Crashing Clockwise #538: ‘If I Lose It, I’ll Die’
What is dead may never die, so it’s so nice to see Christina and Simone together on a Relay podcast in this mini Rocket reunion episode. I can’t wait to dig in!
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Mikah Sargent: Do you use widgets on your smartphone, and if you do, which ones?
You know, I didn’t think I was a heavy widgets user, but now that I study my phone, I think I might be! My home screens are generally set up around specific functions. I have my core Home Screen — the first one — with my core widgets. They’re the ones that I use every day to reference things and get things done. They include a medium-sized widget stack with Fantastical, CARROT Weather, and Things. I also have a small widget stack mostly for fuzzy feelings from photos. It has widgets for the Photos app, and for Locket — a delightful app that allows you to send a single photo at a time to your friend’s or loved one’s Home Screen. But that stack is also a Smart Stack, so it’ll occasionally surface a widget that it thinks is relevant for that moment. Right now, for instance, I’ve got a Music widget in the stack. I’ve also parked the widget for a podcast app called Airshow that I’m testing.
On my second Home Screen, my “active” Home Screen, I have two stacks of medium-sized widgets. On top, I’ve got widgets to track my workout stats: Fitness, Tempo, and Strava. Below it, an audio stack: Longplay, and Overcast.
My third Home Screen is for social, writing, and entertainment. In the center of the screen, I use another medium-sized stack with two widgets for Shortcuts (with four shortcuts each related to Micro.blog and blogging), one for Drafts (my most recent notes in the ‘HeyDingus’ workspace, usually blog post ideas).
My final Home Screen is my ‘Marcos Tanaka’ tribute. It only includes widgets. One large one for Play, which shows my most recently saved YouTube videos. And the other is a medium-sized one for MusicBox, which shows my most recently saved albums to listen to.
If we’re getting technical, I also have several widgets on my Today view screen — or Home Screen -1. There I have a bunch of widgets for Shortcuts, one for the Home app, for Day One, for Tally, for Music, for Batteries, and even the OG interactive calculator widget for PCalc.
If we’re getting really technical, I also have Lock Screen widgets. My standard Lock Screen has a widget from LockFlow that acts as a quick launcher into Drafts, one for CARROT Weather because I love the snark, and one for Overcast, which starts playing a show from my go-to playlist.
Like I said, it turns out I use a lot of widgets.
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Simone De Rochefort: Have you been following the discussion around the so-called “ripoff” of Pokémon by Palworld, and what do you think about it?
Honestly, I had not even heard about this controversy until Simone brought it up here on the show. Since then, I’ve picked up a little more, but no, I haven’t been following the story.
With a cursory glance over their artwork and game mechanics, I’m inclined to agree that it seems like a rip-off, but that’s more for lawyers to decide. I’m sure if The Pokemon Company feels that their IP is getting infringed upon, and it sounds like they’re looking into it, they will get involved.
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Dan Moren: Apple released iOS 17.3 this week which adds the Stolen Device Protection feature. Have you enabled this, and do you take any other device security precautions?
Oh yeah, I enabled it as soon as I had the new OS version installed. It seems like there are very few downsides, and will largely negate any chance of the severe repercussions possible if someone gets ahold of your device and its passcode.
I’d encourage everyone to switch it on, and I hope that Apple guides users toward enabling it in future updates.
As for other security precautions, I’m fairly vanilla. I store passwords and passkeys in iCloud Passwords (with a fallback to my 1Password database every so often), and I’m contentious about putting my phone into “passcode-required” mode in situations where I don’t have direct possession of it (read: airport security or traffic stops).
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Christina Warren: Are you still willing to pay an increased amount of money to streaming services to not get ads, or will you pay for an ad-supported option?
You know the old saying, “Once you go no-ads, you can’t go back?” Okay, I might be mixing that up with another phrase, but the sentiment stands. I now look back at my time growing up with ad after ad after ad blasted into our living room for hours every day as madness. Those ads were manipulative media that I didn’t want or need that interrupted what I did want to watch, and that stole my attention and brain space. If I can, I will continue to choose ad-free options for any streaming services.
I’m not happy about fee increases coming to ad-free plans as these services realize that they can get money both ways from the same customer (access charge plus ad revenue), but I’m still willing to pay for it. However, it has made me more seriously consider designating certain months as our “Max month”, “Prime month”, or “Netflix month” and do more of a pay-as-you-go model with them rather than pay for all the services every month.
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Bonus Topic: What was your favorite cartoon as an elementary-aged child?
That’s a tough choice between Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh. Probably Pokémon has had the longest-lasting influence on me, but Yu-Gi-Oh still has a special place in my heart. That was certainly a creative series.
My dark horse show, though, was Static Shock. It was a really interesting superhero show that it seems like no one has heard of.
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Overtime Topic: What is the secret to the Mac’s longevity, and do you have any Mac memories to share?
It’s hard to think of another tech product that has been so firmly planted in people’s hearts and minds for over four decades. I think the secret to its longevity is that it has been at the center of the tech hub for most of its life. It’s the most capable platform that spans many form factors and enables the development of all other kinds of tech. But I also think something that has helped people’s adoration for the Mac is its nickname. It’s so much easier to love something called “Mac” than “a PC”.
And people do love their Mac.
My favorite Mac memory is of unwrapping my first one, a hand-me-down gift from my friend Robert. That sleek metal frame of the MacBook Pro, and booting it up to see my name on the login screen — oh, that’s hard to top.
This episode went places I certainly was not expecting! But it’s been a delight, as always. Until next week!