Jake and Michael return for 2026 and talk about their evolving experiences with AI; what it’s good at, what it’s not, and how it’s changing the way they work.

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• OpenAI / ChatGPT
• Anthropic / Claude (Sonnet & Opus)
• OpenCode (multi-provider AI coding interface)
• Home Assistant
• Zigbee temperature sensors
• GitHub Copilot
• Ollama (local LLM runner)
• NVIDIA DGX Spark
• Amp Code
• MiniMax M2.1 model
• Software for an audience of one
• Arbor
• OpenCode Desktop has workspaces support
• Opus 4.5 is going to change everything

Michael and Jake open with retro arcade serendipity (a Mortal Kombat cabinet sighting!) and tumble into family bowling, kid-approved card games, and why tactile gadgets are back in style.

Then they pivot hard into dev-mode: shadcn/ui (and shadcn-vue), Inertia, React-ish forms, and the age-old tradeoff between “batteries-included” simplicity and modern real-time UX.

Highlights:

• Mortal Kombat cabinet & mini arcades, gift ideas for Laracon AU
• Duckpin bowling explainer and family bowling stories (plus UNO, Yahtzee, Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza)
• The “analog is cool again” thread: mechanical keyboards, a Keychron board, and a retro 3D-printed mouse shell for a Logitech M185
• Dev deep-dive: shadcn docs, Inertia forms, partial reloads vs full refresh, Livewire/Alpine, and real-time updates with Pusher/Reverb

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• RetroPie / Arcade1Up
• Laracon AU
• Duckpin bowling
• Keychron keyboard
• 3D-printed retro mouse shell for Logitech M185
• Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza
• Inertia.js
• shadcn/ui
• shadcn-vue
• Livewire
• Alpine.js
• Pusher
• Laravel Reverb
• Axios
• fetch

Jake and Michael dive into a wide range of topics, from coding practices in Laravel to the evolving role of AI in software development. They kick things off with daylight savings and weekend updates before moving into technical discussions on authorization, policies, and form requests in Laravel.

The conversation expands to cover recent changes in middleware and controller patterns, contextual attributes in the service container, and practical approaches to request validation.

Later, the focus shifts toward AI tools like Claude, Grok, and Cursor, including their strengths, frustrations, and industry-wide adoption pressures. We reflect on the uneasy balance between developer control and AI assistance, wrapping up with thoughts on productivity, value, and what it means to let machines write code.

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• Lawn Hub
• Arcade 1Up
• RetroPie
• Mortal Kombat cabinet
• Nuno's authorization on form requests
• Contextual Attributes
• Grok Code Fast 1