Teach Your AI Assistant a Voice Shortcut to Control Your Smart Speakers
Adam’s follow-up tip of the day in the same segment — he calls it “the sexier tip.” Rather than fighting with a smart-speaker app’s own controls (he singled out Sonos’s app as particularly bad), he connected his AI assistant, which he calls “Muse” or “my robot,” directly to his Sonos system. Now he can just tell it which playlist or service — Spotify, Pandora, TuneIn — to play in which room. He’s taken it a step further and built a custom voice shortcut: saying one specific trigger phrase to the robot automatically starts a particular playlist in a particular room, no app required.
The general idea: if your smart-home app is clunky, connecting an AI assistant you already use to the same system and teaching it a custom voice shortcut can route around the app entirely.
Check out Sonos systems on Amazon.[No Agenda #1910 2:44:40]
podcastindexrobot.com — Point Your AI Robot at Any Podcast and Skip the Ads
Adam built an MCP server (a connector that lets an AI agent query a data source) on top of the Podcast Index, the free, open podcast database he co-owns. The real-world payoff: he had his own “robot” fetch the latest Ed Zitron Better Offline episode and strip out the roughly six minutes of dynamically inserted ads at the front — just by asking it to. He also uses it to get a notification, host list, and topic summary the moment a new episode of a show (like Rogan) drops, with a filter to skip ones he doesn’t care about. Point your own AI assistant at podcastindexrobot.com, and it can do the same.
(free web tool/AI connector). Try it: podcastindexrobot.com.
[No Agenda #1909 23:43]
Grok — Ask It to Find and Clip Any Podcast Audio Instantly
Darren’s real-world Grok use case: he asked it about Keith Olbermann’s “Trump wrote me a fan letter” claim, then asked it to find and clip the exact part of Olbermann’s own podcast where he talks about it — and it did, no editing required. “This is a podcaster’s dream,” he says. He pays for X/Grok premium (he put it around $40/month) and says it also works fine with voice commands from a phone.
Try it: grok.com.[Planet Rage #236 2:06:09]
JustWatch.com — Find Out Instantly If a Movie or Show Is Streaming Free
Gene’s fix for the “am I still paying to store something I could just stream” problem: justwatch.com. Look up any movie or TV series, and it tells you which services — Hulu, Amazon, Netflix, and others — currently have it, so you’re not hoarding downloads of stuff that’s one click away for free. “It would be nice to just go through and go, am I storing anything that I can [get rid of]… why am I storing [this] when I know I’m never going to watch it [again].”
Try it: justwatch.com.[Unrelenting #206 7:35]
Landman — Billy Bob Thornton’s Taylor Sheridan Oil Drama
Gene’s real recommendation of the week: Landman, the Taylor Sheridan-produced oil-business drama starring Billy Bob Thornton. “Landman is hilarious. I went for Billy Bob, but I’m staying for his wife and daughter” — played by Ali Larter and Michelle Randolph. A solid pick if you liked Sheridan’s other shows (Yellowstone, etc.) and want something new in the same vein.
Watch: streaming on Paramount+ and Amazon.[Unrelenting #206 23:57]
Yorkshire Tea, Shipped Cheaper From Saudi Arabia Than From the UK
Gene’s Amazon price-comparison find: his usual Yorkshire Tea is genuinely cheaper on Amazon when shipped from a Middle East vendor than from a UK one, despite being the same authentic product (Taylors of Harrogate has a facility that supplies through that route). “It’s cheaper for me to order my British tea from Saudi Arabia than it is to order it from England.” Worth checking vendor options next time you’re buying an imported product on Amazon — the “ships from” location can swing the price a lot.
Get it: amazon.com — note there are several Yorkshire Tea variants/pack sizes on Amazon (Red, Gold, etc.) at different prices; check the listing matches what you want before buying.We couldn’t find specific ‘shipped from Saudi Arabia’ SKUs of Yorkshire tea on Amazon, but we found this great linke here!
[Unrelenting #206 1:39:00]
Phone-Camera Trick to Check Dead Remote-Control Batteries
Dana’s actual on-air tip of the day — he’s the one who created the segment, and this is the one he picked: if an infrared remote control (the kind most TVs still use) seems dead, don’t just guess and swap batteries blind. Point your phone’s camera at the front end of the remote and press…
Tip of the Day: Go to a Drum Circle — Even If You’ve Never Played a Drum
Rob’s actual on-air tip of the day: go find a drum circle and join in, even if you’ve never played a drum in your life. He described joining one himself at a gathering called “Medicine for the People” after a friend offered him a spare ticket — brought his own gourd drum (a hollowed-out gourd,…
Teach Your AI Assistant a Voice Shortcut to Control Your Smart Speakers
Adam’s follow-up tip of the day in the same segment — he calls it “the sexier tip.” Rather than fighting with a smart-speaker app’s own controls (he singled out Sonos’s app as particularly bad), he connected his AI assistant, which he calls “Muse” or “my robot,” directly to his Sonos system. Now he can just…
podcastindexrobot.com — Point Your AI Robot at Any Podcast and Skip the Ads
Adam built an MCP server (a connector that lets an AI agent query a data source) on top of the Podcast Index, the free, open podcast database he co-owns. The real-world payoff: he had his own “robot” fetch the latest Ed Zitron Better Offline episode and strip out the roughly six minutes of dynamically inserted…
Phone-Camera Trick to Check Dead Remote-Control Batteries
Dana’s actual on-air tip of the day — he’s the one who created the segment, and this is the one he picked: if an infrared remote control (the kind most TVs still use) seems dead, don’t just guess and swap batteries blind. Point your phone’s camera at the front end of the remote and press…
Tip of the Day: Go to a Drum Circle — Even If You’ve Never Played a Drum
Rob’s actual on-air tip of the day: go find a drum circle and join in, even if you’ve never played a drum in your life. He described joining one himself at a gathering called “Medicine for the People” after a friend offered him a spare ticket — brought his own gourd drum (a hollowed-out gourd,…
Teach Your AI Assistant a Voice Shortcut to Control Your Smart Speakers
Adam’s follow-up tip of the day in the same segment — he calls it “the sexier tip.” Rather than fighting with a smart-speaker app’s own controls (he singled out Sonos’s app as particularly bad), he connected his AI assistant, which he calls “Muse” or “my robot,” directly to his Sonos system. Now he can just…
podcastindexrobot.com — Point Your AI Robot at Any Podcast and Skip the Ads
Adam built an MCP server (a connector that lets an AI agent query a data source) on top of the Podcast Index, the free, open podcast database he co-owns. The real-world payoff: he had his own “robot” fetch the latest Ed Zitron Better Offline episode and strip out the roughly six minutes of dynamically inserted…