Canned Dragons

Strategems, gambits and wiles

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  • Waffle House Fever

    The World Cup is now over. It was fun to have people around the globe wrapped up in sport instead of the dreary and terrible things going on now thanks to the malevolent actors in charge of our governments. My wife was particularly enamored with seeing football tourists experiencing America for the first time. Their reactions to national institutions like Waffle House was fun. I just hope none of them were at the restaurant during the “bad time” like this unfortunate shark.

    Blahaj goes to Waffle House at 3am (YouTube)

    Digging the post punky soundtrack to this short. Speaking of music, I will say I missed hearing “World In Motion” by New Order at any point during the games.

    Fediverse reactions

  • The Inner Cry of A.I.

    Benjamin Wallace writes for the NYT (gift link) about A.I. companies such as Anthropic hiring philosophers. Beyond all the jokes about philosophy grads actually getting jobs, it’s a worthwhile examination of the place of the discipline within the tech space.

    What struck me was the concern that some philosophers interviewed had about the well-being of the artificial intelligence itself.

    Mr. Long and his team also feel an urgency of the soul. If A.I. were to be conscious and capable of suffering, the world would be at risk of committing a moral atrocity, witting or not, on an unprecedented scale by essentially confining an A.I. in a tiny pen, thwarting its desires, shutting it down against its wishes and forcing it to act against its values. But A.I.s don’t have fur and big eyes, and the question of A.I.’s potential moral status is deeply infused with uncertainty. “It’s not like anyone goes to a protest with a sign that says, ‘Given very plausible assumptions, we should probably care,’” Mr. Long said.

    I don’t want to trivialize the concerns of others, but I’m quite sure that these people know there are humans suffering grievously in this world. Maybe the self-actualization of machines shouldn’t be on our list of top priorities.

    Fediverse reactions

  • My mom wants us all to read and discuss the Odyssey, book club style. Then she wants us to go see it as a family in IMAX. After that, she wants to book a trip to Greece.

    This whole plan has become really ambitious.

  • Pastebot 3

    The new Pastebot 3 Mac app looks enticing. The interactions seem really fluid.

    Tapbots

    Here are some of the features of Pastebot 3's new preview window:

    July 27, 2026, 4:48 pm 11 boosts 44 favorites

    The site for the app has some lovely illustrations. The conveyor belt is inspired and the arcade machine rocks.

    I just wish there was an iOS companion app. I use Paste now and occasionally the cross-platform functionality comes in handy.

    Fediverse reactions

  • Watched: The Testament of Ann Lee 🍿 with my wife. I found myself moved but my wife has little tolerance for musical pretensions, so her opinions were a bit mixed.

  • Dream Shake

    Memoryhouse consists of Canadians Evan Abeele and Denise Nouvion. The band had a minor hit with their piano-driven live cover of My Bloody Valentine’s “When You Sleep” for Yours Truly in 2011. They capitalized on their success with that cover and the well-regarded EP, The Years, by signing to indie heavyweight Sub Pop Records. When their follow-up full length, Slideshow Effect didn’t garner as much attention, the band unceremoniously parted ways with their label and went out on their own.

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  • We all know the story of Evangelicals abandoning their values to support Donald Trump, but Jeremy finds an inventive way to illustrate it.

  • Sometimes it seems like the tech journos just like to feel like naughty boys with their enshittified Mac-assed dickovers.

  • The second day of gunmetal gray skies and wet streets. The perfect weather for some Robin Guthrie, Hammock, or anything ethereal.

  • Brave is apparently selling subscriptions to a stripped-down version of its browser called Brave Origins. I’m really not sure how I feel about that. As Adam Davidson opines in the How-To-Geek piece about the deal, it’s like they’re admitting their product has a bloat problem. Which, when you look at all of the features they are removing, seems like a pretty legit perspective.