e502 — Humane Rabbits

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rabbit on lawn
Photo by Michael Martine, Chapel Hill, NC July 2023

Published 24 February 2025

e502 with Michael and Michael – stories and discussion on AI for career recommendations, game generation, enabled devices such as the Humane AI Pin and Rabbit R1 and Agents, as well as Kindle eBook DRM while Andy is in transit to RubyJam.

Michael and Michael get things started off with a story about Google’s Career Dreamer AI enabled tool to help people explore career possibilities, discover strengths and develop skills. 

Turning next to AI Agents, Michael and Michael take a look at the Rabbit Agent and the functionality the software provides.  The team then focuses on the news about HP acquiring Humane, and especially on the AI Pin servers shutting down at the end of the month, putting a severe crimp in the functionality of the hardware devices.  This also signals that HP sees significant value in the Humane software, and reminds the co-hosts of earlier episodes dealing with technology companies shutting down services for hardware, such as the Jibo robot.

Next up is a discussion on the latest eBook DRM situation with books on the Amazon Kindle, and what people can do right now other than back up books before February 26. 

Then the While Waiting game spurs a broader conversation on boredom and screen time before the next topic of AI to generate games spins up.  Michael R wraps up this episode with a discussion on the Swift on Android working group, and language portability.

Do you have another solution to purchasing (or licensing) books to share? Have your bots 🤖 drop our bots 🤖 a line at @gamesatwork_biz (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

PCMag article: Google ‘Career Dreamer’ Tool Uses AI to Help You Explore Career Options

Google’s Career Dreamer

Google AI for Developers Gemini API Additional Terms of Service

Pandora Music Genome Project

The Verge article: Rabbit shows off the AI agent it should have launched with

Rabbit Tech: LAM playground

The Verge article: Humane is shutting down the AI Pin and selling its remnants to HP

Humane News: HP Accelerates AI Software Investments to Transform the Future of Work

HP Newsroom press release: HP Accelerates AI Software Investments to Transform the Future of Work

Games at Work e464: AI Piano Man, touching on both the Rabbit R1 and the Humane’s AI Pin

Games at Work e230: Dance this AR Around, touching on the shut down of Jibo

Surreal.

This com badge “toy” that uses Bluetooth and costs around just $80 has more functionality than the more expensive pin will in a few days.

— David Bisset (@davidbisset) 2025-02-20T13:21:18.755Z

Books – eBooks and paper

You can back up all your Kindle books using this script – federatedfandom.net/@villainou

A lot easier than manually downloading them all.

After that, install the Calibre eBook Manager calibre-ebook.com/

Install the noDRM plugin for Calibre github.com/noDRM/DeDRM_tools

Give the plugin your Kindle's serial number.

Import your Kindle books into Calibre.

Done.

You now have a DRM-free copy of all your purchased eBooks.

You can copy them to your eReader, convert to ePub, save on a backup disk, etc.

— Terence Eden (@Edent) 2025-02-16T09:23:51.268Z

Treetrum Github repo: amazon-kindle-bulk-downloader

Michael Rowe’s Random Thoughts blog: 10 years of Podcasting

Discover Durham: Books Do Furnish a Room

Bookshelf app

Tom’s Guide article: No Kindle? No problem: 5 places to buy DRM-free e-books

Crowd Supply article: Ink Console

Ink Console

Wikipedia article: Chose Your Own Adventure books

Wikipedia article: Infocom

Games – for waiting and for generating

The Verge article: While Waiting is a playful reminder of the joys of boredom

While Waiting on Steam

metro.co.uk article: Xbox is using AI to make games in a disturbing vision of next gen gaming

The Verge article: Microsoft’s Xbox AI era starts with a model that can generate gameplay

Software Development

swift.org forums: Swift on Android Working Group

Web 11.0 mashup junkie, and co-founder / co-host of the GamesAtWork.biz podcast. My views are my own.

Michael Martine

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 40:24 — 56.1MB) | Embed

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e501 — Dumb Users, Smart AI 

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sticker reading “Smart Phones | Dumb People!” on an electrical cabinet in the foreground of a street scene
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Published 17 February 2025

e501 with Michael R and Andy – all about outsourcing intelligence to , protecting your after , , & game ports, and more!

So many articles these days have a headline such as “what happens to your body when you <fill in the blank>”.  Michael R and Andy start off the episode exploring what happens when you outsource some, or too much, of your cognitive energy to an AI.  

Then, the team turns to a discussion on a hardware + software solution for protecting your data when you shuffle off the mortal coil and join the choir invisible.  Check out the In Case of Death Case, replete with the pulse detecting In Case of Death Smart Ring and associated software.  Next, some speculation on what the team in Cupertino is doing with glasses-based AR.  Then, a story from the UK on the mandate to provide a backdoor for end-to-end encrypted data for Apple and other companies.  

On a lighter note, Michael and Andy discuss how to run Diablo 1 on a variety of hardware and software.  And speaking of ports, Civilization VII will be made available on Meta’s Quest later this spring.

The team then wraps things up with The Wheel of Time.  

What steps have you taken to protect your data?  Have your bots 🤖 drop our bots 🤖 a line at @gamesatwork_biz (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

A new paper from researchers at Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon University finds that as humans increasingly rely on generative AI in their work, they use less critical thinking, which can “result in the deterioration of cognitive faculties that ought to be preserved.”

404media.co/microsoft-study-fi

— Kevin Beaumont (@GossiTheDog) 2025-02-10T16:02:56.509Z

404 Media article: Microsoft Study Finds AI Makes Human Cognition “Atrophied and Unprepared”

New Scientist article: Using AI tools like ChatGPT can reduce critical thinking skills

Boy Genius Report article: We just started using AI like ChatGPT, and it may already be making us dumber

Microsoft Research article: The Impact of Generative AI on Critical Thinking: Self-Reported Reductions in Cognitive Effort and Confidence Effects From a Survey of Knowledge Workers

Apple Stories

Macworld article: Any case can protect your iPad. This one protects you when you die

Zugu’s The In Case of Death Case

Games at Work e218: Virtually Married

9 to 5 Mac article: Report: Apple’s plan for standalone AR glasses ‘remains intact’

Six Colors article: UK Orders Apple to Implement Secret Global Backdoor for End-to-End Encryption

Games at Work e416: Lawsuits and Swimsuits

Entertainment

PC Gamer article: The best way to play Diablo 1 on pretty much anything just got an update for a 20-year-old Apple OS that runs on a dead chipset, one lunatic somewhere presumably rejoices

Diasurgical’s Github for DevilutiuonX

The Verge article: Civilization VII is getting a Quest VR port this spring

Ars Technica article: Wheel of Time S3 trailer tees us up for Last Battle

Web 11.0 mashup junkie, and co-founder / co-host of the GamesAtWork.biz podcast. My views are my own.

Michael Martine

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 37:05 — 51.6MB) | Embed

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e500 – fünfhundert smooth operator

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Photo by Thiago Giardini on Pexels.

Published 10 February 2025.

Incredible scenes as the co-hosts celebrate the milestone 500th episode of your weekly technology podcast! … or, is it season 5, episode 00?

The team kicks off by thinking back to some of their favourite episodes from the past:

After these reminiscences, the show gets down to reviewing the links from the past couple of weeks, across many of the usual topic headings: AI, Apple technology, Gaming and Making. There’s also a brief discussion of Andy’s recent visit to FOSDEM 2025.

Let us know what you think of our musings – have your bots 🤖 drop our bots 🤖 a line at @gamesatwork_biz@mastodon.social (our home for now) and let us know! 

Selected Links

AI

OpenAI’s Operator Agent https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/01/technology/openai-operator-agent.html

Apple

Apple’s ELEGNT robotics https://machinelearning.apple.com/research/elegnt-expressive-functional-movement

https://www.theverge.com/news/607663/apple-smart-home-robot-research-video

Downloading personalities http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science-Fiction-News.asp?NewsNum=4482

AirTags and AirLines https://www.fastcompany.com/91267549/lost-luggage-apple-airtag-airline-share-item-location-united-delta

Gaming

Super Mario World in Unreal Engine https://www.creativebloq.com/3d/video-game-design/super-mario-world-got-remade-in-3d-using-unreal-engine-5-and-the-result-is-so-much-fun

DOOM in..

Making / Makers

uCritter https://www.ucritter.com/

FOSDEM https://fosdem.org/2025/    

Pigeon air patrol https://inhabitat.com/pigeons-with-backpacks-are-tweeting-about-londons-notorious-pollution/pigeon-air-patrol/ 

Hey, I did another thing!!

Please check out "Harmony," the latest addition to swift-embedded-examples.

Harmony is a Bluetooth speaker with a builtin ferrofluid music visualizer.

Everything you need to build Harmony from scratch is either open sourced now, or will be available soon. This includes the embedded swift firmware, the bill of materials, electrical schematics, and the 3d models.

github.com/apple/swift-embedde

— rauhul (@rauhul) 2025-02-01T17:59:11.909Z

Ignite OSS Swift based Site generator https://github.com/twostraws/Ignite  

Here’s to another 500 episodes! 🥳

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 34:55 — 48.6MB) | Embed

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e499 — Seeking Data

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coin operated binoculars on a rooftop overlooking New York City.
Photo by Matthew Jones on Unsplash

Published 3 February 2025

E499 with Michael and Michael – all about with , , , , , and a whole lot more!

Michael and Michael start the AI train off with a discussion about DeepSeek, which has been all over the news this past week.  This leads into a conversation about generative AI’s propensity to hallucinate, and per the Schneier article, how AI mistakes are very different from human mistakes.  Michael M gives an example of his recent experience using Ollama to run LLMs on his laptop, and the GenAI inaccurate description of some of the events leading up to the fall of the Berlin Wall, which in and of itself was precipitated by a human mistake.  

Next up is a discussion on methods used to trick AI scrapers that ignore the robots.txt file – and a callback to e451 where other data poisoning techniques were front and center.  Remember Nightshade, anyone? 

Wrapping things up for the episode, Michael and Michael go deep on a discussion on the migration from the “attention economy” to the “intention economy”.  Check out the discussion from 2013, e67 about the attention economy!  

Have we entered the “intention economy”?  How can you protect your data from being harvested for the intention economy?  Have your bots 🤖 drop our bots 🤖 a line at @gamesatwork_biz (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

Boy Genius Report: Here’s another reason not to use DeepSeek AI

IEEE Spectrum article: What DeepSeek Means for Open-Source AI Its new open reasoning model cuts costs drastically on AI reasoning

DeepSeek.com 

Schneier on Security article: AI Mistakes Are Very Different from Human Mistakes

ollama.com

TheWorld.org article: How a mistake at a press conference helped topple the Berlin Wall

Ars Technica article: AI haters build tarpits to trap and trick AI scrapers that ignore robots.txt

Games at Work e451: Fahrenheit 

Fast Company article: Frustrated with today’s ‘attention economy’? You’re really going to hate what comes next

Harvard Data Science Review: Beware the Intention Economy: Collection and Commodification of Intent via Large Language Models

Games at Work e67: Free BitCoins!

Web 11.0 mashup junkie, and co-founder / co-host of the GamesAtWork.biz podcast. My views are my own.

Michael Martine

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 35:44 — 49.7MB) | Embed

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