610: Probably Not From Japan

It's time for episode 610 of the Clockwise Podcast from Relay, recorded Wednesday, June 18th, 2025. Clockwise, four people, four tech topics, 30 minutes.

Welcome back to Clockwise, the tech podcast where sometimes you come up with the intro on the fly. Today is one of those days because we are moving fast and not breaking a thing. I am one of your hosts. My name is Micah Sargent and I am joined across... the internet by my dear friend my good pal it is dan the man morin how you doing dan i'm doing okay you're not even breaking a sweat i mean not nothing we're breaking nothing well

Okay, there could be a sweater. I'm breaking the news, as it were. No news. No news to break. Okay. Yeah, dance. We'll do that. We'll dance. All right. You can't see, but we are dancing. We're breaking the camera and breaking the dance. There we go. Let me go ahead and introduce the first of our two awesome guests. To my left, founder of Lex Friedman Consulting and author of many puzzles.

If you guessed it was Lex Friedman, you guessed correctly. Hello, Lex. Hi, and I don't know if it matters to anybody, but it's spelled fried man. Just thought I'd put that out there. That's handy. I didn't really... To my left this week, it is Business Unicorn and Relay Community Manager and host of Conduit on this very here podcast network. It's...

Kathy Campbell. Welcome back, Kathy. Hello, Dan and everyone else. Thank you so much for having me. Always a pleasure. In her case, it's spelled Camp Bell. It is true. It is true. Mine is spelled more N. Like you don't have enough N, you need more N. I guess mine is Sargent. Weird. Weird. Sargent. Sargent.

like Windows. Oh, there you go. Sarge NT. Oh, I like it. That's good. That's better. All right. While we ponder all of our last names and how they are spelled, you all know how this works. Four topics, 30 minutes, and mine for you is this.

Have you ever used a drone? And I mean, completely in the legal sort of spectrum. I don't want to hear about any illegal drone use you may have perpetrated. Do you have any interest in a drone? And if so, what would you... do you use it for? Lex, we'll start with you.

I'm so glad that I'm on this episode because the one time I have used a drone was with Dan Morin. At the time, he and I both worked at Macworld and Macworld got a drone to review. It was an early drone and you controlled it with your iPhone. You could control it in different ways. You could.

use like joystick style controls on the iPhone screen or just like tilt and pan the iPhone to control it. And Dan and I shot lots of video of us nearly killing each other with that drone and slowly broke the drone over the course of an hour and a half as we kept crashing it in. things uh i imagine the technology has improved since then uh whether my drone navigation skills have improved since then i don't know i

love a cool drone shot, right? Like a cool drone photo shot or a cool drone video. Those I think look awesome. And I actually see them increasingly at like... events in our area like the photographer for a bar mitzvah or a wedding will have a drone that they do like some overhead shots from while the event is happening and that's cool uh if i had one

I would almost never use it, which is why I don't own one. But it would be fun sometimes to get the cool photo when you have a big family gathering or something and get the whole backyard or whatever. But no, I don't own one because I don't trust myself with one. I mean, unsurprisingly, my story was going to be Lex's story. That is also the only time I've used a drone because I think it scared both of us straight. I had a welt on my leg for a long time where I ran it into myself.

that was not great uh the videos for these are hilarious and i still have them somewhere because they involve a couple where we're like running away because we can't figure out how to drive it um for similar reasons i don't have one i think here's the issue is like

Like Lex, I see a lot of cool stuff that people do with drones. However, I have also been at a lot of places where I find drones incredibly annoying. Like you'll be out like, you know, at a tourist attraction or something, a nice national park. And it's just it's just irritating. It's like I'm trying to enjoy being out in nature or being at this, you know, historical site or something or, you know, and there's.

people flying drones around and i find it a little obnoxious so i don't i feel like my risk is i don't want to be one of those people and i have seen increasing numbers of places where they're like don't don't

bring your drones here. You know, this is a no drone fly zone. It rhymes. And I feel like I just, yeah, I don't, I like Lex. I don't think I'd use it enough and I would be worried about being the obnoxious person with a drone. So I guess I'm not going to be using one. Kathy, what about you? Yeah, I have never driven one. flown one. I don't even know the right used one. I enjoy things like a friend of the show, Jeremy Burge, has some incredible drone shots. He's very good at the drone flying.

I don't have the patience to learn or the desire or the, you know, money to fly one. So if somebody was like, here. Fly this drone. I'd be like, no, thank you. And move on. But I'll be in a video if somebody wants to. That's fine. Cool. Whatever. But also, they are very annoying. There was one. at an event went to last Saturday. And it was even over the speeches.

it was so loud and i was just like okay this is this is kind of ridiculous they looked cool but it was very loud Yeah, I I've used like very, very, very, very small drones, which are kind of fun until you run them into your face. or something similar, and then they're not fun anymore, because those little things can do some damage, let me tell you. The bigger ones I've seen flying, and it is kind of cool to see how people use them.

to record footage. But the reason why I brought this up is because there's an upcoming ban that might go into play, but may not go into play. Does that sound familiar whenever it comes to tech bans? Yeah. And it just had me curious. if anyone had really used drones, or especially if they're going, oh boy, am I going to be able to use my drones going forward? Yeah, they do tend to be really noisy. I think that sometimes the firework replacement... drones are pretty nifty, but...

Those can also go horribly wrong at times. So I don't know. I don't know if we're there with drones just yet. And it sounds like the group here has not had great experiences with them. Thank you all for your answers on that. We had a lot of fun. Also injuries. Yeah. Let's go to our next topic, which comes to relax. That's me. And bear in mind, as I pose this question, I do live in a house with three teenagers.

But what are your standards for yourself and for anybody else in your household regarding how and when it's okay? to be wearing Bluetooth headphones, be they AirPods or AirPods Max or something else. When is it cool to have headphones in your ears and when is it not, both for you and the others around you? This is a really good question. I found myself thinking about this not infrequently because I'll walk into a coffee shop and sometimes I just don't have my case for my AirPods out.

when I go up to order, you know, like there's no line, I walk right up and I don't want to be fumbling with the case. So I'll just, you know, I'll pause whatever I'm playing. I can still hear, but I worry that I'm being rude. Am I being rude? I'm not listening to anything, but I do have these things in my ears. And so I... Try not to do that when I can, but sometimes it still happens. In terms of around our house...

I generally don't. My wife accuses me of like, I can't hear her if she wants to yell at me. Which I mean, like she's upstairs and she needs something. She's worried I'll have my AirPods in while I'm doing the dish or something and I won't be able to hear her. So I don't tend to wear them. around the house. Then I'll have...

like wet hands and stuff. And I have to check my watch and it's a whole thing. Anyways. However, that said, there are also times where it's extremely useful because she'll be doing one thing, like say doing some work on her laptop and I'll be watching something on the TV. And then since I have the Apple TV,

set up there, I can put my AirPods in so I can listen to that and not disturb her there. So I think it's okay. I generally just feel like we usually ask one another, unless we're doing something like, hey, I'm going to work out or whatever. I'm going to put on my AirPods or my...

headphones we're generally like oh you know i'm gonna listen to this thing you want me to put on my airpods or or should i listen to it here um and i feel like that it provides sort of a framework for being able to ask about it we do both occasionally wear airpods while sleeping

Or like put them in to fall asleep to or something. So I feel like that's fine as well. And then my kid is not old enough to really use headphones. So he doesn't get to have those. He'll just eat AirPods probably. Not good. Don't do that. What about you, Kathy? So if I'm going out and about and I have the AirPods in, I will just take one out, even if it's not playing anything to talk, just because it's a sign of like, hey, I'm...

you know, paying attention to you, but I don't really leave my house a whole lot. So it doesn't really come into play very often. Around the house, I will, if I'm working from... the couch, I will have headphones in because I'm watching or listening to something on the Apple TV. And with my spouse's stroke.

sounds can be really triggering and so we pretty much will always have headphones in if we are in the kitchen doing dishes making something and want to listen or watch something just because we don't want to like cross Whatever. Sometimes I wish that my child would listen on things on headphones more often because I don't want to hear whatever random stuff that they are watching on YouTube.

It's going to be junk. It doesn't matter. But they are watching Grey's Anatomy. So that I'm okay with listening. So, you know, it's a balance. But yeah, we don't really have rules in the house of not wearing them or... Yes. Wearing them for me at all times, always. No, I kid. I actually just recently sort of re figured out the. Way that we're doing things because I've talked before about having ADHD and when I am sort of trying to focus on a task, it's very helpful for me to.

have like an audio book or something that's sort of keeping the busy part of my mind busy while I'm doing the little task that I need to do. And so now it is this idea that if I have them in and I am moving about the house. It is better to let me just continue to do whatever it is that I'm doing than to interrupt unless it's very important because it can throw me off the task that I'm trying to get done. I'm a huge audiobook listener. And so...

I've got them in a lot throughout the day. And then like Dan had mentioned, I also fall asleep with an audio book in as well. So as much as possible. I'm rocking the Bluetooth headphones rather than playing anything out loud. Yeah, I think save for television or movie programming, very rarely do I ever watch. anything with headphones on. It's only just like spoken word and music that's that's through headphones. Lex, why don't you round us out here?

Yeah, super insightful. I just get annoyed when there are AirPods in, say, at the dinner table or when you're hanging out with the family in the kitchen. My oldest doesn't like AirPods. My oldest wears giant, like, over-the-ear... bluetooth cans of some sort and then we'll put them around their neck and i'm like no i still don't like that either like it looks like it looks like this is a temporary access to your ears while you're getting ready to put those back on at any second um i

I'm wearing AirPods right now, but I almost never have them in unless I am actively watching something that I don't want to bother everybody with. And when Dan talked about.

pairing with his Apple TV. I think I've never done that and should do that. I often sit in my family room and watch on my iPad with a giant TV there because I don't want to bother everybody else. But of course I can watch on the giant TV and just listen to it directly in my ears. I got to do that. That's going to happen as early as today.

I just, I don't know. I feel like in a social situation, I feel you, Dan, I probably would just take one out if I'm ordering so that they don't think I'm listening. But I just feel like once I'm in a social situation where I'm talking to others, it comes off. because i stopped listening to the other thing um and i just want my kids to do that and they never will so now you know

All righty. We have reached halftime here at Clockwise, which means it's time to remind you about our Clockwise swag. If you head to Clockwise.social, you can get a Clockwise shirt, a Clockwise hat, a Clockwise tote. A clockwise mug and other clockwise goodies. They are great goodies. And by golly, when you buy them, good gravy, they're good goodies. And when you buy them, you'll be helping to support the work we do here on the show.

So please head to clockwise.social and pick up your own Clockwise swag. All right, we are back from halftime here on Clockwise, and that means it's time for Dan's topic.

Well, last week was WWDC, which means this week kicks off beta season. I want to know, do you install beta software on your Apple devices? If you haven't already, will there come a point in the season where you do?

And which devices do you sacrifice to the beta? Kathy, we'll start with you. This is a very easy answer. No, I don't. I'm very, very... boring in that i let other people ruin their devices and their battery life and i just kind of um vibe along i might do public beta like a month before the like new iphone announcements come out i'm probably not getting a new phone so that kind of lets the fall excitement exist um but yeah i i

I don't tinker. I don't like playing around with stuff. So I will just let other people do it and witness their trauma from here. I. typically leave my watch out of the mix and the Apple TV out of the mix. the shared Apple TV, the living room Apple TV. But I have one, my non-production Mac has macOS 26 running on it. iPad has iPad OS 26 running on it and my... iPhone that I said I wasn't going to put it on does have iOS 26 running on it. And I've been very impressed thus far with the betas.

Something that will get me to... undo a beta very quickly is if it messes at all with audio streaming. Because again, audiobooks. And so I have in the past uninstalled betas whenever they've caused me a bunch of issues. It's happened a couple of times and I've kind of looked at it and said, listen, you're on your last straw, but it hasn't happened too much. So I can't hear you. My audio streaming doesn't work. So that's me. Lex, what about you?

So I used to be a very early beta jumper. And that was probably also when I worked for Macworld. And now I'm not. I'm a little more cautious, especially because... I, you know, I work for myself. If I screw up something where I can't do my job on my computer, I don't have like IT that I can go to to bail me out necessarily. And like I have some international travel coming up and I have found.

very fairly on Apple's part, that early iOS betas tend to be battery guzzlers. And when I'm traveling internationally next month, I don't want that to happen. The other big thing that frustrates me when I do install early betas is sometimes... struggling in time sensitive moments. Like even I have this, frankly, with the release versions of iOS 18 that I'm using now, but you go to take a picture and instead the phone.

uh kind of does a soft reboot to its spinning wheel screen god i hate that bug um but like i don't want to not be able to get a photo or not be able to find a website when i'm like trying to translate an italian word or something and i'm stressed out by that i also have an app So I need to be running some of these betas. Currently, I'm only doing in beta Xcode in the simulator, but I need to get these things on my devices. And I think I'm going to wait till developer release.

two and ideally three. If it's, I don't leave the country until early July. So I'm hoping that we can be on a third beta by then because that's when I'll feel comfortable. But so far I'm running no betas anywhere. And I almost never do the Mac beta. I'm too, I use my Mac too much. too scared of messing it up but i'll do the ios ones once they're maybe like the third in as long as people are saying that they're reasonable on battery and crashes

That's a good variety of answers. I put the iPad OS 26 beta on last week at WPC and I put the Mac OS on my MacBook Air, which is not my production computer when I got home. And I'm just going to briefly flip on my camera right now to show you. live stream as I install the iOS on my phone right at this very moment. Is that a terrible idea?

We'll find out. But I do end up putting on usually pretty early, even though I tell myself I won't. And the reason is because I write about all these things and specifically iOS. I often... do the review for over at Six Colors every fall. And so I feel like I like to get in the door as early as possible so I can see how it changes and evolves over the summer and get really, you know, start thinking about things and start writing down notes and things like that.

I wish I, you know, part of me wishes I had more devices that I could easily sacrifice to these things and I could then compare them. But I don't. Not unlike Lex, I work for myself. I do not have a lot of extra devices lying around, and therefore, I generally move stuff over pretty quick. I have both done and not done watch betas in the past. I don't know. This year, there's a couple things on there that I'm leaning towards putting it on just because I want to try them out.

We'll see how that works because I have an older watch that already has some battery life issues and that might be the nail in its coffin. I don't know. I'm a little worried about it. But you know what? Living dangerously. That's what I'm going to do. It's the year of living. beta dangerously or something. I don't know. Anyway, thanks for your thoughts on that.

Let's go to our final topic, which comes from Kathy. All right. So people like to talk about what they don't like ads on, like, I don't know, clockwise or YouTube, you know, these types of things. No, mainly they're paying so that you can get the money so they don't have the ads. What is something that you're totally fine having the ads on? So...

I have a friend who, I think I've talked about this friend before, really likes and will espouse the beauty that is Australian Survivor. And at one point, Australian Survivor was available in the US and then it no longer became available in the US. So my friend uses a VPN to appear as if they are in Australia so that they can watch Australian Survivor because it's an incredible show or so I hear. And so with that, there are.

advertisements that play in between the portions of the show. And those ads... Perhaps make that friend feel less guilty about watching something that they're not technically supposed to be watching because at least everybody's still getting their money. Right. And many. the things that are advertised, says this friend, are things that are available in the US as well. So that still works. Although some of them are things like Hungry Jack and...

You're not going to catch me at Burger King's. I mean, my friend at Burger King's. So, yeah. That is a place where I'm okay with ads. Also, I mean, where my friend is okay with ads. Also, there's something delightful about seeing in other countries.

advertisements and seeing the difference between them. And perhaps it doesn't make... you feel as like oh god there's an ad playing i gotta get what why is there an ad playing which is how i feel a lot of time whenever i'm watching stuff in the u.s like i thought i paid for this to not have ads why is there an ad there uh yeah so that's That's where I'm going with it. Lex, what about you? Listen, ads put my kids through college. And I...

Hate all ads. So there are a handful of exceptions. But when I saw this question from Kathy, I guess my thought is I really do mind the ads in just about every app or service. And I am. pretty good about paying to eliminate ads that annoy me. There's nothing that upsells me on switching to a streaming services ad-free tier more than the ads because I hate them. The two exceptions I can think of are I still enjoy host red ads on podcasts when the host can put their own personality into them.

I don't like when they play the same host red ad multiple times in an episode. That is infuriating. But I do enjoy a host red ad that's got some comedy or just personality in it. Is there a show, Lex, that you can think of that has really great host red ads? people would like. Maybe people listen to this podcast. You like tech podcasts.

uh the rebound available wherever podcasts are downloaded um the uh but i guess the only other place where i enjoy seeing ads is if you're watching you'll see these things come up on youtube sometimes like here's a classic episode of maybe Fraggle Rock never had ads. But here's a classic episode of some old TV show with its original ads in there from like a grainy VHS tape. I love seeing nostalgia ads. So that's fine. But that's it.

Those are good, though. I mean, I put the nostalgia ads and the foreign country ads in kind of a similar boat. Like when I was a teenager, we used to go to MIT because they had an anime club and we would be watching anime shows that were in. that day and age like often taped off of japanese television and then subtitled by fans and sometimes you would get ones where they had not edited out the commercials because it was harder in the 90s to do those things uh and the japanese ads were

And they were always entertaining. And you learn to like over the course of a season, you'd be like, oh, it's the Japanese Ronald McDonald again. It's so weird and just fun and different. And so that is an entertainment in and of itself. Beyond that, I think my struggle is mainly like...

how much do ads bother me versus how much do I not want to give people more money, which is exactly what they are designed to do. I think in particular, one place that I have not paid to get rid of ads, that I've seen increasing numbers of ads and I'm annoyed, but I'm not so annoyed that I'm going to fork over more money. is Prime Video because they did that thing where it's like oh you paid to not have ads but now you have ads unless you give us more money and I was like nope

Jeff Bezos has enough money. So I'm not paying any more to get rid of ads there. But there are some other services that have later introduced ad tiers. And I've upgraded or stayed at my level. I won't downgrade to get ads and save money, but I often also will not pay more to get fewer ads. I'll just be more annoyed about it. There you go. Kathy, what about you? Yeah, so...

Prime Video is my thing because they canceled Wheel of Time, so I'm not going to give them any more money, but I kind of have to have Prime for multiple sanity reasons because of... scheduled stuff that gets shipped so that like my animals can eat and i have laundry detergent and and that sort of thing i could figure i may figure out how to fix that but um that's that's that's a future me

problem um and additionally uh random games that i will decide i want to see if i enjoy playing them um for just like brain like shutdown time uh i'm not gonna pay money for these, especially when they're really ridiculous. $30 a week or something to get no ads. I'm like, I will just handle the ads. Thank you very much. Like, no, that's fine. But yeah, thank you all for your really, really good answers.

All righty. Well, it is just about the end of this episode of Clockwise, but we do have enough time for a bonus topic. Here's my question for you all. If you had. A round-trip plane ticket to anywhere in the world leaving tomorrow. Where would you go? Lex, we'll start with you. I love traveling and I think I'd want to go to a place that I have never been. But I think if I'm going tomorrow, I also want it to be a place where they speak English. So Hawaii, I've never been.

or Australia where I have been once for a week would be the two places. And probably if you're paying and I'm going tomorrow, I guess, I guess I would do Hawaii because at least I know I don't have to worry about visa stuff so far.

I wanted to have the clarifying question of what am I flying business class or coverage? Because that will depend on how far I'm willing to go. You get the best seat possible. Oh, the best seat possible? Great. I'm going to Japan. I wanted to go to Japan for years and I haven't got... chance yet I would really like to go someday but it is a very long flight and I would rather fly in comfort being of the tall persuasion as several of the other people on this podcast yeah I think we're all

Yeah. We're all above average. In height and in other things. Oh, hey. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo. Woo

My immediate reaction is automatically London, because I always want to go to London. That is always where I want to go. But then you all had really good answers of like... choosing places that you haven't been. So I'd pick New Zealand. Oh, nice. Also a good choice. Dan, I'll be seeing you in Japan, buddy. Oh, we clockwise from Japan. It's going to be great. That would be cool. And we can definitely afford business class tickets if everybody buys clockwise swag. laughter laughter

And we mean literally everybody in the entire world, not just the people listening here. If you out there would like to get ad-free episodes with an extra unwound episode every week, where Dan and I... chat you can become a member of clockwise just go to relay.fm clockwise sign up seven dollars a month seventy dollars a year and you will help support the show and our trip to japan uh all right all that is left is

to thank our awesome guests for joining us here this week. Lex Friedman, thank you for coming in clutch. We appreciate it. My pleasure. Thanks for having me. And Kathy Campbell, always a pleasure to have you on. Always joy to be here. Thank you for having me. And Micah, we'll be back next week. Probably not from Japan. But until then, we remind everyone listening out there, watch what you say. And keep watching the clock. Bye, everybody.