Big News in Quantum Computing

In this podcast, the Radio Free HPC team looks at some new developments in the Quantum Computing ecosystem:

• Rigetti Computing helps Foster Quantum Machine Learning Startup Ecosystem
• IEEE Approves Standards Project for Quantum Computing Definitions

After that, we do our Catch of the Week.

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Eclipse Simulations

In this podcast, the Radio Free HPC team discusses the eclipse and how researchers are using supercomputers to simulate the corona of the sun at eclipse time.

After that, we do our Catch of the Week.

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Recent Biohacks in the News

In this podcast, the Radio Free HPC team looks alarming new hacks of health care data.

• Henry points us to a story about a PET scanner hack that exploited Windows 7. He thinks a better design would be to have the device send data only. Shahin thinks that this kind of problem with I0T will require us to have different approaches for "Big T" things like mainframes and "Little T" things like sensors.
• Rich is intrigued by the recent story that biohackers were able to put malware into synthetic DNA that can infect and take over a gene sequencer device.

After that, we do our Catch of the Week.

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A Look at Floating Point and Posit Computing

In this podcast, the Radio Free HPC team looks at the problems with IEEE Floating Point.

"As described in a recent presentation by John Gustafson, the flaws and idiosyncrasies of floating-point arithmetic "constitute a sizable portion of any curriculum on Numerical Analysis." The whole thing has Dan pretty worked up, so we hope that the news of Posit Computing coming to the new processors from Rex Computing will help. The A*STAR center at the National University of Singapore will be one of the first to test out Rex machines later this month."

After that, we do our Catch of the Week.
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AI Ethics and Self-Driving Cars

In this podcast, the Radio Free HPC team learns about Henry's first exploit as an Ethical Superhero.

"After witnessing a hit-and-run fender bender, Henry confronted the culprit and ensured that the miscreant left a note on the victim's windshield. And while we applaud Henry for his heroism, we are also very grateful that he was not shot in the process. This tale leads us into a discussion of AI ethics and how we won't have this problem in the coming era of self-driving cars."

After that, we do our Catch of the Week.

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Cray Urika-GX Brings Graph Computing to Alan Turing Institute

In this podcast, the Radio Free HPC team looks at why the Alan Turing Institute is focusing on Graph Computing with their acquisition of a Cray Urika-GX supercomputer.

"Hosted at the University of Edinburgh in the Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centre (EPCC), the Cray Urika-GX system will provide researchers at the Alan Turing Institute with a dedicated analytics hardware platform, enabling the development of advanced applications across a number of scientific fields including engineering and technology, defense and security, smart cities, financial services and life sciences."

After that, we do our Catch of the Week.

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Sizing Up SSDs with Drive Writes Per Day

In this podcast, the Radio Free HPC team looks at why Drive Writes Per Day are such an important metric for acquiring the right kind of SSD for your particular workload.

Drive writes per day (DWPD) is an endurance rating that manufacturers of NAND flash storage provide their customers. ... DWPD will vary, depending upon whether the storage is intended for consumer or enterprise use. Consumer use solid state drives (SSDs) have a fixed endurance rating and capacity.

After that, we do our Catch of the Week:

• Shahin likes a new BBC documentary on the #1 Sunway TaihuLight supercomputer in China.

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