On this show, I play a song from Dub Inc; the TOFOP boys realized that they don't need a big production for their live episodes; I usually don't listen to your live episodes or your special episodes; my Reality Break episodes that were fun to produce I thought were the highest quality; Mozilla is to browsers as neo-liberals are to politics; social media scolds don't help; it's a fine line between avoiding supporting terrible companies while still living in the world; why are you asking all these questions when you should be solving the crime? I am recreating the NBC Mystery Movie wheel format in my life; I am partying like it's 1971; McCloud was a big influence on Justified; Macmillan and Wife is goofy but fun; The Gold was an interesting series; I lay out my money laundering plan; I am barely sticking with Down Cemetery Road; I am barely sticking with The Beast In Me; I don't like "close call" shows; I can't stand Celebrity Traitors or Love is Blind; making small talk with the douchebags in the house seems excruciating.

Here is the direct MP3 download for the Evil Genius Chronicles podcast, November 26 2025.

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On this show, I play a song from Uwade; the theory of monthly productivity challenges is great but the practice is often the opposite of the intention; I have been fixing the dead drives in my old cheap Mac Minis; Linux Mint is really nice; the iFixit upgrade kit worked a treat; having an always on desktop Linux machine running services means I get to sleep my laptop again; my big monitor is on a swing arm that was $3 from a bin store; I am hoping to get a beta version of the Pocket Mage; I wrote up the directions to set up a Pocket Mage build environment; I hope to port the sync spirit to the Pocket Mage; write down those good ideas no matter how unforgettable; my mother does not reside in the house plant; I am volunteering to scoop cat turds; the cat had had enough.

Here is the direct MP3 download for the Evil Genius Chronicles podcast, November 14 2025.

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A few weeks back Rohan and Phil from the Home Assistant podcast were kind enough to have me on their program to talk about my journey with Home Assistant. It was a fun time chatting about home automation and all the nerd stuff that makes up my day. The truth is that being on someone else's podcast that I don't have to edit and produce feels like a vacation. It has all of the fun and none of the work.

They published the episode with me last week. I have been a subscriber for years so it just showed up in my regular feed. It had been just long enough between recording and hearing back that I remembered the broad sweeps of topics but not exactly what anyone said so I heard it almost like a dispassoniate third party. We talked for over an hour and there are so many more topics we could have talked about like strategies in architecting automations, what to do with old IOT devices that have been decommissioned or whether to have one big calendar or lots of specific ones. It was fun and maybe there is enough left to talk about that in a year or two I can be back on.

I am attaching their episode to my feed so regular subscribers will just get it. If you enjoy them, I recommend their show. If you are interested but not yet a Home Assistant user, I recommend that as well. If you are a fan of Zigbee and/or Z-Wave we have some of that talk for you. It's fun stuff!

Enjoy!

On this show, I play a song from West of Mabou; the reason businesses are excited about AI is the prospect of not paying employees; we watched this business rationale play out with outsourcing in the 90s; I tried to use Descript's generative AI function but balked at paying extra money; the failure to find things digital and physical continues; can Johnny.Decimal be a solution and do I want to try? the PARA structure is less applicable when you don't have a job; Google's changes to sideloading APKs led me to shopping for used Pixel phones; I don't need mobile solutions when I seldom leave the house; I am trying to revive my Sharp Zaurus; in a pinch, you can charge a Zaurus with the Skylight frame charger; I am searching for one docker container that would let me cross-compile for the Zaurus; welcome listeners from the Home Assistant podcast.

Here is the direct MP3 download for the Evil Genius Chronicles podcast, October 29 2025.

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On this show, I play a song from Home Front; I discuss how Len Edgerly and Nathan Lowell have informed my thinking about production schedules; of all the innovations of the 20th century out current administration has decided secret police is the best one; I was fooled by an ad for cargo pants; the default straight white male tough guy targeting is exhausting; sword fighting for Jesus lost me; every Muslim I've ever met I acted in accordance with their book; no Christian I've ever met acted in accordance with their book; which is more important to your Christian nationalists - Christ or the nation? I test drove a Kia EV 9; my unfinished project list is completely out of control; I am trying to fix a physically broken Vicohome bird feeder; I made the decision to not install the new meter on my Ryobi lawnmower yet; I bought a DIY TRMNL kit; I am trying to get my Ender 3 Pro actually printing 3D again; the Home Assistant integrate to Waze Travel Time is changing my mornings; 17Track is back; I am trying and failing to install Open WRT on my old HooToo Travelmate; I am installing Linux Mint on the cheapo 20015 Mac Minis.

Here is the direct MP3 download for the Evil Genius Chronicles podcast, October 10 2025.

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On this show, I play a song from Macka Diamond; goodbye Todd Cochrane; the Ryobi lawnmower both has new LiFePO4 batteries and is mowing lawns; I learned more than I want to about float voltages, battery chemistry and discharging curves; I bit the bullet and bought the factory blade controllers; I installed a power monitoring switch to keep statistics and immediately got confused between 120V and 48V; I used Home Assistant and a Zigbee switch to cobble together a more resilient wifi network; the Home Assistant ZWA-2 is in my house and talking to the mailbox motion sensor; if my lawnmower charger is on a smart switch, why not turn it off in peak electricity hours? I got the calendar based automation working first time, a new personal best; my Galaxy watch died; the Amaztim T3 Ultra is much cheaper and almost suited my needs.

Here is the direct MP3 download for the Evil Genius Chronicles podcast, September 12 2025.

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On this show, I play a song from West of Mabou; the lawnmower is finally mowing lawns; against all odds, I have become a golfer; the Legends driving range membership is shockingly cheap; we went to Vegas to close out the summer; the Rio was not the best option but it was the freest option; Oming's Kitchen is great Filipino food in Vegas; it tends to work out being friendly with friendly people; Potted Potter was OK; the helicopter trip to the Grand Canyon was great if a little too much talking; Omega Mart at Area 15 is fantastic; Penn and Teller were fine; Battlebots was fine; Circus Circus was fine; karaoke at Ellis Island was good as usual; my casino sessions were slowly reverting to the mean for my lifetime; I listened to Marquee Moon over and over; 33 and 1/3 books are by nature a lot of filler; congratulations and farewell to Derek Coward for his 20 years of podcasting; welcome Jeff Marraccini.

Here is the direct MP3 download for the Evil Genius Chronicles podcast, August 22 2025.

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On this show, I play a song from Adrianne Lenker; I discuss losing weight rapidly; I talk about Heroescon 2025; I bought more original art at this show than ever before; I toned down my comic book related spazziness and self-criticism; I had a nice time meeting Mike and Laura Allred, Jose Marzan Jr and many others; I brought books for cancelled guests and none for some people that were actually there; I only spend cash on these things; I am not worrying about the autographs I did not get; I bought more original art than ever; The Awesome anthologies are a lot of fun to get signed; the Dollar Bin Podcast is publishing audio of some Heroescon panels; Islands in the Sky is the anthology for the Appalachia Comics Project and a fundraiser for creators affected by Hurricane Helene.

Here is the direct MP3 download for the Evil Genius Chronicles podcast, July 11 2025.

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On this show, I play a song from The Deadly Gallows; the college world series has a weird structure; go CCU; I am changing my Heroescon strategy slightly; I am using my comic book inventory database differently; I no longer care about the ashes nor the resting places of any of my loved ones; when I am maxed out on clothes storage why do I own t-shirts I don't care about? I don't consider the LURHQ/Secureworks infrastructure merger a happy time; Self-Hosted podcast is over; I set up NTFY for myself; I set up Paperless for myself; I turned off Nginx Proxy Manager because turns out the Synology NAS does all that if you know how to work it; I tried a Zooz Z-Wave long range motion sensor for the mailbox and so far it has been a bust.

Here is the direct MP3 download for the Evil Genius Chronicles podcast, June 20 2025.

Links mentioned in this episode:

You can subscribe to this podcast feed via RSS. To sponsor the show, contact BackBeat Media. Don't forget, you can fly your EGC flag by buying the stuff package. This show as a whole is Creative Commons licensed Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 Unported. Bandwidth for this episode is provided by Cachefly.

On this show, I play a song from Jill Sobule; I tell a light bulb joke; Obsidian has a new database-like feature; CEOs don't like work/life balance because they want to monetize every second of every employee's time; I never bled the colors of any company; asking for "A-players" in your job listing is asking for white male frat boys; I listened to a Patti Smith audiobook; I am enjoying Murderbot on both TV and in book form; TV shows hire Scandinavians when they need a robotic actor; Four Seasons on Netflix is watchable but just; we don't vacation with other couples; I walk through the various programs in my backlog.

Here is the direct MP3 download for the Evil Genius Chronicles podcast for May 30 2025

Links mentioned in this episode:

You can subscribe to this podcast feed via RSS. To sponsor the show, contact BackBeat Media. Don't forget, you can fly your EGC flag by buying the stuff package. This show as a whole is Creative Commons licensed Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 Unported. Bandwidth for this episode is provided by Cachefly.