640: Physical Media Girlie

It's time for episode 640 of the Clockwise Podcast from Relay, recorded Wednesday, January 21st, 2026. Clockwise, four people, four tech topics, thirty minutes. Welcome back to Clockwise, the Tech Podcast, where we've turned over a new leaf. But kept the same clock. I am one of your hosts, Micah Sargent, and I am joined across the internet by my good pal, my dear friend, the one, the only, Dan, the man. Morton. How you doing, Dan?

I'm doing well. I'm trying to imagine what would happen if we had picked a different clock. Like, would it have fewer hours? More hours? Would the hours be a different length? Let's consider clocks for a while, shall we? Hmm, different clocks. While we think about different clocks, let me introduce you to different people. Joining us this week, investigative journalists at Consumer Reports.

And the I know, I know you've heard enough about it, Paris, but for everyone else, the person who has saved people from lead poisoning. It's Paris Martinell. Welcome back to the show, Paris. Thanks so much for having me. I just to state for the record, I think they should make a clock that's like a long oval. I think they should try to figure that out. Ooh. And to my left this week, it is Edder at Large at 95 Mac. Zach Hall. Welcome back, Zach.

Hello, thanks for having me. You know how the show works. We've got 30 minutes for topics.

And we should get underway. Mine for you is this. I'm just curious to hear your thoughts on Netflix's at the time upcoming but now uh happening, live voting sort of real time streaming show. Uh is history repeating itself? Are we returning to the times of American Idol? And what do we think about Netflix being the host of these sort of uh live happening, live voting situations. Paris, we'll start with you. I hadn't heard of this particular show till you put it on the rundown, but I feel like

In a way, they're trying to copy not even American Idol, but Love Island. Oh, I don't know if any of you guys follow, but it's been kind of the breakout reality TV pro format of the last couple of years. Love Island USA, I think, uh, which streamed basically every day, um, for six weeks in the summer going on uh I guess uh showing what happened at the last day, they have kind of like live voting where people will participate via an app and it will affect what happens in the show.

Not, I guess, live during the stream, but it's been a big reason why I think that show got so big. So I wonder if this is kind of trying to coast off of that excitement. So first of all, I'm I'm god I'm old enough to remember the original Star Search, uh, which this is the revival of, which was from the eighties, uh hosted by Ed McMahon. So uh

you know, nothing there's nothing new under the sun, right? Uh all these ideas can constantly get recycled, so it doesn't surprise me at all. And we see these things come and go in cycles, right? So in the same way that, you know, you had something like Star Search back in the eighties And I'm sure you ha you know, American bandstand and stuff. You wanna go back to the Dick Clark

era and then you had American Idol in the nineties. And you know, every twenty years or so I think we just recycle our ideas and and for the r the newest era and that's true in many ways, from everything from, you know, intellectual property to uh, you know, what's the hot genre to reality shows. So it it doesn't surprise me that we've adapted this format to the modern streaming era.

Um, I'm I'm not sure that I think it's gonna be, you know, much different than what we've seen before. Uh these are these are not my my personal types of shows, so I can't speak to them very well, but uh I do feel like Um I'm I'm just, you know. I'm jaded maybe. There's nothing new anymore. We're just gonna, you know, revitalize the zombie corpse of a show that's forty years old and see how it goes now. Zach, what do you think?

I like the idea of of incentivizing is incentivizing viewers to watch something live and together. Um and I think that's the component of this that I think is neat. You know, it y you have to watch it as it airs to to h interact with the program to

um sort of influence what happens and if you watch it after the fact then that that component is you you just missed out. Maybe it incentivizes you to tune into the next live, you know, stream of this. Um and just sort of that like romantic idea of a lot of people doing the same thing at the same time and having a shared experience even separately is is is kind of neat.

Um and it I think it's a better version of interactive TV than say like choose your you know your your ending or um decision. I I think what happens with with Netflix and that is that it's just too complicated and Netflix is you know i like The most simple version of Netflix is the one that that wins and and when you have that stuff it's kind of It doesn't doesn't doesn't age well, doesn't work out. I I also think about like Netflix for Apple TV.

You know, it would never be on the platform like on on that product because it you know, I I don't think the interactive stuff made it or or took a while, even Netflix with the ads right now is like years old and broken on Apple T V. Um, it also reminded me of when um Netflix accidentally supported an Apple T V feature that everyone wanted for years, but they said it was totally an accident.

And that was working with a T V app. So mad about the skills, actually. Yeah, I looked back at the headline I had. It was Netflix confirms it didn't mean to support that Apple TV feature everyone has wanted for years. Uh and Netflix told The Verge that their participation was an error and it's been rolled back.

accidentally turned on a feature. That's a thing that happens. What do we want? We want that. What do we get? We get voting. Yeah, so Paris, I did not realize that Uh Love Island had a voting component that actually makes it more interesting to me just because it's I will say it's very interesting just because It's like a show that takes place every day. You're getting an hour of what happened yesterday on Love Island. And usually sometime during that week there's a

Fifteen minutes after the show ends, you get to vote on who stays, who goes, who goes on dates. And that's kind of fun. It's kind of much like you, uh had just said, Zach, it's really interesting to incentivize the live TV viewing experience in the age of streaming. It is bringing back kind of this uh moment that I feel like we lost. Yeah, I I a hundred percent. What Paris said is how I feel. And so we're good on my topic. Let's go to our next one, which comes from Paris.

I saw, I believe last week that Meta had announced another round of cuts to its reality labs division, which is of course the metaverse division of Meta. I think they're cutting uh a thousand five hundred employees, which is like ten percent of the unit staff. And this comes after like a couple weeks ago. The budget for this reality labs division was slashed by like up to 30%, is coming at the same time that they're basically shutting down the VR for work.

program, all these different uh studio closures that existed to I guess make content for the metaverse are shutting down. This has just had me thinking, like, what even was the metaverse? W or maybe even more importantly, why was the metaverse why did Meta choose to rebrand itself to this in twenty twenty one and then seemingly immediately abandon it once they correctly realized that no one really wanted to hang out in a VR chatroom.

I'm curious as to your guys' experience with this. Did you ever participate in the metaverse? Was it ever rewarding to you? Cause for me, I never saw any use for it. You know, Facebook is a company with really no center, no identity, and probably no moral core. And I think they're just there to try and figure out how to keep themselves afloat, realizing that their cash cow Facebook will slowly be dying off. uh over the next decade or two.

Uh and so they thought metaverse was the hot new thing and they jumped on it. Um it wasn't. Um now they jumped on AI, which is doing slightly better right now, but I think long term they may not be the players in it that they'd like to be. Um I don't know. I I just think they don't have vision. I don't think Meta has ever really had a vision of who it was. It's just the it's the ultimate ultimate opportunistic.

company of like, oh, that's popular, let's do that. Um, in the same way that we all knew, you know, the the kids in high school who jumped on whatever fad was popular at the time and made that their identities. Uh, there's nothing really underneath. So I never used the metaverse. You know, Google's famous for throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks. I think meta i does this too, except maybe it's more of a

throw it at the wall and see what doesn't stink. Um and in both cases I think the answer is generally a lot less stuff than you like. All you gotta do is get lucky once though, I guess. So uh, you know, I uh full disclosure, I knew somebody who worked at uh the, you know, Oculus division of of Meadow and you know got laid off by them several years ago and it felt at that point like the writing was kind of on the wall.

for this whole endeavor. So I'm not surprised and I think when the AI bubble pops, uh, they'll be scrambling to find something else that they can, uh, you know, capitalize on. Zach?

In defense of the metaverse. No, I'm kidding. Um Zach's like I'm in the metaverse right now. I met my wife on the metaverse now. Uh I I I I think that that the the impacting you know the impact of the metaverse for for Facebook is that it spawned the name meta for the company and gave them a reason to go from product as company name to having a company name that owns a bunch of products. Uh increasingly more, increasingly more. Um

I think that they ruined a perfectly good phrase uh that we used to use that's so meta to be like that's sort of like inception ish. Yeah. Uh that's too bad. There was a really good motorcycle magazine called Meta that had to rebrand. and uh can never remember the new name, so that's terrible. I I think that metaverse is I I I what I think it was or or is or or mm, I don't know. But it's like gatekeeping of how people already use the internet, but

making it a a a VR feature. Um, I feel like what they want the metaverse to be, like this digital place that you go. already exist in in really big ways. You know, back to AOL instant messaging, that was kind of like this virtual place that you would suddenly go to. from where, you know, your reality to this online community and that's only, you know, become more and more of a thing as the internet um becomes part of everything in life.

Uh even like gaming I watch my kids with like Roblox and Fortnite and I feel like they've they've got their their friends there and it's like a non-VR way to escape where you are and have this other experience and that's sort of what meta wanted Metaverse to be is you go to our our version of the internet community and you have to use our product to get there and that d yeah didn't have legs.

Um very good. Yeah. That's the winner. Um I did use the meta horizons or meta human worldwide or whatever the heck it's called. I used it just because I was curious and I actually thought there was something to this idea of being able to like create your own little room that You could customize however you want and sort of

You could visit it every day and make new changes to it and you could then show people. And I remember going to one like Halloween themed space that someone had created and you're walking around and you're like uh fighting ghosts and That idea was really cool. It sort of is what people do on Fortnite though, and Fortnite is far more of a success, uh, even outside of the VR space. And so yeah, I just ultimately felt

like I don't wanna be in VR for very long. And that I think is the the the bigger problem there with this whole idea of second world situation is the technology just doesn't leave me wanting more. Um, and in fact, wanting less of that. And yeah, the idea that that that Facebook did this huge rebrand with this hope. uh, that things would change. I think it just that alone is kind of fascinating. Um

You know, it th there's there's some sort of hope there, or is it foolishness? I don't know. Uh why don't you round us out, Paris, on how what you feel? I just never really understood why

anyone thought this was a good idea. Second it's like Second Life has already kind of done this and everyone widely panned Second Life as a concept. It always seemed very foolish of me that people thought we would want to be spending time in this kind of cheesy looking virtual world, uh, for both work and social reasons. And I'm excited and happy that it is finally fading away.

Well, folks, we have reached halftime here on the show, which means it's time for me to remind you about our wonderful website, clockwise.social. When you head to clockwise.social, You will see beautiful images that lead to, uh, if you click on them, that are links to our awesome swag. Uh, we have awesome hats, we have shirts, we have stickers, we have all sorts of fun stuff that you can get.

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Uh so I'm curious, is there a tech device that you use? Maybe only occasionally, and maybe it's a little bit pricier than something you would have gone out and bought, um, but that it's so useful in those moments when you do need it that it you you think it's totally worth the investment. Zach? Uh I was thinking about it and and I was looking around my room, looking around my house, like Does this qualify? Does this fit? Is that is that true? Is it an honest answer? It's like um you know, books?

Um pants. I don't know. Only occasionally it's all together. It all comes together. Uh what I came down to was my iTunes movie and and TV show library. Uh I I have movies like Ad Astra that I sometimes just play in the background. I have every pre Disney Plus Marvel movie, The Big Lebowski, Cats nineteen ninety eight and twenty nineteen, you've got male.

All seasons of the Golden Girls Jetsons Andy Griffith Show, six Charlie Brown holiday specials, Veronica Mars, and season six, episode fifteen of How I Met Your Mother from two thousand eleven called O Honey because Katy Perry was a guest and I was twenty years old. So um that's my answer. I've hunted down movies that um

I I like to find like what streaming service is this on, only to realize months later, oh, I had that in this iTunes collection that I never, you know, really look at intentionally. Um and these days I sort of use Paramount kind of like that. Like I watch Everybody Loves Raymond. Um I've discovered a show called Fraser with the U.S.

I'd learned Hazard prequel called Cheers that's new to me. You're making me angry But uh yeah and I used to think like man I've spent so much money on on movies and T V shows. This is just a not great use of of money but and now I d you know, have to go and like remember that I have it, but it but it does become useful whenever I uh you know, rediscover my purchased movies and T V shows.

I think it's worth the investment for the fun that I have had. If I was to sort of approach it from a logical perspective, no, probably not worth the investment, but from a brings me joy and is a legitimately useful perspective, it's my three D printer. I don't print stuff a whole lot. But I often find little situations Um, you know, oh the the vacuum would really benefit from having this little clip on it or the window latch um broke and you need this. Little situations like that where I can

I love being able to a design something and then B print it out with the 3D printer and have it there in hand uh and be able to use it for stuff. And then it also makes fun um plant pots, which I have a lot of 3D printed plant pots that I've made. And then they're also just fun little things. I printed out a bunch of very, very, very small snails. Uh there was like a little snail model and I have like doled out

five to ten snails to all of my friends. And then we just leave little snails in different places. And like that's just fun, whimsical and Uh, silly. And so yeah, I I it I I have found it is worth the investment, despite the fact that it really does not get uh like regular use. It's not even you know, every other week it's probably much uh much less than that. Uh Paris, what about you?

First I just want to say I love the idea of doling out five to ten small snails to my friends. Thank you. That's incredible. Um mine I is I recently, I don't know, got back into movies. I love going to movie theaters, obviously, but um at the I guess beginning of last year I was worried about

tariffs, perhaps correctly. And I was like, Well, I guess I should get a new T V. I haven't got a new T V in like ten years. Leo, uh, of Twit convinced me to get a fancy new T V and as part of me doing this, I was like, Well I guess I'm gonna also become a physical media girly and I got a Panasonic UB420. 4K ultra high def Blu-ray player, and it's been so fun to own my own media.

Um, it's also just been lovely. I mean, beyond just the benefits of having my own media and being able to access it when things disappear off streaming, which is great. It's been wonderful to rediscover the pleasure of like DVD extras. Oh yeah. I think that in the streaming era, we've all or at least I've forgotten that they used to just make fantastic little extras or shorts or behind the scenes of all of your favorite movies.

or a director's commentary, which is just a delightful form that I think we don't see that often because Why would we? It doesn't really exist in the streaming era, but it's been wonderful to be able to watch all the movies I want, own them, and then get to watch them again, but with the actors and directors talking over most of the dialogue of the movie to explain fun stuff that happened behind the scenes.

That's good. Those are classics. My uh my wife talks fondly of the Orlando Bloom commentary on the Lord of the Rings'cause apparently Yeah it's not it's not great. Oh, I'm sure it's like I shot an arrow. There I am shooting another arrow. That sounds about right. It's beautiful. You're like you were hungover clearly when you they brought you in the studio today, huh? What am I talking about? What movie is

What are we watching? Um, these are all great answers. Love'em all. I have a um a scan snap. Which is like one of those document feeder scanners. And I don't use it very often. But it has made a difference in my life in part because what things I get in paper that I don't need like I I first of all, I get much less stuff in paper. I don't get paper bills for the most part, all that. I've gone, you know, paperless as far as I can, but sometimes you can't avoid it.

And so being able to scan those things and shred or get rid of the originals is great. And I especially love it at yes, tax time, because I have also not avoided being able to get uh some of my forms in paper copies. And so being able to quickly scan all those in

uh and then be like, all right, don't don't need the tax forms anymore. I can put'em in a folder and get rid of'em eventually, but I still have copies on my computer. It's great. And the scan snap well on the pricey side and while it has some software that could be a little better. The hardware is great. I mean, it is fast, it is very efficient, it's very reliable. I really love it. I've been I've been threatening my parents that I'm gonna bring it over to their house and start scanning the

just piles of paper that are in their house. You don't need these all this paper. Um and so uh, you know, I I I balked a little bit when I first bought it because I thought, oh man, it's really pricey. It was several hundred dollars. I'm like, am I really gonna use it? But you know what? Every time I use it, it is one of those things like nope, this is worth every penny. It's so much more effective than those old flatbed scanners. It's great.

Uh well that is my topic. We have one topic remaining which comes from Zach.

My answer was almost my scanner, my document scanner. And I I so wish so mad. Um Uh my question is, do you have any old technology that you that you sort of use in an off label way that you've maybe repurposed or restored to use um today that you that you actually find useful? Yeah, I can't I I don't like getting rid of uh old smart home tech, particularly like webcams and things. Those little camera modules. are fun to try to hack.

um and play around with and see if you can do anything with them. Um, and so I have over time when I have wanted to get really into sort of the the soldering and and sort electrical aspects of things. uh and 3D printing, combining it all together, um to take those webcam modules and use them in any way possible.

Uh I also will sometimes, you know, strip other things for parts. I will not I I should I should very quickly finish that sentence. Uh strip other technology that I have for parts and just like How can I reuse this little thing? How can I? Yeah, so nothing nothing specific in terms of taking old technology and sort of uh repurposing it. Um, but repurposing the tech within the tech is something that's fun in a sort of tinker maker space way. Uh Paris, what about you?

Yeah, similarly I was racking my brain on this one. I was like, I don't think I have any old technology I'm using in an off liable way, but I should. Um, so I went with One piece of technology I use that m most of my colleagues would say in the journalism world is kind of archaic or ridiculous to use is I have a physical voice recorder that I use to record like interviews.

with um sources or people I'm quoting for work. It's a Phillips voice tracer and it looks like a little tiny uh classic voice recorder with a mic on one end. But I love it because I plug in a little pickup mic that looks like a headphone, like a little earbud, and I put it in one of my ears and then I put over the ear headphones on on top of it and it just records the other side of the call.

And then I can only hear my muffled voice. When I'm transcribing it, I don't have to hear I don't have to think about myself. And then I also don't have to I've realized that people get a little intimidated if you if they can hear you type type in a way. Um so it's good then'cause it will actually noise cancel it on the other side.

That's cool. That that was a really really good answer. Uh yeah, I was racking my brain about this as well. Um, I don't think I have a lot of old I mean, I have some old tech that's sort of there for archival purposes, like I have an old laserdisc player, but it doesn't really get used. Uh it's in my closet, in my office. Uh I got a stack of hard drives. I don't think I've really repurposed them to do anything, but I should maybe like build little hard drive henge.

Um yeah, I was gonna say it's giving sculpture for sure. It's so hard to get rid of these things. Um, the uh the piece of tech that is it's not old, but like I have a I have a I've written about this over on Six Colors, but I have an e ink display. that I have rigged up to be an on air sign for my office. So it's it's wireless, it's e ink, it runs on a one of those little ESP thirty two embedded chips.

Uh it is c like velcroed to my door with those three M Velcro strips, um, because it needs to be recharged every so often. Um, but it is a total uh like I you know, I bought the the e ink screen and the the connected stuff in a three D case from the purveyor, but I wrote all the software, you know, for it with the help of some consultants and some later on some AI tools, but

Um that is kind of the closest thing I have to like repurposed. Like it's something that's sort of built, I guess, with purpose. But beyond that, I I really am struggling to think of like stuff. I'm sure I will come up with something right after the show and I'll think, oh, why didn't I mention that? But for now, that's that's what I'm going with. What about you, Zach?

Ten years ago I bought an iPod Hi Fi speaker on on Facebook Marketplace from someone in Texas who was uh needed money for bicycle parts and uh I bought it to collect it. There used to be this website like Minimal Minimal Minimalism and It was this this guy who eventually went went to work for Apple, but um he had this really cool picture of the iPod Hi Fi on like a table and I just wanted one from that picture, not even from memory of it existing as a as a product from two thousand six.

Um and and you know, since then it's been like collecting dust. You know, it is it meant to put an iPod on top, dock it and play music through it. It also has lined in so you can use it as a speaker and and probably like, you know, when I when I first got it, I might have connected like an airplay adapter to make it and a wireless speaker. Um, but it really has just been collecting dust.

since uh probably eight years ago. And um this this past maybe like three months, um I I've went I I didn't have a guitar amp and I play guitar just as a as a hobby um and just for various reasons was without one and um I have a a a a an effects pedal that has line out in the back of it that stimulates amps and cabinets and um different effects. And um I I plugged that up. That's from two thousand nine into the speaker from two thousand six.

And it it actually is because the iPod Hi Fi speaker is meant to, you know, have really good audio quality for music, it's a fantastic guitar yet, you know, when used with this pedal. And um now it's like it's my de facto guitar rig and it's it's um you know, I I I just think it's like a neat I I you know, I used to have a fascination with like old tech that's still being used.

Um but I was too young to have any little tech and now I've I've you know in my thirties it's like I I have this thing and um I'm I'm really liking it for for this sort of like charming use of it. Uh

All right. Well, with that, we have reached nearly the end of this episode of Glockwise. All that's left is our bonus topic. My question for you. What is your favorite means of travel? Paris, we'll start with you. It's a great question. I mean, if it's nice out. I love biking. I think it's phenomenal. I think if we're talking day to day, I love I love a good public transit. I think it's lovely to be able to take a train above ground, below ground, any which way. It's wonderful.

Yeah, I mean my pick was gonna be streetcar, uh tram. I like streetcars. Trains of those kinds. We have a we have an above-ground trolley here on one of our on one of our metro lines, so I do enjoy taking that. And that's the train of my youth.

Yeah. Uh electric motorcycles is like the most fun um for me, but we have a new Amtrak train uh in in uh that connects Biloxi, Mississippi where I live to New Orleans. Oh I know um Yeah, I I I recently took it's called the Mardi Gras line and um it's it's really nice when you're used to, you know, bad airplane seats um in terms of comfort and yeah, it's great.

I know it's not the sort of right answer, but yeah, I do like to drive uh a vehicle of of any sort and I've been a little driving pilled lately as well. Ah, see, yeah, thank you. Uh, folks, if you out there would like to get ad-free episodes with an extra unwound episode every week where Dan and I talk about a given topic.

You can become a member of Clockwise. All you have to do is head to relay.fm slash clockwise to sign up.$7 a month,$70 a year. And in doing so, you will help support the show. Alrighty, folks. We're here at the end of this episode of Clockwise. All that's left is to thank our aw

Paris Martineau, thank you so much for being here today. Thanks so much for having me. And Zach Hall, thank you so much for joining us. Thank ya. And Michael will be back next week, but until then we remind everyone out there listening, watch what you say. And keep watching the clock. Bye everybody.