e524 — Googlenight, AI

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window with a full moon, the emoji that commonly is used for AI and the text reading Googlenight, AI on a green background
Googlenight, AI virtual book cover

Published 11 August 2025

e524 with Andy and Michael M – stories about AI generated goodnight stories, Med-Gemini, GPT-5, skeuomorphism, scrobbling, seeing through doors and a whole lot more.

Andy and Michael M get things rolling while Michael R is away with some Google Gemini generated goodnight stories.  Andy generates a story about a 3D printer that prints a new red car in just a few moments.  Aside from a few inconsistencies, it’s actually a pretty good story and images.  After an example of Med-Gemini hallucinating a non-existent body part, the team virtually goes to Versailles to interact with the statues via AI.  Speaking with the statues reminded Michael of speaking with the plants at the Chelsea Flower Show discussed in e488.  Andy shares insights on GPT-5.

Then, the team turns to skeuomorphism with the Macrowave app as a prime example.  This leads to a small segue to scrobbling with Last.FM.  Andy and Michael wrap up this episode with the Eufy FamiLock S3 Max that allow you to “look through” your door and see who is on the other side.

What skeumorphistic elements are your most and least favorite?  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

Goodnight, AI

The Verge article: Google Gemini can now create AI-generated bedtime stories

Andy’s Google Generated AI bedtime story: Pip the Magical Printer

The Verge article: Google’s healthcare AI made up a body part — what happens when doctors don’t notice?

Google Research Blog Post: Advancing medical AI with Med-Gemini

Smithsonian Magazine article: You Can Now Have a Conversation With the Statues at Versailles Using Artificial Intelligence

RHS Chelsea Flower Show

Games at Work e488 Fight. For Your Right.  To Pla-aaay!

404 Media article: More than 130,000 Claude, Grok, ChatGPT, and Other LLM Chats Readable on archive.org

CNet article: GPT-5: Here’s What’s New in ChatGPT’s Big Update

Where is your Ed At blog post: AI Is A Money Trap

Build things skeumorphisticaly

, our native macOS & iOS app that makes it easy and fun to share system audio with friends to listen to music together will be available for everyone on August 7th.

apps.apple.com/app/macrowave/i

— Lucas ✦ (@lucas) 2025-08-05T01:02:26.443Z

Macrowave – Private P2P Radio

Macrowave

Last.FM Scrobbling

The Verge article: This smart lock lets me see through my door

Eufy FamiLock S3 Max

Where’s Michael M next week?

NCSSM.edu article: ’87 alum set to open academic year with Convocation address

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: 28:14 — 39.4MB) | Embed

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e523 — Two hundred and sixty six starlings

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Photo by Pete Godfrey on Unsplash

Published 4 August 2025

e523 with Michael R and Andy, possibly arriving via carefully-arranged starlings? – stories about AI again, obviously; iPadOS 26; games, old and new; and, an innovative method of data transfer.

Andy and Michael R are back together this week, while Michael M takes a turn being away! We kick off with some AI-related topics, with ChatGPT successfully passing the anti-bot Turing test, CAPTCHA, and then some discussion of AI tools being allowed in Meta’s hiring process. Could the North Koreans be on their way?

Seamlessly gliding (almost like… liquid glass), there’s a discussion of iPadOS 26 public beta, and all the window-y goodness that’s coming to all in September.

Under the heading of games topics, the hosts cover a number of links, including the existential crisis experienced by games characters in a Matrix game, an incredible clay animated music video that revisits the 1980s and 1990s, and then, a brand new game all about the life of… a fly. Yes, a fly.

The last segment covers a different kind of flying creature, and looks at the potential for birds to become digital data carriers. Well, starlings anyway.

Are you switching to bird tech any time soon? Have your bots drop our bots a line on Mastodon at @gamesatwork_biz and let us know what you’re reading and what you’re thinking about!

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

Apple

Gaming

Birds! Yes, birds! (can we pretend this is a Maker section?)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 32:42 — 45.5MB) | Embed

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e522 — Pointing at Doomed Fish

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fossilized fish
Photo by David Clode on Unsplash

Published 28 July 2025

e522 with Michael M and Andy – stories about AI in multiple forms: bees that listen, a cat that chats, and then some fun with animating fish you draw, a GameBoy you build and a whole lot more.

Andy and Michael M get things rolling while Michael R is away with a story about Amazon acquiring Bee, the wearable AI company.  After a quick reference back to earlier wearable AI examples, the co-hosts turn to Lumo, the AI cat chatbot (catbot?) from Proton.  This sparks a rich conversation on search, and the need to find that receipt or email about the upcoming event.  A 404 media article covers Google’s AI Overview, and Michael shares how he routinely passes over the sponsored links, which is where the AI Overview currently resides.  Andy noted that Google announced Web Guide this week, and the pair give that a once over.  Andy also harkened back to his SearXNG aggregator and udm14.com. 

Next up, the co-hosts show that we can still have fun things, starting off with an(other) iteration of Doom.  This is followed up with Draw A Fish, a simple and fun experience where your drawn fish is animated by the site and placed in a fishtank for you to watch and feed.  Then, a delightful experience on Pointer Pointer, where the service gives you a picture with people pointing where you have your cursor.

Andy and Michael wrap things up with another LEGO video game exemplar – this time it’s the Nintendo Game Boy, which sadly doesn’t play a game, but looks very realistic down to the custom LEGO buttons.  And of course the pair is excited to see Spinal Tap 2: The End Continues when it comes out.  

Will Spinal Tap 2 go up to 12?  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

The Verge article: Amazon buys Bee AI wearable that listens to everything you say

Bee.computer

Games at Work e502: Humane Rabbits (for the Humane AI Pin, Rabbit Agent, R1 and more)

9 To 5 Mac article: Proton throws shade at Apple Intelligence privacy as it launches AI chatbot

Proton post: Introducing Lumo, the AI where every conversation is confidential

Vivaldi post: #10 Andy Yen (Proton) – For A Better Web

Search

404 Media article: Google’s AI Is Destroying Search, the Internet, and Your Brain

SearXNG

Tedium post: One Extra Click

Google’s The Keyword post: Web Guide: An experimental AI-organized search results page

udm14.com 

We Can Have Fun Things

Draw a Fish

Pointer Pointer

The Verge article: Here is Lego’s official Nintendo Game Boy — with lenticular display

Entertainment Weekly article: Rob Reiner applauds Paul McCartney’s ‘really funny’ improv skills in first look at Spinal Tap sequel

IMDb: This Is Spinal Tap (1984)

IMDb: Spinal Tap II: The End Continues (2025)

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: 32:58 — 45.9MB) | Embed

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e521 — We Like Big Drives

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inside a hard drive
Photo by benjamin lehman on Unsplash

Published 21 July 2025

e521 with Andy, Michael and Michael – stories about expressive robots (Shoggoth Mini, Apple ELEGNT, SpiRob & facehugger), newly reengineered Commodore & Sinclair computer reboots, Seagate’s 30TB drives and a whole lot more.

Andy, Michael and Michael get things rolling with a story about what went into creating the hero image for last week’s show notes.  The team then turns to the Shoggoth Mini robot, and how it uses it’s antenna so expressively.  Inspired by Apple’s ELEGNT robot lamp, and SpiRobs’s tentacle system, Matthieu Le Cauchois started building the Shoggoth Mini.  Check out the links below for the videos and images to see how this robot interacts.  After touching on a robotic instance of a facehugger from the Aliens movies, the co hosts turn back to the future.

If you are nostalgic for a Commodore 64 computer, it is your lucky day.  Newly reengineered C-64s are available in several different models, and you won’t even need a cassette recorder or a floppy disk drive to load the software.  Unless you really want to.  After touching on a new version of the classic Sinclair ZX Spectrum, the co hosts marvel at the newly announced Seagate 30TB hard drives for $600.  

Rounding out the show for this week are an article on dropped customer service calls and some 1985 retro MacPaint art.

What kind of emotion would you want your robot to show, and how would the robot express the emotion?  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

Generative Video – A How To

The Decoder post: Google’s Veo 3 video generation model launches on Gemini API with a hefty price tag

Animated by Google Veo3 July 2025 with the following prompt: rotate slowly around the sphere in the image, then dive into it as you would with Google Earth. come into focus on a clear water ocean teeming with fish, octopi and lush green plants Original photo is of Josh Simpson’s 1998 #Megaportal glass artwork, a deep glass sphere that looks like a planet with a colorful atmosphere, air pockets and land masses.
original photo by Michael Martine, Sandwich MA June 2025. Veo3 animation July 2025.

Robot Maker

Matthieu Le Cauchois blog post: Shoggoth Mini

Apple Machine Learning blog post: ELEGNT: Expressive and Functional Movement Design for Non-Anthropomorphic Robot

Arxiv paper: SpiRobs: Logarithmic Spiral-shaped Robots for Versatile Grasping Across Scales

Games at Work e500: fünfhundert smooth operator (for discussion on the Apple Pixar robotic lamp)

Wikipedia entry: Horseshoe Crab

Robotshop community forum post: the Facehugger

Technology Old And New

Sixcolors post: Commodore, Apple, and the Early Computer Days

Commodore 

Mini-ITX post: We can build your Mini-ITX PC inside a Retro Commodore 64 Keyboard Chassis…

ESP32 Rainbow post: ESP32 Rainbow ZX Spectrum Reborn

TidBITS post: Seagate Ships 30 TB Hard Drives for $600

Seagate press release: Seagate Ships 30TB Drives to Meet Global Surge in Data Center AI Storage Demand

IMDb entry: The Cannonball Run (another big drive)

The Atlantic article: That Dropped Call With Customer Service? It Was On Purpose

Three sample MacPaint images from the decryption.net.au blog 

Internet Archive: Zen & the art of the Macintosh : discoveries on the path to computer enlightenment 

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: 29:35 — 41.3MB) | Embed

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