Breaking Change

Latest Episodes:

v56 - Persistent Mode Aug 31, 2026

Show notes

The summer heat has finally broken here in Shizuoka, and I'm enjoying a cool, wet, and cloudy day huddled around my microphone for warmth. I hope you'll join around my verbal campfire for yet another one of these.

As always, you can e-mail the show at podcast@searls.co. Only a small proportion of listeners will ever write an e-mail, so I now offer a second option: the justin.searls.co/feedback form. People love filling out forms! Go try it out! Check the anonymous checkbox! Hell, enter a fake e-mail address—see if I care!

Stuff we talked about, in order of me talking about them:

v55 - I'm a good guyjin Aug 07, 2026

Show notes

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.

v54 - Hot Sleeper Jul 23, 2026

Show notes

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 another bump: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Who's Afraid of Chinese Models?
Apple vs OpenAI
Apple's Chip Plans: M6, M7 Pro, M7 Max, M7 Ultra, M8 Details; Touch MacBook Pro (archive)
Public betas for iOS 27, macOS 27 and more Apple platforms are now available
Apple's fm CLI
Nvidia's Jensen Huang reunites with Sega exec who saved the company with $5M investment
New survey claims 100% of Japanese online game developers use generative AI tools
PlayStation announces the end of disc games, starting in January 2028
Super Mario Bros. 2: The Lost Levels and Japan's HARD OFF stores
Xbox confirms plans to cut 5 studios and thousands of jobs
Obsidian is reportedly making a new ~~Avowed~~ Fallout game
Id Software dev claims it's been 'relegated to support studio size'
Rebooting (a.k.a. Brush Up Life)
Straight to Hell
You Can't Expense This!
Forza Horizon 6
Cook, Serve, Delicious!
The Odyssey

v53 - Pod Freeze Mar 20, 2026

Show notes

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 commodities, harnesses are differentiators
Aaron's puns, ranked
United Airlines can now boot passengers who refuse to use headphones with their devices (News+)
Your Meta glasses are watching you pee (9to5mac's summary)
Tuna for Mac by friend of the show, Mikkel Malmberg
MacBook Neo
MacBook Neo offers more single-core performance than any mobile processor from AMD, Intel or Qualcomm
Apple + Nvidia's CloudXR & Foveated streaming partnership: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Xbox's Project Helix
Microsoft's 'Xbox mode' is coming to every Windows 11 PC (News+)
Windows: Announcing new tools and platform updates for Windows PC game developers
Sony is testing dynamic pricing in the PlayStation Store
DLSS 5 should make you excited and/or outraged: video, backlash
Gamblers trying to win a bet on Polymarket are vowing to kill me if I don't rewrite an Iran missile story
South Korean Police Lose Seized Crypto By Posting Password Online
China mobilizes "one-person company" AI startups
Scrubs is back!
Mickey 17 is not about a cartoon mouse
The Expanse
Marathon - and how sickos like me can't stop thinking about it

v52.0.1 - Len Testa: Bring back the Starcruiser Mar 07, 2026

Show notes

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'Amaro ever have the courage to attempt something so ambitious again? Listen to this episode, in which we speak with an unearned confidence that suggests we have all of these answers!

You can reach out to Len at len@touringplans.com and you can write into the show at podcast@searls.co. He'll read your e-mail and reply to it, but I may only skim it.

v52 - Skynet any% Mar 01, 2026

Show notes

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:

v51 - Praise-bomb Feb 16, 2026

Show notes

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 Apple's iOS 26 (Archive)
YouTube on Vision Pro (News+)
Apple Announces Special Event in New York, London, and Shanghai on March 4
Filed my first SwiftUI bug as feedback. It's FB21962656
Thoughtworks concludes TDD is good and billable juniors valuable
Ugh, Anthropic CEO was right about the timing of AI writing all the code
Peter Steinberger Chose OpenAI. The Code Was Never the Point
Eternity
Starfleet Academy
Your Friends & Neighbors

v50 - SpaceXXX Feb 05, 2026

Show notes

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 Tesla's 'Full Self-Driving' Software
Elon Musk's SpaceX acquiring AI startup xAI ahead of potential IPO
Amazon commingling practices will end effective March 31, 2026
UPS to cut additional 30,000 jobs in Amazon unwind, turnaround plan
Microsoft is experimenting with a top menu bar for Windows 11 (News+)
How DoorDash and Other Food Delivery Apps Are Reshaping Mealtime in the U.S.
Apple debuts 'Apple Creator Studio' subscription, here's what you get
Apple Sued by App Developer Over its Continuity Camera
Halide cofounder Sebastiaan de With joins Apple's design team
Inside Apple's AI Shake-Up, AI Safari and Plans for New Siri in iOS 26.4, iOS 27 (Archive)
Apple introduces new AirTag with expanded range and improved findability
Xcode 26.3 unlocks the power of agentic coding
Josh D'Amaro Named Next Chief Executive Officer of Disney
Everyone is stealing TV (News+)
Google's AI helped me make bad Nintendo knockoffs (News+)
- Deepmind Genie
- The sizzle reel
Angry gamers are forcing studios to scrap or rethink new releases (News+)
Xbox Developer Direct - Fable looks like they did the thing , Forza Horizon 6 is set in Japan
Valve confirms Steam Machine price and release details have been delayed by exploding component prices
Slow Horses
Hijack
Posturr - posture-correcting screen blurring app
Battlestar Galactica: Scattered Hopes
Absolum
Blippo+

v49 - Saving Face Oil Jan 09, 2026

Show notes

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 weird and dumb links this go-round:

Eric Doggett is a great friend/artist
Fortune Feimster isn't spelled how I would've guessed
Ray-Ban Meta Wayfarer (Gen 2) is the best gift anyone's given me in a while
POSSE Party's tutorial videos are just enough to convince you to either bother or not bother
Reddit's r/selfhosted is at least a little self-aware
I'm giving myself some grace when it comes to the newsletter
EDID Emulators are a hardware product that exist only because Windows is bad
Looking forward to trying Happy for remote Claude Code / Codex CLI work
Aaron's puns, ranked
Pebble Index 01
Google's / XReal Putting It All on Glasses Next Year
XReal is partnering with Asus ROG, too
Google and Apple partner on better Android-iPhone switching
NYT profiles John Ternus
AirPods Pro with IR cameras (instead of stem clicks?!)
JPMorgan Chase Reaches a Deal to Take Over the Apple Credit Card (News+)
The Clicks Power Keyboard looks rad
Expedition 33's Game Awards sweep has me asking, who will be the first to VEGOT?
Valve still sending this guy chocolates every Christmas
The post-GeForce era: What if Nvidia abandons PC gaming?
The 5090 could cost $5090 by the end of 2026
Nvidia plans heavy cuts to GPU supply in early 2026
Racks of AI chips are too damn heavy (News+)
Vera Rubin is probably even heavier
GPT Image 1.5 is better but not good enough
PSA: make ChatGPT less warm, enthusiastic, and emoji-tastic (News+)
You can (supposedly) buy your Instacart groceries without leaving ChatGPT
The massive year-end Ed Zitron newsletter.
Podcasts are AI now (News+)
Copywriters reveal how AI has decimated their industry
A Stanford degree wont save you (News+)
'Godfather of SaaS' Says He Replaced Most of His Sales Team With AI Agents
NYC phone ban reveals some students can't read clocks
Swearing Actually Seems to Make Humans Physically Stronger
Corporation for Public Broadcasting to Shut Down After 58 Years Due to Trump Eliminating Funding
Grok Is Generating Sexual Content Far More Graphic Than What's on X (News+)
Outer Worlds 2
Ball X Pit
Stranger Things Season 5
Reddit's terrific r/RealOrAI sub
The RayNeo Air 3s are the display glasses I'd recommend if you can find them for $199
Murderbot
UDCast universal subtitling (and the movie I wanted to watch)
Beckygram.com

v48.1 - 2nd Annual Punsort Dec 30, 2025

Show notes

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 it off your chest at podcast@searls.co.

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