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Games At Work dot Biz

Games At Work dot Biz

De : Michael Rowe Michael Martine Andy Piper
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At the nexus of games, work, and techCopyright Games at Work dot Biz, 2012-2026 Politique et gouvernement
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  • e560 — Sweating the Small Stuff

    e560 — Sweating the Small Stuff
    Jul 6 2026
    Photo by nik biziuk on Unsplash Published 6 July 2026 e560 with Andy, Michael and Michael – stickshift & phone handsets with Ian Bogost, camping at EMF Camp 2026 & Mountain Quest 2026, brain cooling, dwarf lemurs, World Cup 2026, USMNT, ThreeLions, the tokenpocalypse and a whole lot more! Andy, Michael and Michael get things started with a TechCrunch interview with Ian Bogost on his about to be published book, The Small Stuff. Building on the success of his article on the demise of the stick shift, Ian wrote a book that focuses on the details of life that make a difference. The cohosts harken back all the way to episode 17 in August of 2012 when Ian was a guest on the podcast. Part of the discussion from the article focused on the nature of the telephone handset, which brought the EMF Camp telecommunications setup to mind for Andy. Electromagnetic Telecom allows anyone attending EMF to register a phone number on the network and communicate with other participants. Speaking of camping, Michael M shares an overview video of Mountain Quest 2026, where he was a participant the prior weekend in the mountains of North Carolina. It’s hot in the UK and in North Carolina – so the maker article about the brain turbocharger looked to be a welcome relief from the heat. This modified construction helmet recognizes when the user has been thinking hard and signals multiple fans built into the helmet to cool things down so the user’s brain does not overheat from overclocking. Recent discussions on the podcast about the Steam hardware made the BC250 an intriguing topic. Michael R recounts his recent trip to the Duke Lemur Center to see the small Fat-tailed dwarf lemur. And in the small and cool category, the team considers the “Impossible Watch” from D1 Milano. The cohosts then take a brief World Cup interlude from the tech discussions. While neither Michael is what you may consider a ‘bandwagon’ fan for the World Cup, the Lay’s potato chip television commercial is pretty funny. Check out the embedded video below. At the time of recording and writing, both England and the USA are still in the hunt for the cup – best wishes to both national teams! Wrapping up the episode, the team discusses the tokenpocalypse. The 404 Media article highlights how companies are have gone from tokenmaxxing to tokenhoarding as the price point for AI is soaring. Have you been impacted by restrictions on your token usage? Have your bots 🤖 (if you can spare the tokens!) 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. Selected Links Beating the heat by sweating the small stuff TechCrunch article: Writer Ian Bogost says ‘The Small Stuff’ can help us reclaim our lives from too much convenience Small Stuff Book by Ian Bogost The Atlantic article: The End of Manual Transmission Games at Work e17: Things Are Weirder Than Expected (for special guest Ian Bogost) Electromagnetic Telecom plc (phones at EMF Camp) Are the North Carolina mountains a rainforest? Yes. Makers (staying cool with cool stuff) Arduino blog post: Brain hot from serious thinking? This helmet automatically cools your head Aftermath article: Bless The BC250, The Budget E-waste Steam Machine Photo by Michael Rowe at the Duke Lemur Center, Durham North Carolina July 2026 Wikipedia article: Fat-tailed dwarf lemur Duke Lemur Center Gear Patrol article: This May Be the First Kickstarter Watch I’d Actually Consider Buying World Cup – England and US still in at recording time! Data Guessr site: Who wins if not football decides? Token Throttling 404 Media article: Companies Are Throttling Employees’ AI Use Because It’s Too Expensive
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    33 min
  • e561 — For the Birds

    e561 — For the Birds
    Jul 13 2026
    Photo by Michael Martine, South Yarmouth MA, July 2026 Published 13 July 2026 e561 with Michael, Andy and Michael – arial-aquatic robotic locomotion, Puffin wingspan, e-ink mini PDAs, maker marketplaces such as Tindie, Lectronz and SmallRun, custom vinyl, cooperative LLMs and a whole lot more! Michael, Andy and Michael get things started with a new robot that can fly and swim, and transition between the air and water on it’s own. This amazing feat was inspired by diving birds such as the puffin. This story inspired the cohosts to consider the wingspan of the puffin, and while writing up the show notes, the Wingspan boarding game and the airborne velocity of the swallow. Switching to non-robotic tech, the team take a look at the PocketMage PDA, which then opens up a whole discussion on (dare we say vintage) other PDAs, and the maker culture of EMF Camp, where Andy is spending some time as discussed in e560. Crowdsupply’s Open Printer article primed the team for a number of favorite maker marketplaces which you can check out in the show notes below. Examples like Tindie, Lectronz and SmallRun all get the benefit of the Games at Work bump. And a google search turns up another SmallRun website that provides the service of creating custom vinyl for recordings, and inspires Andy on a potential gift. The team then looks at a couple of YouTube videos where a number of different LLMs are tasked to work collaboratively to play Pico Park. You can see these below, and it is an intriguing way to consider how multiple autonomous agents may work together (or not) in other contexts. In e173 in 2017, the cohosts discussed an example of two Google Homes talked to one another on Twitch. Rounding out the episode, there is an Inc article on what happened when the Starbucks app had a failure. The behavior was very reminiscent of last week’s discussion on Ian Bogost’s new book, The Small Stuff. The article concludes “Connivence creates its own fragility” – what an interesting turn of phrase. Have you had an example of when convenience created fragility for you? 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. Selected Links Avian Robotic Technology NPR article: A new kind of robot swims the seas and soars the skies Science article: Leaping out of the water: Aerial-aquatic locomotion with flapping wings Audubon Bird Guide: Atlantic Puffin (for the wingspan in case you’re curious) Stonemaier Games Wingspan Interesting Engineering article: Monty Python and the Holy Grail: Airspeed Velocity of an Unladen Swallow More Technology The Verge article: The PocketMage resurrects the PDA with an e-paper screen EMF Camp Sellshirts: HTTPShirts Wikipedia article: T-Mobile Sidekick Wikipedia article: Danger, Inc. Crowdsupply article: Open Printer – Progress Update & Details About Our Nomination for a French Design Award! Society for Hopeful Technologists Tindie Lectronz SmallRun smallrun.com.au Games experienced with AI (shhhhhh…) Pico Park for Switch Games at Work e173: Babel Fish (for two Google Homes talking to one another #seebotschat) When tech goes wrong Inc article: Starbucks’s App Went Down This Morning. What Customers Did Next Is a Warning for Every Business
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    35 min
  • e562 — Field Notes

    e562 — Field Notes
    Jul 27 2026
    Photo by Michael Martine, Hamptonville, North Carolina, Oct 2018 Published 27 July 2026 e562 with Andy and Michael M – EMFCamp recap, whole lot of LEGO love, the game of life, a Playdate mini MMO, AR assisted murals and a whole lot more! Andy and Michael M start off with a recap of Andy’s experiences at EMF Camp while Michael R is away for this episode. Andy shares his experiences, describes the “Monumental GameBoy”, how visitors to his campsite enjoyed playing his LEGO pinball machine and his updates to the EMF badge (such as Pigs in Space!). Check out the show notes below for a few visual links, including the Joust game for the Tildagon badge and more. Michael M went to an event at a local arcade in Chapel Hill and only noticed as he was leaving that they too had a Joust cabinet game. Andrzej Marczewski wrote an article in gamified.uk about the game of life – not the one by Hasbro or Conway – rather the game of life itself with resources to manage and protect. Andy and Michael enjoyed Andrzej’s take, especially how he treated progress and score. Going from the macro to the micro, the team also took a look at the Playdate miniMMO PointlessQuest. Andy may give this a shot on his Playdate soon! Next, it’s on to LEGO, and there are so many new cool drops from Billund. Andy already mentioned his pinball table during the EMF recap. After checking out the playable Donkey Kong game, the pair then takes a look at the new Star Trek Enterprise 1701 bridge. With 8 minifigs from the original series, and features such as the rocking command chair, transporter room actions and troubling Tribbles, there’s something for every Star Trek fan. And the team just loved just how many LEGO bricks it took to make the Enterprise bridge set. Then, Andy and Michael take a look at how an artist created a mural using sketchar.io augmented reality – just like using transparencies and an overhead projector from days of yore. If that doesn’t ring a bell, have a look at the YouTube from the Computer History Museum below. Many thanks to @lxs@fosstodon.org for sharing this mural designing video with us! Who is your favorite original Star Trek character? 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. Selected Links It’s Electric! Electromagnetic Field Festival 2026 Wikipedia article: Chaos Communication Camp Makertube post: Snapper – a mechanical arcade machine based on Paku Paku. New at EMF Camp 2026 Tildagon Badge Documentation Joustagon – Johann Sebastian Joust on the Tildagon Club-Mate Games at Work e560: Sweating the Small Stuff (for EMFCamp prep) Massive & Tiny Games Life Has Stats: What Games Teach Us About Progresshttps://www.gamified.uk/2026/07/18/life-has-stats-what-games-teach-us-about-progress/ #gamification — Andrzej Marczewski (@daverage@mastodon.social)2026-07-18T07:31:22.054Z Gamified UK article: Life Has Stats: What Games Teach Us About Progress 404 Media article: We Are Living in a ‘ChatGPT Flyer Pandemic’ Wikipedia article: Conway’s Game of Life Wikipedia article: The Game of Life The Verge article: The tiniest MMO PointlessQuest by Gareth Williams LEGO LEGO Icons Arcade Pinball Machine #11374 The Verge article: Lego’s Donkey Kong arcade machine lets Mario jump endless barrels — Miyamoto is reportedly happy LEGO Icons Star Trek: U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701™ Bridge #11385 AR Painting by Numbers @gamesatwork_biz Augmenting the outdoor artistic efforts… via tech {Met a few artists who achieve even larger scale projects with manual place-markers & mind-craft} https://www.instagram.com/reel/DZsltTzhunw/ — 𝓛𝔁𝓼 / 𝔸𝕝𝕖𝕩𝕚𝕤 🏵🇪🇺💫 (@lxs@fosstodon.org)2026-07-16T07:38:39.224Z Instagram post by faridisartwork sketchar As seen on TV New, exclusive, by me: LG to Ban Residential Proxy Providers from Smart TV Apps The home appliance giant LG Electronics USA said this week it plans to suspend any apps built for its smart TVs that turn one’s television into an always-on residential proxy node. The move comes less than a month after researchers found that more than 42 percent of games and other apps available for download on LG’s webOS store allow unknown third-parties to route their Internet traffic through a user’s TV. https://krebsonsecurity.com/2026/07/lg-to-ban-residential-proxies-from-smart-tv-apps/ #smarttv #lg #residentialproxies #spur #security — BrianKrebs (@briankrebs@infosec.exchange)2026-07-22T01:12:48.388Z Krebs on Security article: LG to Ban Residential Proxies from Smart TV Apps Techdirt article: Sony Deletes A Bunch More Movies From The Accounts Of People Who ‘Bought’ Them
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    31 min
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