John Siracusa

If I review a movie, it’ll probably be on my website.

Hello, I'm an author in a film. I will be seen doing anything but writing a book, because typing is boring. Then I will have a 30-second montage of clicking away at a keyboard, I will hand a ream of paper to my editor who will declare it to be genius and a week later I will be atop the NYT list.

The front cover of Pinball Construction Set (with designer Bill Budge's name prominently features). It has a retrowave aesthetic with a silver ball floating between two hands. They're place on a seemingly infinite grid.

The interior of the album-style sleeve with 5.25" disk and warranty card visible.

The fully unfolded gatefold sleeve.

Here's the latest addition to my retro game collection: Pinball Construction Set (1982). Check out that stylish gatefold album-style sleeve!

This was one of the first PC games I owned as a kid, and I loved the retrowave cover so much that I thumbtacked it to my bedroom wall. 😁

Another threat to the video game industry is anthropomorphic hot dogs and pickles; executives are already hoarding pepper to throw at them

I also went to HHS…Hauppauge High School.

The vibe to all this-the Halal carts, the sidewalk-eating, the enjoyment of ethnic neighborhoods, the celebratory tone toward New York's pluralist way of life—is a bit like what you might imagine localized patriotism in historical city-states looking like.

Stretching for some conceptual framework, perhaps to be found in the work of some medieval or early-modern writers, to help me grasp the foreign notion of a mayoral candidate who likes the city they want to be mayor of and also lives there.

Removable media that I still have from the 90s/00s and its survival rate at bringing data from then into the 2020s.

3.5" Floppy Disks: 30%
5.25" Floppy Disks: 70%
CDR/RWs: 5%
DVDR/RWs: 10%
Syquests: 0%
CF/SDs: 20%
Zip Disks: 96%

How My High School Destroyed An Immigrant Kid's Life Because He Drew The School's Mascot Late last year, Pro Publica and the NY Times published an incredible, long and infuriating article, mostly about how a high school in NY destroyed an immigrant student’s life, due to a mixtur…

To be clear, I knew this happened. I wrote about it when it happened. But it's still weird to see my high school on John Oliver.

www.techdirt.com/2019/01/29/h...

Reconcilable Differences #266: The Misspeaking Community - Relay How does John generate all that cool chapter art?

266: The Misspeaking Community relay.fm/rd/266

Yeah.

No, but it’s pretty good!

Accidental Tech Podcast: 650: Whatever It Takes to Get the Laundry Folded Three nerds discussing tech, Apple, programming, and loosely related matters.

650: Whatever It Takes to Get the Laundry Folded
atp.fm/650

AppleCare One, the OS 26 public betas, and tensions between art and science in interface design.

A screenshot of the Apple Mail app in iOS 26 showing some illegible controls. A suggested reply button on the bottom of the screen reads, “Offer to file radar”

Check out the iOS Gmail app’s suggested reply to an email complaining about Liquid Glass.

Age and diagnoses over time for one short-term pain symptom:

Age 34 - there are no pains there
Age 34.2 - you’ve been fat too long
Age 34.4 - it’s anxiety
Age 34.9 - you should try efexor
Age 35.1 - more Xanax?
Age 35.3 - are you drug seeking?
Age 35.5 - gallstones.

Age and diagnoses over time for one long-term pain symptom:

Age 16 - lose weight
Age 18 - you’re fat
Age 23 - you’re a bit too heavy
Age 28 - you could drop a few kg
Age 34 - it’s IBS lose weight
Age 48 - you’ve been fat too long
Age 51 - think about losing weight
Age 52 - endometriosis.

"We have just folded space from Legoland. Many playsets in Legoland. New playsets. Better than those at Playmobil."

Yup. As I’ve said before, the right’s constant sense of grievance even as they control every branch of government stems from the fact that the base doesn’t really want specific policy reforms. They’re angry about cultural trends the government can’t really do anything about in a free society.

It happened! www.flophousepodcast.com/2025/07/fh-m...

Not yet! It’s still in beta.

I'm just picturing the future explosive popularity of TikTok videos explaining the “secret settings” that make “the new version of macOS” more readable. You guys…

Accidental Tech Podcast: 649: Prove It With Cameras Three nerds discussing tech, Apple, programming, and loosely related matters.

649: Prove It With Cameras
atp.fm/649

Our broken and drowned electronics, Apple's lawsuit against Prosser, Cloudflare's power exercise, and Marco's solution to sunscreen.

A dialog in Tahoe beta 4 that asks which notifications should be summarized. The News notification option contains red text that says “Summarization may change the meaning of the original headlines. Verify information.” The bottom of the dialog also has this text: “This is a beta feature. Summaries may contain errors.”

“Verify information” indeed, Apple…

(This is Tahoe beta 4, BTW.)

The startup disk selection screen in macOS 26 Tahoe beta 4. One disk is selected and one is not, but it's REALLY hard to tell which is which at a glance.

Is there some kind of contest within Apple to see how little contrast can be used while still *technically* indicating a selection? One of these disks is selected, believe it or not!

I'm seeing a lot of chatter again about "how on earth did Gareth Edwards' THE CREATOR (2023) only cost xxx dollars and it looks so good and has amazing VFX?!?!"

Well, here's us talking about exactly that for 45 minutes, or hear two minutes from Gareth himself below:

youtu.be/amVkSiiZY4Y?...

A TV show made for @cabel.panic.com bsky.app/profile/juli...

I got a Series 0, but it didn’t take. (I’m not a watch wearer.)

That’s why I initially read it the way I did. Without any immediate correction, it stuck.

I'm so happy that John and Merlin asked me back to be a guest on their Reconcilable Differences member special.

The ONLY WAY to hear it is to become a Relay member - www.relay.fm/rd/join

Here's a clip where I *comment* on how John mispronounces the name of the Letterboxd app.

The best part about a Colbert presidency is that he would absolutely revoke all contracts to Anduril, Palantir, etc purely out of disgust at their misappropriation of Tolkien.