Dan Benjamin:

And as the year comes to a close, a bit of sad news: two of my good friends, John Siracusa and Marco Arment, are retiring their shows, which are coming to an end in December of 2012. Both of these shows, Hypercritical and Build and Analyze, started at about the same time, in early 2011 and late in 2010 respectively. Both Marco and John told me independently at the outset that they had no idea how long they might want to do a show for. But I didn't care: I'm always happy to team up with guys as awesome as they are for a couple of hours each week and help create something as awesome as their shows have been. At their conclusion, each of these shows will have recorded over 100 amazing episodes, many of them over two hours long.

Terrible news for two of my favorite podcasts. That, combined with the loss of Gruber's "The Talk Show," have made this a rough year for 5by5.

Unlike Gruber's departure however, I don't think there's any hard feelings here. Both Arment and Siracusa are scheduled to appear on other 5by5 podcasts, and Marco gave shout-outs to other 5by5 shows in his farewell post.

Marco says that he feels B&A is getting "stale and repetitive." While, I disagree, I have no reason to doubt his judgement. Plus, I'm sure The Magazine is now taking up quite a bit of his time. But Siracusa quitting his show at the same time raises questions.

I wish Marco, John, and Dan the best of luck in whatever they do next. 5by5's new show, "The Crossover," sounds fun - like a 5by5 version of "This Week in Tech."

Oh, and Dan, if you need a new podcast featuring a guy who complains about technology for hours every week, my schedule is open. We can call it "The Insufferable."