Picture by Michael Martine, Dennis, MA, August 2026
Published 31 August 2026
e566 with Michael M and Andy who strive to make fetch happen with AI podcast search and news aggregation, spoof computers (Mactini & MacBook Wheel), Doom ports & mods, Flying Toasters, falling Acme anvils and a whole lot more!
Michael M and Andy get together while Michael R is away, starting and ending the episode with some classic lines from stage and screen. Michael M is freshly back from seeing the Cape Playhouse’s rendition of Mean Girls, which was such a delight.
Turning then to AI – the cohosts start off with a story about making podcasts searchable and usable by AI agents. This reminds Andy of Particle, an app that both he and Michael use occasionally to review the news. Next, they both use the Cringebot 3000 to make up some LinkedIn posts.
Then, a series of hacks – beginning with a super fun one, the Apple Mactini, not to be confused with Dr. Dorian from Scrubs favorite drink – the appletini. The Mactini is not a watered down cocktail, rather it is a one button computer that Tucker Osman made based on the spoof of an Apple TV commercial from 20 years ago, and that remained true to the spoof in it’s function. The Onion made a spoof of a click wheel (from the iPod) Mac in 2009 – and you can see that video in in the notes below. After checking out a number of LEGO gaming PCs, Andy shares the story of the eenk firmware for Xteink devices to create the choose your own adventure games we’ve been sharing on the podcast recently.
Longtime listeners will know that the Games at Work team collects Doom stories, and for this episode, there are a couple of new examples. There’s a story about Doom running on the EMFCamp Tildagon Badge, a mod called Mr. Friendly whose objective is to help the monsters recover from the latest space marine rampage, and an article about Anthropic’s Claude playing the game.
Closing out the show, Andy and Michael take a look at a port of the After Dark screen savers which you can now experience again thanks to Afterglow. They also look at a review of the Coyote vs Acme film that is premiering, and the linkage to Looney Tunes, and Ben Moor’s talk entitled “Pronoun Trouble”.
And, as mentioned at the start of the show notes, the ending for the episode ties everything up with an Elmer Fudd bow where we is hunting Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, and Daffy of course utters the classic line in his classic voice, “You’re despicable.”
What is your favorite Acme product? Have your bots 🤖 drop our bots 🤖 a line at @gamesatwork_biz@mastodon.social (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.
The weekly conversation hosted by Michael Rowe, Michael Martine, and Andy Piper, Games At Work dot Biz, explores the intersection where our digital play and professional lives collide. This isn't just a review show; it's a deep dive into the technology that powers our hobbies, the business behind the leisure, and the cultural news shaping both worlds. Each episode feels like pulling up a chair with three friends who are as passionate about the craft of game development and the evolution of hardware as they are about the pure joy of finding a great new title. You'll hear specific discussions on everything from the latest graphics card impacting performance to the narrative design of an indie darling, all filtered through the lens of professionals who live in the tech space. The Games At Work dot Biz podcast operates on the belief that the games we play and the tools we use are inextricably linked, offering listeners a consistently thoughtful and engaging analysis that goes far beyond a simple score. Tune in for a regular dose of insightful commentary where the serious business of technology meets the serious fun of games.
Author: Michael Rowe, Michael Martine, Andy Piper
Language: en-us
Episodes: 50
Photo by Mikey Frost on Unsplash Published 8 June 2026 e556 with Michael, Andy and Michael - Michael R’s annual edu-cation, chatbot trickery, data center data visualization, LeRobot Humanoid open source robotics, LEGO an…
Photo by Michael Martine: The Bean in Millennium Park, Chicago, IL, June 2019 Published 25 May 2026 e555 with Andy, Michael and Michael - Ploopy’s The Bean and Lenovo’s TrackPoint, The Guild, The Movie, AI in commencemen…
Stories and discussion on a robot monk, the Dead Internet Theory, agentic autonomy, Happy Net Box, the Artemis II minifig.me crew and a whole lot more!
e551 with Michael, Michael and Andy - a tour of the #Atmosphere with #ATProto, #Sifa, @eurosky.social, #Leaflet, a #LEGO #cacophonous #karaoke of “Mad About Me” and a whole lot more!
e550 with Michael, Andy and Michael - celebrating #MoonJoy with the #ArtemisII #crew, #Nutella in space, #AI, an #isomorphic reboot of #Wolf3D and a whole lot more!
e549 with Andy, Michael and Michael - boldly go into a deep set of #space discussions featuring #ArtemisII, ways to keep track of the historic flight, #COTS #software & #hardware aboard the #spacecraft, #BernieSanders co…
e548 with Michael and Michael - Stories and discussion on #UncomfortableValley & #UncannyValley, Nintendo’s #TalkingFlower, #8bit #PixelAgents for #AIorchestration and a whole lot more.
e547 with Michael and Michael - stories and discussion on #Bot2Bot communications, 50 years of #Apple, #LEGO #SmartPlay #SmartBricks and a whole lot more.
