There comes a time in every OPIGlet’s life –all too often, if you ask me– when one is asked to write a blog post. Oh, what frightful fate to befall one! What topic to select? To what end? Something surprising? Something insightful! Something useful, at least.
Not today. Today, dear reader, we address instead the singularly most enduring, deeply seated, fervently felt yearnings of the computational scientist – a fervour woven from every fibre of their being, a longing so forceful it rends their very heart, a passion that burns with the fire of a thousand suns.
I speak, of course, of the demand –nay, the imperative!– for more compute.
One should preface this by noting that in OPIG, we are in fact reasonably spoilt in this regard. Our internal and departmental resources cover our daily needs, for anything more we have access to Oxford University and national HPC resources; industry and international collaborations round out the lot. Nevertheless, with the superposition of so many individual research schedules (each already busy in itself), the vicissitudes of cluster demand would have it that it is precisely at crunch-time –in the midst of battle, conference submission deadlines barreling straight towards you, reviewer comments storming your flanks– that fortune, cruel mistress, abandons one, and a GPU with just the right configuration is nowhere to be had. It is at these moments that a fire, once forgotten, rekindles inside, and burns brighter, taller, becoming blaze, then firestorm.
How to handle such passion? No mere prose could do it justice. The inimitable, if fictional, Mr. Keating (Oh, Captain, my Captain!) once said “We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.” Poetry, then!
Imagine, for a moment, that you log onto the cluster – late at night, pressed for time, sleep-deprived, stressed, (unshaven) – and (lo!) not a single GPU is free! In fact, you need four. At least. Preferably eight. Being myself no lyricist, but knowing a chatbot or two who are (Claude 3.7 Sonnet, GPT-4.5), I took it upon myself to capture the gut-wrenching agony, the torment of this situation. For the benefit of the lyrically inclined: you should stop reading now. For everybody else, and without further ado:
Holding out for a GPU
A Deep Learning Parody
(Verse 1)
Where have all the good nodes gone
– the ones with all the RAM?
My models wait in darkness now,
Training was my plan...
Isn't there an A100 somewhere in this queue?
Late at night, I watch and I wait,
as my sanity falls through.
(Chorus)
I need a G-P-U!
I’m holding out as I try to make this model take flight
But the cluster's all filled, and I'm losing my will
Won't my model just run tonight?
I need a G-P-U!
I'm holding out for an A100 tonight.
It's gotta be strong, and it's gotta be fast,
oh, to end my miserable plight!
Miserable plight...
(Verse 2)
Somewhere after midnight
In my darkened code-lit room
My jobs still pending endlessly
This torture breeds my gloom!
Cooling fans like thunder
Echo through my restless dreams
It's gonna take a miracle now
To get me onto these machines!
(Chorus)
I need a G-P-U!
I'm holding out for an A100 tonight.
It's gotta have cores, gotta blaze through my chores
Gotta finally train this thing right!
I need a G-P-U!
I'm sitting, watching the cluster stats just frozen in fright
The queue's gotta clear, more resources appear
Or my deadlines will crush me tonight!
I need a G-P-U!
I'm holding out for an A100 tonight.
(Bridge)
Up where the servers hum and cables entwine
A node is humming – not for me!
I could swear that the SLURM-Gods want to punish me!
Through the failures, the logs, and the pain,
and each nightmarish crash,
there’s one constant alone: it’s a slog, not a dash!
(Final Chorus)
I need a G-P-U!
I am so desperate and weary, refreshing again,
still checking the queue, as my hopes all fall through,
for its always, always in vain!
I need a G-P-U!
Just when my scripts are rejected, with my will fully gone
There is no use in it, and yet still here I sit,
Hopelessly queuing 'til dawn!
I need a G-P-U!
I'm holding out for an A100 tonight.
It is said that I was able to pull a few strings and get the talented, up-and-coming Indie artist Bonnie Tyler (of fakeyou.com) to help out with a musical rendition of the above. It is said her performance was so rivetingly beautiful and so heart-wrenchingly moving, grown men wept. It is said that in the deepest, darkest reaches of my solid-state drive there lies a recording of this vexed air. Rest assured, dear reader, that there it shall remain, where this harried siren’s call cannot harm anyone (and for copyright reasons and out of simple decency towards the artist, if nothing else). You may instead, lover of true art that you are, enjoy the original here, or perhaps the ever-popular –and distinctly more fairy-like– version by DreamWorks Animation (“C-minor, put it in C-minor”). But the next time, fellow anguished soul, when the fire begins to rage within, I hope you recall this simple melody, that you begin to hum it in quiet desperation, and that it be balm to your suffering.