A show in which Justin Searls talks with you from time to time. Programmer things. Apple stuff. Gaming news. Dispatches from Disney World. Each episode also entitles the listener to one (1) exclusive pun, care of of Aaron Patterson (aka @tenderlove). Submit questions and comments to podcast@searls.co
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We cut our trip a day short, so I found myself with a totally free day with no plans. Naturally, I wasted it by recording a 3-hour podcast. Dang. I always enjoy shooting the shit with/at you, and if you'd like to be a more active participant in the shit-shooting, then hit me up at podcast@searls.co. Really, I'll be nicer to you than I am to Sam Altman and Tang Tan. I promise. Back to manually writing links. The zen of monotonous input tasks is suddenly something to be cherished in the current era. Mandibular Advancement Device Better With Becky Why doesn't the U.S. have small elevators like Eu
The summer heat ended up thawing out my podcast, so I had no choice but to go buy a new microphone and grumble into it for a couple hours. Just how that works. Please enjoy. I am actively soliciting mailbag participation. As always, the address is podcast@searls.co, and I'd be really curious to hear how America is doing because it seems like everything is going great. For the first time I let Claude write these links for me, because it never occurred to me I didn't have to format the markdown manually: PicoRuby Kaigi 2025 FleaFlicker, my first iOS game! Aaron's puns, ranked Claude Fable 5 gets
The promise of Breaking Change is that with every major version (this being the 60th episode of the program, but only the 53rd such release), I will break something. Well, I finally did it. I think I broke the show. Find out how by listening for yourself! Want to be my friend? Drop me a line at justin@searls.co. Want to file a complaint with my supervisor? Forward your concerns to podcast@searls.co. These links may rot, but alas—death comes for us all: Tonal (without a subscription) Better with Becky My appearance on the freeCodeCamp podcast Dual-loop BDD is the new Red-green TDD Models are co
Today, we're joined by a very special guest, Len Testa! You might know him from The Disney Dish podcast or from his excellent theme park travel planning app Touring Plans. Or you might not know him at all! No wrong answers. This episode is all about Disney's ill-fated Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser live action role-playing hotel—which we both had the opportunity to experience right when it first launched. It was a life-changing experience for both of us, so why did it fail? Is it true that the top Disney brass learned all the wrong lessons from that failure? And will the CEO-in-waiting Josh D
Sure feels like some combination of AI, the US military, and the AI military could bring an end to the world any day now, so I figured I'd better record one last show for posterity. Welcome me on this version's speedrun to the apocalypse! So long as the EMP blasts don't nuke all our ham radios, write in to podcast@searls.co and I'll read it on the next release of the program. Over. Be sure to click all these links while the clickin's good: Ninja Creami Deluxe prove_it Agents are ushering in the Antisocial Era Brace for the Fuckening Citrini Research fanfic Would you like your AI singularity be
I feel like I'm getting saltier, and it's concerning. If you want me to tone it down and/or up, let me know. It'll go a lot better if you just write to podcast@searls.co instead of yelling at your phone. As usual, I brought the goods. Now here are the receipts: prove_it is doing its job, mostly Aaron's puns, ranked Starsand Island studio confused by alleged 'praise-bombing' attack Sony is considering holding back PlayStation 6 until 2028 or 2029 Southwest changes are infuriating fans (News+) NYT: All the news that's fit to manspread Gurman: Tesla CarPlay Held Back by Need for Wider Adoption of
Elon has combined 3 of his 4 businesses and everything makes sense. Also, I went to Japan and all I came back with was another weird story about animal sperm. Other stuff happened too, but let's be honest, it's the typical AI schlock you've come to expect from this decade. Write in with your own takes to podcast@searls.co. Please. Really! Do it. Citations needed? 白子揚げ = 🐟🍆💦🍟 scrapple scrapes Apple docs for agents prove_it forces Claude to verify his shit works Aaron's puns, ranked A sane but extremely bull case on Clawdbot / OpenClaw US Insurer 'Lemonade' Cuts Rates 50% for Drivers Using T
I'm about to get on a plane and will be gone for a couple weeks, but didn't want to leave you Breaking Changeless so I did the thing where I stand up in front of a microphone and talked at you. Again. Like I do. Fun fact: this is the first and only time I've taken a phone call live, on-air! I was just too lazy to edit that out gracefully. Whenever I go to Japan solo, I experience moments of loneliness, so I'd really appreciate it if you sent me some praise or complaints or ideas to podcast@searls.co and I'll feel comforted by the knowledge that you exist. Your engagement sustains me. Lotta wei
During the end-of-year podcasting doldrums, I'm pleased to bring you this Feature Release, in which I eschew my tradition of eschewing traditions and present a second annual sorting of the puns. As 2025 (a.k.a. Season 2) of Breaking Change comes to a close, Aaron Patterson once again joins the show to execute our latest iteration of the punsort algorithm. Following along at home? Here's a spoiler-free link to the original Season 2 rankings. Ready to be spoiled? Visit /puns for the final pun rankings of 2025. If you agree, disagree, or are indifferent about where things landed, feel free to get
I'm experiencing what breathing out of my nose properly feels like for the first time. Everything is new and wondrous and I've never felt so optimistic. This sensation lasted for two days and now I'm used to it and existence is once again pain. Share your existential musings at podcast@searls.co and I'll nod and sigh along. I might even nod and sigh performatively for you on the show! Important ground covered in this episode: My new gaming PC's final parts list This nifty Wake-on-LAN app for iOS The POSSE Party has STARTED! Aaron's puns, ranked Polymarket Builds In-House Trading Team as It Re-
Had a little pep in my step this time. Maybe it's because I decided to start recording after 7 AM for once. Maybe it's because I can finally fucking breathe out of my nose holes. Tell me about what you do while you continue to draw breath at podcast@searls.co. Things you can read if you're bored: Beckygram.com Aaron's puns, ranked Steam Frame and Steam Machine Xbox reportedly warning of yet another potential price increase InKonbini retro convenience store simulator Pipboy 3000 replica for $300 Apple introduces Digital ID, a new way to create and present an ID in Apple Wallet Google Antigravit
I'm back and I'm angry. My power went out, which caused my Internet to go down, which broke my favorite mug. And that's just the shit that happened before 7 AM. By 9 AM my doorbell was continuously chiming for no fucking reason. Join me in the struggle. We shall persevere. Tell me how your morning went by writing in to: podcast@searls.co. Here 4 U: Kudos to Adam Mcrea and Judoscale for solving my Heroku issue Kudos to me for separately solving my Heroku issue with Straight-to-Video ALVR for streaming SteamVR games Streaming flat games with Sunshine and Moonlight Aaron's puns, ranked AI's Dial-
This may be the version 45 release of Breaking Change, but when you factor in its Hotfixes and Feature Release entries, this is somehow the 50th episode of the show! Why? Why are we still doing this to ourselves? Write in your answer and how you feel about yourself as a result to podcast@searls.co. Seriously, I need some new material. The web runs on links, so have some: KnightCite's Wikipedia page Whisprflow wasn't for me The POSSE Party is still on and will come to you, eventually Aaron's puns, ranked This Cheap, Tiny Device May Reverse Memory Loss—And Even Prevent Alzheimer's (News+) Why We
Post-recording update: As I've been lobbying for (both publicly and behind the scenes), it has been announced that the RubyGems and Bundler client libraries are being transferred to Matz and the Ruby core team. Mike McQuaid (of Homebrew fame) and I scheduled this episode of Hot Fix a week before the Ruby community exploded. Hot Fix is all about getting spicy, but even we were a little wary of the heat in that particular kitchen. The problem Mike brought to the table is the same one he's always on about: open source is not a career. Incidentally, Mike's favorite topic also happens to be relevan
If you know who José Valim is, then you know he probably made a mistake by joining me for our third installment of 🔥Hotfix🔥. The inventor of the Elixir programming language is at it again with his colleagues at Dashbit and they've got a new product called Tidewave. It's a coding agent with a twist: it has such a deep level of integration with your web framework that it can get the executable feedback it needs to tackle the entire feature development lifecycle. I do eventually let him plug the tool (and our conversation genuinely makes me want to try it—I logged a todo and everything!), but t
Hey, look! Breaking Change now has chapter support for each segment! More on how I did that while still upholding my commitment to laziness later. I didn't get a good job connecting this version's release to what I was referencing, so to be clear I was referring to my heart rate as opposed to any other bodily functions. The other ones are getting up just fine, thank you. Get your head out of the gutter. Thanks for all the great e-mails the last couple weeks! Throw yours on the pile at podcast@searls.co. Hopefully Fastmail won't lose it. For the folks who pronounce URLs like Earls: Fallout come
It's an emergency bonus edition of Breaking Change as I take the covers off yet another show-within-a-show. I call it Feature Release, and its job is to fill in that middle number in our semantically versioned series of conversations together. No pun, no news, just some timely content wrapped up in a name, logo, and jingle package that still has that new podcast smell. It's a 1-hour review of the Airpods, Apple Watch, and iPhone updates Apple announced today. You can see the full event video on YouTube. The Verge has a 17 minute abridged version if you just want the synopsis. Please enjoy this
Remember it is your civic duty to e-mail me at podcast@searls.co. As of this episode, that address is monitored by Fastmail, so there's a higher probability I'll actually get your e-mail! Some links you won't click: Why I-4 is the most dangerous highway in America The Beak and the Barrel Sign up for Fastmail. It is good. The Gilroy Order Making ChatGPT doubt itself Why I wasn't cut out for management How to comment on my blog Aaron's puns, ranked New Xcode beta adds GPT-5, Claude account support Apple Responds to Accusations of Jay Blahnik Creating 'Toxic Workplace' 4chan Refuses To Pay UK Onl
🔥Hotfix🔥 is back with a new guest! Scott Werner is the CEO of Sublayer, helps organize the Artificial Ruby meetup in NYC, and is the author of the extremely well-named (and well-written) Substack, Works on my Machine. In this conversation, we jointly grapple with WTF is happening to programming as a career. Did the unprecedented peacetime the software industry experienced from 2005-2022 make us all soft? Is the era of code-writing agents fundamentally changing the nature of the job? Should we be less like DHH/Matz and more like why the lucky stiff? We'd love to get your feedback to podcast@s
Thanks for writing so many lovely emails to podcast@searls.co. Hell, thanks even for the unlovely ones. Be sure to look out for me showing up on Dead Code at some point after it records next Tuesday. I'm realizing not all podcasts have a 1-hour-or-less turnaround time like this one does. As promised, some URLs follow: Want a Japanese girlfriend? Better be the right Myers-Briggs type Aaron's puns, ranked Men sucking at chores is turning women gay! (News+) Nightmares kill you (Archive) This shiner from /r/overemployed Hour of Code is now Hour of AI Gary Marcus taking a few victory laps around GP
I've made it! I'm over the hump! I'm actually writing* my language-learning app in Swift! Send an email expressing how proud you are of me to podcast@searls.co. Or if there's any news worth following that isn't about AI. Too much AI stuff lately. *And by "I'm writing", I admit Claude Code is doing a lot of the heavy lifting here. Hyperlinks: Girlfriend Reviews of Mario Kart World Mario Paint 2 for Nintendo Switch 2 Ben publishes NSScreencast, not NSCoder 🤦♂️ claude-discord-bridge Speeding up your Xcode tests Upside-down development There is no AI in Team Aaron's puns, ranked 7/24 - WaPo: Thi
Finally, a recommendation-heavy, full-mailbag show. Been a while. New to the pod are achievements—watch your BreakingScore™ increase each time you write in to podcast@searls.co. The winner will receive nothing, probably. Lynx: Coke BlāK My Full-breadth developers post When I discovered Claude is working for the weekend My latest newsletter that admits why I haven't started yet Aaron's puns, ranked Note taking AI is outnumbering participants on meetings Arkane founder slams Xbox Game Pass An unsubsidized Xbox could just do the special offers like Kindle, IMO Eyeball Dynamic Range FaceTime in iO
Welcome to the first episode of 🔥Hotfix🔥! Breaking Change's first show-within-a-show, wherein I let somebody else talk for once. Each episode will show up as a patch release in the Breaking Change feed and feature guests with Hot takes about a relevant issue and a clear fix in mind for what we can do about it. That first guest is a long-time collaborator and top 5 all-time colleague of mine named Dave Mosher, who's here to drop some truth bombs labeled "agentic coding" on the unsuspecting populace. My secret mission on each of these is to lean into the show's E-for-explicit tag and try to ge
I have returned to the nation of freedom and tariffs and all my shit has stopped working! Which shit? Why? What did I buy now? Listen and find out. Remember, listeners who write in to podcast@searls.co will be spared on judgment day. Website stuff follows: Hirome Ichiba in Kochi City Japan's ocean whirlpool (渦) boats Indigo La End POSSE Party Tessie Tesla app Aaron's puns, ranked We finally may be able to rid the world of mosquitoes. But should we? (Archive link) Supreme Court allows Texas online porn age verification law Microsoft changes Windows in attempt to prevent next CrowdStrike-style c
Spoiler alert: I'm in the same country as I was for v37, but this time from a different nondescript business hotel. Also: I have good personal news! And, as usual, bad news news. I don't get to pick the headlines though, I just read them. This episode comes with a homework assignment. First, watch Apple's keynote at 10 AM pacific on June 9th. Second, e-mail podcast@searls.co with all your takes. I'd love your help by informing me where my head should be at when I show up on the Changelog next week. And now, fewer links than usual: The movie 父と僕の終わらない歌 Fukushima The Great East Japan Earthquake
