This week I was asked by Jason Snell and Dan Moren to guest on their fun, time-limited podcast, Clockwise. On the episode, my co-host Myke Hurley joined me as we discussed Apple Pay, beloved and long-forgotten tech, the iPhone 6+, and Apple’s quality assurance woes of late.

I had a blast; it was both refreshing, but really challenging, to have a time limit for once.

You can also hear some of the fun things that didn’t make the show on the B-Side.

I’ve talked before about how it can be challenging to quickly and effectively use Emoji on the iPhone. It doesn’t help that the stock iOS Emoji keyboard is really kludgey and sorts things in really odd ways.

My dear friend _David Smith has solved this problem. Today he introduced Emoji++ (App Store link). It’s $0.99, and if you’re serious about Emoji like I am, it’s well worth it. You’d be nuts not to, in fact.

The best way to sum up Emoji++ is to show you the GIF that Dave created:

As with all of _David’s apps, Emoji++ is simple, but hugely effective. Some advantages:

• Rather than pages, all Emoji are in a single scrolling list. The “jump bar” allows you to jump to the right section immediately, or even swipe vertically between sections.
• The categories highlighted in the jump bar actually make a lot of sense.
• The Emoji are larger and much easier to see
• You can see recently used Emoji easily (as marked by the 🕘 Emoji, naturally)
• You can long-press to invest in a list of curated favorite Emoji (as marked by the ❤️ Emoji, obviously)
• There is no request for expanded access

I’ve beta tested Emoji++, and it’s wonderful. If you care even the smallest bit about professional Emoji usage, you should go to the app store right now.

Jony Ive was recently interviewed by Vogue. This passage, in particular, seemed like a fine summary of the purpose of the Apple watch (emphasis mine):

All of this syncs with your iPhone, making the watch the wrist-bound control tower of your life in tech. Monitor your heart rate or your movement in general. Tap to have Siri take a message, or send a voice reply. Pay for drinks with your wrist (Apple Pay will be, yes, Apple Watch–compatible). With this product, Apple is moving from your desk and your pocket onto your person, your pulse point.

Today marks the end of an era — FinalGear.com is ceasing to operate in the way fans like myself would recognize. From the site’s creator:

In July 2014, we received a DMCA take-down request for all Top Gear UK, US, and Australia torrents from FACT, a British trade organization representing the BBC. While I suspect that FACT acted on their own rather than at the request of the BBC, we still must honor their request to take down the content that we have been hosting for over 10 years now.

I have decided to just retire the main site and redirect traffic here to the forums. Fifth Gear is a great show but it isn’t worth dedicating a whole website to. I also don’t want to try to keep an episode directory going as it’s a lot of work and Wikipedia does a much better job at it. For the countdown timers, there’s other great sites out there such as TV Calendar.

Final Gear will forever hold a special place in my heart. To understand what Final Gear meant to me, you need to understand what Top Gear means to me.

Top Gear

Top Gear is, ostensibly, a car show. But it’s so much more than that. In fact, I can’t really pinpoint what it is, exactly. The easiest way to describe it is a comedy show themed around cars. A great example is the amphibious car challenge, wherein the three hosts were tasked with creating amphibious cars from scratch. It was both interesting and hilarious:

Despite all that “cocking about”, Top Gear can also be serious, if it wants to be. In 2010, they put together a tribute to F1 racing driver Ayrton Senna. Even as someone who doesn’t get the draw of F1, the piece was absolutely touching:

That said, my favorite Top Gear episodes are the races. There have been many, and every one is marvelous to watch. More often than not, they’re completely contrived. I’ve never cared.

Perhaps the best example of this is the Top Gear Polar Special. In it, the less-fit hosts, James and Jeremy, raced the third host, Richard, to the North (magnetic) Pole. James and Jeremy were in a heavily modified Toyota Hilux, Richard was in a dog sled. The race was clearly incredibly grueling. The exasperation you began to feel as the episode documented their journey was palpable.

Further, as with every episode of Top Gear, the cinematography is top-notch, and the music is wonderful. The Polar Special is, in my estimation, the pinnacle of the series.

Top Gear is at its core, a show about cars. It is possibly best known for the car reviews. The Ariel Atom is a wonderful example:

Top Gear is a wonderfully fun show, which is far deeper than you’d expect, looking at face value.

It’s become a staple in not only my life, but Erin’s as well. Our Sunday afternoons when the show is in season are scheduled around Top Gear. Moreover, when they were starting new seasons (in UK parlance, a “new series”) in the summertime, Erin and I threw a “Top Gear Party” every year. We would have all our friends over, grill hot dogs and hamburgers, and once the sun went down, watch the show projected onto the back of our house. Our summers were largely defined by when Top Gear was starting again.

Final Gear

I first got exposed to Top Gear late in my college career; roughly 2003 or so. At that time, iTunes video wasn’t a thing. I was immediately hooked and thirsted for more. At the ripe old age of 21, I had… less complex thoughts… about how to acquire media. I quickly found my way to Final Gear. On Final Gear, one could find torrents for not only new episodes, but past ones as well.

My thirst both quenched and intensified, Final Gear showed me the way to shows I never would have heard of otherwise. I found Fifth Gear, another wonderful UK motoring show hosted, as it turns out, by some Top Gear alumni. I discovered the short-lived Top Gear Australia; I followed the long journey of bringing the much-maligned but still enjoyable Top Gear America from concept to presently-running show.

When I heard an incredible song on Top Gear — which happened more often than one would expect — I would want to know what it was immediately. Thanks to Final Gear’s What’s That Song? forum, I could find the answer within a day or two of the episode airing. I wouldn’t have discovered Ludovico Einaudi without Final Gear.

While I didn’t spend an overabundance of time on the forums that have become the Final Gear site, I did lurk there from time to time. I knew the regular faces. Imagine my surprise when I saw one of the site’s administrators tweet at me. I was completely star struck when he did; much more so than I’m sure Daniel was in talking to me.

Though I was mostly a lurker, I was overjoyed when I heard that Richard had received the helmet that the forum had sent him. Even though I wasn’t involved in the process, well, at all, I felt like I had sent him that helmet. I was amazed when I heard that Viper, the site’s creator, got to go to a taping and confirm that some on the Top Gear staff read and loved the forums. It felt like one of us was there, talking to the show’s stars and producer.

This summer, Final Gear received a DMCA notice. No one was surprised by it. Nevertheless, it marks the end of an era.

So, thank you, to both Top Gear and Final Gear, for the hours of enjoyment you’ve provided me.

My life would genuinely not be the same without that show, or that site.

So about that iPhone 6 camera…

…it isn’t so bad, is it?

I received my Space Gray 64 GB iPhone 6 on launch day; I’ve had it for nearly a week now. Naturally, I have some immediate impressions.

• The battery life seems better than my 5s by a comfortable margin
• The screen seems to be of better quality than the 5s
• I’ve adjusted to the side lock button quickly, but for some reason I keep thinking the volume controls are on the right side now
• The camera is markedly improved
• The 5s looks positively tiny, but fits much more comfortably in my hand
• Software-wise, I like the new screen size a lot
• Physically, however, I’m not sold on the size

I think Joe Rosensteel summed it up best, and I completely agree:

In truth, I’m still adjusting to this change, and I do think that I might have selected a smaller phone if one were available. For me, screen space was never as important as one-handed operation.

I’m very curious to see how I feel about the size after a couple months.

On my recent guest appearance on IRLTalk, I mentioned that I consider myself a professional Emoji user. This is mostly because I have set up quite a few text replacement shortcuts to accelerate my Emoji usage. I get asked to post my list periodically.

I’ve set these up on my Mac in System Preferences > Keyboard > Text, and on iOS in Settings > General > Keyboard > Shortcuts. Conveniently, until iOS 8, the entries on all my devices were synchronized. Upon upgrading to iOS 8, I’ve found the shortcuts are no longer syncing between my devices. Hopefully that will be fixed soon.

Regardless, below is my list of shortcuts. Note that this won’t work in Chrome (nor Windows) without some supplementary software.

This week’s episode of Analog(ue) was the hardest podcast I’ve ever recorded. I’m rather confident, however, it’s the best. Stephen Hackett, who we had on as our first guest, summarizes it well:

If I never record another podcast, I’d be fine with this capping my career. It’s the show I’ve wanted to record for almost two years. I genuinely hope that our conversation — as raw and emotional as it was — helps someone out there struggling with pain, depression or loss.

Dan Benjamin, podcaster extraordinare, has been long espousing his Bacon Method, an easy and reliable way to make great bacon.

I’ve tried the Bacon Method, and it wasn’t for me. I think I may be alone in this feeling, as I’ve seen numerous people other than Dan espouse Bacon Method. I mean, the thing has its own t-shirt, and that’s not because it’s crappy. You should try it. Seriously.

Here at home, we have fallen into a different approach. The Liss Family approach is probably for you if:

• You are of the opinion you can take some of the fat out of (and away from) the bacon without losing taste
• You’re impatient and are willing to be more involved in order to get bacon in your mouth as quickly as possible
• You want to take advice from a random stranger on the internet who has never really cared about what he eats
• You like long URLs

Here’s the approach we use in the Liss household:

1. Place two paper towels down on a large plate
2. Place the bacon on the paper towel, making sure each strip is spaced just enough so that it’s not touching any other strips
3. Place two paper towels over the bacon; this should leave you with a towels-bacon-towels sandwich
4. Cook for 2 minutes in the microwave
5. Either remove the top towels and flip the bacon itself, or simply grab the bacon-and-towel sandwich and flip the whole thing
6. Cook for at least another minute — I find between 75 and 90 seconds to be the sweet spot

If you prefer a slightly softer bacon, stop closer to 75 seconds. If you prefer crispier, go for the full 90. Naturally, each batch of bacon and each microwave are different, so part of the fun is establishing your own timing preferences.

Using the above approach leads to bacon that is not greasy, as well as allowing for reasonably granular crispiness control. Additionally, the whole process takes less than 5 minutes. Further, unlike classical pan-fried bacon, it doesn’t leave the house and clothes smelling for days.

I really want to name this post “Non-Standard Bacon Method”, but I fear not everyone that reads it will be in on the joke.

Mike Meyers wrote an excellent bit of feedback to myself and my ATP co-hosts regarding feeding the trolls. He sums up the correct way to handle trolls really well:

To me, it means that once a troll has been called out and fails to understand that their behaviour is unacceptable, then they should be starved of attention.

Mike also summarizes something I’ve wrestled with lately:

Also, I’m finding Twitter is more and more a place for anger and hatred. It’s so easy to send off an angry 140-character rant, without thinking through the anger in it. There is too little friction and too little space for nuance.