Games At Work dot Biz

e569 — Vice City or ASCII City

Photo by Logan Voss on Unsplash Published 28 September 2026 e569 with Andy, Michael and Michael explore flight and world simulators, VR glasses that burn temples, sideburns, ice printing, a camera robot, audio optimized venues and a whole lot more! The Game at Work cohosts Andy, Michael and Michael are back together for a whirlwind review of the latest in technology. They start off with a flight simulator, which is not from the perspective of a pilot – rather from the perspective of a passenger. The familiar sights and sounds or jet travel can be yours from the browser-based InFlightSimulator. Then, zooming out a bit, the cohosts consider God’s Eye View, where the user can experience a photorealistic digital twin of the planet. After briefly touching (down) on Geoscape, Andy has an opportunity to share the ASCII City experience. This is not your 1980s ASCII art, rather a very Matrix-esque view of a city, with cars, pedestrians and buildings. Switching gears, the team takes a look at several VR stories, including the new VR glasses from Meta and the Inmo Air3. The Inmo glasses have had a recall for overheating, which opened a etymology discussion on the origin of sideburns. And an article from heise.de details challenges stemming from GDPR requirements. In the last part of the episode, there are several cool stories. One details how it is possible to 3D print ice by removing air. Another is an interactive art exhibit. A third is a kickstarter for flat dice. After looking at Beni, a camera robot designed to follow or race ahead of you to film you, the team wraps up with the new Apple Music Hall venue in London, which looks to be a fantastic place to hear performances. What city would you like to experience in ASCII? Have your bots 🤖 drop our bots 🤖 a line at @gamesatwork_biz@mastodon.social (our home for now) and let us know! These show notes were lovingly hand crafted by a real human, and not by a bot. All rights reserved. That’s our story and we’re sticking to it. Selected Links World Simulations In Flight Simulator @gamesatwork_biz If you happen to know any flight simulator enthusiasts/delightful nerds… why not offer them a God-like-vista to keep them busy exploring forever… https://youtu.be/o_FJ1NIH9yw #FrontierMapping #SuckYouInHighU11Y — 𝓛𝔁𝓼 / 𝔸𝕝𝕖𝕩𝕚𝕤 🏵🇪🇺💫 (@lxs@fosstodon.org)2026-09-15T17:44:24.510Z God’s Eye View on GitHub Geoscape ASCII City Grow Now! Games (for ASCII City) ASCII Art Archive AR/VR Glasses IGN article: Meta’s New VR Glasses to Entice Casual Viewers With 3D and Full-Frame IMAX The Verge article: These smart glasses have been recalled for overheating temples causing burns Wikipedia article: Ambrose Burnside (for the etymology of “sideburns”) heise.de article: GDPR trap Smart Glasses: Why Ray-Ban Meta wearers can be held liable Ice Ice Printing Fabbaloo article: A 3D Printer That Makes Ice By Removing Air PNAS article: Three-dimensional printing of ice structures via evaporative cooling in vacuum More Cool Stuff Ink and Switch Ink and Switch Ambsheets Kickstarter: HEXFORME DICE: Ultra-Thin Modular Magnetic Spinner Dice Mondo Robotics Games at Work e171: Jelly Jelly Bo Belly (for the selfie taking wrist drone) Apple Newsroom: Apple opens Apple Music Hall, a brand‑new state‑of‑the‑art live music venue in London Berliner Philharmoniker

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e568 — LEGO ThunderCats Ho!

photo by Gabriel Lopez (augmented with a grey and a black cat by Michael M): https://www.pexels.com/photo/spectacular-lightning-storm-over-a-river-at-night-37895958/ Published 14 September 2026 e568 Michael and Michael discuss AI Vision invisibility techniques, set flavors to stun with Le Creuset’s Star Trek inspired cookware, enjoy LEGO Ideas projects, review Audio Intelligence features and a whole lot more! Michael and Michael get together while Andy is away and kick things off with a story about making cars invisible to AI. This discussion reminds Michael R of other examples such as clothing or glasses that aid in obscuring visual algorithms. Michael M is reminded of a story the Games at Work team covered about Duke University’s work on an “invisibility cloak”. The next dish on the menu deals with a fun mashup between cookware maker Le Creuset and Star Trek. A wonderful article from Wired chock full of puns boldly goes where the cohosts did not dare. I’m a chef, not an away team member, Jim! How they missed a saucer separation is really beyond us. In the attached show notes, you can delve into the differences between a Trekker and a Trekkie – but consider yourself warned. Then, a couple of pieces about LEGO, specifically the LEGO Ideas that have reached 10,000 community votes, and are up for consideration to be made available for purchase. Michael M highlights his favorites from the recent batch of contenders, focusing on Lion-O and his ThunderCats team. The 1950s diner with it’s lighting kit for all the neon decor is also fantastic. This was the week for new announcements from Cupertino – and the cohosts picked up on two interesting pieces. First, a set of cases for the new iPhone Duo that hearken back to the color language of the iBook. And second, a take on the privacy for the Audio Intelligence features for the new Apple Watches. The team wraps things up with the 40th anniversary of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and a sidescroller game celebrating the 900th anniversary since the last time the Bayeux tapestry was in England. Who is your favorite ThunderCat? Have your bots 🤖 drop our bots 🤖 a line at @gamesatwork_biz@mastodon.social (our home for now) and let us know! These show notes were lovingly hand crafted by a real human, and not by a bot. All rights reserved. That’s our story and we’re sticking to it. Selected Links Hiding in Plain Sight Bitdefender article: An “invisible” car? Researcher uses machine learning to hide vehicles from Flock cameras Games at Work e541: Invisible Llamas (for stories on invisibility) Games at Work e396: GAN vs GAN (for details on the Duke invisibility cloak, Daniel Suarez Kill Decision) Le Creuset x Star Trek Wired article: To Boldly Dough! Le Creuset Sent Its New Star Trek Cooking Collection Into Space Le Creuset x Star Trek The Trek BBS thread: The difference between Trekkie and Trekker? (Remember, you’ve been warned) LEGO Ideas ThunderCats IMDb ThunderCats TV Series 1985-1989 Emergency Kit 1950s American Drive-In Diner LeLightGo LEGO Light Kits Not An Apple Podcast MacWorld article: The perfect iPhone Duo case doesn’t exis (sic)… iBook Clamshell: iBook Colors MacRumors article: Apple Explains What Happens to Conversations Siri Recap Hears Apple article: About Audio Intelligence features on Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4 Anniversaries and Games https://bayeuxgo.live The British Museum: The Bayeux Tapestry NPR article: After 900 years, the Bayeux Tapestry returns to England and goes on display in London

e567 — Infinite Pong World Model

e567 with Michael M and Andy - Stories and discussion on Xteink reader mods, PONG, mathematical innovations for dice, walled garden vs open vibe coding, World Models, AI productivity and a whole lot more!

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e566 — Making Fetch Happen

Picture by Michael Martine, Dennis, MA, August 2026 Published 31 August 2026 e566 with Michael M and Andy who strive to make fetch happen with AI podcast search and news aggregation, spoof computers (Mactini & MacBook Wheel), Doom ports & mods, Flying Toasters, falling Acme anvils and a whole lot more! Michael M and Andy get together while Michael R is away, starting and ending the episode with some classic lines from stage and screen. Michael M is freshly back from seeing the Cape Playhouse’s rendition of Mean Girls, which was such a delight. Turning then to AI – the cohosts start off with a story about making podcasts searchable and usable by AI agents. This reminds Andy of Particle, an app that both he and Michael use occasionally to review the news. Next, they both use the Cringebot 3000 to make up some LinkedIn posts. Then, a series of hacks – beginning with a super fun one, the Apple Mactini, not to be confused with Dr. Dorian from Scrubs favorite drink – the appletini. The Mactini is not a watered down cocktail, rather it is a one button computer that Tucker Osman made based on the spoof of an Apple TV commercial from 20 years ago, and that remained true to the spoof in it’s function. The Onion made a spoof of a click wheel (from the iPod) Mac in 2009 – and you can see that video in in the notes below. After checking out a number of LEGO gaming PCs, Andy shares the story of the eenk firmware for Xteink devices to create the choose your own adventure games we’ve been sharing on the podcast recently. Longtime listeners will know that the Games at Work team collects Doom stories, and for this episode, there are a couple of new examples. There’s a story about Doom running on the EMFCamp Tildagon Badge, a mod called Mr. Friendly whose objective is to help the monsters recover from the latest space marine rampage, and an article about Anthropic’s Claude playing the game. Closing out the show, Andy and Michael take a look at a port of the After Dark screen savers which you can now experience again thanks to Afterglow. They also look at a review of the Coyote vs Acme film that is premiering, and the linkage to Looney Tunes, and Ben Moor’s talk entitled “Pronoun Trouble”. And, as mentioned at the start of the show notes, the ending for the episode ties everything up with an Elmer Fudd bow where we is hunting Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, and Daffy of course utters the classic line in his classic voice, “You’re despicable.” What is your favorite Acme product? Have your bots 🤖 drop our bots 🤖 a line at @gamesatwork_biz@mastodon.social (our home for now) and let us know! These show notes were lovingly hand crafted by a real human, and not by a bot. All rights reserved. That’s our story and we’re sticking to it. Selected Links Mean Girls @ The Cape Playhouse Mean Girls 2026 AI TechCrunch article: Radar makes podcasts searchable — and usable by AI agents Particle.news LinkedIn CringeBot 3000 Hacks hackster.io article: The Apple Mactini Just Became a Real Computer Games at Work e529: Shake, Shake, Shake Your iPhone (for the Onion MacBook Wheel) Brick Fanatics article: New LEGO gaming PCs revealed, and you can make them at home eenk custom firmware for the Xteink ESP32 series of e-ink reader devices Doom Mr. Friendly Hackaday article: Claude Plays Doom Miscellany Afterglow for After Dark Flying Toasters Games at Work e382: Know it when I see it (for the creepy AI generated flying toaster) IGN article: Coyote vs. Acme Review Ben Moor post: Pronoun Trouble Rabbit Fire (1951) on r/looneytunes (for the Rabbit Season, Duck Season bit, which is such a classic)

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e565 — Building Minas Tirith

Photo by iridial on Unsplash Published 17 August 2026 e565 with Andy, Michael and Michael – invisible prompt injections in legal briefs and resumes, podcasting games, No Man’s Sky & Pokemon Go’s anniversaries, LEGO and a whole lot more! Andy, Michael and Michael begin with invisible prompt injections. The first example is in legal briefs with the intent to influence AI agents reading the filings. Another example attempts to influence agents evaluating resumes. Continuing on the theme, the co hosts consider a story about machine-readable watermarks in text and images in accordance with the EU’s AI Act. Next up is an intriguing podcast game from friend of the show, Ian Hughes. In this game, the player collects stories that appeal to the co hosts of the podcast in order to put together a show. Bravo, Ian! Andy shares his Twine take on the Games at Work choose your own adventure game including inventory and time constraints. Andy’s game even allows you to create a choose your own adventure Twine game in the game! Then, the team celebrates several 10 year milestones – for No Man’s Sky and for Pokemon Go. Next – it’s time for LEGO! A new Nike + LEGO AF1 creation replete with a Spaceman minifig sporting Nike logos on his space boots makes its appearance. LEGO also announces the “Masters Academy” at the LEGO house, where you can learn to become more creative with your builds. This inspires Michael M on how LEGO can spur creativity in other settings, following on LEGO’s Serious Play offerings. Michael R found the Minas Tirith build with all 8,278 pieces while the builder was watching the entire extended edition of the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy. The builder was wearing an Oura ring to track their stress level and included in the article are screenshots from the ring’s app. Check them out from the link below. Closing out the episode, the team takes a look at Prima, a retinal implant for macular degeneration. Amazing times we live in. What features would you like to see in the Podcasting games? Have your bots 🤖 drop our bots 🤖 a line at @gamesatwork_biz@mastodon.social (our home for now) and let us know! These show notes were lovingly hand crafted by a real human, and not by a bot. All rights reserved. That’s our story and we’re sticking to it. Selected Links AI 404 Media article: Person Hides Prompt Injection in Legal Filing Telling AI to Side With Them Fast Company article: ‘Fighting fire with fire’: Job candidates are sneaking AI prompt injections into their applications The Verge article: Claude will apply invisible watermarks to AI text and images Made by Human European Commission article: EU Icons for labelling AI-generated content Podcast and other Games LinkQuest: A Tech Podcast Adventure from Ian Hughes Games at Work Podcast Game from Andy Games at Work e35: Pirates of Pizzazz (for the Games at Work choose your own adventure game) Games at Work Podcast Game from Michael M Games Radar article: No Man’s Sky Cosmos is the next big update as Hello Games refuses to slow down after 10 years Kotaku article: No Man’s Sky Players Have Visited Less Than 1 Percent Of Its Planets After A Decade Of Exploration And 40 Major Updates Damp Squib / Damp Squid references IMDb: Remarkably Bright Creatures Pokemon Go news: Every Trainer can celebrate 10 years of Pokémon GO with a special Mewtwo! LEGO IGN article: LEGO Reveals Nike Air Force 1 Set With a New Version of the Classic Spaceman Minifigure Stuff article: I became a better builder at Lego House’s epic Masters Academy sessions – and you can too! Games at Work e130: The Final Countdown (for LEGO Serious Play) Stuff article: I tracked my stress while making an 8000 piece Lego set, and the results are surprising Tech New Scientist article: Eye implant that restores vision lost to age approved for use Prima

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e564 — Saving Drowning People With Spiders

Photo by Zac Taheriyan on Unsplash Published 10 August 2026 e564 with Michael, Andy and Michael – a spider filled episode with AdTech and lifesaving robotic implications, VR Mario Kart, quantum lawn mowing, identity management and a whole lot more! Michael, Andy and Michael begin the episode with Spider-Man showing up in an unexpected place – a BMW infotainment system! The negative reactions from the articles and cohosts were not surprising. The team have discussed ads you don’t want showing up where you don’t want them – like on automotive windshields, in AR, and more – see e481 from 2024 in the links below for more on this. The team shifts to a more enjoyable driving experience, where Andy describes what he did to enable a VR version of Mario Kart. Next up – a reflection on 30 years of Quake with an anniversary release. Then, appealing to the team’s sensibilities on mowing lawns and penchant for NP quantum problems, a lawn mowing optimization game from Pudding. Switching from software to hardware, the cohosts take a look at a surprising smaller than expected device called the Octopus 16 which measures EEG brain signals to allow the user to control a computer. See the show notes below for the original box for the Emotiv headset from the July 2015 kickstarter. Then, the titular post for this show, a new robot based on nature for rescuing people who are drowning. The inspiration for this robot was a fishing spider who walks on water to capture its prey. Your show notes thankfully do not include pictures of such spiders, though if you click through to the Arxiv paper, there is a picture, so consider yourself warned. While not discussed in this episode, Dr. Kate Darling’s book The New Breed: What Our History with Animals Reveals about Our Future with Robots explores social and ethical themes on robotics that fit nicely into this theme. Michael M had a chance to hear her speak at Duke earlier this year and an article about that talk is included in the notes below. Rounding out the show, the team wraps up with an identity service from Meta called Facebook Verified. This free service is intended to help identify when a person is a human and distinguish from AI agents. The cohosts shared thoughts about this topic and the service before the recording time was exhausted. Aside from spiders, what other robotic form factors based on the animal and insect kingdom would you want to see? Have your bots 🤖 drop our bots 🤖 a line at @gamesatwork_biz@mastodon.social (our home for now) and let us know! These show notes were lovingly hand crafted by a real human, and not by a bot. All rights reserved. That’s our story and we’re sticking to it. Selected Links Friendly, Neighborhood (Automotive) AdTech Consumer Rights Wiki post: BMW Spider-Man in-car advertising Techspot article: BMW is putting Spider-Man ads on your dashboard, after promising it never would Games at Work e481 — Services You Don’t Need (for ads you don’t want and hyper-reality) Driving, Quaking & Mowing Simulations Retrododo article: Mario Kart VR Puts You In the Driving Seat Through Classic N64 Courses Bethesda article: Quake – 30th Anniversary Update Kottke post: Are You Good at Mowing Lawns? Pudding post: Why some people mow a lawn better than others Arxiv paper: Solving The Travelling Salesman Problem Using A Single Qubit CNX-Software post: Play games with your brain signals using Octopus 16 wireless EEG device Games at Work post from July 2015 – Getting All Emotiv(tional) (for the Emotiv headset) Spiders & More Multi-Legged Things hackster.io article: A Spider-Inspired Robot Built to Save Drowning Victims Arxiv paper: Design and Control of the “QuadBoat”: A Quadruped Surface Vehicle for Drowning Rescue (warning – spider photo in this paper!) No link to fishing spiders. You’re welcome. Duke Sanford School of Public Policy article: Wilson Lecture: Kate Darling brings joy, humor, and urgency to a conversation about humans and robots Identity Management (or not) The New World article: 2026 – the year fakes finally broke social media Meta post: Introducing Facebook Verified

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e563 — Space Nerds in Space

Photo by Michael Martine, Chapel Hill, NC Aug 2026 Published 3 August 2026 e563 with Michael, Michael and Andy – Games at Work Game, and a cornucopia of other games: Haex, Pathbind Quest, a physical cockpit for Halcyon Dawn, Chris Pirillo’s UFO game from his Arcade and a whole lot more! Michael, Michael and Andy start off this episode with a discussion about what a Games at Work game might look like. In addition to the idea that there could be three avatars scanning the internet for stories, Michael M reminds the team of a “choose your own adventure” Games at Work game coded back in e35 Pirates of Pizzazz in 2013. You can still play that game from the link in the show notes! Then, the team turns to a cornucopia of games. First up is Haex, an immersive world builder game. Other games discussed include Baldur’s Gate 3, which has a 3rd person over the shoulder mod that had Michael R intrigued. In Crowd Supply, there is a small piece of hardware that has a virtual world encoded in it called Pathbind Quest. After checking out an extensively built physical spaceship cockpit to go along with Halcyon Dawn, the co hosts wind up on Chris Pirillo’s Vibe Arcade and play the UFO Game. Do you have a favorite from Chris’ Arcade? Have your bots 🤖 drop our bots 🤖 a line at @gamesatwork_biz@mastodon.social (our home for now) and let us know! These show notes were lovingly hand crafted by a real human, and not by a bot. All rights reserved. That’s our story and we’re sticking to it. Selected Links Hypothetical and real Games at Work Games Games at Work e35: Pirates of Pizzazz (for the Games at Work choose your own adventure game) Games at Work Podcast Game ChooseYourStory.com Adafruit article: How To Homebrew Game Boy Games Games The Guardian article: Haex – a wilder, weirder open-world adventure Screenrant article: Baldur’s Gate 3 Over-The-Shoulder Camera Mode Adds New Level Of Immersion Nexus Mods: True Third-Person Camera (for Baldur’s Gate 3) Crowd Supply post: Pathbind Quest Hackaday article: Behold the Most Beautifully Ambitious Starship Simulator Yet Chris Pirillo’s UFO game Chris Pirillo’s Vibe Arcade

e562 — Field Notes

Photo by Michael Martine, Hamptonville, North Carolina, Oct 2018 Published 27 July 2026 e562 with Andy and Michael M – EMFCamp recap, whole lot of LEGO love, the game of life, a Playdate mini MMO, AR assisted murals and a whole lot more! Andy and Michael M start off with a recap of Andy’s experiences at EMF Camp while Michael R is away for this episode. Andy shares his experiences, describes the “Monumental GameBoy”, how visitors to his campsite enjoyed playing his LEGO pinball machine and his updates to the EMF badge (such as Pigs in Space!). Check out the show notes below for a few visual links, including the Joust game for the Tildagon badge and more. Michael M went to an event at a local arcade in Chapel Hill and only noticed as he was leaving that they too had a Joust cabinet game. Andrzej Marczewski wrote an article in gamified.uk about the game of life – not the one by Hasbro or Conway – rather the game of life itself with resources to manage and protect. Andy and Michael enjoyed Andrzej’s take, especially how he treated progress and score. Going from the macro to the micro, the team also took a look at the Playdate miniMMO PointlessQuest. Andy may give this a shot on his Playdate soon! Next, it’s on to LEGO, and there are so many new cool drops from Billund. Andy already mentioned his pinball table during the EMF recap. After checking out the playable Donkey Kong game, the pair then takes a look at the new Star Trek Enterprise 1701 bridge. With 8 minifigs from the original series, and features such as the rocking command chair, transporter room actions and troubling Tribbles, there’s something for every Star Trek fan. And the team just loved just how many LEGO bricks it took to make the Enterprise bridge set. Then, Andy and Michael take a look at how an artist created a mural using sketchar.io augmented reality – just like using transparencies and an overhead projector from days of yore. If that doesn’t ring a bell, have a look at the YouTube from the Computer History Museum below. Many thanks to @lxs@fosstodon.org for sharing this mural designing video with us! Who is your favorite original Star Trek character? Have your bots 🤖 drop our bots 🤖 a line at @gamesatwork_biz@mastodon.social (our home for now) and let us know! These show notes were lovingly hand crafted by a real human, and not by a bot. All rights reserved. That’s our story and we’re sticking to it. Selected Links It’s Electric! Electromagnetic Field Festival 2026 Wikipedia article: Chaos Communication Camp Makertube post: Snapper – a mechanical arcade machine based on Paku Paku. New at EMF Camp 2026 Tildagon Badge Documentation Joustagon – Johann Sebastian Joust on the Tildagon Club-Mate Games at Work e560: Sweating the Small Stuff (for EMFCamp prep) Massive & Tiny Games Life Has Stats: What Games Teach Us About Progress https://www.gamified.uk/2026/07/18/life-has-stats-what-games-teach-us-about-progress/ #gamification — Andrzej Marczewski (@daverage@mastodon.social)2026-07-18T07:31:22.054Z Gamified UK article: Life Has Stats: What Games Teach Us About Progress 404 Media article: We Are Living in a ‘ChatGPT Flyer Pandemic’ Wikipedia article: Conway’s Game of Life Wikipedia article: The Game of Life The Verge article: The tiniest MMO PointlessQuest by Gareth Williams LEGO LEGO Icons Arcade Pinball Machine #11374 The Verge article: Lego’s Donkey Kong arcade machine lets Mario jump endless barrels — Miyamoto is reportedly happy LEGO Icons Star Trek: U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701™ Bridge #11385 AR Painting by Numbers @gamesatwork_biz Augmenting the outdoor artistic efforts… via tech {Met a few artists who achieve even larger scale projects with manual place-markers & mind-craft} https://www.instagram.com/reel/DZsltTzhunw/ — 𝓛𝔁𝓼 / 𝔸𝕝𝕖𝕩𝕚𝕤 🏵🇪🇺💫 (@lxs@fosstodon.org)2026-07-16T07:38:39.224Z Instagram post by faridisartwork sketchar As seen on TV New, exclusive, by me: LG to Ban Residential Proxy Providers from Smart TV Apps The home appliance giant LG Electronics USA said this week it plans to suspend any apps built for its smart TVs that turn one’s television into an always-on residential proxy node. The move comes less than a month after researchers found that more than 42 percent of games and other apps available for download on LG’s webOS store allow unknown third-parties to route their Internet traffic through a user’s TV. https://krebsonsecurity.com/2026/07/lg-to-ban-residential-proxies-from-smart-tv-apps/ #smarttv #lg #residentialproxies #spur #security — BrianKrebs (@briankrebs@infosec.exchange)2026-07-22T01:12:48.388Z Krebs on Security article: LG to Ban Residential Proxies from Smart TV Apps Techdirt article: Sony Deletes A Bunch More Movies From The Accounts Of People Who ‘Bought’ Them

e561 — For the Birds

Photo by Michael Martine, South Yarmouth MA, July 2026 Published 13 July 2026 e561 with Michael, Andy and Michael – arial-aquatic robotic locomotion, Puffin wingspan, e-ink mini PDAs, maker marketplaces such as Tindie, Lectronz and SmallRun, custom vinyl, cooperative LLMs and a whole lot more! Michael, Andy and Michael get things started with a new robot that can fly and swim, and transition between the air and water on it’s own. This amazing feat was inspired by diving birds such as the puffin. This story inspired the cohosts to consider the wingspan of the puffin, and while writing up the show notes, the Wingspan boarding game and the airborne velocity of the swallow. Switching to non-robotic tech, the team take a look at the PocketMage PDA, which then opens up a whole discussion on (dare we say vintage) other PDAs, and the maker culture of EMF Camp, where Andy is spending some time as discussed in e560. Crowdsupply’s Open Printer article primed the team for a number of favorite maker marketplaces which you can check out in the show notes below. Examples like Tindie, Lectronz and SmallRun all get the benefit of the Games at Work bump. And a google search turns up another SmallRun website that provides the service of creating custom vinyl for recordings, and inspires Andy on a potential gift. The team then looks at a couple of YouTube videos where a number of different LLMs are tasked to work collaboratively to play Pico Park. You can see these below, and it is an intriguing way to consider how multiple autonomous agents may work together (or not) in other contexts. In e173 in 2017, the cohosts discussed an example of two Google Homes talked to one another on Twitch. Rounding out the episode, there is an Inc article on what happened when the Starbucks app had a failure. The behavior was very reminiscent of last week’s discussion on Ian Bogost’s new book, The Small Stuff. The article concludes “Connivence creates its own fragility” – what an interesting turn of phrase. Have you had an example of when convenience created fragility for you? Have your bots 🤖 drop our bots 🤖 a line at @gamesatwork_biz@mastodon.social (our home for now) and let us know! These show notes were lovingly hand crafted by a real human, and not by a bot. All rights reserved. That’s our story and we’re sticking to it. Selected Links Avian Robotic Technology NPR article: A new kind of robot swims the seas and soars the skies Science article: Leaping out of the water: Aerial-aquatic locomotion with flapping wings Audubon Bird Guide: Atlantic Puffin (for the wingspan in case you’re curious) Stonemaier Games Wingspan Interesting Engineering article: Monty Python and the Holy Grail: Airspeed Velocity of an Unladen Swallow More Technology The Verge article: The PocketMage resurrects the PDA with an e-paper screen EMF Camp Sellshirts: HTTPShirts Wikipedia article: T-Mobile Sidekick Wikipedia article: Danger, Inc. Crowdsupply article: Open Printer – Progress Update & Details About Our Nomination for a French Design Award! Society for Hopeful Technologists Tindie Lectronz SmallRun smallrun.com.au Games experienced with AI (shhhhhh…) Pico Park for Switch Games at Work e173: Babel Fish (for two Google Homes talking to one another #seebotschat) When tech goes wrong Inc article: Starbucks’s App Went Down This Morning. What Customers Did Next Is a Warning for Every Business

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e560 — Sweating the Small Stuff

Photo by nik biziuk on Unsplash Published 6 July 2026 e560 with Andy, Michael and Michael – stickshift & phone handsets with Ian Bogost, camping at EMF Camp 2026 & Mountain Quest 2026, brain cooling, dwarf lemurs, World Cup 2026, USMNT, ThreeLions, the tokenpocalypse and a whole lot more! Andy, Michael and Michael get things started with a TechCrunch interview with Ian Bogost on his about to be published book, The Small Stuff. Building on the success of his article on the demise of the stick shift, Ian wrote a book that focuses on the details of life that make a difference. The cohosts harken back all the way to episode 17 in August of 2012 when Ian was a guest on the podcast. Part of the discussion from the article focused on the nature of the telephone handset, which brought the EMF Camp telecommunications setup to mind for Andy. Electromagnetic Telecom allows anyone attending EMF to register a phone number on the network and communicate with other participants. Speaking of camping, Michael M shares an overview video of Mountain Quest 2026, where he was a participant the prior weekend in the mountains of North Carolina. It’s hot in the UK and in North Carolina – so the maker article about the brain turbocharger looked to be a welcome relief from the heat. This modified construction helmet recognizes when the user has been thinking hard and signals multiple fans built into the helmet to cool things down so the user’s brain does not overheat from overclocking. Recent discussions on the podcast about the Steam hardware made the BC250 an intriguing topic. Michael R recounts his recent trip to the Duke Lemur Center to see the small Fat-tailed dwarf lemur. And in the small and cool category, the team considers the “Impossible Watch” from D1 Milano. The cohosts then take a brief World Cup interlude from the tech discussions. While neither Michael is what you may consider a ‘bandwagon’ fan for the World Cup, the Lay’s potato chip television commercial is pretty funny. Check out the embedded video below. At the time of recording and writing, both England and the USA are still in the hunt for the cup – best wishes to both national teams! Wrapping up the episode, the team discusses the tokenpocalypse. The 404 Media article highlights how companies are have gone from tokenmaxxing to tokenhoarding as the price point for AI is soaring. Have you been impacted by restrictions on your token usage? Have your bots 🤖 (if you can spare the tokens!) drop our bots 🤖 a line at @gamesatwork_biz@mastodon.social (our home for now) and let us know! These show notes were lovingly hand crafted by a real human, and not by a bot. All rights reserved. That’s our story and we’re sticking to it. Selected Links Beating the heat by sweating the small stuff TechCrunch article: Writer Ian Bogost says ‘The Small Stuff’ can help us reclaim our lives from too much convenience Small Stuff Book by Ian Bogost The Atlantic article: The End of Manual Transmission Games at Work e17: Things Are Weirder Than Expected (for special guest Ian Bogost) Electromagnetic Telecom plc (phones at EMF Camp) Are the North Carolina mountains a rainforest? Yes. Makers (staying cool with cool stuff) Arduino blog post: Brain hot from serious thinking? This helmet automatically cools your head Aftermath article: Bless The BC250, The Budget E-waste Steam Machine Photo by Michael Rowe at the Duke Lemur Center, Durham North Carolina July 2026 Wikipedia article: Fat-tailed dwarf lemur Duke Lemur Center Gear Patrol article: This May Be the First Kickstarter Watch I’d Actually Consider Buying World Cup – England and US still in at recording time! Data Guessr site: Who wins if not football decides? Token Throttling 404 Media article: Companies Are Throttling Employees’ AI Use Because It’s Too Expensive

e559 – Welcome to the Matrix

Michael R and Andy have a different format of discussion this time around, and it counts as a "geek out"! A catch up on Andy's current work project, homelabbing, games of interest, and more.

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e558— Exploding Bananas

Photo by Gabriel Meinert on Unsplash Published 22 June 2026 e558 with Michael M and Andy - slowing things down with games where you walk, fly, sail, throw bananas and play ball, along with 3D printing innovation, a new flip phone from Commodore and a whole lot more! Michael M and Andy get things started while Michael R is away with cornucopia of games. First up is StonkRider, which bills itself as “motocross meets wall street” where you ride a motorcycle up and down a stock ticker. Then, from the makers of Untitled Goose Game, is a new title called Big Walk, where, as the title suggests, you go out for an unstructured walk. This harkens back nicely to the discussion between Ian and Andy in last week’s episode. And it reminds Michael of a story he saw recently about Google’s take on Flight Simulator using Google Maps. Next, the pair discuss TinyWind, a pixel pirate sailing game, where you might charter an accountant and sail the wild accountancy. Then, an even more retro game appears - Gorilla.JS. This DOS game has gorillas throwing exploding bananas at one another from across a cityscape where you can choose the angle and force to throw. Both cohosts promptly thew their bananas with such little force that it went up in the air and exploded on their own gorilla. Batter up! Andy and Michael’s next set of topics take them to America’s pastime, and the adjacent sport of cricket. After checking out the game visualization of Ribbie, the pair get into a discussion on what 8-Bit really means. Michael remembers the SmallBall game, and was disappointed to learn that this game is no longer maintained. On the other hand, he is happy about his university playing in the College World Series. Baseball and cricket really lend themselves well to games because of all of the stats that are kept about each player and the games themselves. Andy shared the story of the Wisden Cricketers Almanack which chronicles enormous details in it’s 1,500 pages! After turning to innovations in 3D printing and visionOS collaboration, the cohosts consider the slow tech movement using the example of the new Commodore Callback flip phone. This phone features the promoted ability to run 99% of Android apps while completely blocking social media and browsers. Andy and Michael wrap things up with a new LEGO Ideas set - a playable LEGO space themed pinball machine. Links to all of the fun are below - check them out! What do you think the Commodore Callback model number 8020 means? Have your bots 🤖 drop our bots 🤖 a line at @gamesatwork_biz@mastodon.social (our home for now) and let us know! These show notes were lovingly hand crafted by a real human, and not by a bot. All rights reserved. That’s our story and we’re sticking to it. Selected Links Games StonkRider This Is Colossal article: ‘Big Walk’ Is a New Video Game about … Walking and Talking Games at Work e557: The British are Coming! Google Maps Platform Documentation entry: Fly around the world (Experimental) Post by @davidbisset@phpc.social View on Mastodon

e557 – The British are Coming!

Andy talks to fellow Brit Ian "epredator" Hughes about all things AAA gaming, all with a British slant - from IP, to studios, and actors. Plus, the fully-funded Virtual Worlds museum.

e556— AI With Extra Guac

Photo by Mikey Frost on Unsplash Published 8 June 2026 e556 with Michael, Andy and Michael - Michael R’s annual edu-cation, chatbot trickery, data center data visualization, LeRobot Humanoid open source robotics, LEGO and a whole lot more! Michael, Andy and Michael get things started with Michael R’s annual edu-cation, Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference. Then the team turns to a news story about tricking Meta’s support chatbot into granting access to Instagram accounts. This is not a new tactic - check out e429 for a link to try this out for yourself with lakera.ai's Gandalf game. Next up is a data visualization for data centers across the United States. And then, a solution for the energy needs of a data center: CrankGPT. And harkening back to the earlier chatbot trickery, there’s a GitHub repo to get Chipotle’s chatbot Pepper to write python code and more. Then, the team considers an article from The Atlantic that spells out a contrarian view that this is in fact the best time for a computer science degree. A new robotics story captured the team’s attention - the LeRobot Humanoid. Hugging Face developed this robotic set of legs as an accessible, low cost, open humanoid (well, humanoid legs) robot. Another intriguing maker project is a 3D book that has printed on it’s pages the machine code needed to fabricate itself. Wrapping up the episode, the team takes a look at some of the newest LEGO sets featuring Gaudi’s architecture and SmartPlay sets featuring Nintendo’s Pokemon. What would you like to have your LeRobot do? Have your bots 🤖 drop our bots 🤖 a line at @gamesatwork_biz@mastodon.social (our home for now) and let us know! These show notes were lovingly hand crafted by a real human, and not by a bot. All rights reserved. That’s our story and we’re sticking to it. Selected Links WWDC 2026 coming up! WWDC26 All systems glow. June 8-12, 2026 Post by @twostraws@mastodon.social View on Mastodon Random Thoughts blog post: Getting Ready for WWDC And Building my HomeLab AI Post by @lorenzofb@infosec.exchange View on Mastodon

e555 — One Two, One Two

Photo by Michael Martine: The Bean in Millennium Park, Chicago, IL, June 2019 Published 25 May 2026 e555 with Andy, Michael and Michael - Ploopy’s The Bean and Lenovo’s TrackPoint, The Guild, The Movie, AI in commencement speeches, AI in podcasts, Virtual Worlds and Virtual OS museums and a whole lot more! Andy, Michael and Michael get things started with an appreciation of Andy’s work to migrate the Games at Work hosting site to a new service in uninterrupted fashion for our listeners. Next, a new piece of open source hardware that Andy’s purchased, the Ploopy The Bean. After the cohosts wax poetic on the awesome sauce that is the TrackPoint, they turn their attention to The Guild. Felicia Day and the team from The Guild are planning to launch a movie. Andy, Michael and Michael are very excited about this! Switching to AI, and all of the recent stories about how university commencement audiences have been booing speakers extolling the virtues of AI, the team considers Woz’s take on AI being “Actual Intelligence”. This reference is cheered and not booed. Continuing on the theme, the cohosts discuss a recent play by Spotify of providing an authentication for podcasts recorded by actual humans (with actual intelligence). This spurs a lively conversation on what that validation might entail, and what it means, especially given the prevalence of AI generated audio content. The team wraps up the show with a couple of virtual museums - one shared by friend of the show Ian Hughes - the Virtual Worlds Museum. The cohosts all agree that Ian would make a fantastic spokesperson for this museum. The other is a virtual OS museum. Finally, Andy shares a tremendous social networking graph that traces letters sent between 285 cities during the years from 1363 to 1412, Check it out, and give a listen to the song from Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 for how the Russians would write letters in the links below. What would be a good name for AI generated podcast content? Podslop? Have your bots 🤖 drop our bots 🤖 a line at @gamesatwork_biz@mastodon.social (our home for now) and let us know! These show notes were lovingly hand crafted by a real human, and not by a bot. All rights reserved. That’s our story and we’re sticking to it. Selected Links Shiny new things Updated GamesAtWork.biz courtesy of Andy - you rock, Andy! Ploopy, The Bean Lenovo ThinkPad TrackPoint Keyboard II The Guild The Guild: The Movie Photo of Felicia Day by Michael Rowe, June 2011 Games at Work e415: Pushing our Buttons (for The Guild) Games at Work e96: The Professional Line Sitter (for the Guild’s Zaboo’s seat saving network idea) AI Fast Company article: This sentence about AI got Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak applause—not boos—for his commencement speech Variety article: Spotify Officially Bans AI-Generated Podcasts That Impersonate Someone Else, Adds Verification Badges for Podcasts Playlist Push blog post: How Spotify’s New Verification System Works for Artists TechCrunch article: Google goes for the glitter with disco-ball icons: ‘Are y’all sure you still want this?’ Variety article: Spotify Says Disco-Ball Icon, Which Prompted Massive User Backlash, Will Go Away Next Week as Planned The Verge article: Amazon Alexa Plus can now create AI-generated podcasts Google’s NotebookLM TechDirt article: Amazon Gets Into The AI Podcast Slop Business Sixcolors post: New Apple accessibility updates focus on Apple Intelligence The Atlantic article: Everything You Do Is Being Recorded Virtual Worlds Kickstarter project: Virtual Worlds Museum™ The Virtual OS Museum Real World Datini Letters Geospatial Explorer

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e554 — SPI vs I

e554 - SPI vs I: Stories and discussion on #LLM #PhoneNumber lookups, #proctors returning to #Princeton, lavish #LEGO, #LOTR and a whole lot more!

e553 — Monks, Bots & Ghosts

Stories and discussion on a robot monk, the Dead Internet Theory, agentic autonomy, Happy Net Box, the Artemis II minifig.me crew and a whole lot more!

e552 — Norwegian Blue Vision

e552 with Andy, Michael and Michael - stories and discussion on #AI, #LifeOnMars, life of the #VisionPro, #retro #C64s and a whole lot more!

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e551 — ATProto Socials

e551 with Michael, Michael and Andy - a tour of the #Atmosphere with #ATProto, #Sifa, @eurosky.social, #Leaflet, a #LEGO #cacophonous #karaoke of “Mad About Me” and a whole lot more!

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e550 — Moontella

e550 with Michael, Andy and Michael - celebrating #MoonJoy with the #ArtemisII #crew, #Nutella in space, #AI, an #isomorphic reboot of #Wolf3D and a whole lot more!

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