#55: Region of Pain

February 17, 2012 at 3:00pm • 1 hour 29 minutes

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin discuss this week’s announcement of OS X Mountain Lion: what it means for John’s reviews, how the new release schedule might influence adoption and reliability, and how features like GateKeeper will affect Mac users and developers.

#54: Public Service Announcement

February 11, 2012 at 8:00am • 1 minute

There’s no Hypercritical this week, so we put together something special for you instead.

#53: Brad Pitt Gets to Contribute

February 3, 2012 at 3:45pm • 1 hour 33 minutes

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin revisit gamification in education, talk briefly about the Nest thermostat, then engage in an ever-so-slightly more considered discussion of Wikipedia, attempting to address the mountain of feedback on the topic. No Wikipedians were harmed in the making of this episode.

#52: Marked for Deletion

January 27, 2012 at 2:45pm • 2 hours 12 minutes

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin talk more about iBooks Author, Apple’s real and stated motivations for entering the textbook market, and what really matters in education. This is followed by a long, ill-considered rant about Wikipedia. (Warning: original research, no neutral point of view.)

#51: Unjustified Confidence

January 20, 2012 at 2:30pm • 1 hour 22 minutes

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin briefly recap the iPhone ringer/silent switch controversy, then discuss the new iBooks Author application, Apple’s ebook ambitions and prospects, and the role of technology in education.

#50: Maximum Deflection in All Directions

January 13, 2012 at 2:00pm • 1 hour 45 minutes

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin revisit the world of console controllers, addressing the flood of listener feedback by expanding the discussion to include aftermarket and third-party controllers, and attempting to address the objections of PlayStation fans. A few comments about CES and how to deliver a truly Apple-like keynote presentation round out the episode.

#49: Pinching the Harmonica

January 6, 2012 at 7:15pm • 2 hours 15 minutes

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin discuss iPad use by three-year-olds, why non-gamers might consider the “Xbox” name a proxy for all of console gaming, the Wii generational hardware conundrum, and finally, an extremely long and obsessively detailed walk through the history of console game controllers, culminating in a rant about something that almost all other gamers love unconditionally.

#48: Blue Ocean

December 30, 2011 at 2:00pm • 2 hours 3 minutes

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin briefly indulge in more grammar questions, then revisit the consequences of HyperCard’s demise, why we’re all still talking about the Kindle Fire, using music and movies to split humanity into two groups, the pros and cons of different working environments, and finally, a brief history of Nintendo and a not-so-brief consideration of why they should or should not continue to make their own hardware.

#47: Brute Force Attack

December 23, 2011 at 6:30pm • 1 hour 38 minutes

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin talk about low-stakes grammar issues, the continuing debate about partisanship in tech writing, more theories about an Apple TV product, the origins and fate of “friendly” programming environments like HyperCard, plus a little about Lego Star Wars and holiday toys for children.

#46: Not Entirely Nefarious

December 16, 2011 at 3:00pm • 2 hours 5 minutes

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin revisit complaints about Siri’s apparent biases, reconsider the fake-book chrome in iBooks, explore an interesting new conception of an Apple TV set, and use John Gruber’s appearance on The Verge as a jumping off point for examining partisanship in technology writing. Plus a bonus epilogue about the evolution of Twitter.

#45: Star Wars is Not a Blog Post

December 9, 2011 at 3:00pm • 1 hour 47 minutes

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin follow up on a host of topics: what ails Microsoft, the (slow, partial) democratization of corporate IT, the people vs. George Lucas, perpetual copyright, applications as art, Siri backlash, and the evils of Blu-ray.

#44: A Little Bit More Sad

November 25, 2011 at 5:45pm • 1 hour 11 minutes

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin talk about what ails Microsoft. What could the former titan of the technology world have done differently in the past two decades that would have prevented its decline?

#43: The Scorpion and the Frog

November 18, 2011 at 3:00pm • 1 hour 42 minutes

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin continue their discussion of Walter Isaacson’s authorized biography of Steve Jobs, starting with listeners’ reactions to the last episode, then (finally) talking about content from the book and the man himself. Less fire and more introspection than last week.

#42: The Wrong Guy

November 11, 2011 at 1:00pm • 1 hour 15 minutes

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin discuss Walter Isaacson’s authorized biography of Steve Jobs. Topics include Isaacson’s failings as an author and biographer, the technical cluelessness on display in the book, and Steve Jobs, Enemy of Progress.

#41: The Homer

November 4, 2011 at 2:15pm • 1 hour 39 minutes

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin are joined by special guest Jeff Atwood, cofounder of the Stack Exchange Q&A network and creator of the popular programming blog codinghorror.com. John and Jeff try to rekindle the old Mac vs. PC flames and end up talking about the light and dark sides of Apple as a platform owner.

Special guest: Jeff Atwood