing Complete

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★ [https://www.patreon.com/programmingthrowdown]

171: Compilers and Interpreters

Programming Throwdown educates Computer Scientists and Software Engineers on a
cavalcade of programming and tech topics. Every show will cover a new
programming language, so listeners will be able to speak intelligently about any
programming language.

Jason Gauci

Shows