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e444 — Glitch in the Matrix

By Michael Martine | December 11, 2023 - 06:37 |December 10, 2023 Podcast

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technical difficulties! a glitch. or a rug. or a badly tuned TV. — Photo by Michael Dziedzic on Unsplash

Published 11 December 2023

Andy and Michael R get together to talk tech – bad, new and fun. The pair start off with a story out of Poland for the train manufacturer Newag that suddenly broke down during maintenance. The code supporting the train’s operation had something to do with it according to the article from BadCyber. In another story, US Senator Edward Markey (D-Mass.) has asked automotive companies a number of very specific questions related to data privacy. This is directly related to the Mozilla Foundation’s privacy review of cars from September 2023. Andy also brings in a European Commission press release for tracking digital services terms and conditions.

The band Kiss, as they wrapped up their final performance in NYC, transformed into Kiss Immortal digital avatars. The article asks whether fans may pay for concert tickets for “live” shows without live performers in the future. An article from The Next Web highlights architectural preservation through augmented reality that reminds Michael R of a story about the Queen Anne’s Revenge. Then, the co-hosts cover a story about how Apple’s panoramic photo exposes what could be a glitch in the matrix.

The co-hosts cover some intriguing visualizations. Among them are a graphical way to view LLMs from Brendan Bycroft, a “game of life” 3 dimensional game called Sandpond, time traveling toads and fields of infinite flowers to zen out.

When would you want to travel to with your toads? Have your bots 🤖 drop our bots 🤖 a line at @gamesatwork_biz (our home for now) and let us know!

Selected Article Links

Bad Tech

BadCyber article: Dieselgate, but for trains – some heavyweight hardware hacking

Wikipedia article: Newag

Ars Technica article: Automakers’ data privacy practices “are unacceptable,” says US senator

Games at Work e432 – Monitoring Pirate Cars

European Commission press release 1 Dec 2023: Commission launches new database to track digital services terms and conditions

Axios article: The first humanoid robot factory is about to open

New Tech

The Verge article: Kiss debuts ‘immortal’ digital avatars and plans to go ‘fully virtual’

The Next Web article: Tech is bringing ancient ruins back to life. Here’s how

MacWorld article: The truth is out there–but it’s not in this viral ‘glitch’ iPhone photo

Fun Tech

Brendan Bycroft’s LLM Visualization

Sandpond.cool

TodePond

InfiniteFlowers.net

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:09 — 32.8MB) | Embed

e443 — In the Stone

By Michael Martine | December 4, 2023 - 06:18 |December 3, 2023 Podcast

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stone chimney, Pisgah National Forest, NC — Photo by Michael Martine, Pisgah National Forest, NC October 2018

Published 4 December 2023

Back at full co-host strength, Andy, Michael and Michael get together to have a fantastic discussion on AI, 3D printing, retro gaming and emulation solutions.

With the regulations, philosophy and laws dealing with AI evolving so rapidly, it’s a good thing that there is a podcast with real human cohosts to deal with it all. The first article deals with generated sports articles from Sports Illustrated purported to have been written by real humans. Next up is a detailed post from Cory Doctorow with many detailed links to other posts & articles dealing with the conflict between “Effective Altruism” and “Effective Accelerationism”. Then, the cohosts discuss the ramifications of a ruling in the Sarah Silverman case. A reminder: Andy, Michael and Michael are not attorneys, barristers, judges, solicitors or other members of the legal profession. Shifting to LLMs, the team take on a couple of articles dealing with ScienceGPT and the attention organizations like Hugging Face have received in the wake of the Sam Altman situation from the past week and a half.

Next up, two Hackaday articles are stacked up against one another – the first dealing with the deconstruction of the first 3D printed house in Iowa. The concept of 3D printing houses is not new to the podcast. It was something that was discussed in 2014 in e81! Even more fun was the juxtaposition of another Hackaday article. This one dealt with an autonomous vehicle that uses computer vision to assemble stone walls. This reminds Andy of the stone walls across the UK and Michael M of the stone walls in Chapel Hill (slightly more recent than those in the UK!).

The team winds up with a few stories about retro games with DOS_deck, Whisky and Wine.

What retro game would you most like to play? Have your bots 🤖 drop our bots 🤖 a line at @gamesatwork_biz (our home for now) and let us know!

Selected Article Links

AI

Futurism article: Sports Illustrated Published Articles by Fake, AI-Generated Writers

Games at Work e426: Barbenheimer Chic

Pluralistic post from Cory Doctorow: The real AI fight (27 Nov 2023)

NiemanLab article: The legal framework for AI is being built in real time, and a ruling in the Sarah Silverman case should give publishers pause

Games at Work e424: What’s AI got to do with it?

TechRadar article: The GPT to rule them all: Training for one trillion parameter model backed by Intel and US government has just begun

CNBC article: OpenAI rival Hugging Face says it’s seeing more client interest after Sam Altman fiasco

Large Stone Model Demolition & Construction

Hackaday article: Iowa Demolishes Its First 3D Printed House

Games at Work e81: One Step Beyond

Hackaday article: Autonomous Excavator Builds Stone Wall Algorithmically

These Old Stone Walls by Phillips Russell

Retro Gaming

Terence Eden’s Blog post: What would happen if computers never got any faster?

Ars Technica article: DOS_deck offers free, all-timer DOS games in a browser, with controller support

And Cheese

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e442 – Giving Thanks (with tech)

By Andy Piper | November 27, 2023 - 06:40 |November 27, 2023 Podcast

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Photo by Alexander Sinn on Unsplash

Published 27th November 2023

Andy flies the airship solo, whilst the Michaels enjoy a Thanksgiving weekend with their families. It’s a short and deep (in places) episode featuring AI and gaming.

Starting off with the rapid burst of drama surrounding Sam Altman’s brief ousting at OpenAI. Andy talks about what it might mean for the future of that organisation, and the AI industry’s push to move faster with less oversight. Are the safety levers disabled?

Switching over into games, Andy covers the recent 25th anniversary of Half-Life, and how Valve really leaned in to celebrating this landmark game. There’s a brief discussion of other ways to do retro gaming on the Mac or on Steam Deck. Andy has also been exploring the new Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR game on the Quest 2, and provides a short review of the experience.

In the media and gaming hardware side of things, there’s a look at the very expensive new Kodak Super 8 film camera, followed by a brief chat about spatial or 3D video capture on the Quest 3.

For your delight and fun, the show wraps up with Brickception – can you win two games of Breakout simultaneously? Give it a try!

What are you thankful for? What have you been playing lately? Have your GPT contact our GPT via the Fediverse @gamesatwork_biz@botsin.space, or leave a comment here on the blog. See you next time!

Selected article links

OpenAI drama

OpenAI Kill Switch https://www.ft.com/content/8279eb63-395a-4ff2-99c3-250409e03941

The Jeff Jarvis take https://buzzmachine.com/2023/11/19/artificial-general-bullshit/

Gaming

How to do game preservation right (Half-Life at 25) https://mastodon.macstories.net/@viticci/111428877243213598

Retrogaming on the Mac https://www.cultofmac.com/837333/emulate-old-video-games-computers-on-mac/

… and on Steam Deck https://linuxmatters.sh/12/

Assassin’s Creed VR, VR https://www.wired.co.uk/article/assassins-creed-nexus-vr-virtual-reality-review

Changing the channels

https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/21/23971398/flipboard-x-twitter-mastodon-quitting

Hardware stuff

https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/22/23972513/kodak-super-8-film-camera-lcd-screen-price-release-date-specs-features

https://hackaday.com/2023/11/24/quest-3-vr-headset-can-capture-3d-video-some-tampering-required/

A Fun Thing!

https://brickception.xyz/

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e441 — Snake in a Tube

By Michael Martine | November 20, 2023 - 06:06 |November 19, 2023 Podcast

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A series of tubes. — Photo by Moritz Mentges on Unsplash

Published 20 November 2023

Michael and Michael get together to talk tech while Andy is away. They have an amazing episode, with many twists & turns. The first turn begins with the traffic laws of the UK related to roundabouts, shared by friend of the podcast, Ian Hughes.

Next, is the first of a series of stories with legs – a snake in a tube controlling legs. While there was a serious temptation to bring up the movie Snakes on a Plane, or the ZZ Top song Legs, there’s another ZZ Top song that fits the bill. Check out the 2018 Rolls Royce post about a snake robot that would deploy smaller robots into engines for diagnostics from e204 in the show notes below. An article by The Verge touches on Microsoft Team’s use of Mesh for 3D meetings, which, much like earlier iterations of Meta’s VR environment uses legless avatars. The Swedish startup Minesto gets a look for it’s tidal power generation underwater kites.

Michael and Michael then take a couple of minutes to talk about the Humane AI Pin in a little more detail. Continuing the conversation from last week’s episode, Michael M expresses his interest in the new human to computer interface that the AI Pin presents. The idea of having both hands free when working with the AI is very intriguing, as is the concept of not having apps – just having an AI. The show notes below contain a smattering of the press that the announcement video has generated in the past few days. There’s also a YouTube of the product announcement video.

After the AI Pin, the co-hosts turn their attention to games, starting with the Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic, available for free for those with an Amazon Prime membership. The description of Downpour games to allow people to more easily compose & assemble their own games reminded Michael M of the Twine choose your own adventure game he wrote some years ago about being a podcast host.

Wrapping up this week’s episode is the second Swedish company Einride with their robotic trucks, and the 2023 LEGO advent calendars.

Will you get an AI Pin and ask it to write you a game? Have your bots 🤖 drop our bots 🤖 a line at @gamesatwork_biz (our home for now) and let us know!