Friends with Brews

Scott's brother Keith joins him for a pumpkin ale, a tribal pale ale and an hour and a half of Claude giving Scott homework, dead keyboards, LibreOffice, old military planes, Keith's Claude brain learning to dream, American short-term thinking, and how to beat the English at darts. Scott's brother Keith joins the show. Scott has Laurelwood's Pumpkin Ale, brewed in Astoria, which tastes spicy to him. Keith has Talking Cedar's MMIW Tribal Pale Ale from the Chehalis Tribe in Washington, with a portion of the proceeds supporting Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women. Chloe the cat gets Tacoma tap water. They talk about what they're each building with Claude, American short-term thinking, China and Europe in AI, how narrow education has become, why people are so sure everyone else is wrong, biology that looks designed, and whether a business has to be online at all. The Links Laurelwood Brewing Talking Cedar Azio RC Prestige keyboard LibreOffice The Lonely City on Wikipedia Mistral AI Kenny & Zuke's Cheryl's on 12th Friends With Brews Podcast

Peter got his hands on an iPhone Duo and wants to replace his iPhone 17 Pro and iPad Air with it, so Scott walks through the cameras, Touch ID, the lease plan and AppleCare, until a three-month delivery date settles it. Plus Scott's Markdown brain for Claude, the Claude app over the terminal, and Peter's Claude daily briefing and recipe mode. Peter is back on Athletic Lite, Athletic Brewing's 25-calorie non-alcoholic light beer, because he's already had three cups of coffee. It's been on the show before, and it still gets a thumbs up: "For something that comes in as a non-alcoholic light beer, it kinda tastes like beer, so that's a plus." Scott has Water Avenue Coffee's Blue Creek, an organic blend promising hazelnut, milk chocolate and a hint of navel orange. He finds the hazelnut, but the chocolate and orange are "in the class, but they're sitting in the back row." Peter tried the iPhone Duo at an Apple Store and wants it to replace both his iPhone 17 Pro and his iPad Air. Scott runs through what the Duo gives up: no telephoto, a fixed 26 mm main camera, and Touch ID instead of Face ID. Scott's fingers never got along with Touch ID, but Peter's car mount and running mask make Face ID a pain for him. Mark Gurman already has the next Duo getting Face ID and an action button, and Scott makes the case for the action button as the way to start his dictation app without an app hop. Then the money: over $900 in Apple Store credit, the Apple lease plan as a business expense, AppleCare costing more than the lease, and whether a thick, heavy phone even fits in Peter's pants pocket. A delivery date three months out, which Claude confirms is about as long as any iPhone has waited, talks Peter out of buying it now. Scott builds himself a Markdown "brain" so Claude always has his context (keep it out of your Documents folder), and explains why he now runs Claude Code in the Claude app instead of the terminal. Peter has Claude reading his email, Teams and Slack for a single daily briefing, turning leftovers into seared swordfish with gremolata, and running recipe mode with multiple timers. They also figure out how to connect a second Microsoft 365 account, and Scott praises fnMute. The Links Athletic Lite Water Avenue Coffee Blue Creek Accidental Tech Podcast Foodnoms Scratch Itch Software (fnMute) Friends With Brews Podcast

Peter's Hofbräu Oktoberfestbier and Scott's Great Gourds Pumpkin Ale fuel two Peter rants: an airline that keeps rewriting his trip to the Athens Marathon and a Kia that keeps breaking. Plus asking Claude which EVs phone home in Massachusetts, Peter fixing fnMute mid-episode, and a hardware KVM on Tailscale. It's October, so Peter drinks Hofbräu Oktoberfestbier, the festival lager Hofbräu München pours in its own tent at the Munich Oktoberfest. "This is what beer was meant to be." Thumbs up. Scott is back on Hopworks Great Gourds Pumpkin Ale, brewed with Bella Farm on Sauvie Island: a surprisingly good pumpkin ale, and he'll have it again. Thumbs up. Peter's first rant: a Chase points booking for the Athens Marathon that Turkish Airlines keeps changing on its own, first stretching a 90-minute layover to seven and a half hours, then moving his flight home to the day of the race. After hours on hold and a $600 cancellation fee he's on Swiss Air, and Scott suggests he just run straight to the airport. Rant two: Peter's Kia drops its all-wheel drive on the way home from New Hampshire, and no nearby dealer has a certified EV tech until November. That leads to Massachusetts right-to-repair law, why Kia and Subaru cars there have no online telemetry, asking Claude which EV makers do, and whether anyone cares about a Mustang SUV. Along the way Peter files a bug against his own fnMute app and pushes the fix mid-episode, Siri hands a phone call to Claude, and Peter's demand letter to Kia lists the car's three breakdowns. Then a $13 Find My card, a hardware KVM that works over Tailscale, MagSafe everything, and a call from Peter's contractor about his Vermont water heater. The Links Hofbräu Oktoberfestbier Hopworks Brewery Scratch Itch Software Kagi Tailscale Friends With Brews Podcast

Scott's guest is Donnie Adams of Obot AI, who demos Obot's open-source platform for managing MCP servers, access, and audit logs. Plus supply chain worries, the road from Rancher to Obot, and why talking about AI isn't going away. Peter's away, so Scott is joined by Donnie Adams of Obot AI. Donnie drinks Southern Tier Maple Warlock, an imperial pumpkin stout that's a little sweet but not too thick for the style, and gives it a thumbs up. Scott's Ancestry Irish Red tastes exactly like the can says: light-bodied, malty, caramel, and a touch of roast. Thumbs up. Donnie then demos Obot, the open-source platform his team builds for managing MCP servers: combining servers into one virtual MCP, sharing a setup across a company while everyone signs in with their own accounts, pinned and rehosted server images, audit logs, and device management for the coding agents on company laptops. After that: why agents love installing packages, how the team behind Rancher and K3s went from Acorn to Obot, the dot-com bubble, The AI Doc on Netflix, whether Silicon Valley has gone evil, and why a seven-month-old can't look away from a phone screen. The Links Southern Tier Maple Warlock Ancestry Brewing Obot AI Obot on GitHub MCP Dev Summit K3s Zola Zig n8n The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist on Netflix Friends With Brews Podcast

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. 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 Coava Coffee Roasters Araponga Scratch Itch Software Decoder: Jonathan Kanter on AI companies asking for antitrust exemptions The 404 Media Podcast Overcast Friends With Brews Podcast

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 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 Calm is Contagious, Peter's blog Scratch Itch Software IceMelt on GitHub Indie Developer Simulator Yoga with Holland & Peter Yoga with Peter The Blurring The Lines podcast Peet's Major Dickason's Blend Trailhead Coffee Roasters Junco Athletic Brewing Dark & Gourdy Friends With Brews Podcast

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 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 Water Avenue Coffee Trailkeepers of Oregon New Seasons Market Peter Drinks Coffee Calendar Bridge Overcast Uninell Scratch Itch Software IceMelt on GitHub Friends With Brews Podcast

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. 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 Atlética — Athletic Brewing Co. Sapporo Premium Beer ScratchItch Software (coming soon) Scott Peter Peter Drinks Coffee Peter Does Yoga Peter Runs Friends With Brews Podcast

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. 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

For only the second time ever, Peter and Scott share a table — at Harpoon Brewery in Windsor, Vermont — with two full flights, a pile of food, and what Scott calls the drunkest FWB ever. Expect a Boston Irish Stout vs. Guinness debate, mislabeled beers, a cameo from our waitress Kim, and a genuine deep-dive into whether Claude Code is getting dumber. The Topics The Brews (Harpoon flight) Boston Irish Stout (nitro — "not Guinness, but totally Guinness") Harpoon Dark / "Big Toasty" English Strong Ale Seaport After Midnight — lactose stout with cocoa nib & vanilla (the crowd favorite) UFO White — the flagship Hefeweizen Mud Season / Hoppy Brown, 8.4% (the shared least favorite) A Wagyu burger, a chicken-thigh sandwich, and some incredible fries The Catamount-to-Harpoon brewery backstory Tracking your meals with AI (Foodnoms guessing 4,318-calorie fries) Peter's "Authentic Marathon" training and his Greek-German roots A Comma 3 self-driving rig that won't stay stuck to the windshield Space Force vs. a proposed "Cyber Force" Is Claude Code getting dumber? Why AI chats are stateless — and the case for and against AI EVs, hybrids & "binary throttle mode" The Links Harpoon Brewery Friends with Brews on YouTube Scott Willsey Peter Nikolaidis Peter Drinks Coffee Peter Does Yoga Peter Runs Friends With Brews Podcast