Kopec Explains Software

Kopec Explains Software

David Kopec, Rebecca Kopec

Episodes 140
Avg. Duration 18m
Activity Dormant
Since Jun 2020
Latest Episode Mar 2025

Publishing Details

Schedule
Every 2 Weeks
Format
Episodic
Hosting
pinecast.com

Contact & Outreach

About This Podcast

We make software-related technical topics intelligible. We aim to help you develop an intuitive understanding of each subject, instead of emphasizing formal definitions. Join us as we learn about the wide world of software.

Podcasting 2.0 Features

transcript

Social Media

Explore Statistics

Recent Episodes

#135 Hacking the Classic Mac OS

Mar 20, 2025 1h 23m Transcript

The Classic Mac OS refers to the operating system that Apple Macintosh computers ran from 1984 to 2001. While it was one of the first popular operating systems to feature a graphical user interface,…

#134 The CrowdStrike Incident

Aug 12, 2024 15m Transcript

On July 19th, 2024, the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike released an update for its Falcon Sensor software that brought down millions of Windows computers around the world. Some of these computers were…

#133 Ad Blockers

Jul 21, 2024 15m Transcript

Approximately one in four consumers uses an ad blocker. But do they stop to consider whether that is actually a good thing for them? In this episode, we briefly touch on the technical aspects of ad…

#132 What is Machine Learning?

Jun 02, 2024 22m Transcript

Machine Learning is a discipline within the broader field of Artificial Intelligence concerned with using insights from datasets to make predictions, classify new data points, and generate content.…

#131 Abandonware

Apr 19, 2024 19m Transcript

Abandonware is old software that is no longer commercially available. It's not a legal term, and in fact it's not legal to download most of the software that is termed "abandonware." In this episode…

#130 Grace Hopper

Mar 18, 2024 19m Transcript

Grace Hopper is one of the most iconic people in the world of software. Her career as a mathematician, software innovator, computer science advocate, programmer, and technical leader spanned the…

#129 BASIC

Feb 01, 2024 18m Transcript

The creation of BASIC was one of the most important steps in the democratization of computing. BASIC, coupled with the Dartmouth Time Sharing System, was developed by math professors John Kemeny and…

#128 Copyright & Machine Learning Models

Dec 11, 2023 19m Transcript

Many large sophisticated machine learning models, like those employed in generative AI, are trained on immense amounts of copyrighted images or text. How is that legal? In this episode we delve into…

#127 The Google Search Antitrust Lawsuit

Nov 13, 2023 17m Transcript

In 2020 the Trump administration and eleven state attorney generals initiated an antitrust lawsuit against Google for its alleged anti-competitive behaviors in the search engine market. Last month,…

#126 How Does Google Make Money?

Oct 30, 2023 16m Transcript

Alphabet, the parent company of Google, is one of the largest companies in the world by market capitalization. But where does all of the revenue come from to support that? In this episode we analyze…

Classic Episode: iOS vs. Android (2020)

Oct 16, 2023 36m Bonus Transcript

In this episode, originally published in 2020, we discuss the similarities and differences between iOS and Android. We delve into their history, business models, developer ecosystems, and user…

#125 What is a Sandbox?

Oct 02, 2023 12m Transcript

In software, a sandbox is an isolated environment that limits the resources that a particular application can access. Sandboxes are used to protect the security and privacy of the user. All Web apps…

#124 What is a Cache?

Sep 19, 2023 12m Transcript

We explain what caches are, and where they're typically used. We can think of a cache as a piece of temporary fast memory used for the retrieval of pre-computed expensive calculations or high latency…

#123 What is a Hash Table?

Sep 04, 2023 19m Transcript

Hash tables are some of the most widely used and powerful data structures. They allow for the efficient storage of key-value pairs. Keys are identifiers that we want to lookup data by, while values…

#122 Open Source Licenses

Aug 21, 2023 23m Transcript

Understanding open source licenses is critical if you're a software developer. What are your rights and responsibilities when you incorporate an open source library in your program? In this episode…

#121 Shareware with Richard Moss

Aug 07, 2023 44m Transcript

Shareware was a major distribution model for consumer software and games from the 1980s through to the 2000s. We’re privileged to be joined on the show by journalist and tech historian Richard Moss,…

Classic Episode: What is a Byte? (Remastered)

Jul 24, 2023 20m Bonus Transcript

We’re out this week, so we remastered a classic episode from 2020. It’s our third episode—a layperson’s introduction to bytes! Original description below: What is a Byte? In this episode we go down…

#120 What is FreeBSD?

Jul 11, 2023 16m Transcript

FreeBSD is probably the most popular operating system that most people have never heard of. Currently celebrating its 30th anniversary, FreeBSD is a performant, secure, Unix-like operating system…

#119 Myths About Open Source Software

Jun 26, 2023 12m Transcript

There are many misconceptions about open source software, even amongst those who think they understand it. In this episode we dispel five of the most common myths about open source software: Open…

#118 Five ChatGPT Myths

Jun 12, 2023 21m Transcript

ChatGPT and other tools based on large language models (LLMs) have taken the software world by storm. While their capabilities are incredible, they have also sparked a lot of fear, doubt, and…

Frequently Asked Questions

How many episodes does Kopec Explains Software have?

Kopec Explains Software has published 140 episodes since June 2020, covering topics in Education, Science.

Is Kopec Explains Software still active?

Kopec Explains Software is currently dormant with new episodes every 2 weeks. Average episode length is 18m.

How do I contact Kopec Explains Software for sponsorship or guest appearances?

Sign up on Grep.FM to access contact details for Kopec Explains Software, including email and social media links.

Similar Podcasts