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Oxide Computer Company

Oxide hosts a weekly Discord show where we discuss a wide range of topics: computer history, startups, Oxide hardware bringup, and other topics du jour. These are the recordings in podcast form.
Join us live (usually Mondays at 5pm PT) https://discord.gg/gcQxNHAKCB
Subscribe to our calendar: https://calendar.google.com/calendar/ical/c_318925f4185aa71c4524d0d6127f31058c9e21f29f017d48a0fca6f564969cd0%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic.ics

Oxide and Friends

We hit a new (and disturbing!) failure mode recently when a production rack that had been up for several months saw every (!) compute sled's service processor become simultaneously unresponsive. Bryan and Adam were joined by the members of the Oxide team who debugged the vexing issue -- and reached its surprising root cause.

In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, we were joined by Oxide colleagues, Cliff Biffle, Matt Keeter, and Will Chandler.

Previously, on Oxide and Friends:

OxF s05e03 – Holistic Engineering with Robert MustacchiOxF s04e14 – Rebooting a datacenter: A decade laterOxF s01e26 – The Pragmatism of HubrisOxF s05e20 – Debugger-Driven Development • (omdb)
OxF s05e07 – Transparency in Hardware/Software InterfacesOxF s05e31 – FuturelockOxF s05e33 – A Grown-up ZFS Data Corruption Bug
Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:

hubris #2304: STM32H7 Ethernet driver stops yielding CPU after many packetsgist — Summarizing the Hubris side of investigationsMatt's blog: Hunting a spooky ethernet driver bug
If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time on our Discord server; stay tuned to our Mastodon feeds for details, or subscribe to this calendar. We'd love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

Death by Uptime

Hey hey! We recently tripped over a ZFS data corruption bug–introduced over 18 years ago! Bryan and Adam discuss with members of the Oxide team as well as Matt Ahrens, the co-inventor of ZFS.

In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, speakers included Alan Hanson, Matt Keeter, Andy Fiddaman, James MacMahon, and special guest, Matt Ahrens.

Previously, on Oxide and Friends:

OxF s4e6 - Crucible: the Oxide Storage ServiceOxF s5e28 - Systems Software in the Large
Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:

ZFS fsync can trigger ZIL transaction reordering and data corruptionRFD 177: Implementation of Data Storagethe "fix" that introduced data corruption • PRs needed!

If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time on our Discord server; stay tuned to our Mastodon feeds for details, or subscribe to this calendar. We'd love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

Grown-up ZFS Data Corruption Bug

Oxide founders, Bryan and Steve, as well as Oxide investor, Seth Winterroth, were joined by Liz Zalman and Jerry Neumann, authors of the book Founder vs. Investor, discussing the collaboration and conflict in company formation. Adam was also present.

In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, our guests included Liz Zalman, Jerry Neumann, Seth Winterroth (Oxide investor), and Steve Tuck (Oxide founder / CEO).

Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:

Founder vs. InvestorTopic • [@M:SS](link into recording) 
Leventhal's Conundrum • PRs needed!

If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time on our Discord server; stay tuned to our Mastodon feeds for details, or subscribe to this calendar. We'd love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

Founder vs. Investor with Liz Zalman and Jerry Neumann

We're big users of async Rust at Oxide, and recently we found (another) very odd and hard to debug pathology related to async Rust that we dubbed "Futurelock". Oxide engineers who diagnosed the problem join Bryan and Adam to describe Futurelock and discuss methods to identify and avoid it.

In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, speakers included our Oxide colleagues Dave Pacheco, John Gallagher, Rain Paharia. Sean Klein, and Eliza Weisman.

Previously, on Oxide and Friends:

OxF s05e22 - When Async Attacks!OxF s05e26 - Technological Revolutions with Jerry Neumann
Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:

Oxide RFD 609: Futurelock • PRs needed!

If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time on our Discord server; stay tuned to our Mastodon feeds for details, or subscribe to this calendar. We'd love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

Futurelock

Revisiting an annual tradition--Books in the Box! Bryan, Adam, and the Oxide Friends share book recommendations (and--sometimes--anti-recommendations). Take a listen if you're looking for your next read.

In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, we were joined by some guests noted below:

Previously, on Oxide and Friends:

OxF s05e06 - A Half‑Century of Silicon Valley with Randy ShoupOxF s05e26 - Technological Revolutions with Jerry NeumannOxF s04e03 - Fork in the Road for TerraformOxF s01e16 - The Books in the BoxOxF s02e18 - Books in the Box ReduxOxF s03e22 - Books in the Box IIIOxF s04e28 - Books in the Box IV
Other Notes:

Princeton Review: Happiest StudentsUMass Dining Named Best Campus Food by The Princeton ReviewCHM Oral HistoriesNight Rider (and K.I.T.T.)
From Bryan and Adam (and others)

The Mouse Driver ChroniclesFumbling the FutureSlingshotChip WarTechnological Revolutions and Financial Capital • @bcantrill (
economics book recommendation • )
Snow Crash • (
another Neal Stephenson book • )
The Big ShortReinventing The WheelEccentric Orbits • (
recommended by listener • )
Language Machines Cultural AI and the End of Remainder Humanism • (
recommended by listener • )
Molly White's **review ** of Read Write OwnCareless PeopleNOT A RECOMMENDATION • 
If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies • (
If you are Molly White, please destroy this for us! • )
Surreal Numbers by Knuth • (
recommended by listeners • )

From Oliver Herman

Open CircuitsSystems PerformanceWhy We're Getting PoorerTermination Shock
From Tom Lyon

From Airline Reservations to Sonic the Hedgehog • See also 
Systems We Love: Life of an Airline FlightThe War of Don Emmanuel's Nether PartsThe NVIDIA Way
From Dan McDonald

Inventing the RenaissanceCharles Sumner: Conscience of a Nation
If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time on our Discord server; stay tuned to our Mastodon feeds for details, or subscribe to this calendar. We'd love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

Books in the Box V

LLMs have had a dramatic impact on education. There are obvious reasons for concern, but what about the less obvious opportunities afforded by LLMs? Bryan and Adam were joined by Michael Littman, professor at Brown University and Associate Provost for AI, to talk about his role advising the university on productive, innovative, creative uses for AI in higher education.

In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, our special guest was Michael Littman.

Previous, on Oxide and Friends:

OxF s01e18 - Dijkstra’s TweetstormOxF s04e02 - Open Source LLMs with Simon WillisonOxF s05e18 - AI, Materials, and Fraud with Ben Shindel
Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:

Michael's home pageLeslie KaelblingComputing Up: Rich Sutton • PRs needed!

If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time on our Discord server; stay tuned to our Mastodon feeds for details, or subscribe to this calendar. We'd love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

AI in Higher Education with Michael Littman

Dave Pacheco is leading Oxide's multi-year effort around full-system update. He recently gave a talk about his experience leading that project, the complexities of designing the system and organizing the team. Dave, Bryan, and Adam discuss the project, the many sources of leadership, and the often underestimated peril of "organizational procrastination".

In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, we were joined by Oxide colleague, Dave Pacheco.

Previously on OxF:

OxF s05e21 - Rebooting a Datacenter: A Decade LaterOxF s01e09 - Agile + 20OxF s04e11 - A Baseball Startup with Paul Freedman and Bryan Carmel
Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:

Dave's talk: Path to self-service update • 
(slides)Fire trucks dousing the champion BallersBryan's talk: Debugging Under Fire • Roger Faulkner: "I'm not here to make it perfect; I'm here to make it better"
Mid-recording earthquake
If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time on our Discord server; stay tuned to our Mastodon feeds for details, or subscribe to this calendar. We'd love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

Systems Software in the Large

Bryan and Adam were joined by members of the Oxide manufacturing team to talk about all that goes into ramping up production, from people and processes to expanding the team and refining inefficiencies. It's a great problem to have!

In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, we were joined by Oxide colleagues, CJ Mendes, Kirstin Neira, Erik Anderson, Aaron Hartwig, and Doug Wibben.

Previously on Oxide and Friends...

OxF s03e20 - Tales from Manufacturing: Shipping Rack 1
Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:

Topic • [@M:SS](link into recording) 
Leventhal's Conundrum • PRs needed!

If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time on our Discord server; stay tuned to our Mastodon feeds for details, or subscribe to this calendar. We'd love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

Scaling Manufacturing

Jerry Neumann joined Bryan and Adam to discuss his blog post from 2015, examining the work of Carlota Perez on technological revolutions. These waves have similarities, in particular: frenzy, bust, and deployment. Is AI a new wave or the culmination of the IT wave of the last 50 years?

In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, we were joined by special guest, Jerry Neumann.

Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:

Jerry's 2015 blog post: The Deployment Age • PRs needed!

Previous episodes mentioned:

OxF s05e24 - Oxide’s $100M Series BOxF s05e04 - AI Disruption: DeepSeek and Cerebras
If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time on our Discord server; stay tuned to our Mastodon feeds for details, or subscribe to this calendar. We'd love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

Technological Revolutions with Jerry Neumann

Scott Hanselman gave a terrific talk about the promises of tech: connection, convenience and creativity. Did it deliver? Scott joins Bryan and Adam to discuss... and also wander around as one expects from an Oxide and Friends episode.

In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, our special guest was Scott Hanselman.

Past episodes mentioned:

OxF s01e12 - A Brief History of Talking ComputersOxF s02e18 - Books in the Box ReduxOxF s05e10 - Lip‑Bu Tan’s Intel
Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:

 • Scott's talk: 
Tech Promised Everything. Did it deliver?
If we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next show will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time on our Discord server; stay tuned to our Mastodon feeds for details, or subscribe to this calendar. We'd love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

Grown-up ZFS Data Corruption Bug

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