Hypercritical

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin discuss John's upcoming trip to WWDC, Twitter's strange gaps in functionality (and the third-party developers determined to fill them), the sale of NetNewsWire to Black Pixel, and dealing with changes to your favorite applications. Links for this episode:YouTube - My toasterYouTube - Toast with the Cuisinart TOB-195 toaster ovenTweet Entities - dev.twitter.comTweetmarks - Riverfold SoftwareTweet Library - Riverfold SoftwareThe Future of NetNewsWire: An Interview With Brent Simmons and Black Pixel's Daniel PascoSponsored by iStockphoto and MailChimp.

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin talk toasters again, then discuss John's first computer love, the classic Macintosh Finder. Time constraints cut the love affair short, but the passion burns beyond the bounds of the podcast. Links for this episode:About the Finder... - Ars TechnicaThe Finder revisited, ten years later - Ars TechnicaIntel's new five-year warranty on the SSD 320 family - StorageReview.comTwitter AnnotationsSponsored by Harvest and Sound Studio 4.

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin put the TV technology and PHP topics to bed, touch on SSD reliability again, then discuss what's wrong with Twitter and why toaster ovens are worse today than they were a few decades ago. Links for this episode:Vertical Interval TimeCode (VITC) - WikipediaPanasonic G20: Floating Blacks - YouTubePanasonic VT20: Floating Blacks - YouTubePanasonic Floating Blacks - AVForums.comThe Hot/Crazy Solid State Drive Scale - Coding Horror10 Reasons for Geeks to Love HP webOS - Palm.comMarco's Toaster: Cuisinart TOB-195 Exact Heat Toaster Oven BroilerDan's Toaster: Breville BOV650XL Compact 4-Slice Smart Oven with Element IQJohn's Toaster: Euro-Pro TO140L 6-Slice Toaster OvenSponsored by Rackspace and Shopify.

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin talk some more about TV technology, elaborate on why, exactly, PHP is a bad programming language, lament the "decontenting" of Apple hardware and the proprietary hard drives in the new iMacs, and ponder the place of SSDs in the lives of computer users who are not independently wealthy. Links for this episode:PHP Function ListA picture of plasma TV burn-inThe Hot/Crazy Solid State Drive Scale - Coding HorrorYour New TV Ruins MoviesSponsored by FreshBooks and OmniGroup: OmniFocus.

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin repent after two episodes on programming languages by discussing TV technology…after about 45 minutes of (so-called) follow-up on Apple's potential use of ARM CPUs in Macs, gaming performance in Mac OS X, and yes, a bit more about programming. Links for this episode:Introduction to Perl 6 Regular Expressions - GitHubIntroduction to Perl 6 Grammars - GitHubPlasma displays - WikipediaLiquid crystal displays - WikipediaLED-backlit LCDs - WikipediaSpeculation about Apple using ARM CPUs in Macs - SemiAccurateTwo-Factor Security for Web Apps - AlterEgoVague rumors of a new OpenGL stack in Lion buried in a video card review - Ars TechnicaIntel's new 3D transistor - Ars TechnicaSponsored by Webtrends and MailChimp.

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin continue their discussion of high-level programming languages, now focusing on why all popular languages suck in some way, then transition into a hard look at Perl, the black sheep of the dynamic language landscape. Links for this episode:Back to Work #13: The Kid's GreatCPAN - The Comprehensive Perl Archive NetworkPerl MythsWatch the video: Battle of the X-Planes - HuluWatch the video: Battle of the X-Planes - YouTubeBattle of the X-Planes - NOVAAfter Dark #15: After Hypercritical 014MacRubyDeveloping Cocoa Applications Using MacRubySponsored by Worldview and Intuit.

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin revisit Apple's GUI history, complain about TiVo some more, then explore the possibility of another Copland-like crisis looming in Apple's future. What will replace Objective-C and Cocoa? What can? Links for this episode:John Gruber at Webstock '11 - The Gap Theory of UI DesignWhy Facebook open-sourced its datacenters - Ars TechnicaTiVo survey hints at multiroom companion box, four-tuner DVR in the future - EngadgetAvoiding Copland 2010Avoiding Copland 2010: Part 2Avoiding Copland 2010: Part 3Copland 2010 revisited: Apple's language and API futureCopland - WikipediaThe Guru - FlickrThe "haggling over the price" jokeSponsored by Shopify and King of the Apps.

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin discuss some upcoming Pixar projects, Facebook's open datacenter initiative, Star Wars, and, finally, Apple’s philosophy and practice of UI consistency over the years. Links for this episode:Pixar's Newt cancelled - May 2010First images from Pixar’s BraveJohn Carter of Mars - WikipediaThe Open Compute ProjectBuilding Efficient Data Centers with the Open Compute ProjectThe Secret History of Star WarsOtaku - WikipediaBruce Tognazzini - WikipediaThe original Macintosh Control Panel, 1984AppleCD Audio PlayerThe HiTech and Gizmo Copland appearance themesApple's Drawing Board appearance themeKaleidoscope and other appearance themesiCal's new look in Mac OS X Lion DP2Tog on InterfaceSystem 7Apple Human Interface GuidelinesUgly toolbar buttons in Apple Mail 2.0Sponsored by FreshBooks and MailChimp.

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin turn a critical eye towards last week's episode on criticism, then try to pick the single biggest challenge facing three different wildly successful companies: Google, Facebook, and yes…Pixar. Links for this episode:Sexual Harassment and You - SNL skit, 2005"What company derives 96 percent of its revenue from advertising?"Horace Dediu's tweet about Pixar and AppleEd Catmull on Pixar and success - It's long, but really, really worth watchingHayao Miyazaki - WikipediaJohn Lasseter - WikipediaEdwin Catmull - Wikipedia"Monkey Mind" - WikipediaIf you're not paying for it, you are the product being sold - MetaFilterSponsored by Sound Studio 4 and Worldview.

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin revisit Apple's iLife island and Google's operational secret weapons, then talk about the nature of criticism, online and offline, from movies to cars to (finally) computers. Links for this episode:Hypercritical - (Read this to understand the show title)Why Daring Fireball is Comment Free - Shawn BlancDaring Fireball with Comments - An unofficial Safari extensionGoogle Sync for iPhoneNew MobileMe CalendarJohn Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad TheorySponsored by MailChimp.

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin are briefly amused by iPhone 5 rumors, then dive head first into a ruthless analysis of Apple's online services, past and present. The sad conclusion: Apple sucks at what Google is good at, and vice versa. Links for this episode:July 2006: .Mac users mock Apple slogan during outage - CNET NewsJune 2008: .Mac Outage Causes Stir - World of AppleJune 2008: .Mac suffers 15th outage as MobileMe deployed - MacNNJuly 2008: MobileMe says sorry with a month of free serviceJuly 2008: Apple's report on the MobileMe Email service interruptionDecember 2010: Apple retires .Mac HomePageiPhone 5 rumors: aluminum backside, redesigned antennaSquare corners for Snow Leopard QuickTime player windowsiPad: The Microwave Oven of Computing - TechinchThe Steve Jobs Way: iLeadership for a New Generation - Audible.comThe Name of the Wind - Audible.comDropbox - Online backup, file sync, and sharing made easySponsored by Sourcebits and Audible.

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin further opine on the iPad 2 and the Apple Strategy Tax, then discuss Apple's anachronistic views on digital media management as embodied in the iLife suite and the iPod product line. Links for this episode:The edit wars on the Apple A5 page at WikipediaPut 16GB of RAM into your new MacBook Pro…for $1,600iPad 2 Wi-Fi Teardown - iFixitOne tale of Apple's woes with partners: Rhapsody and BluesSponsored by FreshBooks and Rackspace.

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin vow never to talk about physics again, then discuss the new iPad and, finally, how Apple's expansion into so many new businesses has created a series of conflicts of interest that could, at best, doom it to Microsoft-like stagnation in the long run. Links for this episode:The Apple strategy taxSpeed of electricity - WikipediaSpeed of electricity flowApple iPad 2ARM Cortex A8 - WikipediaARM Cortex A9 - WikipediaApple A4 - WikipediaApple A5 - WikipediaSpeeds and feeds - WikipediaMagnetic monopole - WikipediaPAX East 2011List of The Incredibles characters - WikipediaA sub-thread of the Hacker News discussion of the Apple Strategy Tax articleSponsored by MailChimp and CodeConf 2011.

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin talk a bit more about connectors before moving on to the big Apple news: new MacBook Pros with Thunderbolt i/o and the first developer preview release of Mac OS X Lion. Links for this episode:Apple - Thunderbolt: Next-generation high-speed I/O technology.Apple - Mac OS X LionApple - The new MacBook ProWhat you need to know about Thunderbolt - MacworldBi-directional USB plug conceptThe Loudness War - WikipediaA video explaining the Loudness War - YouTubeHDtracks - high-quality digital music store, no DRMApple supposedly in talks to increase the quality of the audio in the iTunes music storeThunderbolt security concerns - The RegisterLeaked screenshots from the Lion developer preview - MacStoriesMore leaked Lion screenshots from AppleInsiderWhat we know about Mac OS X Lion - Ars TechnicaIntel HD Graphics 3000 performance tests - AnandTechIntel's Thunderbolt technology brief (PDF)Sponsored by Typekit and NZ Red Cross.

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin reveal the many prosaic reasons for not owning an iPhone, then veer off on several non-tech tangents and never fully recover: RSI, travel phobia, a personal history of computer ownership, and more. Links for this episode:Cumulative Trauma DisorderRepetitive strain injury - WikipediaiPhone nano rumorsApple patent for a magnetic connector with an optical data connectionRepetitive Strain Injury: A Computer User's Guide, by Deborah QuilterDr. Pascarelli's Complete Guide to Repetitive Strain Injury: What You Need to Know About RSI and Carpal Tunnel SyndromeMacintosh SE/30 - WikipediaMacintosh Performa 6400/180 - the Mac whose name John couldn't rememberSponsored by Shopify and King of the Apps.

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin discuss Apple’s hardware blind spots: keyboards, dock connector, iPod/iPhone cases, laptop designs, and more. Links for this episode:Ars Technica review of the original Aluminum PowerBook G4Apple's Mac OS X Lion web page, which mentions SpacesSMART Utility - hard drive hardware diagnosticsS.M.A.R.T. - Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting TechnologySubtraction.com: Designed DeteriorationApple's 30-pin dock connectorSCSI - Kids, ask your parents about itLight Peak - A New Hope for connecting computing peripherals with wiresSponsored by MailChimp and Sourcebits.

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin revisit Mac OS X Lion and TV devices, then discuss what it would take for iOS to achieve iPod-like world domination. Links for this episode:Experiment: One Week Without CableCan you buy me now? Apple and the war for the mobile marketVerizon breaks first day sales record with iPhone 4 pre-orders -- in only two hours -- EngadgetThe Mac OS X page on WikipediaSponsored by Screens and Campaign Monitor.

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin do some follow-up on the topic of backups, then talk about possible motivations behind the Mac OS X Lion features Apple has revealed so far, the future of desktop computing, and what might have caused iPhoto '11 to be worse than the previous version. Links for this episode:StorageReview.com: a great place to research hard disk mechanisms before buyingCrashPlan: another popular personal backup serviceArq: an S3-backed, extremely Mac-savvy backup productPGP Whole Disk EncryptionApple's preview of Mac OS X Lion, October 20, 2010 (starts at 52:55)The Incomparable: a geeky podcast sometimes featuring John SiracusaBackup Bouncer: a Mac backup robustness test suiteBonus link! Dolly Drive: Time Machine in the cloudSponsored by Sound Studio 4 and MailChimp.

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin tie up some loose ends from the TV show before talking about backups, the onus on Apple to make them work, Apple's past and present attempts, the failings of external hard drives, personal backup regimes, and online backups. Links for this episode:Moxi: a DVR competitor to TiVoThe case for RAID: a 2005 blog post about the state of personal backupsTime Machine in the Ars Technica review of Mac OS X 10.5 LeopardBackblaze [Affiliate Link Supports 5by5]DroboBackblaze XML configuration file (edit at your own risk)StorageReview.comSponsored by Postmark and Rackspace.

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin discuss the sad state of TV technology, why the TV situation is worse than music and even phones, why Apple has decided it can't solve this particular problem right now, why TiVo sucks (but is still better than all the other alternatives), and which box, of the ten connected to your TV, is the best one to use to watch Netflix. Links for this episode:John Siracusa's articles at Ars TechnicaApple's Trouble with TVAirPlay as Apple's Backdoor StrategySteve Jobs on Television [Video]John Siracusa on The PipelineAppleTVTiVoSponsored by Sourcebits and Campaign Monitor.