John covers his extensive history as a Mac enthusiast, web developer, writer, podcaster and lover of music and art. He also explains his transition to a fully independent career on the Internet and how he has juggled various personas, roles and fandoms over the years.
Podcast case study: Accidental Tech Podcast (https://atp.fm) (producer)
Find John at hypercritical.co (https://hypercritical.co).
Read a transcript of the episode as a styled PDF (https://martinfeld.files.wordpress.com/2023/08/f9740-2023-01-really-specific-stories-transcript-e28094-john-siracusa.pdf) or in plain text (https://assets.fireside.fm/file/fireside-images/podcasts/transcripts/c/c67dadf4-8798-4528-8e7d-e45b83c1d218/episodes/9/97153536-5ced-4130-8ca4-e9a60714e243/transcript.txt).
Links and Show Notes
I Was Primed 00:00:00
Mur Lafferty (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mur_Lafferty)
Geek Fu Action Grip (https://archive.org/details/pcs_Geek_Fu_Action_Grip) (now in the Internet Archive)
I Should Be Writing (https://murverse.com/podcasts/isbw/)
iPod (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPod)
iTunes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITunes)
NPR (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPR)
Apple Inc. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc.)
YouTuber (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTuber)
Dan Benjamin (https://danbenjamin.com)
RSS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS)
Hypercritical (https://hypercritical.fireside.fm) (podcast)
Gabe Newell (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabe_Newell)
Valve Corporation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valve_Corporation)
Half-Life (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-Life_(series)) (series)
Portal (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal_(series)) (series)
Ars Technica (https://arstechnica.com)
Book review: Infinite Loop (https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/1999/10/book-review-infinite-loop/) — John’s first article for Ars Technica
Ivory tower (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivory_tower)
Hypercritical (https://hypercritical.co/fatbits/2009/05/06/hypercritical) (the mentioned article from John’s Ars Technica blog, now linked on his website)
Steve Jobs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs)
I Had the Cultural Context 00:08:22
Home computer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_computer) (redirected from ‘personal computer revolution’)
Commodore VIC-20 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VIC-20)
Macintosh 128K (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_128K)
Graphical user interface (GUI) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphical_user_interface)
Pictionary (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pictionary)
Usenet (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet)
U2 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U2)
Ken Fisher (https://arstechnica.com/author/caesar/)
Mac (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_(computer)) (computer)
Mac OS X (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacOS#Mac_OS_X)
NeXT (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXT)
Macintosh clone (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_clone)
OS X Reviewed (https://hypercritical.co/2015/04/15/os-x-reviewed) (a blog post that links to all of John’s reviews)
Engadget (https://www.engadget.com/?guccounter=1)
ebook (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebook)
Amazon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_(company)) (company)
Unix (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix)
MacUser (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacUser)
Macworld (https://www.macworld.com)
MacWEEK (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacWEEK)
Multiple ‘Me’s 00:20:13
Accidental Tech Podcast (ATP) (https://atp.fm)
A text file online (https://www.chedong.com/u2/lyrics.txt) that preserves information from John’s U2 Lyrics Archive
Perl (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perl)
CPAN (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CPAN)
5by5 (https://5by5.tv)
Jason Snell (https://sixcolors.com/jason/)
The Incomparable (https://www.theincomparable.com)
Robot or Not? (https://www.theincomparable.com/robot/)
Merlin Mann (http://www.merlinmann.com)
Back to Work (https://www.backtowork.limo)
Marco Arment (https://marco.org/about)
Build and Analyze (https://archive.org/details/podcast_build-analyze_404064215) was a weekly news and discussion show about technology by Marco Arment and Dan Benjamin, which can now be found in the Internet Archive.
Casey Liss (https://www.caseyliss.com)
Hypercritical (https://hypercritical.co) (website)
Independence Day (https://hypercritical.co/2022/03/30/independence-day) (blog post about John’s career transition)
Open source (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source)
A Childhood Dream 00:33:42
BASIC (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BASIC)
HyperCard (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyperCard)
Computer programming (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_programming)
Web developer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_developer)
Below are blog posts about John’s two Mac apps:
Front and Center (https://hypercritical.co/2020/01/08/front-and-center); and
SwitchGlass (https://hypercritical.co/2020/02/12/switchglass), along with the more recent SwitchGlass 2.0 (https://hypercritical.co/2022/10/25/switchglass-2).
Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worldwide_Developers_Conference)
API (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/API)
iOS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOS)
CodeWarrior (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CodeWarrior)
App Store (iOS/iPadOS) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/App_Store_(iOS/iPadOS))
Mac App Store (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_App_Store)
Apple Tech-nerd World 00:42:18
AnandTech (https://www.anandtech.com)
Tom’s Hardware (https://www.tomshardware.com)
Microsoft Windows (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Windows)
Windows 95 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_95)
Celeron (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celeron)
Context collapse (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Context_collapse)
Fandom (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fandom)
Anti-fan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-fan)
Some references to terminals include:
computer terminal (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_terminal);
terminal emulator (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_emulator); and
Terminal (macOS) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_macOS_built-in_apps#Terminal).
‘Seeing the matrix’ means seeing the true nature of reality (or any particular situation) and is a phrase from The Matrix franchise (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Matrix_(franchise)).
Marvel Comics (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvel_Comics)
DC Comics (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DC_Comics)
Ford Mustang (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Mustang)
Chevrolet Camaro (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Camaro)
Tom Cruise (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Cruise)
New York City (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City)
The Incomparable Mothership (https://www.theincomparable.com/theincomparable/)
Twitter (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter)
Mastodon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastodon_(social_network)) (social network)
Repotting Myself 00:59:13
John’s use of the initialism ‘m.o.’ refers to the Latin term ‘modus operandi’ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modus_operandi), which is translated approximately as ‘mode (or manner) of operating’.
ARM architecture family (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture_family) (John’s reference to ‘ARM Macs’, running Apple Silicon)
John Gruber (https://daringfireball.net)
BMX bike (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMX_bike)
Remote-control car (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio-controlled_car)
Credits
Recorded and edited by Martin Feld, using Audio Hijack (https://rogueamoeba.com/audiohijack/) and Ferrite Recording Studio (https://www.wooji-juice.com/products/ferrite/)
Martin’s edit in Ferrite https://martinfeld.files.wordpress.com/2023/08/e06dc-2023-01-really-specific-stories-john-siracusa-ferrite-timeline-screenshot.jpeg
Original podcast theme music by Alex Canion (https://www.alexcanion.com)
Contact
Website: rsspod.net (https://www.rsspod.net)
Email: martin@loungeruminator.net (mailto:martin@loungeruminator.net)
Mastodon: social.lol/@martinfeld (https://social.lol/@martinfeld)
Micro.blog: micro.blog/martinfeld (https://micro.blog/martinfeld)
A Special Note
Martin is a paid subscriber of John Siracusa’s shared membership program for Accidental Tech Podcast; this did not influence any of the questions that were asked and did not place any expectations on John as a participant of this academic podcasting project.
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