e485 — Barbarians at the Rhubarb Bar

Games At Work dot Biz

Photo by Svitlana on Unsplash

Published 14 October 2024

e485 with Michael and Michael — flow, focus & distraction, waking up with Nintendo’s Alarmo, Wartke & Fischer’s song about Barbara, her rhubarb bar and the barbarians, the disappearing .io domain suffix and a whole lot more!

Co-hosts Michael and Michael start off the show with the retirement of Apple executive Dan Riccio, who headed up the Vision Products Group. This spurs a lively discussion about the advantages that the VisionPro brings to reduce distractions and foster concentration on the task at hand, and how other visual computing solutions from Magic Leap, Meta and others are more additive in nature, providing additional contextual information to the user through their augmented reality experiences.

Longtime listeners will know that Andy, who was away at OggCamp, Michael and Michael all have an affinity for the German language. While the work of Bodo Wartke and Marti Fischer was more well known on the eastern side of the Atlantic Ocean, it was new to Michael and Michael, who each enjoyed listening to the musical styles of Wartke and Fischer. They shared through rhyme how a woman named Barbara got to know some barbarians, their barber, and others through a shared love for rhubarb. Have a listen to the videos below. They are wirklich ausgezeichnet.

Switching (see what we did there) to a more nostalgic set of topics, the co-hosts discuss the just released Nintendo Alarmo alarm clock. The Alarmo has a sensor that recognizes when you move, and reacts to those movements, such as when you stretch or roll over. One the user is out of bed, the alarm automatically ceases. Can you imagine a scenario for Nintendo gamifying waking up like Pokemon Go did for walking around? Earning digital Nintendo currency for getting up or getting sufficient rest perhaps? After a story about Green Day re-releasing their dookie album on diverse hardware such as a Game Boy cartridge or Teddy Ruxpin, the co-hosts discuss a post pointing to the Furby source code on archive.org.

Michael and Michael wrap up the episode with an article from every.to on how geopolitical changes have an impact on the digital world with the example of the British government transferring sovereignty of the British Indian Ocean Territory of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius.

What German rhymes have you been listening to (or creating)? Have your bots 🤖 drop our bots 🤖 a line at @[e-mail] (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

This is not an Apple Podcast

The Verge article: Apple’s Vision Pro leader, Dan Riccio, is retiring

Games at Work e486: Future Frames

Submerged

OggCamp 2024 in Manchester, UK

Barbaras Rhabarberbar

The Guardian article: ‘Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungs-aufgabenübertragungsgesetz’: how viral tongue-twisters lightened up German language

Bodo Wartke (auf Englisch)

Trading on Nostalgia

Nintendo Sound Clock Alarmo

acquired.fm season 12, episode 3 Nintendo’s Origins

acquired.fm season 12, episode 4 Nintendo: The Console Wars

Dookie Demastered

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A post shared by UNC Bands Alumni Association (@uncbaa)

just in case someone needs it, the internet archive has the source code for furbies https://archive.org/details/furby-source

— Harp :wigglytuff: (@[e-mail])
2024-10-05T15:37:54.478Z

Ars Technica article: archive.org, a repository of the history of the Internet, has a data breach

All the World’s a Game

Wired article: Tim Walz Rally Goes Live on World of Warcraft Twitch Stream

PC Gamer article: Duake lets you play Quake as the Doomguy

Tom’s Hardware article: Deckintosh has Apple’s latest macOS Sequoia running on the Steam Deck

Every.to article: The Disappearance of an Internet Domain

earth.org article: Tuvalu’s Sinking Reality: How Climate Change Is Threatening the Small Island Nation

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

Michael Martine