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Clockwise
664: How I Use My Life
00:29:59
Physical vs. digital media and how we organize it, our system for the digital "deal with it later" pile, what we do with old hardware, and iPhone ergonomics.
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- [00:03]
A
It's Time for episode 664 of the Clockwise podcast from Relay, recorded Wednesday, July 8, 2026. Clockwise, four people, four tech topics, 30 minutes.
- [00:28]
B
Welcome back to Clockwise, the tech podcast that won't leave your dog hiding under the bed. Yay. I love the fourth. I'm 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 Morin. How you doing, Dan? Wow. Wow.
- [00:48]
A
Sorry. I've. I've undone all your good works.
- [00:50]
B
I thought my great national nightmare was over.
- [00:52]
A
Yep. No, sorry. Well, I thought you just meant because our podcast would be too scary.
- [00:57]
B
I mean, sometimes it can be. Definitely. While I try to think of all of the times I felt scared doing this podcast, let's go ahead and introduce our awesome guests. To my left, product design engineer, formerly of Lickability and Tavis, now independent, it's Sam Henry Gold. Welcome to the show, Sam.
- [01:18]
C
Thank you so much. Pleasure to be here.
- [01:20]
A
To my left this week is a writer and podcaster, formerly a cult of Mac, now independent, it's Griffin Jones. Welcome to the show, Griffin.
- [01:28]
D
Good evening. I really like this show because in real life, I always prefer sitting on the left of whoever I am next to.
- [01:36]
B
Smart.
- [01:37]
D
Glad that that is extended to this digital format as well.
- [01:39]
A
Also, always keep your back to the wall just for safety.
- [01:43]
B
I read that somewhere. Let's go ahead and get this show underway. You know how it works. Four topics, 30 minutes, and mine for you is this. I'm curious, do you prefer physical media or digital media? And if it is digital, how do you keep your digital media organ and most importantly, discoverable? Sam, we'll start with you.
- [02:04]
C
So I recently started getting deep into itunes, fully music app build, not Apple music, but like proper sitting down with MP3 tags, going into the deep bowels of itunes and loading it up on an ipod. So I feel like that is the return to form for digital media. It can't get more classic than sitting down and pasting in your own album art. So that feels like a lot of ownership over it. I grew up in the CD DVD era, and I just had an enormous binder full of DVDs and what I would give to get my giant CD binder back. I. I feel like we have to. We have to get back to that
- [02:54]
D
partying like it's 2004.
- [02:56]
A
Yeah, right. So the answer is I don't do much with physical media these days. I've now collapsed, like, basically collapsed everything. All my DNDS CDs, which are in a giant CD binder. So if you need one, I got you hooked up. And yeah, there's a couple laser discs in there. Let's not talk about that. And I put them in one box, so I feel like that's pretty good if I've got it collapsed down to one box. One thing I do have a lot of physical media is books. And that's I, you know, I don't buy as many paper books as I used to. I do on occasion, but I tend to read on ebook and large part of it is I just don't want more clutter in my house. And, you know, I look at those DVDs, and so many of the ones I have, you know, I've kept out of some nostalgia, even though you can find them online places, you know, they're streaming. I have a few things that aren't available on streaming, and I have a few things where I just want to have a copy of this just in case it's not available on streaming at some point. But also, given the fact that they've been in a box in my office for the last several years, you can tell how often I've pulled them out. I'm not even sure I have something that plays DVDs anymore. So, you know, I don't really do much in the way of organization and I'd like to have less. But I also cling onto them just from the knowledge that, well, if all else fails, then my DVD of sneakers is still watchable. And that's the most important thing. Griffin, what about you?
- [04:23]
D
I'm mostly all digital. I keep little bits of physical media just as, you know, the peak merchandise. Like a way of memorializing my absolute favorite six albums, which I have like six or seven albums on vinyl. I don't own a record player, but yeah, in terms of movies, you're walking along the street and you just discover a flash drive falls from the sky. Oh, here's the entire classic run of Doctor who or Star the Next Generation, which I organize on a large external hard drive attached to my computer. It's Otherworld computing Thunder Bay 4, which I loaded up with 48 terabyte spinning hard disk drives, which are now probably the most valuable thing in my house. You know, it's. It's a delicate system and we're just hoping for the best.
- [05:20]
B
I'm mostly digital media. And basically the other day I opened up one of those apps where you can put in your information, and it's supposed to have all of your content across different services, and you know, figure out the rights in the background for you and not make you worry about it. And I can't remember what it's called, like movies everywhere, Movies anywhere, one of those things. And I thought, wow, I've personally purchased a lot of movies over time, but I didn't realize I had all of these and end up just typing in search in the Apple TV app and finding something to watch there. And so it made me curious if, you know, people have a lot of digital media that's just kind of sitting there, not getting used because of how easy streaming has made it. But it sounds like we've got a nice mix of things. My significant other is very much physical media. And so it is nice to be able to just go and look and say, oh yeah, let's watch that. And sometimes we'll even go and look and say, let's watch that. And then we'll search it up and watch it that way because it's much easier than turning on the DVD player and switching over the source and changing the aspect ratio on the TV and all that kind of stuff. So yeah, it's kind of a nice, nice thing to have that physical in person to go, okay, we're going to watch this today and this is something that we're interested in. Thank you all for your answers on that. Let's go to our next topic, which comes from Sam.
- [06:50]
C
So there's this category of thing that I've never found a home for. It's not quite a note, not quite a reminder. It's a fact that I need maybe an hour from now or three days from now and then never again. Like an Airbnb door code or the level that I parked on or paint color to get a sample for. It's not like a temporal reminder. It's just like this thing that I have to hold on to. If it were in the onan days, it would just be on a sticky note and then I would keep it on my monitor or in my pocket. And I tried everything, voice memo and screenshotting that ropson my camera roll and telling Claude to pretty please remember something. I hooked up my action button to just start a quick note and none of these feel right. So I'm curious what you all do for these transient bits of information in your digital lives.
- [07:40]
A
I think for me it very much is a medium associated thing because it depends where that information comes from. Right. If it's in an email and it's something I feel like I'm going to need to refer to or deal with I flag the email like I do most of my, my, my email inbox is often like flags are kind of like a to do list. But if it's something that I like have some information that I need to write down, it probably goes in notes and you know, then I end up with a weird detritus of all this stuff from like, you know, years and years of like, oh, this random six digit code here, what was this for? So, but I don't worry about as much because storage is still relatively cheap and so, you know, tiny little bits of information don't, don't keep up that much space. I think this is one of the potential promises of something like Siri AI because the idea that it's like, shouldn't matter where it is on my system, as long as I've written down what it is, it should be able to find it. Because I tend to be one of those people who does not want to spend a long time carefully filing things. Like anything that requires overhead in the moment is likely to just not happen. I'd like to be able to retrieve it after the fact without having to have specifically set it aside somewhere. So search in mail, which is notoriously bad, but you know, you kind of deal with it if you can. That tends to be the way that I find stuff or don't find stuff if I really need it, but if I, if it's something where it's like, okay, I'm going to need this later and I want to be able to refer back to it, it probably goes in notes and I don't think it's the best solution, but it's what I pretty much end up with.
- [09:16]
D
Griffin on my Mac, I have a file on my desktop that's just a plain text text edit file, just called Scratch Pad. So I can throw my mouse cursor into the upper right corner of the screen to show the desktop open that really quick. Just write everything, anything down that I want to hold onto. Sometimes things stay in there for like a few weeks or months at a time and then they just eventually get cleared out. On my iPhone, I don't really have as convenient of a solution for that. What I do is I set up an increasingly more complicated action button shortcut that I can press and by default if I just type anything in there, it'll add that to my grocery list in reminders. But I have a few key phrases that I can begin the sentence with and it'll like. So if I hit the action button, it'll ask for something to type in. And I can type in to do and then type in something else and then that'll route to a different reminders list. So it's sort of like a catch all thing that I can press. And I still do occasionally forget to add things to my shopping list, but 50% less often.
- [10:25]
B
I for the most part also have a scratch pad, but mine is a daily. I call it my daily text file. And so each day when I sit down in front of my Mac, I open up textedit and I save a file that just has in my case today it's 070826 and that is the text file. And anything that I do on my Mac that just needs a quick place to go, that's usually where it goes on my phone. I have just recently started testing the company that makes the pebble watch. They've got the pebble index which is a little unfortunately not rechargeable ring that you wear. And it's just got a little button on it and a little microphone. And you press the button and as you're holding it down and you're talking into the microwave. Microwave. Wow. The microphone.
- [11:17]
A
Stop talking. The microwave.
- [11:19]
B
I keep telling me and I just keep doing it. I just love the smell of popcorn. Anyway, press that down, talk into it, let go. It puts that message on my phone. Then I can refer to all of the message, the notes to self that I've sent throughout the day. Love it because it's not always listening. Only whenever I press the button. That might end up being the way that I go. Which I was surprised by because I didn't. I don't use just press record from like on my Apple watch. I thought that would be my solution, but it did not end up working for me. What are your thoughts to round things out, Sam?
- [11:50]
C
I'm not sure the the right solution. I have seen what I know is certainly the worst solution. I've seen my brother write a note to himself, take a screenshot of it, and then set that screenshot as his lock screen wallpaper.
- [12:04]
D
No way.
- [12:05]
C
Haunted. I think he might be onto something because there's like what? How many ambient pixels do you have on the phone that the phone just automatically shows you without being asked? Yeah, it's ludicrous to me that vandalizing your own wallpaper is the best case scenario.
- [12:23]
A
Wow.
- [12:24]
B
I kind of love it though. All right, we have reached halftime here at clockwise, which means it's time for me to remind you about our swag. You can get clockwise swag by heading to clockwise social. When you you will see links to our awesome stuff. We've got shirts and hats and tote bags and stickers and all sorts of stuff. And you may be thinking, oh, it's nice to rep clockwise. It is. But you know what's nicer Supporting clockwise. And you know how you can do that? Swag and other ways, but also swag. So please buy our swag, because it helps. And then we can pay the zoom bill, and then we get to keep doing this show. Yay. All right, halftime's over. Back to the show. Dan, what's your topic?
- [13:07]
A
Oh, I'm so glad you asked. Micah, my question for you. As I previously alluded to, I'm cleaning out stuff from my office. So I want to know, what do you do with old hardware that you come across that's piled up and you have stashed it away somewhere, and maybe then you found it and you think to yourself, should I find a new use for it? Should I sell it? Should I just toss it out? Or should I hoard it forever so that I can't open my closet anymore in case everything falls on me? Griffin, you know, give me some tips here.
- [13:35]
D
I am the worst person to ask. I am. I'm a computer collector. I've been, you know, buying things since, you know, you could buy a fully complete system on ebay for, like, a hundred dollars. Those days are not long gone. The hobby has only gotten more expensive, and I've only gotten more irresponsible with it. My spreadsheet of computers, devices, and things is now well into the 50s. I have a rotating cast of computers that sort of appear in my office. I've got them piled in a basement. A gigantic tangle of keyboards and cables and things filling my closet. My former childhood home at my mom's house is basically a storage unit. It's not a great system. They slowly break over time, and I solve that problem by buying more computers.
- [14:26]
B
Honestly, Dan, it depends on what mode I'm in. If I'm in a mode of, like, truly cleaning and trying to get rid of stuff and have been like, if the. What is the word? The momentum is there. I have actually been known to donate old stuff. I have also been known to take it to local recyclers. We had a television that, unfortunately, in our move, when we moved, did not survive the move despite being in its original box, and so had to get rid of that and took it to a recycler. So if we're, like, in the middle of doing the, oh, let's downsize stuff, I Have made a little box of old tech and put it in there and got rid of it and was very happy. But for the most part, if I'm looking through stuff to try to find something and then I start pulling things out and going, why do you still have this? Why do you still have this? What do we think happens after I find the thing I'm looking for? Oh yeah, all the rest of it goes back in the boxes that I pulled it out of. I'm still holding onto it. I don't need it, but I'm still holding onto it. So I don't know if I'm the right person for giving you the solution that you need. What about you, Sam?
- [15:36]
C
My approach is what I like to describe as very vibes based. There's a class of devices that I think are fun to mess around with or fun to have on display like an iPod, hi Fi or an old iPhone 4 on the original things that are just kind of fun to doink around with. And then there's the current hardware like my current laptop and then there's kind of the doldrums where it's not really fun, it's not really nostalgic. Live or die, I could not care what happens to a second gen iPad mini that I have in the back of my closet. It's also in that area where I don't think donating it would be use. Like I'm. I'm not sure who would want a second gen iPad mini in the year of our Lord 2026. So I wish I would be more of a repurposing kind of person. But you know, in reaching the quarter of my life here, I'm realizing I am unfortunately a horde in the closet until I move and until I have to make space for more stuff type of person. I still acquire old machines on ebay, which does feel like I'm falling deeper down this rabbit hole than I absolutely do not have the storage space for in New York City. But when you see a 2007 MacBook Pro with its original packaging, like what is a man to do? You simply must.
- [17:08]
A
I don't tend to maintain much in the way of old computers. I do have a blue and white G3 in my closet, my old one from 25 years ago because I love that computer. But that's like the only thing I've pretty much allowed myself for Macs. I have a few old iPhones, including an original iPhone pre when I started like trading them in. But what I find most often is challenging is I have stuff that I buy on like, whims or that I buy accessories I use for a while and then give up. Like, I was opened up a, a drawer in my, one of my little storage units and found an original Amazon Echo, which is gigantic, if you don't remember. And I was like, and heavy. And so heavy. And I'm like, why do I still have this? And it works, I'm sure, if you plug it in. But I also cannot. Like, like you're saying. I can't imagine anybody else wants this.
- [18:00]
B
So I'm trying to store is so funny because that is what keeps me holding on to things. No, I'm not going to plug it
- [18:06]
A
in and see, I'm never going to use.
- [18:07]
B
It works.
- [18:08]
A
I know, but I mean, I, I would like to get rid of it, honestly, because I'm never going to use it again. And I always feel bad throwing out stuff that works or taking it. Like I try to. Our fortune, our town has electronics recycling at the dump. And so I can take stuff there and feel marginally less bad about it because they're recycling it. Right? But if it works and is functional, it's something I'm trying to give away. I've been flirting with the idea of setting up basically like an Internet yard sale thing where I post a bunch of pictures of stuff I have and be like, anybody want this? Like, basically make, make me an offer and at least I can then get it out of my house. Which I think is a not nothing in this day and age. But thank you all for your thoughts on that. Maybe not as helpful as I'd hope, but, you know, we're all working through this together, I think. Okay, that is my topic done. Which means we have one more topic and it comes from Griffin.
- [18:58]
D
Yes. So I am excited about the upcoming folding iPhone, but I am a little afraid of the physical object that it is going to be. Because I prefer, you know, small phones that I can comfortably hold one handed. And this is obviously going to be much wider. You know, this is exactly what the popsockets were invented for, you know, and I happily use the Osnap snap grip. But as someone who holds their phone in their left hand, you know, that hard 90 degree corner that the folding iPhone has to have is gonna be like digging right into my palm. And of course, when I unfold it, then the snap grip is going to be on the wrong side. It'll have to be on the right, not the left, which is why I prefer holding my phone. So I guess my question is, how comfortably do you hold your phone one handed. And how do you anticipate the folding iPhone will work for you? I mean, should I just try and rewire my brain to hold my phone in the right hand and completely switch how I use my life? Let's see.
- [19:58]
B
Well, I will say this. I do. You have just unlocked a new form of anxiety for me that I didn't have before because I don't think I thought a whole heck of a lot about how I help my phone. I just do. I, I do have quite large hands and so the big phone is easy to hold. I do sometimes catch myself with my pinky, you know, beneath and feeling like, oh, I'm making that little guy do a lot of work. So I do occasionally adjust, but most of the time I'm not thinking about it. I do wonder, though I'm left handed, I do wonder if I will end up holding the folding phone differently. Whether that's the case, I don't know. And I don't think I can spend cognitive cycles trying to process ahead of time. What will probably happen is I'll impulsively make the purchase and then decide at that point what's going to happen. It's sort of like I'm pushing myself into the water to see if I can swim. Yay. Sam, what about you?
- [21:01]
A
Don't do that. Oh.
- [21:04]
C
So I, I'm now incredibly self conscious of my phone holding posture. Now I'm going to be thinking about this all the time, right? I'm not a fan of that at all. I grew up with an ipod touch in my hand. I got my first one when I was 8 or 9 years old. So I've noticed that the pinky finger, the part of my pinky finger where I pressed the device on, it's now kind of permanently indented. That's a cross I'll have to bear for the foreseeable rest of my life. I got the iPhone air when it first came out because I, for this same reason I kept, it kept slipping and I kept dropping it on my face and I figured, well, I'm never going to stop browsing my phone upside down in bed. So if I'm going to have something to drop on my face. Yeah, if I'm going to have to drop something on my face, it might as well be the lightest one they have to sell
- [22:02]
D
or have the most surface area so that the weight is distributed across your entire cheek.
- [22:07]
C
Smart, smart. So when, when I saw this, this topic come up, I started looking at the latest leaks for the dimensions of the folding phone and I saw it's really close to a US passport, so I grabbed out my passport and I'm holding it in my hand and this is just an awful shape. This is just such a bizarre, wide, squarish thing. I've tried like mimic typing on it and it's like a little tiny iPad mini but like not a normal iPhone that's, you know, close and you can swipe type on it reasonably well. You can imagine when the keyboard's up there's not a lot of space for the content area. Like it's a very, very short device and when it's open it's also pretty unlike any other iPhone aspect ratio we've had before. It's two of these bizarre squat layouts. So I'm not sure when it's open how I would use this thing. It's certainly not a one hand ordeal, but two feels extreme. So I'm not sure about the ergonomics of the folding phone. In fairness, I've also not used any Android folding phone in any meaningful duration before. So this might just be something people adapt to and I'm gonna have to rediscover it along with all the Apple loyalists in a couple months. But yeah, this is a very bizarre form factor.
- [23:37]
D
The aspect ratio of the front screen is interesting because it's the same aspect ratio of the original iPhone through the iPhone 4S, but those were able to use their entire screen. This has to have the gap at the bottom for the status bar and the curved edges and the safe area and on, on the bottom and the top. So it'll be very, very strange.
- [23:56]
A
It is very strange. I think it is going to take some adjustment for, you know, people who have, you know, like us spent years and years and years holding iPhones. I tend, I don't know, I do the pinky rest thing and I can already, I mean in my advanced age can already feel like my like ligaments going in my pinkies. I've never found that the phones are terribly ergonomic, honestly. I mean, especially as they've gotten bigger and bigger. I don't have small hands but like I find them to be difficult, right. I can't reach the entire screen with my thumb. I do find myself missing. I just remember I got rid of my mom's old iPhone, first gen iPhone SE a year or two ago and I remember picking up and being like a comically light b ridiculously small.
- [24:40]
B
This is a phone for a baby.
- [24:42]
A
And I was like, we lived with these for years and it was great. So I Don't know. I'm intrigued by the idea of a smaller one, but the ergonomics is a real question. I've been recently reading on some of those really small E readers, which has been an interesting exercise in some ways to just get used to holding something that is very, very small. And I sometimes I hold it with like, you know, both thumbs, bind it like, like from the bottom and I feel like, like hilariously comical, like holding this tiny little thing and like looking at it. So I don't know. And, and I'm. I'm. Yeah, I honestly am not sure. I think, I wonder if this will be more of a. Like, I wonder if they'll do anything. Like, remember that really terrible reachability feature I think is still there, but you know, maybe they'll try to come up with some software way to, to deal with that. I, I don't know. But I do think it's going to be, going to be a challenge. I do appreciate at least that maybe it will feel a little smaller in my pocket and won't constantly be like rotating the wrong way. And then I have this giant like rectangle jabbing me in the thigh. So maybe there's some hope here, but now you just have all filled me with fear. So, Griffin, why don't you wrap us up here?
- [25:46]
D
Yeah, I mean, it's interesting because you won't really need vertical reachability because it'll be so short.
- [25:50]
A
Right.
- [25:51]
D
It's the horizontal reachability. Like, I don't know, it'll be strange. I always hate the pinky shelf. It makes me deeply uncomfortable to think about that I'm putting weight on that finger in a way that it was not designed to support. So I don't really have a solution here. I think I'm going to try putting my phone in my right pocket and flipping all of the things I normally put in my right pocket into my left pocket and see if I'm capable of doing that for, for a week or if it, it's just too unnatural. Maybe I'll just deal with a hard corner digging into my left hand for the rest of my life.
- [26:31]
C
If you put a pop socket on it, it would be on the back side and you would have the, the screen on the other side. So when it's open, you would. Your pop socket would just be on the right hand side.
- [26:40]
D
Yeah, but I wouldn't be able to use my left hand for it.
- [26:45]
B
Do you think we'll all form pinky pearls? You know, like how the oyster because of the sand and it makes a Pearl. Since we're all having to hold phones against our pinkies for so long, eventually we'll all form pinky pearls.
- [27:00]
A
Doesn't sound great. Don't like it. Thanks.
- [27:02]
B
Thank you all for your answers on that weird question I just asked. We are just nearly to the end of this episode, which means there's enough time for a bonus topic. What is the oldest piece of clothing you still wear regularly, Sam?
- [27:19]
C
Oh, no contest. My belt. I have had this since at least high school, and I am so disinterested in replacing it or finding a new thing. So I. I hope to be buried with the spells.
- [27:35]
A
You know, I thought about it and I don't know how regular is regular, but I do have an amazing Hawaiian shirt that I bought on some sort of surplus when I was like 20. And I do wear it from time to time just because it's very colorful and I really like it, even though it is also, I think, way too big for me because I bought it at like 20 and I think I. I was more. I'm more svelte now than I was at 20. So I guess that's probably the longest running thing that I. That I wear. But I don't, I don't wear it very regularly. Only like once or twice a year probably.
- [28:11]
D
I don't always or often wear hoodies and jeans because the problem is that when I do, I look like I'm still in high school. So I have this hoodie that I've had for about that long, like I think since like 8th or 9th grade that I wear somewhat rarely, only when I'm sad or sick. But, you know, it's just a purely comfort item for me at home. And I think, yeah, I've had it a very long time.
- [28:41]
B
For me, it is a shirt that I got freshman year of high school. It's a sort of a pale red shirt. And it just says Y O. It says YO on it. But it's funny because every time I've worn it, everybody always thinks that it's a university at first and they're like, what's yu. Oh, wait, yo. Wait, what's yo? It just says yo. It just says yo. See how everyone and it's funny. And thank you all for your answers on that. If you out there listening would like to get ad free episodes of an extra unwound episode every week where Dan and I talk about a given topic. You could become a member of Clockwise. Go to Relay FM clockwise to sign up at $7 a month, $70 a year to help support the show. With that, it is time to say goodbye to our wonderful guests. Sam, Henry Gold, you've been great. Thank you for being here.
- [29:32]
C
Thank you so much. I don't have anything going on. If you want to just keep me around, I'm free. I'm available. Okay.
- [29:39]
A
Good to know. Griffin Jones, thank you so much for being here as well.
- [29:43]
D
Thank you. It's been lovely.
- [29:44]
A
And, Michael, we'll be back next week, but until then, we remind everyone out there listening, watch what you say and
- [29:49]
B
keep watching the clock.
- [29:51]
A
Bye, everybody.