Games At Work dot Biz

e514 — Leroooooy Jenkins!

By Michael Martine | May 19, 2025 - 06:47 |May 25, 2025 Podcast

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World of WarCraft Burning Crusade in foreground with a cute cat in the background — Photo by WTFast on Unsplash

Published 19 May 2025

e514 with Michael R and Andy – generative ads & LEGO, Aston Martin x Apple CarPlay Ultra, new Vision Pro UX, an Internet Roadtrip, Leroy Jenkins and so much more.

While Michael M is away, Michael R and Andy start off with some generative AI topics: advertisements and LEGO. Per the Ars Technica article, Netflix has announced it has created GenAI advertising that it will show during streaming video in 2026. And some exciting news in the GenAI space for LEGO – a model that generates stable (not diffuse!) LEGO structures from text prompts.

Next up: several Apple stories, starting with Aston Martin working with Apple’s CarPlay Ultra, which combines data and visualizations from the car as well as from the iPhone. Then, some articles on Apple’s Vision Pro, since the launch, and new capabilities allowing scrolling in a new way.

Then, Michael R and Andy share a cornucopia of fun. A website with the first few of 10,000 drum machines. A fixer of broken QR codes. A web-based team driving game called Internet Roadtrip, reminiscent of Twitch Plays Pokemon, and a little like Desert Bus too. And especially a reflection on the 20th anniversary of Leroy Jenkins. Do check out the article in the show notes below, and see also the embedded story from 20 years ago.

What’s your favorite Leroy Jenkins story? Have your bots 🤖 drop our bots 🤖 a line at @gamesatwork_biz (our home for now) and let us know!

Selected Links

AI

Netflix will show generative AI ads midway through streams in 2026
Netflix is trying to grow ad revenue quickly.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/05/netflix-will-show-generative-ai-ads-midway-through-streams-in-2026/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

— Ars Technica (@arstechnica) 2025-05-14T20:49:34.591Z

Ars Technica article: Netflix will show generative AI ads midway through streams in 2026

PC Mag article: LegoGPT Eliminates AI Weirdness, Creates Brick Designs You Can Actually Build

arXiv paper: Generating Physically Stable and Buildable LEGO Designs from Text

Huggingface: LegoGPT Demo

Apple

Wall Street Journal article: They Paid $3,500 for Apple’s Vision Pro. A Year Later, It Still Hurts.

Bloomberg article: Apple Readies Feature That Lets Vision Pro Users Scroll With Their Eyes

The Verge article: Apple will let the Vision Pro ‘see’ for you

Fun Stuff

10k Drum Machines

HumanQR

Adafruit blog post: Need to get away? Take an Internet Roadtrip!

Neal.Fun Internet Road Trip

Games at Work e77: (Hive)Mind Blowing for multiplayer Pokemon

NPR All Tech Considered article: Here’s What Happens When Thousands Play Pokemon Together

Desert Bus Express 2025

PC Gamer article: WoW’s Leeroy Jenkins, one of the internet’s oldest memes, turns 20 years old—and after looking back on what we wrote in 2005, I feel like we’ve failed Leeroys everywhere

Rock Paper Shotgun article: Doom: The Dark Ages review

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

Michael Martine

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e513 — Not Dead Yet

By Michael Martine | May 12, 2025 - 06:15 |May 11, 2025 Podcast

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an old wooden wagon — Photo by Hande B. on Unsplash

Published 12 May 2025

e513 with Michael and Michael – Clippy + LLMs, social AI, first person video, Duck, Pong & other games, and so much more.

While Andy is away, Michael and Michael start off this episode with good friend Clippy, the Microsoft Office Assistant from the early 2000s. Felix Reiseberg has made a version of Clippy that can use a variety of LLMs while retaining the look and feel of the 2000s user experience. Meta has enabled or borrowed – you pick your favorite – the capability of making user interactions with it’s AI app public, in much the same way you can browse other people’s exchanges on Venmo. And for the sports fans, there is a new AI capability that produces play by play and color commentary. This example highlights the thrill of victory in a match of Pong.

The Games at Work switches gears to the automotive world, where an article examines the (triumphant) return of the Yugo. Michael R remembers the Adobe parody from Saturday Night Live, and also shares news of the return of the Karman Ghia with Michael M. The story of the return of physical buttons from Wired reminds the cohosts of an earlier Games at Work episode where this comeback has been in the making since at least 2023.

A comedic triumph turns 50 years old this year – Monty Python’s Holy Grail, and somehow, we’re not quite sure how, Michael and Michael refrain from going through all of the quotable quotes from the movie. After this amazing restraint, the pair turn to the Apple Vision Pro Adventure series, with an in-depth article about the making of these feats of moviemaking. Michael R has experienced them on the Vision Pro, and describes how he felt while viewing them. The Pike’s Peak race takes Michael M back to a 1972 film about a race through the streets of Paris called C’etait un Rendezvous.

After a discussion about the games of Duck, Eco Dolphin, and Minecraft removing support for VR, the co-hosts reflect on a Wired article about how industry is keeping the metaverse and 3D Internet dream alive through digital twinning.

The team wraps up this episode with a reflection on the end of support for Windows 10 – or is that really the case?

Clippy, the Yugo, the Holy Grail and Windows 10 are among the things that are not dead yet.

Are you more excited about the return of the Yugo or the Karman Ghia? Is there a vehicle you would dearly love to see come back in a new form? Have your bots 🤖 drop our bots 🤖 a line at @gamesatwork_biz (our home for now) and let us know!

Selected Links

AI

Clippy

Wikipedia entry: Office Assistant (Clippy)

Business Insider article: Meta has a new stand-alone AI app. It lets you see what other people are asking. I’m confused.

Garbage Day article: Meta has a cool new slop feed

Venmo article: Who can see my Venmo payments?

Hackaday article: AI Brings Play-By-Play Commentary to Pong

Google NotebookLM

Automotive Design

Motortrend article: The Yugo—One of the Worst Cars Ever—Is Attempting a Comeback

Wired article: Rejoice! Carmakers Are Embracing Physical Buttons Again

Games at Work e415: Pushing Our Buttons

Moviemaking

Wall Street Journal article: Coconuts Still Clopping, ‘Monty Python and the Holy Grail’ Turns 50

IMDb: Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Digital Camera World article: “I very much believe that the future of entertainment will be immersive!” – We speak to award-winning filmmaker and series director of Apple TV’s ‘Adventure’, Charlotte Mikkelborg

AppleTV Press release: Apple Original Films announces groundbreaking new documentary event “Bono: Stories of Surrender,” premiering globally on May 30 on Apple TV+

Fediverse

RadioEins Global Solutions Summit – World Policy Forum interview with Felix Hlatky, Finanzvorstand der Social Plattform Mastodon

Games

Duck, the game

Duck, the North Carolina Outer Banks town

Go, the game

DuckDuckGo, the search engine and browser

Polygon article: Ecco the Dolphin is getting two remasters and one new title from its original creators

The Verge article: Minecraft’s VR support is now gone

Metaverse

Wired article: The Dream of the Metaverse Is Dying. Manufacturing Is Keeping It Alive

Windows

End of 10

0Patch

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: 39:26 — 54.8MB) | Embed

e512 — Sounds Good, On Paper

By Michael Martine | May 5, 2025 - 06:38 |May 4, 2025 Podcast

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Cartoon renditions of Andy and Michael M with headphones and microphones, arm wrestling, generated by ChatGPT May 2025 — Cartoon versions of Andy and Michael M, generated by ChatGPT

Published 5 May 2025

e512 with Andy and Michael – E Ink monitors, Agent run companies & towns, winning arguments with AI assistants, pixellating reality and much more.

While Michael R is away, Andy and Michael start off this episode continuing the E Ink theme from last week before shifting to AI and wrapping up with several cool makes.

It seems that there was a great deal of discussion on E Ink in the past couple of days, and the team touch on the BOOX Mira and Dashing Paperlike displays. Andy also mentions being on a recent episode of the Bootloader podcast, where he talked about Glance – see the links below for more.

Moving along to AI, the co-hosts talk through the multiple themes embedded in the TechCrunch article dealing with Perplexity, the divestiture of Chrome, and the business of advertising. Andy brings up a phrase giving a different name for AI, namely, Computational Text Generation Devices, and Michael shares a link to the Crystal Knows service he heard about during a recent interview. Then, the co-hosts have a spirited, while still family friendly, conversation spurred on by an automobile journalist’s frustrating experience with a car’s assistant. Next up was an article about how Carnegie Mellon professors staffed a virtual company solely with AI agents, which reminded Michael about Smallville – check out e428 and e412 from 2023 for more on AI agent interaction in a town setting. Then, Andy touches on the Meta Ray-Bans story from Gizmodo.

Wrapping up the show for this week, Andy and Michael take a look at a couple of really intriguing makes: PixLens for pixellating reality using a specifically machined acrylic lens, a cassette emulator, and a Sony Watchman brought back to life by a Raspberry Pi.

What would you like to pixellate with the PixLens? Have your bots 🤖 drop our bots 🤖 a line at @gamesatwork_biz (our home for now) and let us know!

Selected Links

E Ink, continued

The Verge article: Boox launches its first color E Ink monitor

BOOX Mira Pro E Ink Monitor

Liliputing article: Dasung Paperlike 13K is a 13.3 inch E Ink color monitor

Dasung Paperlike 13K E Ink Monitor

grocery store price display for the Salisbury, North Carolina classic cherry flavored soft drink Cheerwine — grocery store price display for the Salisbury, North Carolina classic cherry flavored soft drink, Cheerwine

The Bootloader podcast, e19 Welcome Andy Piper for Glance

Glance

Who’s chatting with whom?

TechCrunch article: Perplexity CEO says its browser will track everything users do online to sell ‘hyper personalized’ ads

Amardeep Singh blog post: Humanities AI in 2025: Brief Reflections After a Conference

CrystalKnows.com

USA Today article: Scolded by a car? My battle with an EV assistant going rogue

Futurism article: Professors Staffed a Fake Company Entirely With AI Agents, and You’ll Never Guess What Happened

Games at Work e428: Is you is, or is you AIn’t my AI? For Smallville

ARXIV paper: Generative Agents: Interactive Simulacra of Human Behavior

Games at Work e412: 3D or not 3D also for Smallville and NPCs

Gizmodo article: Meta Is Turning Its Ray-Bans Into a Surveillance Machine for AI

Hacks & Makes

AdaFruit blog post: PixLens: Reality into 8-bit

PixLens

I've adorned my cassette emulator device with a hand whittled label. The top panel has some bumps from through-board solder pads, so nothing I can do about that. But overall it's alright, if you don't look too closely and/or judge too harshly.
#ZXSpectrum

— electron.greg (@electron_greg) 2025-04-29T19:51:00.721Z

hackster.io post: A Sony Watchman Lives Again as the Display for a Dinky Raspberry Pi 3 Cyberdeck

Wikipedia article: Sony Watchman

Game preservation bonus links

GOG Dreamlist

The Verge article: GOG is adding some classic Star Wars games to its preservation program

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: 26:58 — 37.7MB) | Embed

e511 — Vibing in London

By Michael Martine | April 28, 2025 - 06:02 |April 28, 2025 Podcast

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time lapse photo of the Thames, the London Eye ferris wheel, Parliament and Big Ben — Photo by bill emrich from Pexels:

Published 28 April 2025

e511 with Michael, Andy and Michael – Vibe coding with the Vision Pro, E Ink, ePaper, multi and single player MMORPGs, Minecraft London and much more.

Michael, Andy and Michael get things off to a fast start continuing the vibe coding conversation. The Vision Pro features prominently, with the idea that Siri was intended to allow for calling virtual objects into being in the Vision Pro environment without requiring the user to write code. Then, the team discusses the different algorithms used by quantified self devices such as the Oura Ring and Apple Watch. Next up, an intriguing concept of storing deleted data, with timestamps and user information for future potential use.

Then the co-hosts take the Figment E Ink hardware and run with it on a journey of other E Ink devices. While the Kindle provides an easy launch point, other E Ink / ePaper devices such as the Daylight computer, the ePaper Name Badge, the Remarkable 2, Air Lab, the Poem/1 (hail poetry!) and even grocery store price displays get their proverbial day in the sun.

Switching gears to massive multi (and single) player games, Andy shares a story about the Minecraft digital twin of London built over the past 5 years. In an MMORPG twist, the co-hosts discuss the simulated players in Erenshor, a single player version of an MMO.

Wrapping things up for the week, the team concludes with a couple of Nintendo stories repurposing older GameBoy and Wii hardware for fun experiments.

If you could have a Windows enabled GameBoy, what would you most like to run on it? Have your bots 🤖 drop our bots 🤖 a line at @gamesatwork_biz (our home for now) and let us know!