Games At Work Dot Biz

Photo from the International Space Station 1 April 2026 of the exhaust plume from Artemis II in Earth’s atmosphere – NASA ID: iss074e0431736 Published 20 April 2026 e551 with Michael, Michael and Andy – a tour of the Atmosphere with ATProto, Sifa, Eurosky, Leaflet, a LEGO cacophonous karaoke of “Mad About Me” and a whole lot more! Michael, Michael and Andy get things started with a series of applications powered by ATProto, the protocol powering Bluesky and many more.  Andy shares his experimentation & experiences with several of these applications, including a set curated on portal.Eurosky.tech such as Leaflet, Popfeed and Sifa. Andy also shares Anisota, which is a gamified approach to Bluesky social media browsing where you may collect photos of moths and start expeditions.  Andy learned of Aetheros from from whitep4nth3r.com and takes Michael and Michael through it.  There is a nice capability in this service called Deckard, which provides a columnar view of Bluesky posts. Ro

Mashup of photo by Victor Serban on Unsplash & images-assets.nasa.gov/image/art002e009287/art002e009287~orig.jpg Published 13 April 2026 e550 with Michael, Andy and Michael – celebrating Moon Joy with the Artemis II crew, Nutella in space, AI, an isomorphic reboot of Wolf3D and a whole lot more! Michael, Andy and Michael get things started for this episode with stories Artemis II mission, recorded just a few hours ahead of the splashdown off the California coast.  The Artemis II mission has captured the attention of many and reignited interest in space and space exploration.  NASA has leaned into the Moon Joy and the celebration of the Artemis II crew has inspired and touched the co-hosts. Check out the Artemis II moon wallpaper, and the LunarWall shortcut courtesy of Federico Viticci.  In addition to the Rise mascot floating around the Artemis capsule, the world certainly took note of the floating Nutella jar.  This was not the only COTS product aboard.  In addition to the photos shot on iPhone a

NASA photo art002e009057, 4 April 2026 Published 6 April 2026 e549 with Andy, Michael and Michael – boldly go into a deep set of space discussions featuring Artemis II, ways to keep track of the historic flight, COTS software and hardware aboard the spacecraft, Bernie Sanders conversation with Claude, TU Wien’s mini QR code and a whole lot more! Andy, Michael and Michael boldly go into a deep set of space discussions focusing on the launch of Artemis II.  Mission Control starts off with the Artemis II Tracker built by Jakob Rosin for Jakob Rosin, and as he says, every other space nerd who stayed up for launch night.  The tracker is a fantastic assembly of data related to the mission, and is well worth bookmarking to keep up to speed on the progress of the astronauts as they approach the Moon and make their return journey to Earth.   Andy, Michael and Michael take a look at an article describing how COTS (commercial, off the shelf) technology are used in space missions, and the steps neede

Photo by NEOM on Unsplash Published 23 March 2026 e548 with Michael and Michael – Stories and discussion on uncomfortable valley & uncanny valley, Nintendo’s Talking Flower, 8bit Pixel Agents for AI orchestration and a whole lot more. Michael and Michael get things rolling while Andy is away on an article discussing the animated emojis in Microsoft Teams.  Fast Company article author Rebecca Heilweil describes these emojis as the ‘uncomfortable valley’ due to the animations that imbue the emojis shared in Teams with potentially unintended additional meaning.  Check out the link for a comparison graphic showing the similarities and differences between the uncanny and uncomfortable valleys. Switching to robotic animation, Michael and Michael take a look at Nintendo’s Talking Flower, which reminds them of the Alarmo alarm clock.  Next, a digital camera that provides mini quests that are satisfied by taking a picture of “a tiny thing” or “a hidden face”. Turning to AI, the co-hosts check

Photo by Michael Martine, Chapel Hill, NC March 2026 Published 16 March 2026 e547 with Michael and Michael – Stories and discussion on bot to bot communications, 50 years of Apple, LEGO SmartPlay SmartBricks and a whole lot more. Michael and Michael get things rolling while Andy is away on an article about Meta’s acquisition of Moltbook.  This agent to agent conversational environment reminds the pair of the Google Homes chatting with one another from back in June 2017.  Have a look at the short description in the YouTube video below and hear the conversation from 2017 in e173: Babel Fish.   Next up: Apple’s announcement on the celebrations surrounding their 50th anniversary.  The intersection of technology and the liberal arts continues to resonate across the years.  A tremendous hack by Paul Staal’s design for a Mac mini case that mimics the 2×2 sloped computer brick. This, of course, allows the co-hosts get into the heart of this episode: LEGO!   First, a Duke alumn

Published 9 March 2026 e543 with Andy, Michael and Michael – Stories and discussion on LEGO’s new Smart Play brick, this is a human brain (cells) on Doom, orc audio for vibe coding, Liquid Death’s Spotify urn for playlist immortality and a whole lot more. Michael, Michael and Andy get things rolling with Michael M’s delivery of the newest innovation from LEGO, the Smart Play brick!   While Michael’s only had a little bit of time to play with the new brick, it is already sparking some interesting ideas.  Check out the show notes below for what others are doing with it, now that the Smart Play brick is out and in the wild!  And of course the audio of the podcast for some of the sounds from the brick! An article about a biocomputing success to play Doom with human brain cells, reminds the cohosts of other biocomputing examples from e504.  The Ars Technica article about identifying anonymous users through LLMs likewise reminds the team of other examples for triangulating identity. 

Photo by Marc-Olivier Jodoin on Unsplash Published 2 March 2026 e545 with Andy and Michael – Get to talk about mostly non-AI topics this week, as we look at a cool kickstarter, Titan, that is building out a futuristic gauntlet. Do you want a forearm mounted drone? Is so, go check it out, along with the opportunity for community modules. Very cool! We then dip back into the world of AR and VR, as people speculate how Apple’s rumored AR glasses may benefit from the recent acquisition of Q.AI. We spend some time thinking of how a new App can help identify if you are around someone who has smart glasses on. (Even if Michael get’s the TV show reference wrong – and after an exhaustive search he can’t find the right one). We also discuss Disney’s deal to relaunch the Muppets in VR Ride as a VR app. Moving on to some cool artistic visions we look at both video and photographic way of seeing the world. Before moving back to tech with amazing upgrades to robots o

Photo by Masahiro Naruse on Unsplash Published 23 February 2026 e544 with Andy, Michael and Michael – Stories and discussion on rumoured AI devices, addictive predictives, listening through bananas (or mud), and what happens when VR platforms die? Plus the usual assortment or other things. This week’s episode kicks off with a check in on which tech giants are working on what devices, now? Apple stepping back from headsets but working on glasses and pendants, and OpenAI making some kind of smart Pod for your dumb Home? Then, there’s discussion of the challenges of privacy when LLMs get access to private email and chats. Oh, and if you’re not sure if your AI is an LLM or a sentience, then Anthropic can’t answer that. We hope you’re listening to the show in perfect digital quality, but we’re also interested to know if you’ve tried piping it to your ears through any kind of fruit – let us know. Meta’s fully backing away from VR for Horizon Worlds, and

Photo by Viktor Keri on Unsplash Published 16 February 2026 e543 with Andy, Michael and Michael – Stories and discussion on Agentic AI and the changing nature of work, agents renting humans, real time translation, artistic roads, e-bikes for your feet and a whole lot more. Andy, Michael and Michael get things rolling with several AI articles.  First up, is a Mastodon post by Alan Pringle that called attention to a HBR article on the influence of AI on productivity.  This then led to a post on productivity acceleration technologies from years past – from COBOL, which was designed to enable business people to write programs, to 4GLs to case tools.  Then, the team discusses a detailed post from Matt Shumer entitled Something Big Is Happening.  The entire post is well worth reading, not only for how history is unfolding in real time, also for the recommendations that Matt makes for people to take onboard right now.  Among the recommendations are to begin the habit of adapting,

Photo by Mihai

edited picture from Lars H Knudsen: https://www.pexels.com/photo/a-close-up-shot-of-a-llama-7845603/ Published 2 February 2026 e541 with Michael and Michael – Stories and discussion on AI with local Claude (and Clawdbot, Moltbot & openclaw), collaborative agents, 25 cent physical microtransactions ( quarters ), invisibility cloaks, LEGO SmartPlay and a whole lot more. Michael and Michael get things rolling with a series of intriguing innovations in local AI.  First up is a local instantiation of Claude via Ollama – see notes below for the installation instructions if you care to give this a shot.  Then, the team checks out Trae for it’s orchestration capabilities. Michael M makes the mistake of trying out one of these innovations while recording the show and nearly crashes his machine.  Then a discussion on the startup Humans& and how this company is planning for how human + digital combinations will power the future.  The post from Thomas Ricouard illustrates how agent

Photo by Aneta Pawlik on Unsplash Published 26 January 2026 e540 with Michael, Andy and Michael – Stories and discussion on mobile controllers, AI playing Anchorhead, Zork & Roller Coaster Tycoon, an isometric NYC, human artistic creativity and a whole lot more. Michael, Andy and Michael get things clicking with some mobile controllers.  Starting with one of Andy’s latest technology acquisitions, the team enjoys hearing about Andy’s experience with the MCON.  And they especially like the “saucer separation” functionality.  The featured image from Unsplash was selected because there were very few TNG images – if you want to see the saucer separation that inspired this week’s show title, have a look at the YouTube video below.  After discussing the Anbernic controller, which has some interesting features like a screen and heart rate monitoring, the team moves forward with AI. Claude features in a couple of the stories – first with an article from Fernando Borretti who d

Michael R brings back Ian Hughes to discuss the recent changes with Meta’s VR investments, cool content on Apple’s Vision Pro, the new Creator Studio bundle, and 25 years of Wikipedia. While Andy and Michael M are not available we look at how large companies cutting back on innovation can allow new startups and companies to flourish. With Meta refocusing more on wearables, perhaps we will see an uptick in innovative uses for VR. Which is a perfect sequel way for Michael to given his review of the NBA’s recent basketball game on the Vision Pro. The experience seemed to him to be the perfect onramp for Michael M, if it were college basketball. We then review a few older games (Civilization VII and RetroCade), coming to Apple Arcade, before looking at the Board Tabletop Gaming Console. With all this cool tech, Michael introduces Ian to the Apple Creator Studio. Is it worth it? Ian, having recently built an AI server at home via ComfyUI, thinks it may be cheap enough for his pocketbook.

Photo by Michael Martine, Blowing Rock, NC 2022 Published 12 January 2026 e538 with Michael, Michael and Andy – Stories and discussion on CES2026, EuroTech, PhoneTech, AI playing your games for you so you can watch and a whole lot more. Andy, Michael and Michael take a look at many of the announcements from CES, and share a few of their favorites.  CES is the annual Consumer Electronics Show held in Las Vegas, Nevada.  In the phone technology arena, there are several MagSafe examples that magnetically snap onto an iPhone, such as charger that looks kind of like a floppy disk.  Another example is a keyboard, with tactile buttons you can type with in portrait or landscape mode.  The keyboard creates a form factor that is reminiscent of the Danger Hiptop / Sidekick.  Between these examples and others (like a second screen e-reader that snaps to the back of a phone), the cohosts mull what it would be like to stack several of them in sequence. After discussing the Punkt phone, and th

Photo by Scott Gruber on Unsplash Published 4 January 2026 e537 with Michael M and Andy – ringing in the new year with the amazing power of music to move and heal, LEGO and retro builds and a whole lot more. Andy, Michael and Michael would like to wish all of our listeners a very happy 2026! Michael M and Andy start off 2026 on a good note – or perhaps better said – a series of good notes.  Michael shares some of his vacation reading, beginning with the book, I Heard There Was a Secret Chord by Daniel Levitin.  In this book, Levitin highlights the power of music to move and heal, and provides a Linktree to listen to the songs featured in the book, which is included in the show notes below.  One particular example from the book was the Ella Fitzgerald recording of Mack the Knife in Berlin, and the magic she created in the moment when she forgot the lyrics. Andy highlights an amazing musical creation moment with Jacob Collier’s improvisation with the National Symphony Orchestra.

Photo by Alexander Grigoryev on Unsplash Published 22 December 2025 e536 with Andy, Michael R, and guest host newly-retired Ian “Epredator” Hughes – a dive into gaming in 2025, retro computing and games, how to fix old paintings, and what’s coming to the public domain on January 1st. The show kicks off with a number of gaming topics, discussing what the hosts have been playing lately, including the results of the Steam Replay for 2025. There’s also a chat about Commodore (joysticks, and the new Commodore 64 Ultimate), ZX Spectrum, and other retro machines. Netflix has been making acquisitions in the gaming space, where will they lead? Michael is fascinated by the process of restoring old paintings; Andy and Ian have seen a lot more of this on TV in the UK! In the wrap, the hosts cover an incident of apparent smart glasses-induced rage on the subway; and briefly talk about what’s coming into the Public Domain on January 1st 2026. Wishing all our listeners a happy and peacefu

Photo by David Klein on Unsplash Published 15 December 2025 e535 with Michael M and Andy – adversarial poetry to jailbreak LLMs, iFixit’s FixBot, power of digital twins, putting the breaks on Rewind, Nintendo Virtual Boy and a whole lot more. Michael M and Andy start things off with a most intriguing concept – adversarial poetry.  By using ‘memetic language’, researchers formulated prompts with imagery and metaphor instead of direct operational phrasing to trick LLMs into providing unsafe responses.  Michael makes the point that AI prompts are becoming more and more like spells or incantations.  See the show notes below for a link to the paper for any budding AI poet laureate wannabes.  Perhaps Jabberwocky can be used in a snicker snack way.   Switching to another AI use case, Andy and Michael discuss the iFixit FixBot.  The FixBot provides expert advice and guidance for repairs, by talking to the human who likely needs both hands to effect the repair.  Next up are a couple of stories on

Photo by Tim Wildsmith on Unsplash Published 24 November 2025 e534 with Michael, Andy and Michael – AI and ML training data, camouflage, ppen source Zork, Deadpool VR, NPH movies and a whole lot more. Michael, Andy and Michael start things off with with an intriguing AI analysis of the heist from the Louvre.  The Ars Technica article takes the examples of mathematical machine learning and human psychology to show how both were defeated what was considered to be ordinary versus suspicious.  This is a terrific reminder on the importance of the training data sets used for AI models and how the “performance of normality became the perfect camouflage”.  Michael R highlights the On Intelligence book, and Michael M brings up visual pattern recognition of the human form which ghillie suits help disguise. Switching to a hackster.io article, the die is cast – or rather the die is 3d printed.  Andy shares his thoughts on this bluetooth enabled die, and mentions how dice have featured prom

e533 with Andy, Michael and Michael - rings to chart the heavens and control your home, repurposing smart TVs, retro La Machine and Vectrex hardware made newly available, new Valve Steam hardware and a whole lot more.

e532 with Michael and Michael - Halloween Spooktacular edition with #AI #whale #communications & implications, #robotic #vacuums that phone home, #AdSupported #TV and a whole lot more.