617: Put It in a Box

It's time for episode 617 of the Clockwise podcast from Relay, recorded Wednesday, August the 6th, 2025. Clockwise, four people, four tech topics, 30 minutes.

Welcome back to Clockwise, the tech podcast where we finally reached the episode number of Dan's Childhood Area Code. I am your host, Micah Sargent, and I am not joined this week by Dan Morin, whose child area... area code it is, but instead by host emeritus Jason Snell. Welcome back, Jason. Thanks, Mike. A shout out to everyone in the 617. And I'm realizing that I completely missed my opportunity in episode 209.

Oh, well, but at least we got Dan's here. I have so many to go. It's 816 for me. So get ready. Lie and wait. Get ready for it. the other people who happen to be lying in wait. To my left, managing editor at Max Stories, it's John Voorhees. Welcome back, John. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I'm 630 on my phone, so you're going to have to have me back for that one.

Yeah. Very nice. Very nice. That'll be soon. That'll be soon. I know. And on my left is Carissa Bell, senior reporter at Engadget. Welcome back to Clockwise Carissa. Hello, hello. I just want to say that I'm 619. So actually in two episodes, you'll be so soon. Well, you all know how this works. We've got four topics and just 30 minutes. So let's get to.

mine. I would love to know, how much do you care about cable management? at your desk, but also in your home. Do you have organization strategies? Do you choose chaos? Do you have something in between? Tell us about your way of organizing cables, if at all. John, we'll start with you. Well, I think I'm going to have to start off by admitting to chaos because as much as I'd like to be that kind of person who cares about cable management and does a good job at it.

I am incapable of doing a good job at it, even when I've tried. So for the most part, yeah, it's it's chaos, although. Recently, I did start kind of reorganizing my home office a little bit, trying to trim down some of the tech that I have at my desk. And in the process, realized, you know what? If I took one of these surge protectors, there's really...

thin profile surge protectors. And I Velcroed it to the underside of my standing desk. I could get most of my gear plugged into that. And by being on the underside of the desk, it hides most of those cables. So I'm getting there, but it's baby steps at this point.

Yeah, I agree with John that hiding, it's really cable management is hiding cables more than anything else. And so one of the revelations that I had was, yeah, I could run cables under my desk and Velcro things under my desk and screw things in. holders under my desk and have my top of my desk be basically clear. And that is every now and then I hook something new in and then that cable kind of hangs there until I eventually go through with like a little Velcro tie and kind of tie them all up.

little bit to make them not look like there's a, like a, I don't know what those are. Are they Stilect? tights anyway the uh you know a little like a little fronds we'll say dangling down from the ceiling of the cave uh and then the other uh cable management technique that i i've found it's a um

Very technical system called put it in a box where in my bedroom, I had like an Apple TV and we used to have a TiVo and all these other things. And there are cables everywhere in the closet. So you open the closet and there's this rat's nest of cables in there. And my solution was.

They make cable management boxes. How does a box manage the cables, you ask? And the answer is it's got two little slots on either side for cables to come out of. And otherwise, you just put all the junk in the box and close the cover and then nobody sees it. There's just a nice...

box there. And that one works for me really well too. Carissa, what about you? I really aspire to be the kind of person that has a cable management strategy. And it's funny that this came up because actually last night I was... looking for the cable for my microphone in preparation for this podcast. And I went underneath my desk and it was just...

A total rat's nest. And I was like, oh, I should really get one of those little baskets, you know, that you put that like hang underneath your desk where you can kind of like have everything sort of like lined up neatly. Don't do that now. But, you know, I really, you know. say like life goals. I have had a strategy that I use and have used for some time that involves kind of two main requirements for organizing cables. One of those is these mesh.

zipper bags and they come in a bunch of different sizes. And it was Rosemary Orchard actually who taught me about them. You basically just get the mesh zipper bag, you label it with what it is and you put the cables inside. And I love. velcro brand it's not just standard hook and loop it is velcro brand uh cable ties which are just those black or white uh cable ties that you wrap around and they're velcro or hook and loop and you fold up your cables and

and wrap it around and it's good to go. And so I've got... these different labeled bags for Apple Watch chargers, for USB-A to USB-A, USB-C to USB-A. But then the other thing that I use with my desk, it's this... pile 19 outlet power distribution unit that you would typically use in musician setups. And I have that underneath my desk. And because the chords on the back are. their cords instead of just plugs, then you can plug.

bricks, power bricks and stuff into them very easily. So all of that together has resulted in a pretty good setup. But yeah, that cable box is an interesting idea as well. So thank you for sharing that. And thank you all for your answers on that topic. Let's go to our next one, which comes from John.

So I'm going to be leaving for a summer vacation pretty soon. And I've been thinking about my flight. It's not a super long flight, but I'm flying to Texas. So it'll take a few hours. And I was thinking about what I'm going to do. to entertain myself on that flight. So I was wondering, you know, I'm not talking about what would you bring on a flight to get work done. What do you take on a flight?

to pass the time and entertain yourself instead of being bored, sitting there waiting to arrive wherever you're heading. I read my Kobo and I have my AirPods in, noise canceling, turned on, playing music. that's downloaded to my iPhone. And that's it. That's all. I just read. And this is when people say, hey, Jason, how is it that you can read so many books? Because I read like, I don't know, depending on how you count a book.

I mean, more than more than 50 a year, maybe more than 70 a year. It depends on the year. This is the answer is that when I could be playing a video game or I could be watching a movie on a plane or whatever, I get a Nintendo switch out and play on a plane, get my play date out. play it on the plane i end up you know packing some of that stuff and then i never use it because i'm just uh i'm reading books

And the great thing about traveling with e-books is back in the day, you had to carry all these heavy books with you. And now you can have dozens of books in one little tiny e-reader. So that's what I do. Carissa? I've never really been able, I've always had a hard time getting into like a movie or a show while I'm on a plane. I think it's just like a little too much background noise, a little too many distractions. So I really end up actually watching movies, except.

maybe for like really long flights. But I'm like you, I like to read. I always make sure I have at least one or two Kindle books and then... I try to also download a bunch of podcasts. I love listening to podcasts on flights. So I try to make sure that I download at least, you know, like three or four episodes of something I haven't heard before and have at least one book. And then I'll kind of go back and forth between those two things usually.

And that's kind of it. AirPods, of course, are a must or, you know, bigger headphones sometimes for noise canceling. And that's kind of it. The interesting thing is the past couple of times that I have flown, I end up... watching something on the in-flight entertainment, which I did not expect for myself, but I would be listening to an audio book and then I'd be going, okay, actually, I'm finding this is not passing the time as I would expect it would.

Then I just kind of browse through the in-flight entertainment and found a movie that I had never seen before. Or in some cases, for some reason, these airlines get movies that are still in theaters. And I'm like, oh, I'm going to. Watch that. And this is the thing. It's mostly a time passer.

I would get the warning, hey, you know, this flight's only an hour and a half and the movie's two hours. You're not going to be able to finish it. I don't care. I'm just looking for something to pass the time and I can watch the rest of it later. So I started The Woman in the Yard. in my seat and on the airplane and ended up having to finish it later. John, why don't you round us out?

Audio books for me tend to be more of a car trip thing, especially when I'm driving up and down the East Coast. But I always try to have. both a good playlist of music as well as some podcast episodes available because a lot of times all I want to do is put in my AirPods Pro and listen to something.

I think this year, though, this summer, I am going to bring my Nintendo Switch 2 because it's only been out for two months. And it's still the new shiny thing in my gadget bag that's for fun. And so I'll bring that along and maybe play a little of the...

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Thank you, Micah. I just got back from a weekend away. Lauren and I went up to Seattle for a couple of days. We packed very light. We ended up with no suitcase because we were going to be not renting a car and we're going to be taking public transit. And I thought, you know.

Carrying a suitcase around was a bad idea. Lauren didn't love this idea, but she went along with it. And then we got complimented for our amazing packing skills, which was kind of cool. Short trips are not the same as long trips, obviously. We did pack lots of chargers and cords and things, which made me think. If you're packing light for a weekend away, what is your usual...

tech load? What devices will you bring for maybe a long weekend away, but not like for a week-long vacation? What's your charger and cord strategy as well? I'm just curious, how light can you go or do you not bother and you pack? all the things, even if you're only going for a couple of days. Carissa, how about you? Yeah. So the one thing that I will always pack on any trip that has to be in my bag is a six foot long lightning cable.

Um, because you just, you know, especially if you're staying, you know, in a hotel and Airbnb, like you never know exactly where, like how far the outlet is going to be, uh, you know, say from the bed when you go to sleep. So like having that six foot cable, I find is like really my number one thing. I also have a little mini surge protector that has a couple of extra AC outlets, a couple of USB ports. So sometimes I bring that if I'm not sure. I think I might have to charge multiple devices.

But other than that, like I try to keep it light. You know, I have AirPods. I'll bring my Kindle. I usually travel with a Bluetooth speaker just because I like to have, you know, music in the morning or, you know, if you're. having a beach day or something like that. So usually we'll throw one of those in my backpack and that's kind of it usually, unless it's, you know, a short trip where I'm expecting to work and, you know, and then you might have to...

bring a laptop or something like that. But I really try not to pack, overpack on tech. I tend to bring AirPods, iPhone. And if I have to, I'll bring my MacBook Air, but I really don't want to do that. As far as cables go. I've got this Mophie travel charger that is a three in one. So it's there for my my phone. It's got a spot. My AirPods get a spot and my watch gets a spot. And that way I can avoid bringing more than that. I also have a little mesh zipper bag that has.

a few extras, because it has been my experience that when I am traveling with the significant other, the significant other has forgotten one of the at least two. charging cables slash adapters that are needed to charge his stuff. So there's a little extra bag. But for me, it's the three in one, the cable. And the adapter for it. And then my phone and my AirPods. John, what about you? So for shorter trips, well, really for any trip, I bring an anchor Meg go 35 watt.

battery pack that also has a USB-C cable in it and a little charging pad for the Apple watch, because that's perfect for the Apple watch. And having that cable connected to the battery pack means that I can basically charge. my iPhone, no matter where I am. It's got about enough battery life to do both of those things and still have maybe 10% left. If I'm bringing more stuff than that...

I do like to have a GAN charger that I can put in a wall and I plug into the wall that uses just USB-C because most of my stuff is USB-C now. And with those smaller chargers, there's like Ugreen makes some.

That, for instance, will have like two or three USB ports on them, and they can be as much as 100 watts sometimes. So you can get some pretty fast charging, which is important if you end up bringing a laptop. If I'm not bringing a laptop, I usually go with one that's a little bit... weaker and small and as a result usually a little smaller and can fit in my bag but that's kind of my strategy is a few usb-c cables a gan charger and a battery pack that doubles as a watch charger

I actually have a GAN wall charger that I just use for travel. It's an Anker 150 watt. And it's got three SBC and a USB-A on it. And that basically covers me. Generally, if it's a weekend, I'll bring my iPad, my Kobo, which probably won't even need to be charged on the trip, and my iPhone.

And, you know, and then in terms of my AirPods. Right. And so I still don't have the USB-C case for my AirPods. So there is this thing where I have to find a lightning cable because I just charge them using MagSafe at home. So I have to bring, sometimes, if I think that I might be using them a lot, I'll have to bring a... a lightning cable which is just the indignity but otherwise it's yeah apple watch cable and a couple of usb-c cables and i'm covered

If I have to do a podcast or something, it's still in flux. I may be able to do that on the iPad in the future, depending on what microphone I bring. So yeah, I try to keep it that light to the iPad, a phone. And then sort of miscellaneous things. And the Apple Watch obviously is on my wrist. So I'm going to need to charge that. But Lauren's charger is a USB charger that has a little cord that goes to the plug. And actually...

If I were planning now, I think I might get another one of those instead because as nice as it is to have the thing that goes right into the wall, the fact is so often you're staying someplace where the outlet is behind something or...

away from you to some degree and it's kind of nice to have a block that has a cord on it so you can kind of get your chargers you know then it's the length of the cord plus the length of your charging cables to get your phone or your watch in a place where you can use

it as your alarm clock or whatever it is, or wake up in the middle of the night and see what time it is. So I, you know, I have this charger, so I'm going to use this charger and it's got suction cups on the, on it optionally so that it'll not fall out of the wall socket, which happens a lot with these big chargers, but I'm always optimizing. And this last weekend, I was definitely envious of Lauren's plan to have the little charger with the cord. That helped a lot.

Well, great. Thank you all for your contributions there. Carissa, the last topic is yours. Yeah, another travel question. I'm getting ready for an international trip and... I've spent way too much time researching various options for international data plans. And I'm wondering if you all have a strategy that you use when you're traveling abroad so that your phone will still work and what your tricks are, if you have any.

What I recommend from the, you know, giving this advice to others and having them come back and say, oh, this was this was great, is that. A lot of phones these days are eSIM phones, and there are great applications that you can get that offer. international data over eSIM. And managing it all right there on your phone is really nice. There are a few different...

ways that you can go about it. And a few different apps that are available. And I honestly, I don't, I don't have off the top of my head, the name of the apps that I've recommended, but I've just been impressed by what's available out there outside of the carrier options that seem to be pretty pricey. So I think ultimately that's my advice is look at what your carrier is offering.

And then look elsewhere and probably go, oh, wow, these other options are so much better. John, perhaps you have some more direct advice. All right. So years ago, I would use AT&T's daily plan where it would just allow you to use your existing data in another country. But that costs, I think it still costs $10 a day, which if you're gone for any length of time, that gets pretty expensive.

compared to some of the eSIM options that Micah suggested. And the one that I've been using over the last few years is called Air Allo, which has an app. I've used it in Ireland, England, and Italy. And in each place, it works really well. I mean, it's inexpensive compared to the AT&T option. And you can easily top off, even if you pick a plan and say you run out of data, you've been...

uploading a lot of pictures on your trip or something like that, you can always add on to it at any time and top it off. So what I do is I go and I get a relatively modest plan. And then as I go through my trip, If I get to a point where I feel like I need more data, I just buy another, you know, $20 a day or whatever it is. Yeah, I'm with John. I think so. Glenn Fleischman wrote something on six colors last week.

uh about this where he did a bunch of the research and you know it used to be that uh that you should not use your carrier because or you had to use your carrier and they charged you terribly like there were bad times things are much better now esims make it even easier i used to have to like go get to the the sim vending machine at the airport or go to uh sell like i i went to the three store in dublin so i could get a prepaid sim my first day in ireland stuff like that right

eSims makes that all easier. You can usually get them before you go. Erlo is good, and I've used them before. The things to look for are... Are you buying voice or just data? And does that matter to you? Because when I went to New Zealand, I didn't understand. And I bought data, but not voice, which only mattered for one day. And this is the big story is your carriers.

um, plan matters because first off, yeah, AT&T is like $12 a day, but it's a 10 day max during the cycle. So it's really $120 for your whole trip. If you are out for more than. 10 days, which is not bad. And that's why I would say it's more about convenience. If you're more comfortable just doing that or you're only going to be gone for a few days, it's fine. If you're willing to put in the extra work, you can save some money using an eSIM.

Our New Zealand trip, I had to take a call at one point, but that was one day. So that was $10 or $12. And the rest of the time, we just use our data sims and the data was relatively fast. That's the other thing to look at is like, what's your data cap on these things? what network is it using? Is it using a really slow network or a decent network? But I highly recommend looking at Erlo and some others. There are also some sites, and I don't have the names handy, where you can actually...

say where you're going and then comparison shop from all the eSIM vendors and sort of see what they have on offer and then pick one that fits you. There are some that are in a specific country and there's some for regions. So if you're traveling to a bunch of different countries, you may be able to for in Europe, for example.

find an eSIM plan that covers the EU or all of Europe, including the UK, or even broader range than that. And that can be really useful too. So on my last few international trips, I have absolutely done the eSIM thing. but it's less obvious to do that now than it was before because your carriers are not ripping you off. I mean...

This is how competition works, is they realize that their plans were so untenable that nobody would want to use them except dummies. And now with eSIMs, it's so much easier to not use their plans that they've brought them down in price. So check with your carrier, but totally eSIM.

Pay-as-you-go plans are awesome. And I highly recommend them. Does that help, Carissa? Yeah, yeah. These are all great options. So I've always kind of... I've been using the same method more or less the last few years, which has... more recently become an eSIM method, which is I have a separate phone plan through Google Fi that for 99% of the year I keep paused and I don't.

you know, don't have it active. And then when I travel, I activate that number. It's a US phone number, but it just has flat rate data, like no matter, and no roaming. So it doesn't matter what country you go to. It's all just a flat rate. So then before a trip, I'll activate that plan as my secondary sim and then pause international roaming on my main line and kind of like use those two together.

It's worked pretty well. I've used it in many different countries. There's been one or two times where you got somewhere and the network was very slow. But for the most part, I can get fast data. I can't get 5G. But I do find that it's somewhat consistent. And as long as you're not super overdoing it on data, it tends to be fairly reasonable, at least more reasonable than Verizon's international plan, which is what I have.

Kind of intrigued by like these standalone apps that a few of you have mentioned that seems like something I might want to look into because it is, it can be just like a little bit confusing, you know, when you're have. have two SIMs on your phone. You're trying to keep like your main iMessage open, but like not get charged by your provider. Like you can get into like some kind of complicated situations. Absolutely. All right.

It is just about time for our bonus topic. But I want to remind you all that we have clockwise swag that you can get yourself at clockwise.social. When you head to clockwise.social, you'll see options for... getting our shirt, our hat, our tote, our stickers, and our mug. and a few other things as well. And when you purchase those, it helps support the show and the stuff we do here on the network. So please head to clockwise.social to check it out and sport your swag.

All right. My bonus topic for you. If you had to raise livestock, which animal would you choose? John, we'll start with you. Well, I'm going to go with sheep, Micah, because during COVID. One of my kids who was going to college in Ireland at the time was dating a girl whose parents were sheep farmers. And he ended up during lockdown spending about a year.

living on a sheep farm in Southern Ireland, taking his classes remotely. And he sent a lot of wonderful pictures to us of the sheep grazing in the fields of Ireland. And he helped out around the farm. I don't know. Because of that, I'm going to pick sheep. So I grew up on a ranch out in the middle of nowhere on 45 acres in a one stoplight outside of one stoplight town. So we had lots of different animals.

I'd probably pick cows. I found our cows quite pleasant and mostly docile. And I have a fond memory of mowing the lawn. And we had a large, I mean, it was just an expanse of grass at the front of the property, really. I mean, it was not a lawn. It was a football field kind of. And we had a riding mower. And when I would start mowing the lawn, they could hear that. And the cows would gather at the front fence.

And when the beep of the thing being full, so I need to empty it, went off, they all began mooing because they knew I would be rolling the lawnmower over to them and dumping fresh cut grass for them. And I was like...

I always found the cows pleasant, so I would choose cows. So I don't know if this counts, but I see a lot of accounts on Instagram where people have miniature ponies, and they just seem really... adorable and like something between a pet and livestock so i feel like that would be something that would be really fun and bring a lot of joy to my life so i think i would want you know some miniature ponies

I love it. I was going to choose either chickens or ducks. I have not had duck eggs myself, but I have. been told that duck eggs are really delicious. And I think ducks are delightful creatures. And my significant other had a pet duck growing up that he adored. And I've heard so many stories about it that I'm like, I want a pet duck or four. I would like to have ducks.

Thank you all for your answers on that bonus topic. If you would like to get ad free episodes with an extra unwound episode every week, you can become a member of clockwise. You just go to relay.fm slash clockwise to sign up $7 a month, $70 a year to help support the show.

And with that, we have reached the end of this episode of Clockwise. All that is left is to thank our awesome guests. John Voorhees, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure. And Carissa Bell, thank you for being here. Thank you. I've learned a lot today. Micah, always a pleasure to be your, in case of emergency, bring original host out of cryo sleep to be on the show. It's been a pleasure being here as always.

Wonderful. And of course, we remind everyone out there listening, watch what you say. And keep watching the clock. Bye, everybody.