At the recent Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), Apple previewed their new OS for the Mac, macOS Sonoma. I have to admit, at first, I didn't pay too much attention to the announcements. I used to believe OS updates could be life-changing, but …

If all goes as planned, I will be going to see the bands TOPS and Men I Trust at the Ritz in the fall. While I mentally prepare to see those bands live, there is a new track from TOPS spinoff Marci, the "solo" effort of Marta Cikojevic (with plenty …

It has been an eventful week in the news, with the former president and his cadre of criminals coming under indictment. NYT columnist Ross Douthat has taken the opportunity to answer some questions about the expected Republican presidential nominee. …

We haven't yet made it through the first half of the year, but I think I have a contender for my favorite song of 2023. "Tides Turn" has a sound that blends R&B, dream pop and trip-hop. It is another standout track in a collection of soulful …

I realize that Wordle probably isn't as popular as it used to be. However, the game is still fun and I'm looking at it as better than social media for a way to stave off that interstitial boredom that creeps up in between real activities. The New …

I started playing Unravel Two on the Xbox at the insistence of my 11-yr.-old. Playing cooperative video games is one of the best ways I've found that we can bond and enjoy our time together. In this game, you each play as an adorable creature called …

Gia Margaret caught my ear a few years ago, after she contracted a vocal illness that forced her to create instrumental music for her second album. I was mesmerized by the ambient track "Body" and the accompanying video.

Margaret just dropped a new …

In this retro-futuristic video, the members of Automatic live through the final days on Earth and are transported to locations that look like they came from the original Star Trek TV series. In their new home, they make do with gardening, liquid food …

I bought Tommy Guerrero's album, A Little Bit Of Somethin', when it came out in 2000, based on the strength of the first track, "Blue Masses." The track has a haunting groove, a guitar part with enough negative space …

A few months ago, in my Orthodoxy 101 class, we discussed Aristotle's "doctrine of the mean." I immediately felt attached to the framework, as I tend towards moderation. In Aristotle's conception, the golden mean is avoiding the extremes of any given …

Maya Salam writes for The New York Times (gift article) about how close Seinfeld was to capturing many of the sociocultural aspects of our present age. She particularly hones in on the adults in the show living their lives in a sort of perpetual …

John Herrman writes about the failure of the metaverse concept. He's clearly disillusioned with legless avatars and unearned hype. The premise for the piece is that there is no "there" there. The metaverse as a concept is simply lacking a reason for …

Malcolm Harris writes for Wired magazine about Doug Rushkoff, a techno optimist who had his predictions and assumptions about the future challenged. As a consequence, Rushkoff had to overhaul his outlook on technology. Rushkoff is a prolific author …

Last updated 05/14/2023

What Information is Collected and How

Canned Dragons is a personal blog. When you opt-in to join the site, you are asked for your email and name. You can provide your full name or only your first name or an alias. You are asked …

The Legend of Zelda Gets An Update

The latest The Legend of Zelda installation, Tears of the Kingdom, came out yesterday. Although this piece by Zachary Small in the New York Times gets a little too ambitious with typography and integrating videos …

I don't typically use fan-made videos for Friday Night Videos, but this one is just so perfect. The found footage of rollerskating archives, most of which looks like it was filmed at California beaches, fits so perfectly with the breezy, upbeat track …

A couple of years ago, I wrote about Amazon and my discomfort with a number of the practices that the company employed. After writing the post, I was on a kick in which I was shunning Amazon and avoiding being a consumer of their services. That …

“The discovery that dead people stayed dead was not first made by the philosophers of the Enlightenment.”

~ N.T Wright

In this piece (NYT gift article), Tish Harrison Warren interviews New Testament scholar N.T. Wright about Easter and the Resurrection …

I recently listened to an episode of the Art of Manliness podcast about the ability to shut up in a world that won't stop talking. The guest on the show was Dan Lyons, who recently wrote the book STFU: The Power Of Keeping Your Mouth Shut In An …

Adam Wood hosts a show called Flux Observer that features one of my favorite podcast concepts: Wood reviews a cultural artifact from years ago to determine how his relationship to it has changed over the years. I've always wanted to do something like …

Jonathan Haidt and his colleague, Greg Lukianoff, believe that the enormous increase in mental health issues for young women who are identified as "liberal" has to do with going through a sort of reverse CBT process. CBT (Cognitive Behavioral …

John Paul Brammer wades into the candy culture wars (which are adjacent to the chicken sandwich culture wars and seem to provoke no less depth of feeling, if not many true casualties) on his Substack.

No one really asked for the M&Ms to be more …

The recent piece on the new wave of American shoegaze in Stereogum was nothing if not exhaustive. Spanning obscure sub-genres and scenes, it shone a light on some of the mostly heavier U.S. based bands carrying on the tradition of outfits like …