Episode 315 — Reeses McBoatface

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Ferry McFerryface from Australia
Photo by AussieActive on Unsplash

Reeses Puffs boat, AI pickup lines, AR map gamification, Doom on SLR & cross stitch, a water-cooled MacBook, clustering Raspberry Pis, classic games on Apple Arcade, advanced math and sneaky games.

Michael, Michael and Andy join forces to take on two weeks’ worth of stories after a much needed break.  Starting things off on a nautical note, the team contemplates the appearance of the Ever Given cargo ship that was blocking the Suez Canal appearing in Microsoft Flight Simulator.  Would make for a great Oculus experience!  Turning to starboard, the Reeses Puffs boat with the self-proclaimed first ever milkcuzzi is sold out.

Having enough of the water, the team moves to dry land.  There they evaluate the latest innovations in AR way finding, and how the process of keeping maps up to date could easily be gamified.  Then, the co-hosts discuss artificial intelligence with an article on how AI is being used to write pick up lines and even write songs.  This spurs a memory of the Music Genome Project, the underlying engine that powers Pandora.  

Next, the team has a couple of fun examples of Doom, both on a camera, and on cross stitch.  Brings new meaning to a photo shoot. 

Then, the team has a more detailed computing hardware discussion, first with a person who water-cooled their MacBook Pro.  Then, Andy shares his latest Raspberry Pi effort, a ClusterHAT setup with PiZeros. Check out the links below, and watch for his tweets on this cool project.

The team then muses on the latest games being added to Apple Arcade.  Winding things up for this episode, Michael, Michael and Andy conclude with the math behind crumpling paper, googly eye dice on Kickstarter, and the upcoming Gollum game.

Share your precious links with the Games at Work team on Twitter @gamesatwork_biz ! 

Selected Links

Gamesradar article: Someone has added the trapped Suez Canal cargo ship to Microsoft Flight Simulator — https://www.gamesradar.com/someone-has-added-the-trapped-suez-cargo-ship-to-microsoft-flight-simulator/ 

Reeses Puffs boat — https://reesespuffs.boats 

TechCruch article: Google Promises better 3D maps — https://techcrunch.com/2021/03/30/google-promises-better-3d-maps 

Vice article: A Scientist Taught AI to Generate Pickup Lines.  The Results are Chaotic. — https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3vjey/artificial-intelligence-ai-pickup-lines

Music Genome Project — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_Genome_Project 

PCGamesN article: Here’s Doom on a digital camera — https://www.pcgamesn.com/doom/camera 

ClusterHAT — https://clusterhat.com 

The PiHut Cluster HAT Case v3.0 — https://thepihut.com/products/cluster-hat-case 

Blink(1) — https://blink1.thingm.com 

TechCrunch article: Daily Crunch: Apple Arcade expands with classic AppStore games — https://techcrunch.com/2021/04/02/apple-expands-apple-arcade-with-classic-app-store-games/  

Fantasian — https://apps.apple.com/us/app/fantasian/id1517339045 

eurogamer.net article: Star Trek: Legends is a fun RPG caught between two worlds — https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2021-04-08-star-trek-legends-is-a-fun-rpg-caught-between-two-worlds 

Kotaku article: Star Trek Legends Is A Fun Time, Not An Annoying Grind — https://kotaku.com/star-trek-legends-is-a-fun-time-not-an-annoying-grind-1846613885 

Popular Mechanics article: The Math of a Crumpled Piece of Paper Is Insanely Important. No, Seriously. — https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/math/a35913950/crumple-theory-paper-creases/ 

Kickstarter: Googly Eye Dice — https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/theevergreenburrow/googly-eye-dice 

Ocean’s Thirteen — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean%27s_Thirteen 

Slashfilm article: ’The Lord of the Rings: Gollum’ Trailer Stealthily Slinks Around Middle-earth — https://www.slashfilm.com/lord-of-the-rings-gollum-trailer/ 

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Episode 314 — William Shatner AI

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Star Trek Enterprise street art
Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

William Shatner AI, drinkable Peeps, tech old and new – boot from a vinyl disk & use LEGO Toy Pad as NFC reader, Douglas Adams, and dice to roll a 42.

Michael, Michael and Andy are all together again for a tremendous show, starting off with the one of the most popular Easter confections on this side of the Atlantic, Peeps.  The hosts debate the merits and potential taste of the Pepsi + Peep mashup.  

For those of you who are interested in building a steampunk computer, consider following Jozef Bogin’s lead and boot off of a vinyl record.  

Next, an intriguing discussion about William Shatner’s work with Storyfile to create an interactive storytelling experience for people to interact with his AI agent.  Intermingled with a retrospective of selected elements in his career, the team reflects on the digital immortality such an experience could create.  Boston’s Leonard Nemoy day is a natural bookend to the Storyfile story, and reminds Michael R of his kickstarter support for The Love of Spock, a documentary about Leonard Nemoy.  Check out the show notes below for links.  

Powered flight takes control of the next few stories, from the drone footage of the volcano near Reykjavik to NASA’s martian helicopter.  Ingenuity, as the copter is named, carries with it a piece of fabric from the Wright brothers’ flyer and will hopefully will have a similar successful flight on Mars in the coming days.  

Another kickstarter of note deals with the writings of Douglas Adams, who in addition to his humor was able to envision the future in so many ways.  Michael M shares his excitement about supporting this upcoming book, and is looking forward to reading it.  Could it be the the Infinitie Improbability Drive may somehow become real?  

Wrapping up this week’s episode, the team takes a look at the impending launch of another space vehicle, namely LEGO’s rendition of the Space Shuttle Discovery and Dennis Mellican’s NFC jukebox reader using the Dimensions toy pad to trigger what music is played.  The Daft Punk minifigs are particularly good.

And for the saving throw, Andy found a cool Etsy potion of healing comprised of d4, and Michael R shares one more kickstarter – the Pixels electronic dice.  Check them out, and see if you can roll a 42!

Selected Links

People article: Pepsi and Peeps Have Joined Forces to Create Marshmallow Soda — https://people.com/food/pepsi-and-peeps-have-joined-forces-to-create-marshmallow-soda 

Peeps — https://www.peepsbrand.com 

Bogin, Jr post: Booting from a vinyl record — http://boginjr.com/it/sw/dev/vinyl-boot/ 

Entertainment article:  William Shatner celebrates 90th birthday by creating an AI version of himself for future generations — https://ew.com/tv/william-shatner-90th-birthday-ai-storyfile-video/ 

Storyfile — https://storyfile.com 

Games at Work Episode 26 — Business Process Management and Immortality — https://gamesatwork.biz/2012/11/04/episode26/ 

Star Trek: Generations — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_Generations 

T.J. Hooker Full Cast & Crew — https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083486/fullcredits 

The UnXplained — https://www.history.com/shows/the-unxplained 

Warp 11 — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warp_11 

Slashfilm article: The City of Boston Declares March 26 to Be Leonard Nimoy Day — https://www.slashfilm.com/the-city-of-boston-declares-march-26-to-be-leonard-nimoy-day/ 

For the Love of Spock — https://fortheloveofspock.com 

The Verge article: Amazon delivery drivers have to consent to AI surveillance in their vans or lose their jobs — https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/24/22347945/amazon-delivery-drivers-ai-surveillance-cameras-vans-consent-form 

TechCrunch article: NASA plans first flight of Mars helicopter Ingenuity on April 8 — https://techcrunch.com/2021/03/23/nasa-plans-first-flight-of-mars-helicopter-ingenuity-on-april-8/ 

The Verge article: NASA’s new Mars rover is about to spawn a tiny helicopter — https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/22/22345034/nasa-mars-rover-perseverance-ingenuity-helicopter 

CNet article: NASA helicopter brought a piece of the Wright brothers’ plane to Mars — https://www.cnet.com/news/nasa-helicopter-brought-a-piece-of-the-wright-brothers-historic-plane-to-mars/ 

The Verge article: YouTube is testing automatic product detection in videos — https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/22/22344553/youtube-shopping-recommendation-products-instagram 

42: The Wildly Improbable Ideas of Douglas Adams — https://galactichitchhikers.com/2021/03/22/42-the-wildly-improbable-ideas-of-douglas-adams/ 

Kickstarter for 42 — https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/unbounders/42-the-wildly-improbable-ideas-of-douglas-adams 

Infinite Improbability Drive — https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Infinite_Improbability_Drive 

The Verge article: LEGO announces its biggest and most detailed Space Shuttle set yet — https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/22/22345026/lego-space-shuttle-nasa-discovery-columbia-hubble-telescope 

Raspberry Pi makes LEGO minifigures play their own music — https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/raspberry-pi-makes-lego-minifigures-play-their-own-music/

Etsy Potion of Healing dice shaker — https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/974451127/potion-of-healing-dice-shaker-with-d4 

Kickstarter: Pixels – The Electronic Dice — https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pixels-dice/pixels-the-electronic-dice

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Episode 313 — Tech Gripes

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grouse
Photo by Dennis Buchner on Unsplash

Michael R and Andy get together to have a conversation to talk (and gripe) about tech.

Starting off on a big discussion about small print and subscriptions, Andy shares his experiences with Cricut’s decision to limit the number of crafting projects via subscription and subsequent reversal of that choice given the user community outcry.

In cool tech, the airless shape memory alloy bike tires inspired by NASA’s space rovers is taking shape in the form of a startup called SMART.  

On the gripe side, the team talks about security challenges with two factor authentication, especially with accounts that have joint users.  Related, Dropbox is planning to offer a free password manager if you are using less than 50 passwords.  Andy suggests that 1Password should expand to have an Xbox client.  Hint hint!  

In Apple-related news, Michael and Andy talk about leaks & leakers, HomePod, the new Intel ads with Justin Long, and old school iconography. 

Andy shares his experiences in watching (and participating) in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s performance of Dream, and has written an excellent Medium post on this as well.  The cast did a special performance at 2am in order to expose their work to a broader global audience, and it was a fantastic way to integrate the audience with the performers.  

Have some tech that you’d like to grouse about?  Share it with the Games At Work team and perhaps it will surface on next week’s episode!  

Selected Links

The Verge article: Cricut completely unravels subscription plans that would limit its crafting machines — https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/18/22338801/cricut-crafting-machines-backlash-no-more-subscription-needed 

IGN article: Watch Dogs: Legion Review — https://www.ign.com/articles/watch-dogs-legion-review 

TechCrunch article: Startup founded by ‘Survivor’ champ debuts airless bike tires based on NASA rover tech — https://techcrunch.com/2021/03/16/startup-founded-by-survivor-champ-debuts-airless-bike-tires-based-on-nasa-rover-tech/ 

Cyclingtips article: SMART’s Airless Metal Tires Are Designed for Mars and Your Bike — https://cyclingtips.com/2021/03/smart-metl-airless-metal-tires-are-designed-for-mars-and-your-bike/ 

The Verge article: Dropbox will have a free password manager in April — if you’ve got 50 or fewer passwords — https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/16/22332829/dropbox-passwords-manager-added-free-basic-account 

Ars Technica article: $16 attack shows how easy carriers make it to intercept text messages — https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2021/03/16-attack-let-hacker-intercept-a-t-mobile-users-text-messages/ 

Apple HomePod mini — https://www.apple.com/homepod-mini/ 

MacRumors article: macOS Big Sur 11.3 Beta Adds Support for HomePod Stereo Pairs — https://www.macrumors.com/2021/02/03/macos-11-3-homepod-stereo-pairs/ 

The Verge article: Google will reduce Play Store cut to 15 percent for a developer’s first $1M in annual revenue — https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/16/22333777/google-play-store-fee-reduction-developers-1-million-dollars 

Apple Insider — Apple seeded disinformation about March 23 event to root out leakers, leaker says — https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/03/18/apple-likely-seeded-disinformation-about-march-23-event-to-root-out-leakers 

9 to 5 Mac article: ‘I’m a Mac’ star Justin Long pivots to Intel in new ads mocking M1 Macs — https://9to5mac.com/2021/03/17/im-a-mac-justin-long-intel-ads-mocking-m1-macs/ 

Cult of Mac article: Go old-school with iPhone icons inspired by 1984 Macintosh — https://www.cultofmac.com/737420/go-ios-old-school-with-iphone-icons-inspired-by-1984-macintosh/ 

Andy Piper blog post: Was it, a Dream? — https://andypiper.medium.com/was-it-a-dream-78a765b205f3 

Oculus Quest 2 — https://www.oculus.com/quest-2/ 

The Famous Grouse — https://www.thefamousgrouse.com/en 

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Episode 312 — Non-Fungible Token Slugs

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sea slug Chromodoris magnifica
Photo by Kris Mikael Krister on Unsplash

This week’s episode is chock full of robots, books, movies and non-fungible memories, slugs and tokens.   Michael and Michael start things off with a robotic roundup, first with Amazon’s reported Vesta.  Then, the team goes into more detail with the Anki robot, submarine robots and medical robots.  The co-hosts are reminded of the 1966 movie Fantastic Voyage that blends submarines and medical robots.

Next, the team gets into a constructive conversation around 3D home printing.  And not printing at home, rather printing a home.  3D printing homes is becoming more feasible, and there are even communities of 3D printed homes being extruded in Texas and California.  There is even a show on AppleTV+ called Mexico that deals with this topic.

In the world of old(er) technology, Jorge Cohen has written a PalmOS app for Twitter, and Bob Wulff has ported the recent movie Tenet to Game Boy Advance cartridges. Talk about interesting media consumption patterns!  In other news, Apple’s HomePod is being discontinued in favor of the HomePod mini.

Turning then to NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, a funny tweet by Eric Brynjolfsson got Michael and Michael thinking about setting up an NFT opportunity of their own.  Check out the show, and if you would be interested in the Games at Work team offer, give them a shout on Twitter @gamesatwork_biz ! 

And in a science fiction imitates nature kind of story, check out how the sea slug manages to regenerate their entire body.  Amazing to think about what evolutionary advance caused this biological capability, and what it may mean for modern medicine.  Michael M can’t resist making a Star Trek Enterprise saucer separation analogy to this story.

Michael and Michael conclude this week’s episode with an interesting set of stories about Steve Jobs shared by the Computer History Museum in honor of what would have been his 66th birthday.  Have a look at the YouTube link below in the show notes.

Selected Links

Concert for Charlottesville — https://www.concertforcharlottesville.com/index.html 

Tucows — https://tucows.com 

The Verge article: Amazon’s secret home robot Vesta reportedly in ‘late-prototype stage’ of development — https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/10/22322813/amazon-home-robot-vesta-alexa-project-rumors-specs-report 

TechCrunch article: Eye, robot — https://techcrunch.com/2021/03/11/robotics-roundup-3/ 

Fantastic Voyage — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantastic_Voyage 

Digital Dream Labs — https://www.digitaldreamlabs.com 

The Verge article: These new 3D-printed homes in Austin are going for $450k — https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/11/22325004/new-3d-printed-homes-austin-price-icon-housing 

CNBC article: 3D-printed housing developments suddenly take off – here’s what they look like — https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/12/3d-printed-housing-developments-suddenly-take-off-heres-what-they-look-like.html 

Icon — https://www.iconbuild.com 

Mighty Buildings — https://mightybuildings.com 

AppleTV+’s Mexico — https://tv.apple.com/us/episode/mexico/umc.cmc.vw8qwc1j4ld8jr3itsc0b3wy?showId=umc.cmc.5xjrgoblr5l5i1ypamtayuhe9 

The Verge article: Four years later, we are all BBC Dad — https://www.theverge.com/tldr/2021/3/11/22325564/bbc-dad-kids-interrupt-zoom-video-call-anniversary-covid-19-pandemic 

Gizmodo article: Someone Totally Ruined the Memory of PalmOS by Putting Twitter on It — https://gizmodo.com/someone-totally-ruined-the-memory-of-palmos-by-putting-1846457707 

CNN Business article: We bought an NFT.  Here’s what we learned — https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/14/tech/nft-art-buying/index.html 

WUNC NPR story: Scientists Discover Sea Slug That Can Regenerate Body After Being Decapitated — https://www.wunc.org/2021-03-13/scientists-discover-sea-slug-that-can-regenerate-body-after-being-decapitated 

The Code Breaker by Walter Isaacson — https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Code-Breaker/Walter-Isaacson/9781982115852 

The Verge article: A Game Boy Advance might be the best way to watch Tenet, actually — https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/11/22321473/tenet-game-boy-advance-christopher-nolan-bob-wulff-youtube-mod-cartridge 

Tenet film — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenet_(film) 

mGBA open-source Game Boy Advance emulator — https://mgba.io/downloads.html 

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson — https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Steve-Jobs-Special-Signed-Edition/Walter-Isaacson/9781476776408

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