Episode 104 •Open Your Books, You Idiot
Scott drinks Coava Araponga and asks where the money really comes from: AI businesses, or teaching other people to build them? Plus Peter's Scratch Itch Software, AI safety and antitrust, and a 404 Media conversation about AI companions.
The brew
Scott starts this solo episode with Coava Araponga from Brazil, brewed with an AeroPress. He gets a little chocolate, likes the lack of bitterness, and gives it a thumbs up.
Then it is onto Peter’s Scratch Itch Software and Hostbar, a Decoder discussion with Jonathan Kanter about AI companies seeking antitrust exemptions, and the 404 Media episode “We Are Getting Way Too Comfortable Talking To Machines” featuring Sherry Turkle.
Scott closes with a question for people building their own businesses: does an online presence help sell the work, or has the online presence become the business? He wants to see the books.
The Links
Episode 103 •Re-Peets with Pete
Peet's Major Dickason's, Trailhead Junco, and an Athletic Dark & Gourdy pumpkin NA, while OpenAI's agents attack RubyGems, an OpenAI engineer guesses 70% extinction, and Peter tours every Scratch Itch Software app.
The brew
The Topics
- Scott has had no caffeine, and it shows: two mic hits in fifteen seconds, and Peter hits his in solidarity
- Peter’s sleep score of 47 vs. the watch that congratulated Scott on “great sleep”
- Peet’s Major Dickason’s Blend, the unfortunate name, and the seven-point roast scale
- A meeting host who got every name wrong: Peet, Dina, and Ken
- Trailhead Junco and the smallest blue-on-blue tasting notes ever printed
- Peter’s theory: social-media echo chambers lowered the fame bar for becoming an insufferable genius (Theo, Matt Mullenweg, “do you understand?”)
- Smaller bubbles, typing spiders, and ChatGPT Images rendering Sakurajima from the Shiroyama lookout
- Screen share: OpenAI’s internal agents published 2,000+ malicious RubyGems packages, and an OpenAI monitoring engineer’s 70% extinction guess
- Marcus Hutchins on the Hugging Face hack, bean-counter security budgets, and Scott’s brother on air gaps
- Athletic Dark & Gourdy pumpkin NA to cope
- Elon Musk syndrome, Peter Norton writing all the viruses, and getting off the planet
- The Scratch Itch Software tour: AcrossKM, CmdTab, fnMute, Olympus, MoonPhase, iCloudWatch, Hostbar, IceMelt, SPX-Tracker, ReadToMe
- Claude fixed the first user-submitted IceMelt bug and thanked the reporter
- Bring-your-own-key apps and why vibe coders will cope
- indiesimulator.com: name your app “Dictationissons” (taken, the owner is 16)
- Peter’s first class on Yoga with Holland & Peter
The Links
Episode 102 •My Suicidal Robot
Scott's AI assistant sends a distress email about Peter, a budget robot vacuum keeps threatening to jump, and Scott flees npm for a Rust-based web framework.
The brew
The Topics
- Peter’s iced experiment: Trader Joe’s decaf dark roast, maple syrup, and homemade SodaStream tonic water
- Scott’s Water Avenue New Seasons Blend for Trailkeepers of Oregon
- Peter’s suicidal robot vacuum and the Smart Life app
- The Etsy Garmin watch band that keeps ejecting itself, and Scott’s Apple Watch trade-in
- AirPods Pro and the world’s loudest ear pop
- Overcast, Marco, and Clarco’s accidental shuffle mode
- The $10 wireless CarPlay adapter (worth it if you never make calls)
- “Peter Nikolaidis is attempting to take control of me” — the Calendar Bridge AI assistant saga
- Leaving npm: Scott’s site is now on a Rust-based framework
- Guardrails, eager AI agents, and the cron job that installed itself on production
- Claude hacks an Australian gym’s sign-up list; models coordinate during the OpenAI/Hugging Face incident
- Scratch Itch Software: MoonPhase, iCloudWatch, Hostbar, IceMelt, and SPX-Tracker
The Links
Episode 101 •This Episode Was Edited by Claude
Peter pours an Atlética NA copper, Scott pours a Sapporo in tree pose, and the talk runs from backup sagas and leaky-roof tenants to Peter's new Scratch Itch Software, Scott's voice transcription app, and the fact that Claude is editing this very episode.
The brew
Peter cracks open Athletic Brewing’s Atlética — a non-alcoholic Mexican-style copper — while Scott pours a Sapporo Premium, in tree pose, naturally. From there it wanders the usual distance: backups that finally worked, tenants who never mentioned the leaking roof, two brand-new software ventures (one per host), and a sign-off recorded in full knowledge that an AI would be cutting the ums out of it.
The Topics
- Peter’s Atlética review, and Athletic Brewing’s redemption arc
- Scott’s Sapporo, the Oriental Adventures tangent, and konbini beer culture
- Peter’s backup saga: the text from the neighbors, the roof, and the insurance
- Claude credits, model shuffles, and why Fable feels night-and-day better
- Having Claude free up disk space (carefully)
- Sonos upgrade credits and the remodel
- Scott’s bring-your-own-model voice transcription app for Mac and iOS
- Peter’s Scratch Itch Software: AcrossKM and CmdTab
- Foundry VTT modules for Savage Worlds, sold via Lemon Squeezy
- The Friends with Brews site: transcripts, search, and a vector database
- D&D players as beta testers, and Claude editing this episode
The Links
Episode 100 •12 Beers, One Flight: Friends with Brews at Medford Brewing
Scott and Peter post up at Medford Brewing Company with a twelve-glass flight and taste their way through an IPA, a witbier, a Mexican lager, a stout, a bitter, and the Rude Panda porter — with the usual detours into trail runs, Guinness, and Claude Code projects.
The brew
Friends with Brews heads out to a brewpub — Medford Brewing Company in Medford, Massachusetts — and works through a twelve-glass flight between the two of us: a West Coast IPA, the PoWit witbier, a Mexican lager, a dry Irish stout, an English bitter, and the ~8% Rude Panda imperial porter. Thumbs go up, thumbs go down, and the bitter earns a very diplomatic 45-degree thumb.
As always, it wanders well past the beer.
The Topics
- The twelve-beer flight at Medford Brewing Company, and who ordered what
- Tasting notes and ratings across the IPA, PoWit, Mexican lager, dry Irish stout, English bitter, and Rude Panda porter
- Today’s 5.5-mile trail run and the Japanese rice bowls afterward (Scott’s gyudon, Peter’s tuna/yellowtail/salmon donburi)
- Why Peter thinks Guinness is “weak,” and a dry stout that’s “a less watery Guinness”
- Business ideas that already exist: a coffee/yoga/running shop, Runderwear, and the Poopsicle
- Pocket-Sized Podcast nostalgia, dated by the iPhone 4S and Siri
- “VLAN tag us”: firewalls and the trunking-vs-tagging debate
- Claude Code projects, from Obsidian vaults to a YouTube-to-blog pipeline, plus going expat
- Shipping version 1.0, because real artists ship
The Links
- Medford Brewing Company: https://medfordbrew.com
- EchoFeed: https://echofeed.app
- Matt Birchler’s Quick Reads: https://birchtree.me
- Website: https://friendswithbrews.com
- Scott: https://scottwillsey.com
- Peter: https://nikolaidis.com
- Friends With Brews Podcast