CCATP #840 — Adam Engst on From HyperCard to AI-Assisted Programming

This week, our guest is the lovely Steve Sheridan, here to talk about the technology behind how he captured and produced an amazing video of the total solar eclipse we witnessed in Spain this year. Links to Steve's videos: 2026 Spain Total Solar Eclipse 2026 Spain Total Solar Eclipse 360 View - Spin It! Subscribe to Steve's YouTube channel Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript with chapter marks: CCATP_2026_09_14 Referral Links: Setapp - 1 month free for you and me 15% off Carbon Copy Cloner Wispr Flow - 1 month free for you PETLIBRO - 30% off for you and me Parallels Toolbox - 3 months free for you and me Learn through MacSparky Field Guides - 15% off for you and me Backblaze - One free month for me and you Eufy - $40 for me if you spend $200. Sadly nothing in it for you. PIA VPN - One month added to Paid Accounts for both of us CleanShot X - Earns me 25%, sorry nothing in it for you but my gratitude

In yet another delightful conversation with Adam Engst, he fires up the WABAC machine and walks us through his journey to never successfully become a programmer. Two periods in time allowed him to unleash his creativity: HyperCard in the 1980s and today with AI-assisted programming. The basis for the conversation was his article on TidBITS titled Decades After HyperCard, AI Is Democratizing Development Again. Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript with chapter marks: CCATP_2026_08_27 Join the Conversation: [email protected] podfeet.com/slack Support the Show: Patreon Donation Apple Pay or Credit Card one-time donation PayPal one-time donation Podfeet Podcasts Mugs at Zazzle NosillaCast 20th Anniversary Shirts Referral Links: Setapp - 1 month free for you and me 15% off Carbon Copy Cloner Wispr Flow - 1 month free for you PETLIBRO - 30% off for you and me Parallels Toolbox - 3 months free for you and me Learn through MacSparky Field Guides - 15% off for you and me Backblaze - One free month for me and you Eufy - $40 for me if you spend $200. Sadly nothing in it for you. PIA VPN - One month added to Paid Accounts for both of us CleanShot X - Earns me $25%, sorry nothing in it for you but my gratitude

CCATP #839 for July 23, 2026, and I'm your host, Allison Sheridan. This week our guest is Adam Engst of TidBITS. Back in April, we talked about his first long road trip with his new Hyundai IONIQ 5 electric vehicle. It's been a few months, and with the aid of some tools, he has a new strategy to talk about in planning extensive driving adventures. How Planning Made My Second Long EV Trip Stress-Free Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript with chapter marks: CCATP_2026_07_23 Join the Conversation: [email protected] podfeet.com/slack Support the Show: Patreon Donation Apple Pay or Credit Card one-time donation PayPal one-time donation Podfeet Podcasts Mugs at Zazzle NosillaCast 20th Anniversary Shirts Referral Links: Setapp - 1 month free for you and me 15% off Carbon Copy Cloner Wispr Flow - 1 month free for you PETLIBRO - 30% off for you and me Parallels Toolbox - 3 months free for you and me Learn through MacSparky Field Guides - 15% off for you and me Backblaze - One free month for me and you Eufy - $40 for me if you spend $200. Sadly nothing in it for you. PIA VPN - One month added to Paid Accounts for both of us CleanShot X - Earns me $25%, sorry nothing in it for you but my gratitude

On the Mac Geek Gab, they have a listener segment they call Cool Stuff Found. But once in a while, someone writes in with Cool Stuff Made. On episode 1143, Darrin Altman wrote in about an app he wrote originally for himself but has made available in the App Store. The app is called Talk for Me from mobiletouchtech.com/.... You see, Darrin has lost his ability to speak, so his app does what it says on the tin: it talks for him. You know I just had to ask Darrin if he’d come on the show, and to my delight, when I asked him, I found out he’s a long-time listener to the NosillaCast — since 2005! You’ll hear Darrin participating in this conversation, and the voice you hear is coming from his app Talk For Me.w

In this week's episode of "Stay off my lawn!", we have Adam Engst here to talk through his recent article on TidBITS: [Why AI Agents Fill Me with Dread](https://tidbits.com/2026/06/24/why-ai-agents-fill-me-with-dread/) Adam is an avid lover of technology and is very willing to try new things. He uses LLMs to help him write better, he uses AI tools to help him search the Internet, and he loves AI-assisted coding. But agentic AI lives in a whole 'nother category for him. In the discussion, Adam mentioned Lex, an AI-based word processor at lex.page/... Referral Links: Setapp - 1 month free for you and me 15% off Carbon Copy Cloner Wispr Flow - 1 month free for you PETLIBRO - 30% off for you and me Parallels Toolbox - 3 months free for you and me Learn through MacSparky Field Guides - 15% off for you and me Backblaze - One free month for me and you Eufy - $40 for me if you spend $200. Sadly nothing in it for you. PIA VPN - One month added to Paid Accounts for both of us CleanShot X - Earns me $25%, sorry nothing in it for you but my gratitude

When you post online, and you know I'm following you, beware that if you say something interesting, you might be in danger of being asked onto one of my shows. That's what happened to blind knitter and programmer, Jane Jordan. In our conversation, she talks about how she keeps track of her knitting patterns using an abacus and her unique process for learning how to program. After Jane and I were done talking, I discovered that she has been listening to the NosillaCast since she got her first Mac, in June of 2005, only one month after the show got started. I thought we'd just bumped into each other on Mastodon. How crazy is that? If you'd like to connect with Jane, you can find her on Mastodon at @[email protected].

In this week's episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond, we go into the dark abyss that is Adam Engst's brain and learn how that brain influences his choice of dictation engines. He then explains how he's hacked Apple's dictation into correctly spelling unusual names of places by creating fake contacts. As always it's a fun ride, and as always he has a terrific post on the subject at tidbits.com/... Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript with chapter marks: CCATP_2026_05_28 Referral Links: Setapp - 1 month free for you and me 15% off Carbon Copy Cloner Wispr Flow - 1 month free for you PETLIBRO - 30% off for you and me Parallels Toolbox - 3 months free for you and me Learn through MacSparky Field Guides - 15% off for you and me Backblaze - One free month for me and you Eufy - $40 for me if you spend $200. Sadly nothing in it for you. PIA VPN - One month added to Paid Accounts for both of us CleanShot X - Earns me $25%, sorry nothing in it for you but my gratitude

Adam Engst of TidBITS is here to talk about one of my favorite subjects: electric vehicles and their high-tech features. In particular, he's enamored with Digital Key 2 with the IONIQ EV he just purchased. Of course you can read his full article about his experience with Digital Key 2 at tidbits.com/... We can't stay on one topic, so we also talked about how he's handling the increased range of a full EV after spending more than a decade driving a Nissan Leaf EV with very low range. He explains how he uses the tool A Better Route Planner from abetterrouteplanner.com/... to help him plan his longer trips. During the discussion, he spoke of the effect a headwind can have on the range of an EV. I promised to include a link in the shownotes to Steve Sheridan's terrific article explaining why EVs are more affected by wind and going uphill than internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles. Spoiler, it's because ICE vehicles are so inefficient, losing 80% of the energy rather than using it to propel the car forward. Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript with chapter marks: CCATP_2026_04_21 Referral Links: Setapp - 1 month free for you and me Wispr Flow - 1 month free for you PETLIBRO - 30% off for you and me Parallels Toolbox - 3 months free for you and me Learn through MacSparky Field Guides - 15% off for you and me Backblaze - One free month for me and you Eufy - $40 for me if you spend $200. Sadly nothing in it for you. PIA VPN - One month added to Paid Accounts for both of us CleanShot X - Earns me $25%, sorry nothing in it for you but my gratitude

This week, our guest is a lovely gentleman named Joseph Nilo. If you’ve been listening to Apple podcasts since the dawn of podcasting, you may recognize that name. He was one of the original hosts of the Mac Roundtable podcast. I first “met” Joseph on July 29, 2007, when I made my debut appearance on the Mac Roundtable with the great Tim Verpoorten and Don McAllister. Believe it or not, the Mac Roundtable website is still up and running (thanks to Adam Christianson), and you can listen to a full decade of shows. Joseph has been out of the podcasting business for a few years now, but he’s still a fabulous nerd. He’s one of the crazy ones, running the agentic AI software OpenClaw that seems to be sweeping the world by storm. In this conversation, Joseph explains what agentic tools like OpenClaw can do, how he's deployed it locally, what guardrails he's put up, and how safe he thinks it is to use. Spoiler: not safe at all! You can see Joseph's work at josephnilo.com/... and hilomedia.com/... Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript with chapter marks: CCATP_2026_04_16 Join the Conversation: [email protected] podfeet.com/slack Support the Show: Patreon Donation Apple Pay or Credit Card one-time donation PayPal one-time donation Podfeet Podcasts Mugs at Zazzle NosillaCast 20th Anniversary Shirts Referral Links: Setapp - 1 month free for you and me Wispr Flow - 1 month free for you PETLIBRO - 30% off for you and me Parallels Toolbox - 3 months free for you and me Learn through MacSparky Field Guides - 15% off for you and me Backblaze - One free month for me and you Eufy - $40 for me if you spend $200. Sadly nothing in it for you. PIA VPN - One month added to Paid Accounts for both of us CleanShot X - Earns me $25%, sorry nothing in it for you but my gratitude

Most people today get great joy out of buying a new car if they can afford it. Our buddy Ron has a ten-year-old Tesla Model S, and rather than buying a new car, he decided to have Tesla install a brand new battery. In our conversation, Ron explains what the original battery was and talks about the original range and how it's degraded over the last decade. One of the big reasons to replace the battery was that the older batteries did not charge very quickly at Superchargers, but the new ones do. While Ron doesn't put a lot of annual miles on his car, he does go on very long road trips, including an 1,800-mile drive just this year. Read an unedited, auto-generated transcript with chapter marks: CCATP_2026_04_01 Join the Conversation: [email protected] podfeet.com/slack Support the Show: Patreon Donation Apple Pay or Credit Card one-time donation PayPal one-time donation Podfeet Podcasts Mugs at Zazzle NosillaCast 20th Anniversary Shirts Referral Links: Setapp - 1 month free for you and me Wispr Flow - 1 month free for you PETLIBRO - 30% off for you and me Parallels Toolbox - 3 months free for you and me Learn through MacSparky Field Guides - 15% off for you and me Backblaze - One free month for me and you Eufy - $40 for me if you spend $200. Sadly nothing in it for you. PIA VPN - One month added to Paid Accounts for both of us CleanShot X - Earns me $25%, sorry nothing in it for you but my gratitude