644: I Saw 'The Dark Knight,' Right?

It's time for episode 644 of the Clockwise Podcast from Relay, recorded Wednesday, February 18th, 2026. Clockwise, four people, four tech topics, thirty minutes.

Welcome back to Clockwise, the Tech Podcast where we're leaving. Into tech, even in non leap years. I am one of your hosts, Mike A. Sargent, and I am joined Across the internet, my good pal, my dear friend. It is Dan the Man Morin. How are you doing, Dan? I'm doing well. Not many people know Leaping Into Tech was the original title of this sh that's I made that up right now. You did. Just made that up. You leapt into that I leapt into the lie with abandon.

Uh while Dan goes leaping over that edge, let us welcome our awesome guest. Uh to my left, partner at Lickability, host of Absolutely Crushed. It's MB Bischoff. Welcome back to the show, MB. God, it's so good to be back. Uh and to my left, it is Senior Developer Advocated GitHub and the newest addition, I believe, to the Mac Break Weekly podcast. It's Christina Warren. How you doing, Christina? Hello, hello. Yes, yes, that is that is correct. Um my first uh my first episode will be next week.

Very exciting. I say that only as someone who sat in for you in your chair. I got it warm for you. You're ready to go. Okay, good. Yeah. Um, well, I think it is time for us to get rolling. We've got thirty minutes for topics. Mine for you is this. If Apple were to make an AI pendant, as uh the company is being rumored to be doing, uh would you wear one? Uh given that it would have in theory, you know, robust privacy protections in place. MB, we'll start with you.

I don't think so. I kinda got burned a little bit on the Vision Pro, uh, having gotten one of those. Thinking that I would be making a lot of apps for it. Turns out, uh, nobody really wanted those. Um and so it just sort of sits uh gathering dust on my um on my desk. Uh also, privacy isn't the main concern, I think, for me. It's like the it's like uh wha walking around New York City, what would that look like with like a little like Apple pendant on?

I suppose if everybody's wearing them in the way that that that everyone's wearing AirPods, it could eventually become normalized, but I I don't think uh I don't think so. The most you'd catch me doing is probably wearing one at like a tech conference or something like that. Yeah, I think I'm I'm probably with MB on this one. I I feel like

I I you know, I wanna say no just straight off the bat. These things, this whole category of device kind of weirds me out. Even with privacy, you know, promises, it's still fundamentally collecting information about the world about you. And I think there's a social aspect to that that uh, you know, we've come a long long way, have we? We've come away from like the Google Glass, the earliest days of Google Glass. You know, people wear their meta ray bands around and whatever.

And there are certainly a lot of these types of devices that are you know, people are trying to make it happen. I just feel less convinced that it's something that is gonna give me the kind of return on investment that I actually, you know, would would be willing to make that trade off and have something on me that is

you know, performing those various functions. AirPods, you know, sure they they look a little weird, but you know what? I like listening to music and they're great headphones. It works great for me. I'm willing to make that trade off. Uh, even things like smart glasses, I feel like, you know, there is a promise there of functionality that feels compelling enough that I might be willing to wear them, at least as like sunglasses outdoors style thing.

But just a little bend it I don't know, it just doesn't it doesn't feel compelling to me. But then again, Apple hasn't had a chance to weave its story about why I will want to record everything happening around me forever and ever and ever. Maybe they'll convince me. Maybe not. I don't know. Christina, what do you think?

Yeah, I had a I had a conversation about this with some friends yesterday and I kind of wound up switching my opinion. At first I was like, because I think the rumor was in addition to the pendant that like maybe there will be airpods that will have cameras in them and I was like, Give me the AirPods with cameras in them because

like I I d I don't know why that seems more palatable to me than a pendant, but I was like I'm all for it. And then I was kind of thinking about I was like, do I want everyone to have like A body camp. And the answer to that is like no. Like I saw the dark night, right? Like you know, like I I I do understand that at a certain point some of this is all for for naught if if enough other people have it.

whether I have one or or or don't doesn't matter. Um I see value in like the the the meta Ray Band glasses. I think that they're interesting and useful. Um I had AirPods, like was one of the very first people who had like a prototype pair out in the wild and it was remarkable how quickly people got used to them. But A, I don't really believe the privacy stuff, no matter what people want to say, and B

I don't know. I also Uh these things tend to not be designed for for people um who don't have a flat chest. And so that is another kind of concern. I'm like, okay, what what's the ergonomics going to be like? So I don't know. I uh never say never. Um, I I could definitely be a hypocrite here, but this is just one of those things that

as many privacy concessions as I admit we've all unfortunately probably kind of lost. This is one that I'm kind of I've kind of gone back on. I'm like, yeah, I I don't think so. I don't I don't love this idea unless you can show me some really amazing, super compelling use case. Like I said, I saw the dark night. We saw how that ended. It was not a good thing. Hmm. Um, I will say that I have Tempted to use a device similar uh to that sort of AI pendant. I had the little, I think it was called B.

Um and that experience was awful. Um I remember Why was it so bad? Uh it was it was terrible because I was watching a show. And in the show, you know, it's some I don't even remember what the show was, but it doesn't matter. There there was a part where they had somebody who was being investigated and da da da. Later that night, I get a notification, you know, B has your daily summary, and it's in there and it's saying, like,

Today you were uh subpoenaed and also investigated by the FBI. You had this happen and had this happen. And I just thought You know, uh what I was thinking was what happens when it hears something from some show? And thinks I'm res uh is there some uh threshold at which it needs to notify a th like there are just too many unanswered questions around that that made me very uncomfortable. And then of course there's also the idea that like

You know, consent is is real real good. And so what is the like what are the bounds around that when it comes to other people being recorded around you? And Fourth Amendment what? Yeah. We have amendments still? We have rights? Believe it or not, there are those. So yeah, I I I don't want to be a hypocrite either, but I know that I've had a terrible experience with these uh up to this point. And so I would have to.

I think really be compelled that it works differently and works much better uh in order to to go forth with something like this. Uh thank you all for your answers on this topic. Let's go to our next one, which comes from MB.

Yeah. Um so excitingly, I recently had some poetry that I uh co-authored with Claire Violet published in this publication that exists primarily on Telnet. Which if you are uh young, you might not know, is like a a a protocol that you can use to connect to remote servers and um it's sort of pre pre internet. Um

Pre-World Wide Web, certainly. Um, and it made me think like, what vintage technology are you still using or have you recently picked up that's bringing you joy? Um, just sort of by by the nature of it? T Telnet. Now there's a name I haven't heard in a long time. Uh Jesara, you just really brought back to me these sense memories of being a teenager and and logging in all to all the mush role playing games I used to do via Telnet. Woo. Um

You know, this is always usually the when whenever these vintage tech topics do crop up as they do trend time time, it's always a good opportunity for me to needle Micah about my ten eighty P uh HC TV. Uh but this time I'm gonna go with For a long time I had and I still have a sonos um one of those IKEA sonos speakers in my bedroom and I had set it up

to play like the our local NPR station um when our alarm went off in the morning. And I had some problems with it. It was a little annoying and inconsistent at times. Um and uh you know, eventually, you know, something stopped working and I didn't fix it. But what I do have is a little beautiful little bedside radio. um made by a company called, I think it's pronounced Sangean uh S A N G E A N.

Um and it's like a nice little wood little tiny cabinet, you know, about the size of a speaker and just sits on my table and I just now when our alarm goes off in the morning, I roll over and I turn it on. Uh and it works. Every time, unless my child has been playing with the knob, in which case sometimes it's just very loud music that I'm not expecting.

Um but the simplicity of that as a thing, right? Like not only is it just a thing that I turn on and immediately starts to work, but also a thing that requires me uh to pay no additional money and to use no additional services or no additional technology. It's it's simply

Turn a knob and everything here comes the news. Um, you know, I can't can't help the news. That part that part's not so great, but you know, uh as technology goes, I think It it does give me a nice little hit of that nostalgia'cause as somebody who grew up like, you know, having his parents would always turning the radio on and listen to the radio in the mornings

I find that it's like a little bit of uh continuity with my with my parents' life and my childhood. So I do appreciate that. Christina? Yeah, so um I I I love that. Uh first of all, I think that's really, really great. This I mean, this is definitely retro because it's been more years than um I think any of us wanna admit.

Um, the company I have a lot of problems with analog. I I think that uh especially some of their drop things with all the various variations of their products is really annoying. But I did get, after however many years wait, the the um analog three D, the Nintendo sixty four FPGA thing. And um I've had a lot of fun playing my old Nintendo sixty four games from childhood.

Um, and and that actually has been so it's a new device, but it's older stuff. So that that's that's something that I've really enjoyed and and it

that's been a thing that I that I've been doing for the last uh actually while I've been recovering a little bit of that's been like a fun way to kind of like recover a little bit. It's like, oh okay, I'm gonna like play wave race. Um and and so uh having those memories come back is I don't think this necessarily counts per se is not quite the same as Telnet, but uh yeah, playing old Nintendo 64 games. I love that. You know, I've gotta be honest, I must be a ruthless

uh disposer because I don't really have a lot of vintage tech hanging around that I actively make use of. So in this case, I'm just gonna say book. That's an old technology. A classic. Yeah. Uh I I love uh uh from time to time. I love a good physical book. Uh my problem is if I've got a physical book, it's probably going to get written in and notated and highlighted and uh some some people don't don't love that. Excuse me, but I do. And so yeah, I uh I I

Love a good book and I love notating in a good book. Uh MV, why don't you round us out here? Yeah, sure thing. Um for the past uh year or so I've been shooting a lot more film. Um and I started shooting on a on a new film camera called the Pentac seventeen. But over time I've really come to love shooting on r old film cameras, specifically this camera that was introduced in in um the late fifties called the Nikon F. It was like the first commercially available

um SLR film camera and it just feels incredible. Every dial, every um uh uh button, everything on it um just feels like it was uh built to last forever. So so that's that's my answer.

Alright, folks, we have reached halftime here at Clockwise, which means it's time for me to tell you about our sponsor this week. This episode of Clockwise brought to you by Insta360. Now it's possible that you already know Insta360 for the action cams and 360 degree or 360 cameras, but Uh, they've taken all that imaging expertise and brought it to the webcam world with their newest conferencing products. There's a new Insta360 Wave and a Link2Pro. Of course the flagship four K AI webcam.

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All right. Well, Apple's latest set of betas, uh twenty six point four, brings, among other features, the ability for uh artificial intelligence slash machine learning to make you a playlist based on a prompt that you write in. I'm curious to know if you've used any similar features in competing music services. Is this a feature that appeals to you or do you just want to make your playlist the old fashioned way, Christina?

Yeah, so actually I guess it was probably uh two and a half weeks ago I did use this for the first time um with Spotify and with what other AI playlist builder is. And I went in with fairly low

um expectations. I was like, this is not actually going to generate a good playlist. And I do have some complaints about how the Spotify um implementation, which is still in beta, works. Uh namely It will just generate a brand new playlist if you make any sort of alterations to the prompt rather than kind of having to wait a version things, which is annoying.

Um, but I was actually really impressed with what it did and the fact that it could be integrated with your listening history and with songs that you have added to multiple lists and and things like that. And so I actually really, really like the feature. And it's one of those things that um you can even like have it set on a cadence where it'll, you know, update itself.

But based on on the frequency that you determine. And you can um I think by default it's twenty five songs, but you can make it be more songs than that or or less songs. And you can say, Okay, you know, give me like my favorite or my most listened to songs from this year or from this genre or similar to these types of artists.

And um I think it's actually pretty great. I'm a person who loves to create my own playlists and it's a thing that I really enjoy doing. But sometimes you just want to have an easier way of just being like, All right, just put together, you know, some of my favorite like you know, emo night um uh you know, songs um that that you know that I've I've listened to a lot. And um not mad at it at all. So

That's how I feel too. Not mad at it. No, I I think that uh it's really uh I've I've also used this uh AI feature in you know in beta and that's my way of wanting to create playlists, frankly I I want to be able to just type in, you know, put these three artists together. and then have it, you know, create some playlist that sounds good. I love the idea of being able to say, um, it's a it's a

rainy afternoon and I'm drinking a cup of coffee and needing to feel inspired and then it creates a playlist for me based on that. That's just such a cool idea and I've always appreciated Not apples. Um... uh playlists that are automatically generated, the four Us and all that kind of stuff. They haven't been great. But Spotify ha that's why I have a subscription to both is because Spotify is the place that I go to for kind of the automatic generation of

And uh or traditionally that's been where I've gone for that. And then Apple Music is the place where I just have my music library. So yeah, I'm happy that Apple is getting into that and I hope That it's better than some of the um music suggestion stuff they've done thus far. I'd love to hear what your thoughts are, MB. I don't think this is for me. And and and um I think part of the reason, uh, and this is a bit of a this is a bit of a brag, but like part of the reason is that like

I um am connected with and and I'm even like dating like so many people who are so passionate about music. Like my wife is a musician. Um my partners are like music nerds. I I'm dating a DJ. Like there are so many people. If I need a playlist, that I can just be like, hey, babe, can I get a playlist? Um, that uh I don't uh I don't think I need a robot to do it.

Um but uh it it is interesting. I have tested this stuff a couple of years ago when it was less uh sophisticated and I and I didn't I didn't really like it. And it's interesting to hear that it seems like it's it's um uh cr Christina, especially for you like um who makes a lot of playlists, like that it's working well enough that you that you would use

Yeah, uh these are all great answers. I'm I'm fascinated by the range here and and I think it's because music is something that is so personal, um and some of us have people, resources we can turn to and help us with this and some of us don't. Some of us are adrift. An islands of not knowing what songs we want to listen to or should listen to. That's me. I have a weird taste in music and

I uh do make playlists occasionally. A lot of times they're if I'm like working on a book and I like make a playlist of songs that I, you know, want to be in the groove for for writing something. Um, but other than that I tend not to. But I do use a lot of them uh the Apple Music stations, including the you know, my station thing, um, to try and play stuff when I'm just like, I'm just you know, wanna hear a mix of things, some of which I like, some of which I don't know.

And having the ability to create a playlist that's more targeted, I think is it's very attractive as an idea because like Micah said, like being able sort of dial in exactly what you're looking for in any given moment has a real um appeal to it. I don't know how well it works. I'm kind of curious to see how Apple's uh implementation of it will actually deliver on that because I have found m though I use the station feature a lot in Apple Music.

Sometimes it's a lot better than others. And I imagine that will probably be true with these uh AI playlists. So um I'm glad they're doing it as a something that you know a lot of competitors are doing and therefore feels like something that they should offer. Um but we'll we'll see when this actually ships how well it it really works.

Uh thank you all for your thoughts on that. Let's go to our final topic which comes from Christina. Okay, so this is also this is uh doubling this as like shopping slash buying advice. All right, so there's an Apple event in two weeks. So should you know you slash we buy a base M4 Mac mini

Let's say maybe this is like a second one. Um, before the price inevitably uh rises for the M five models and you are slash we are still within the return window. Ooh, if you're in the return window, I don't see why not. Right? Like y y you're saying get one while the price is low, but then if it's n not enough you would return it and go for the M five? Is that the question? Yeah, basically. Right. So like

You know, maybe like next week sometime. Spend five hundred dollars using the, you know, student discount. maybe potentially get a a Mac mini and then see, okay, is the M five gonna be so much better or is the price going to be commiserate or not? I think there's no reason not to do that. It's a great idea to test what's possible. And frankly, I think it's a delightful idea, particularly if you if you jog on down to Oregon.

to uh knock off the sales tax as well, Christina. Join us here in Loregan Party. For knocking off the sales tax. Yeah. Um yeah, I I don't have anything else to add. I think it's a great idea. MB, what are your thoughts? I'll play devil's advocate here. Please don't do this. Um w when I when I worked at Apple retail

People would do all kinds of things like this and it's just like uh dealing with the returns is a pain and then packing the things back up. If you're gonna do it, at least be really, really nice to the person who's uh who's handling your return. Um as somebody who at times obsessively keeps like all the boxes and like even worries about peeling those stickers like can I fit the stickers back on the device?

I hear what MB's saying. That said, you know, uh I think if it's something that you have a a better than even chance of keeping, yeah, why not? Right? Like uh get yourself if you need that that M4 Mac Mini and you feel like it's a good deal and the deals are only gonna get worse.

you should go ahead and grab one. I am intrigued to see if they do release a new M5 Mac Mini and whether it will be better. I mean this could be the fastest update to a Mac mini maybe in years. I don't know. Uh the Mac mini not known for its frequent updates. Uh I have an M two Pro Mac Mini and I I did a I reviewed the M4 model um when it came out and was so

envious of the tiny little form factor that I strongly considered whether I should sell my M2 Pro Mac Mini and get an M4 instead. I did not. I still have that giant so big M two pro Mac Mini. So I will be I will be interested to see if the M five sort of they they show a a new commitment to keeping the the Mac Mini in sync with the rest of his products. But Yeah, I say if you need it, you want to get it, why not? Go for it. Christina, you have our permission.

Except for Okay. All right. Well I appreciate that. And and honestly, great, great, great call NBM making things easy for the uh employees. My my thought would be if I do do this and and buy a secondary Mac Mini, I would not even open it. It would be one of those things that would literally just not even open. And so it would be returned like completely. Then you're you've got my approval. You can do it. All right. Yeah. Everyone agrees. Three three out of three.

I love it. Um also we all agree you should start using Trident. Three out of three clockwise panelists agree. Alrighty, folks. We are nearly to the end of this episode of Clockwise. I do want to remind you Uh head over to clockwise.social where you can get some cool clockwise swag and help support the show.

All right, my bonus topic is here. I'm curious. Uh do you have a favorite non-emoji symbol or symbols that would make up something like an emoticon that you use regularly. And yes, this is going to require some description on your part given the audio nature of this podcast. MB, we'll start with you.

I am so glad that you asked me this question, Micah, because I do. I have a great answer for this. Um a lot of places online um that I exist and also in a lot of my private communique, I use a combination Of two Unicode characters. Um the lower half circle, which if you're playing the home game, is uh U plus 25 E one. And the compine combining diuresis, which again is u plus 0308. So if you want to picture this. Um it's a little bit

half circle, uh uh vr uh uh from left to right and then above it it's two dots. So it's it's a smile that that is is already oriented in the in the correct orientation. It's beautiful. Yeah, you inspired this question when you sent me that uh yesterday. I I ignored the emoticon part of this and I do still use emoticons'cause again I as I earlier dated myself, I'm from the age before we had emoji. Um but I thought of um uh like a typographical

symbols. And for that I pick my favorite, which is the obelisk, sometimes also called the obelisk or the dagger, which is uh, you know, if you're flipping through a book and you sometimes see footnotes that have the little, you know, cross shaped dagger thing. I don't know. I just love all the various um, you know, typefaces that do their own version of the dagger. I also like anything that adds a little drama to text and, you know, it's stabbing at the text. I don't know if it's single or a

Double dagger guy. Ooh, I mean as many daggers daggers as you need, I think you go. But like I you can dual wield. I'm fine with that. Okay. Uh double daggers are fine, but yeah, there's nothing the elegance of the single dagger cannot be overstated. Christina? I'm trying to think here. I mean, I wish that I were as like a creative enough to be able to d to do this or like MB to like know like the Unicode like code so that I could

you know, use these symbols appropriately. I did used to have like for text completion, like a thing um that I would just type in like asterisk asterisk shrug and it would do like like the like kind of shrugged um ASCII character thing. And I used that for years. The problem was is that that's a really never s sunk like it doesn't sync well um on mobile.

And so uh and and then like, you know, if you have corporate laptops and things like that, like that becomes a whole other uh issue. But that would probably be the closest is one that I I used to use regularly for a really long time. Yeah, the Shruggy emoticon is mine. I uh minus semicolon. I well I guess I I guess I'd type it all the way out. Uh semicolon S H R U G and then it turns into the Shrugia emoticon. I love that one. The uh shrugging options in

in emoji are just not as good. It doesn't quite capture. They're not. Yeah. I'm amused because I'm an HTML entity nerd from way back, so mine is ampersand shrug semicolon. Oh, that's funny. That's good. Yeah. So I just I adore it and I think it's great. And I loved all of your answers as well.

Uh folks, if you would like to get ad-free episodes of the next unwound episode every week, you can become a member of Clockwise. Go to relay.fm slash clockwise to sign up. It's just seven dollars a month, seventy dollars a year, and in doing so you'll help support the show. All right, that brings us to the end of this episode. All that's left is to thank our awesome guests. MB, thank you so very much for being here this week. Thank you all for having me.

And Christina Warren, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you very much for uh for having me. Glad to be here. And Micah, we'll be back next week, but until then, we remind everyone listening out there, watch what you say and keep watching the clock. Bye everybody.