e553 — Monks, Bots & Ghosts

Photo by Michael Martine, North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains, May 2017 Published 11 May 2026 e553 with Andy and Michael M – stories and discussion on a robot monk, the Dead Internet Theory, agentic autonomy, Happy Net Box, the Artemis II minifig.me crew and a whole lot more! Andy and Michael M get things started with an article from the Smithsonian Magazine featuring a robot taking monastic vows in Korea. This spurs an intriguing discussion on the nature of consciousness, programming and agentic autonomy. This morphs into the Dead Internet Theory, the Boring Internet essay from Terry Godier, and eventually to some happy news with the Happy Net Box. Interspersed are new applications such as a Chair Curling game for the Playdate, and a presentation engine powered by gestures called Hovercraft from Sandwich Vision. The cohosts discussed the Theater app from Sandwich Vision back in Dec 2024 in e495. Knitting the ending together, Andy and Michael express their appreciation and gratitude for the awesomeness that is minifigs.me and Michael shares a story about the Artemis II crew. Do you think the Internet is dead, boring or something else? Have your bots (or agents!) 🤖 drop our bots 🤖 a line at @gamesatwork_biz (our home for now) and let us know! These show notes were lovingly hand crafted by a real human, and not by a bot. All rights reserved. That’s our story and we’re sticking to it. Selected Links Robot Smithsonian Magazine article: Meet ‘Gabi,’ the Robot That Just Became a Monk at a Buddhist Temple in South Korea. It’s the Latest Robot to Take Up Religious Practice Hovercraft is how I always wanted to share my slides. So I made it. It’s a virtual camera for macOS.No more disembodied voice. No more “can you see my screen?” Just me, tossing around my windows like it’s 2027.I like to say it’s a visionOS app in macOS clothing. And I hope you’ll give it a try, and let me know what you think.https://sandwich.vision/hovercraft— Adam Lisagor (@adamlisagor)2026-05-06T17:30:43.254Z Sandwich Vision hovercraft Games at Work e495: Personal Planetarium (for Sandwich Vision’s Theater app) Gaming Insider Gaming article: XBox No Longer Developing Copilot for Consoles Playdate Games: office chair curling playdate Dead New and Old Internet Fast Company article: Is the ‘dead internet’ theory coming true? New Stanford research calculates exactly how far we are—and it’s alarming Wikipedia article: Dead Internet Theory Kate Davies Designs post: Knitting Bull**** YCombinator Hacker News post: Agents can now create Cloudflare accounts, buy domains, and deploy TerryGodier.com essay: The Boring Internet Mashable article: ask.com shuts down after 30 years HappyNetBox.com Wikipedia article: Finger (protocol) Space AnilDash.com post: Why are the Artemis II Photos on Flicker? kottke.org post: Animated Artemis II Photos Reveal Satellites Buzzing Around Earth minifigs.me Artemis II Crew with Studtella! Games at Work e550: Moontella (for the Nutella story on Artemis II)