There's an APPellate Court For That

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast. I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.
This week, there's an app-ell at court for that. Patrick brings the case against his dad, Rudy.

Rudy says he has a billion-dollar app idea. Patrick says, this app will never work.
Who's right? Who's wrong? Only one can decide.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman enters the courtroom and presents an obscure cultural reference. I've heard it said many times, the original is often the best.

Bring the original Judge John Hodgman back. Not necessarily in all future devices, but the ability to download it would be sweet.

Judge John Hodgman's Subsonic, as good as it looks in its 3D colors and Electro-tunes, just doesn't have the same feel as the original. Bailiff Jesse Thorne, please swear the litigant's in.

Patrick and Rudy, please rise and raise your right hands. Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? So help you, God or whatever.

I do. I do.
Do you swear to abide by Judge John Hodgman's ruling, despite the fact that he rarely orders apps for the table? Yes. I do.
Judge Hodgman, you may proceed.

Look at these two adorables actually raising their hands. That's what I get now that we teleconference on this podcast.

I can see you, Rudy, and you, Patrick, actually raising your right hands as instructed. Father and son, adorables.

All right, for an immediate summary judgment. First of all, you may be seated.
And thank you for not actually standing up.

For an immediate, because it seems like you might have.

For an immediate summary judgment in one of your favors, can either of you name the piece of culture that I referenced as I entered the courtroom?

Let's start with you, Patrick. You are the young man who seeks justice before this court.

What is your guess?

Boy,

you will not get it. Yeah.
Is it a

HP ad?

You're never going to get it. Some sort of a

weird Eastern European rip-off of

Mac PC ads, but for HP or something. Ah, I liked your reference there.
I'll add that. Mac versus PC ads.

I find in Patrick's favor. Sorry, Rudy.

Rudy, Rudy, how's the reception up there at Big Toad Road? Big Toad Road, clear as crystal. Coming in loud and clear from Big Toad Road, unnamed state USA, presumably.

Before we were recording, Jesse, of course, all the fun stuff happens before we hit record on any podcast. That is the truth.

And I learned that Rudy, Patrick's dad, lives on a road called Big Toad Road. And he didn't want me to mention it because he's afraid of podcast paparazzi.
Paparazzi

around his home there. That's right.
TMZ reports on all our past litigants.

Let me just say to all those listeners who delighted in using Google satellite to find that pool in Maine that I said probably didn't exist and had to prove it to me. Do not hunt down Patrick's dad.

No. It's okay because it's actually technically called Big Toad Way, so they probably wouldn't find it.
Well, there we go.

Now, all the secrets are all the IP is going out, being revealed now, which is in fact part of what we're going to discuss here in a moment. But do you have a guess, sir, as to the source of my quote?

I have no idea. You're never going to.
I was hoping you would do something from cheers I might recognize. But

so my guess is that it's something post-1985 cultural reference, which by definition I would not get.

It is post-1985. It is, in fact, from 2009.
And the reason you are never going to get it is this website that I'm quoting from

is no longer extant. I actually got it via the Internet Archive.

January 2009, a blog post on a website called conversations.nokia.com, the official Nokia phone blog, specifically the history of Nokia Part 2, colon Judge John Hodgman.

Now, Judge John Hodgman is not the actual thing that is being discussed in the quoted portion. Specifically, I was quoting Adam F.
from the comments of this blog post.

Adam F. was saying, I heard it said many times, the original is often the best.
Bring blank

back.

Now, this blank,

which you might take another guess at, I'm giving you a lot of hints, getting a lot of chances here. Big Toad Road deserves it.

This thing that I'm referring to, this blank that I'm asking you to name, is considered by some to be the first mobile app, certainly one of the first and most popular mobile games that was put onto the Nokia 6110 mobile phone in 1997.

The game was created by Tonelli Armanto. Can either of you name the game? I know that there are Judge Sean Hodgman listeners screaming into their email machines at me right now.

But we're going to give Patrick and his dad, Rudy, a chance to guess. Is it Snake? Is it Snake? And Rudy, Rudy, what is your guess? No idea.

Snake is correct.

I ruled rightly. It is, I rule in favor of Patrick.

But since we're beaming in all the way from Big Toad Road, we will not grant the summary judgment because neither of you technically got the cultural reference.

And now we will hear the case. Before we begin, Rudy.
Yes.

Thank you for joining the podcast. Do you have, I love podcasts myself.
We just finished our incredible Max Fun drive, supporting our community of many podcasts.

If MaxFun were looking to invite to its community of podcasts, I don't know, a podcast on Ultimate Frisbee, is there one you would recommend?

I can think of several. You really want the best one?

You know what? I don't care if it's the best. I just want to know, is it the most popular? Well, the most popular happens to be the best.
It's called Sin the Fields,

and it features

Patrick Stegemiller and another guy, Ted Wessell. What is it called, Patrick? This is your Ultimate Frisbee podcast? Yeah, it's called Sin the Fields.
Sin the Fields. Sin the Fields.

Sounds scary. Yeah, it's a sort of deep reference from within the Ultimate community that it makes it impossible, outside of just the fact that it's about Ultimate Frisbee.

It's a deep Ultimate Frisbee cultural reference? Right. So it just makes it impossible to market to anyone outside of the handful of people who actually care about Ultimate.
ultimate.

But, you know, you got to

stick with your brand. I got to give credit for your dad because that was the other thing that happened before we started recording.
Was Rudy did a very dadly thing and recommended your podcast.

And I want to recommend it to all of our listeners. What do you play? What kind of Ultimate Frisbee position do you play? Is that a thing? Yes.
Power forward.

Strike backwards.

I'm a handler.

Spin thrower. Plate spinner.
Handler. A handler.
Yeah. Oh.
Yeah.

I actually have a pretty serious rivalry with Patrick.

My podcast, Bag the Chains, is about frolf and frolfing.

And I've nothing but contempt for Ultimate Frisbee and its podcast. There's a lot of bad blood there.
One of the great rivalries, Ultimate Frisbee and Frisbee Golf.

You know, I got to say,

in a world in which frisbee golf exists, as well as regular frisbee,

it's a lot for your sport to declare itself the ultimate.

That's a big move that I never really felt was justified. I don't know.

And that's, John, that's to say nothing of halftime shows featuring dogs doing incredible frisbee catches, which is by far the king of all frisbee sports. That seems ultimate to me.

I don't know that anything can go. That is nayplus ultra in the frisbee world, but it's fair.
It's established that that is its name from now on. Sin the Fields.
S-I-N the Fields.

S-I-N, Sin the Fields, hosted by myself and my

incomparably named podcast, partner Tad Whistle,

which is his real name.

Just,

yeah.

Did he get that name because his parents anticipated he would grow up to be an ultimate frisbee enthusiast?

They're like,

it's either that or water polo.

Tad. Tad Whistle.
Whistle.

Anyway, I guess we got to hear this case. I would love to talk about Tad Whistle,

the ultimate frisbee

athlete and podcaster. But we're here for you, Patrick, because you

have dragged your own father in the court all the way down from Big Toad Road, seeking justice. What is the nature of your dispute? My father, Rudy, keeps pitching this app

that's not a good app. And

it's really creating some friction.

I don't know if you would like me to define what I think the app concept is or if you're not going to be able to do that. No, no, I'll give it to the creator.
I don't need you to steal his IP.

I'll give it to the creator a fair chance to elevator pitch me in a second.

But when you say, Patrick, that Rudy, your dad, is pitching this app idea,

he's pitching it to venture capitalists, titans of industry, app developers, who's he he pitching it to?

Mostly just loved ones whose time that he gets to spend with them is limited, and he consciously decides to use it, pitching over and over again, this app.

Okay.

And how long has this been going on, this app pitching? I mean, does it go back to the time of Snake, 1997, the year of the Snake? No, it follows on the heels of Snake.

I'd say about 2017, summer 2017. So about four years now is how long this has been going.

You correct me, correct me if I'm wrong on the timeline. Yeah,

let's turn it over to Rudy. Rudy.

Well, first, I would quarrel with his characterization of how frequently I am mentioning this, much less pitching it. I think I pitched it once.

And after that, I'm just sort of more taunting them with it. But

taunting them with their failure to cash in on...

the opportunity that I gave them. Right.

But no one else has taken up the opportunity. It's not like they've missed the opportunity.
The opportunity

remains to be.

Although I think we're sort of blowing it wide open by doing this podcast. So someone will, certainly, one of your astute listeners will pick it up, I have no doubt, become involved in the past.

Well, I'm going to ask you to describe the app. And

I don't know. Jennifer Marmer, maybe we should just bleep it all out just to protect his IP.

Just a long

be 50 minutes of one long bleep.

No, it's okay. They had their chance.

That's right. The world has had its chance.
Rudy,

you've already revealed your son's podcast. I think you revealed his last name.
You've corrected me about the name of your road. It's Big Toad Way.

You are definitely triangulatable at this point.

And I urge the listeners of Judge John Hodgman, an honorable group if I've ever met one,

Do not go find Patrick's dad. He's a good dad who deserves his privacy.

And he's got a great, by the way,

a great ceiling fan. Love a ceiling fan in the background.
Good for you, Rudy. I'm leaning in your favor at this point.

And also, he's got some IP. Don't steal his IP.

Okay, this is an opportunity that Rudy has extended to his son Patrick.

And by the end of this podcast, Patrick is going to have to take it it up or drop this legacy in the dirt like a used frisbee that's no good anymore.

Rudy, what is the nature of the app? Okay,

it's a very simple concept, actually. All right, so you start with a virtual bar,

you know, an online gathering place, make it look like a bar, right? And then you have some mechanism for people to

go off and have conversations with each other in the bar, right? So So,

you're hitting it off of somebody in a bar. It's like a booze, like a booze zoom so far.
Booze Zoom, right? Booz zoom. Right, and the value, here's the value added.

So, you're hitting it off of somebody in a bar. You want to buy them a drink.

So, how do you buy a drink for somebody at a virtual bar? Well,

this is what the app does. So, Jack and Jill,

Jack and Jill are talking, hitting it off. Jill says, What are you drinking? Jack says, gin tonic.
Jill says, Great, next one's on me.

Right, Jack goes into his kitchen, makes himself a gin and tonic in his kitchen.

Two buttons get pressed. $6

leaves Jill's account. $5 goes into Jack's account as a modest stipend for the website operator.
And with any luck, 20 minutes later,

it happens again the other direction. Everybody's happy.
Just solid gold. Gold.
What is it called?

It's called Rudy's Place.

I don't know what it's called. Okay, I'm back on board.

Yeah, I don't know what it is. I don't know what it's called.
That is.

I'll tell you something. Now that you know that, now that it's called Rudy's Place,

what I wish, honestly, nothing more is to buy you a drink. Well, I want to transfer you a lot of money to develop this ad.
I love this idea so much now that it's called Rudy's Place.

If only there were some existing way for humans to transfer money to other humans using online. But that hasn't happened yet because you invented it, apparently.
Well, John,

you're overstating the situation here.

Rudy has invented something. He's invented adding a bar-themed skin to Zelle.

That's the other one.

Has anyone ever used that cash transfer thing? That's the one my bank wants me to use. Yes, the one that lives inside your bank.
Yeah.

So Rudy, let me, I'm, I, I, I think this is a lovely idea and I get it. But so are you talking about the lucky developer of this app,

in your vision, would create a virtual conference space like a Zoom or Google Hangouts or what we're using now, right?

But there would be a little, a little button down below that would say,

You would be encouraged to drink an alcoholic or non-alcoholic drink. It is a social place.

Where strangers meet? Do strangers come? Can they drop in, sort of like a clubhouse situation? I assume so.

Honestly, what I just described to you is the full extent of the thought I've put into this app.

So I just threw it out there to Patrick and his sister Bridget and a couple of their cousins of similar age when we were at an extended family shore vacation.

And I thought they would snap it up. And I was surprised that they just scoffed and mocked it.

You thought they would snap it up on the basis of the fact that they are what is known as app aged. Sure.

Whatever that is. Patrick, why did you scoff your dad?

Why did you and your sister Bridget and all of your cousins down the shore

have a scoff party and laugh at your dad for pitching this hat?

You know, I think that

you have to take into consideration my father's history with technology and his present current situation with technology. And just that I, the fact that he would be pitching an app in and of itself

was a humorous idea.

And then when that pitch seemed to disregard

multiple decades of pre-existing apps and companies and websites. I think Paint Paul was founded in 1998 or something like that.

It was invented by Snake. Snake invented it the next year.
Snake became sentient and invented PayPal.

That's history of technology. That's just science.

So, at a surface level, that was, I think, where the initial scoffing came from. And, you know, maybe it's uncharitable for a bunch of app-aged individuals to just scoff at the mere idea of

a more distinguished older person pitching an idea for an app. Rudy, I just want to say that I don't know what app age is.
This is the first I've ever heard this term ever either. So

both Jesse and Patrick are making fun of both of us now. Is this a real term or one that you guys just made up in the chat to make fun of us? Patrick and Jesse

youths?

No, I think it's

a bit of illustrative language that I created to illustrate Rudy's description that he pitched this app to Patrick, his sister, and some of their cousins who were all about the same age. Gotcha.

Which

seems to be, from my perspective, what Rudy understands venture capitalists to be.

Yeah, Rudy, do any of, may I ask if Patrick or Bridget or any of the cousins

have a background in investing or developing apps?

Uh

certainly not. I mean, Patrick, what do you do for a living aside from being an Ultimate Frisbee podcaster?

Well, my side gig, in addition to being an Ultimate Frisbee podcaster, is I'm an attorney. Okay, gotcha.
Rudy, go on. What about Bridget or any of the cousins?

I think some of the cousins might be a little more involved in technology, but I'm just assuming that someone who's in their 20s and gets excited about an idea can take it and run with it.

When you say they might be a little more involved in technology, do you mean that like they bought one of those refrigerators with a screen on it or something?

I don't know. From my perspective, everybody is more involved with technology than I am.

Let's take a quick recess and hear about this week's Judge John Hodgman sponsor. We'll be back in just a moment on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

You're listening to Judge John Hodgman. I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.
Of course, the Judge John Hodgman podcast, always brought to you by you, the members of maximumfun.org.

Thanks to everybody who's gone to maximumfun.org slash join. And you can join them by going to maximumfun.org slash join.

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So,

Patrick, let me just understand. The issues are, you, I mean, when I said, why were you scoffing your dad?

Basically, you said, this is, you know, to summarize, the idea itself is dumb. And my dad doesn't understand technology, so he's pathetic.
Mean. I'll say mean.
That's a hard scoff. Explain to me

and to your dad. who loves you

and to the members of the audience who are maybe thinking about investing their hard-earned cash at this moment, who have not yet seen the flaw in the plan of Rudy's place.

What do you see as the flaws in this app? Well, I think partially because

after you hear the concept for the first time,

one of the first things that springs to mind is about the only way that this could become profitable is if it was used for some illegal activity, illicit behavior, something like that.

And again, the idea of a, you know,

someone inadvertently pitching a new Silk Road or something like that is

best intentions ending up in this situation. That's pretty funny.

I believe the new Silk Road is called Big Toad Road in that one.

The new home of the dark web.

It's actually made of gravel.

So it's basically a dark web application with sinister uses. What else? What other

arguments? What would you caution someone before investing in this new app? Well, there's also just a lot of competition in the online dating app space right now, I would imagine.

I mean, Tinder, Bumble, Hinge, presumably other ones that I don't even know about.

What's the favorite online dating app among Ultimate Frisbee players?

Oh, just being an Ultimate Frisbee player, because there's only seven of us anyways. So you can, it's a,

it's it's a it's a it's a cluster of friends. Yeah.
Yeah, I see. Okay.

So there's that. And then also, again, as we've already pointed out, the functionality already exists easily in so many different ways with Venmo, with Zelle, with PayPal.

So you're already trying to box out multiple industries at once here

to try to turn a profit on this. Rudy, I may have misunderstood.

I just felt like what you were proposing was a place where everybody knows your name,

where you can go to forget all your troubles.

And you just hang out in a convivial atmosphere. And if you feel like being nice, you buy your friend a drink within this ecosystem called Rudy's Place.

I didn't get the impression, maybe I'm wrong here.

Is the idea that people would

date out of this experience, that they are buying drinks for each other to lead to in real life or virtual hugging and kissing?

I can't speak to that. I mean,

people do whatever they want to do.

Right, whatever happens at Rudy's Place stays at Rudy's place. Exactly.

Exactly. Look, just making your way in the world today takes everything you've got.

The only value added that my idea offers is that there is a conviviality involved in buying a drink for somebody

and then returning the favor if you're still talking 10 minutes later.

And there's a social lubrication that occurs there. And this would offer that.
That's my pitch. That's it.

Well, Rudy, you pitched it to Patrick and his sister Bridget and all of his cousins by the dozens and his aunts down there on the shore.

The market spoke. It said, scoff,

to quote the great Megan Amram, who wrote that line for me in Parks and Recreation

why are we even still having this conversation Patrick accuses you of bringing this up time and time again you have said that you are merely taunting them at this point what is going on I continue to think that it's a billion dollar idea if somebody would just do it now this was all pre-pandemic I mean

do you think I think it made sense before the pandemic I think during the pandemic people actually couldn't even go to bars It would have been just absolute solid gold, multi-billion dollars.

How would the app be making money? Would Rudy's place be taking a percentage of every transaction? Yes. Yes.
I see. Or maybe just stealing the data and selling it to hackers somewhere.
I don't know.

You're nothing if not honest and forthright. Thank you.
Yeah, I appreciate that. If only we could get Google to be so frank.

Rudy's motto is: Sure, I'm I'm evil. That's right.

Right. Why not?

So

we have evidence of your taunting or reaction to it in any case. We have an affidavit from Patrick's aforementioned sister, Bridget.

I'm going to read

a shortened version of it here for you now to put it into the record.

Dear Judge Hodgman, Patrick represents the dozens of family members and friends who have found themselves barricaded in the corner of a family party, stuck in an argument they don't want to have, trying to explain the basic components of apps to a man who still pays for his email account.

Damning. Damning evidence.
Every critic makes him more adamant. As he sees it, genius is often misunderstood.
It's made even worse knowing that my dad has no plans to create this app.

He's just frustrated that no one else is willing to commit their lives to the million-dollar idea he has handed us.

Now, I think that must be a typo because, Rudy, you said it was a billion-dollar idea, correct? I believe.

All right, that's a typo, Bridget.

You might want to double check. Give your things a proofread before you send them in to Judge John Hodgman.

Continuing from Bridget, so without a chance to be proven incorrect, his commitment to the idea is unrelenting. It's been years.

Rudy's place is half...

Oh, boy. Bridget's really...
Is Bridget a lawyer, Patrick? No, but she's showing some chops. Yeah, what does she do for a living, if I may ask? Uh she does fundraising for children's hospitals.

Well, I bet she gets some money. Because she is britch- she is bringing it home here.
Listen to this.

Rudy's place is half of a terrible idea that deserves no one's time or attention.

But it has somehow become the hill my dad is choosing to die on.

I don't know if it's a quixotic pursuit of greatness now that he's retired, or a bizarre way for him to process his deep misunderstanding and fear of technology.

But either way, it's ruining our family's beach trips. Any support you can provide is deeply appreciated.
Signed, Patrick's sister, Bridget. All right.

Rudy, I want to ask you about this last paragraph in particular. Okay.

How do you respond to the accusation?

That this is a quixotic pursuit of greatness now that you've retired

and or or a bizarre way for you to process your fear of technology. Do either of those statements have any resonance with you?

Not the former, maybe the latter.

The latter being misunderstanding or fear about technology. I wouldn't say misunderstanding or fear.
I would say understanding and loathing.

I don't like technology. I don't like the internet.

So I guess, honestly, this is really just a way of sort of taunting the younger generation with the absurdity of the culture that they have been forced to live in.

You're doing it for the luls.

You're trolling your children

and their cousins

with this idea, which you don't truly believe in because it produces pleasure for you. Well, no, wait, no, wait.
I still believe in the idea.

The fact that it is ridiculous and grotesque is not mutually exclusive with it being a billion-dollar idea on the internet.

Rudy, it says here that you retired last year from a career in energy and environmental policy, and you are now pursuing a doctorate, PhD in philosophy focusing on technology, the thing you claim to hate.

Yes. Why are you taking this doctorate in technology?

You really want to go down this road?

Yeah, I want to go down that big-toed road.

I'm going to ride till I can't know more.

I mean,

we can spend a lot of time on that. I guess

pursuing the theme that technology is reducing the human self to an aggregate of commercial data. It's empowering totalitarian surveillance states.

It's reducing mental functions to replace judgment with obedience.

It's erasing the notion of objective truth, where information and truth are just what feels good. And since people spend their whole lives staring at screens, it turns out what feels good is rage.

So I could go on. I like this podcast a lot.

You know, Judge John Hodgman began... as a segment on Jesse's podcast here on the Maximum Fun Network, Jordan Jesse Go, and then it spun off into its own podcast.

So I kind of feel like maybe, Patrick, the solution here is for your dad to have a segment on Sin the Fields where he, you know what I mean?

Where he just talks about the danger and evils of technology. Are you talking about podcasts in your portfolio of woe that you just laid out there for us, Rudy?

Okay.

At risk of sounding like I'm sucking up, I will say I do like podcasts.

Podcasts are probably the closest that the internet comes to actually fulfilling the promise that it made 30 years ago.

Back when Snake was invented.

It is the most super highway-like of the Internet's information.

So, so, okay. So,

podcasts themselves are not just

a vehicle for rage and obedience and totalitarianism. Right.
Well, not this one. Not yet, anyway.
So,

Patrick, what do you, what, what,

what do you want me to rule in this situation?

Well, I think that Bridget really

hits the nail on the head here, getting at the deep irony of how this man who loathes technology, burden shifts technical know-how onto all of those around him,

as evidenced by

just everything that went into getting this podcast appearance in the first place,

is now essentially trolling his family and becoming the monster that he claims to be trying to save the rest of us from. Yes, but he's not using technology to do it.

He's stoking rage for his own enjoyment in person, the way it used to be done. Classic meat space trolling.

So I would like you to rule

that

you issue an injunction on him continuing to pitch this app idea,

which, despite what he has said earlier, is

one of the three things that he talks about with the rest of the family at this point. He misrepresents how often he brings up Rudy's place.
This is correct. Only when we get together.

Okay.

This is true. He's not sending blast emails out to people.

It is mostly an analog pitch. It's an in-person pitch.

What are the other two things

that are in his repertoire conversation down the shore? The tension between his love of seafaring craft and his fear of sharks.

And...

I mean, easy answer to that one. Gonna need a bigger boat.
Right.

You actually have no idea how scarring just even quoting Jaws is for him. He's still got deep Jaws trauma.
That's true. Sure.

And I would say the other one is probably extolling the virtues of the 1970s Minnesota Vikings defensive line.

Three great dad conversations. I mean,

I dare say you're lucky to, you know, you're lucky to have

a dad and

a relationship with your dad that is positive. Most people who have those things get one dad conversation.

There's three great topics. Yeah.
Usually when you're talking to your dad, you don't get, you have to talk about big block versus small block, something like that.

You don't get to talk about the Minnesota Vikings legendary purple people leaders.

Thank you. To be clear, to be clear, I'm not asking that you make him not my dad.
That I don't know if you have the jurisdictional

at Patrick.

I hadn't considered that. Counselor, so stipulate.

I forgot that I do have that power.

Rudy, if I were to rule in your favor, how would you have me rule?

I have to say, having heard Patrick's plea there,

I don't know if this ever happens on your podcast, but I realize, he's made me realize that I have been

expressing my technophobia and taking it out on innocent people like Patrick and his sister and their cousins. Oh, because he said that you were like trolling them.
Yeah. Yeah.
Whatever that means.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just to point out, I love that you love your son, but I said it first.
It's fine if you want to credit him. Okay, well, thank you.
But I really teed that up for him. Yes.
But go on.

Please say, continue. I need to give the credit to

my son, though. I'll give that IP away.
Okay.

I have to concede that I should probably

stop

because I'm not honestly pitching a billion-dollar app to them anymore. I'm just taunting and tormenting them for being young internet people, and that's not their fault.

So I don't know.

Here's what I would like, though. Yeah.
I would like to.

You can reverse your charge to your listeners that they not take this idea. Open it up.
Any of your listeners wants to take it and run with it, please do.

But you need to order them that if they do it, they have to call it Rudy's Place. Absolutely so ordered.

Even before I make my verdict, which now seems a foregone conclusion, but we'll have to see.

John,

that's a Creative Commons CCRP license.

It's a standard sub-license that you can use it for commercial purposes, but you have to call it Rudy's Place. And if they make a billion dollars on it, sir, can they buy a super yacht?

No, please.

Why not? Because I hate super yachts.

Somehow I knew that. I don't want to be part of somebody getting a super yacht.

Too big of boat, John. Yeah, but it would seem that of all the boats, a super yacht might be the most shark-proof.
Yes.

Super yachts produce more carbon than a small country.

But that's a whole nother topic.

One last thing before I go into my chambers to make my decision.

Rudy, when Patrick and Bridget and their cousins by the dozens and their aunts down by the shore

scoffed your idea initially and ongoing, how did it make you feel?

Honestly, i was surprised the first time because i i thought and continue to think that it was a commercially viable idea um

didn't make me feel upset in any way okay but i i you know i would like to reserve the the right if possible to bring it up occasionally just occasionally i can't just let it go

Especially if somebody does it, it becomes Rudy's place. And as a billion billion dollar, if someone becomes a billionaire, then I certainly have to be able to taunt them.

Well, that is a different situation.

Yes, if a listener to Judge John Hodgman takes the idea of Rudy's place, calls it Rudy's place, runs with it, you get to keep the money as long as you don't buy a super yacht, but Rudy himself retains bragging and taunting rights.

Fair enough? That sounds fair.

Now, as to the decision as to whether you're ever going to mention this idea again in the future or not, that remains for me to decide.

I am going to go into my chambers now, which I'm a little embarrassed to say are here on my super yacht. I'm going into the planetarium in my super yacht.
I'll be back in a moment with my verdict.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom. Patrick, how do you feel about your chances?

You know, I mean, I think I'm a little...

unclear on exactly what the ruling is going to be or what even the terms of the ruling could be based on the admission that my father, Rudy, just made.

I feel that, particularly with the great assist from Bridget, we've made a very compelling case that both this is not an app that is going to be successful and that it's basically impossible for us to conclude anything other than that he's just tormenting us at this point by continuing to bring it up.

So I think with those two

pieces of evidence established pretty well, I think that the judge will rule in our favor. Or, to use the language of your podcast, you're ready to kick a field goal.

Rudy, how do you feel about your chances?

I feel a little chastened as I listened to Patrick and Bridget's affidavit and the judge and came to realize

that

I have just been tormenting this younger generation for something that's not really their fault.

On the other hand, I feel pretty confident that this is a good idea, that the judge will believe that it is potentially a good commercial idea.

So, as long as I'm still allowed to mention it at least once a year, I'll feel okay.

Rudy, do you know that you basically invented the hot Silicon Valley guys talking to each other on the phone app Clubhouse?

I'm not going to be responsible for the use that people make of this thing.

Patrick, you've been making fun of your dad's idea this entire time, and he's basically literally describing the hottest startup app in the world.

I mean, it's not bar-themed or called Rudy's Place, but I think we can all agree that that would make the existing app better.

I'll agree that Rudy's Place is certainly a better name than Clubhouse. Well, we'll see what Judge Hodgman has to say about all this when he comes back in just a moment.

Hello. Hello, I'm calling on behalf of the Beef and Dairy Network podcast.
Oh, no, I'm sorry. No sales calls.
Goodbye.

It's a multi-award-winning podcast featuring guests such as Ted Danson, Nick Offerman, Josie Long.

I don't know what a Josie Long is, and anyway, I'm about to take my mother into town to see Phantom of the Opera at last. You are wasting my time, and even worse, my mother's time.

She only has so much time left. She's 98 years old.
She's only expected to live for another 20 or 30 years. Mother, get your shoes on.
Yes, the orthopaedic ones.

I don't want to have to carry you home again, do I? Right. Well, if you were looking for a podcast.
Mother, you're not wearing that, are you? It's very revealing, Mother.

This is a musical theater, not a Parisian bordello. Simply go to maximum fun.org.
I'm reaching for my Samsung Galaxy 4 as we speak. Mother! Mother, not that hat!

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman re-enters the courtroom and presents his verdict.

How old are you, Patrick? I'm 28. 28 years old.
When I was in my 20s, when I was your age, it was, oh,

just two years after Snake was loaded onto the Nokia 6110.

And but around that time, you know, we had the internet. And

someone we knew was dating an older fella, and he had the idea for creating what we now know to be a social network. It had not existed before that time.

And this guy, Barry, he wanted to create a place where people could hang out together online.

And he hired two younger people to consult on this project with him, to create this website where people could hang out together online.

And they ultimately parted

because

Barry insisted

against their objections that this online meeting place should be called

hangouttown.com.

And I agreed with those younger people at the time.

But Barry was right.

The idea of people hanging out online had not been invented yet. And Barry did it, hangouttown.com.

And if only he had gone forward with that terrible, terrible, terrible domain name.

Maybe he would be, and maybe he is now a multi-billionaire. I don't know.
I'm just saying historically, I have a bad time evaluating business ideas.

Around the same time I was on a bicycle in Central Park, New York City, where I live,

Jonathan Colton, my friend, was on the bicycle next to me. We were biking together like friends in a French movie.
And as we bike slowly along, he says, I have an idea for an online business.

This business,

people don't have time to cook. Bear in mind, this is around the time, you know, 1998 or so.

People don't have to cook. The business I'm proposing is that we send perfectly portioned ingredients to people at their homes as a meal kit,

and they make the food at home.

This dude invented Sunbasket right next to me. Sorry, Jesse.

I know that Sunbasket is the creation of your friend from college, but I'm just saying that Jonathan Colton was right there on a bicycle with this idea 15, 20 years early.

And it is the idea that allows podcasts to exist.

And you know what I told him? It'll never work.

Hangout Town won't work. Proto-Sunbasket won't work.
Then Jonathan Colton came to me a few years later and said, you know it exists podcast? And I said, will never work.

I'm glad I was wrong in all cases.

To me, this idea, I have to tell you, Rudy, does not seem good. But then Jesse started saying it was basically clubhouse in another form.
And I'm like, what do I know?

What do I know?

So I can't evaluate the business savvy of getting in on this idea on the ground floor or even the basement or the second floor. I don't know.
I don't know if this thing will work.

It sounds like it doesn't need to exist. but then plenty of things exist that don't need to, in any case.

That is not the wisdom I can offer you.

The wisdom that I can offer is this:

Patrick, you have an interesting dad.

Rudy, you live, what I've taken from you is that

you like to live in tension

between opposing ideas. You know,

you have this

loathing of technology

and strong feelings about it.

And yet rather than just

throw it all aside and go out and run a horsepower farm and ignore technology altogether, you are taking a PhD using technology, presumably these days,

in order to learn how to hate technology more.

You love ships and hate sharks, a normal position.

And yet your hatred of super yachts is such that you would refuse that protection. You would rather die by shark than own a super yacht.

You are a fan of the Minnesota Vikings, a football team.

And yet you have, even before it's begun,

the most popular segment on the most popular ultimate frisbee podcast in the world.

That's good stuff. That's interesting.
I'm sure Patrick and Bridget and all of the cousins and everybody else appreciate that about you. And I don't think you deserve to be scoffed

for pitching this idea once.

Because

you almost were telling the truth for a second. You had a moment of clarity where you realized, yes, I pitched the idea once.
I got scoffed.

And now I'm coming back at them again and again just to bug them. You opened the show that way.

You have stared into the technological abyss and whether you know it or not, you are stoking rage

in order to get attention for yourself and to get lulls out of it. That's trolling, my friend.
Look it up. Look it up on the Encarta CD-ROM encyclopedia.
Trolling.

You are now operating not in good faith, but in bad faith. Now, I'll give dads a lot of latitude to bug their their children on this podcast.

It is one of the few consolations that we enjoy as we shuffle off into irrelevance and the grave.

But

we've been going on and off for

20, 17, 18, you know how terrible I am in subtraction.

More than four years.

Got to knock it off.

Got to knock it off with Rudy's place. The market has spoken.
Patrick and his sister and his cousins and his aunts, they don't want this thing. They don't want it.
They're not going to make it.

Now you've chosen the right path. You've come here.

I hate to call it this because I know how you feel about it, but basically the shark tank of fake internet law podcasts.

You were right to give this idea to the Judge John Hodgman listenership.

Maybe among them there will be someone who will be able to crack this code, make a billion dollars, give you the taunting rights, and not buy a super yacht.

I am

ruling in the children's favor.

You must relent.

I hate to take away one of the topics of conversation.

But the other two are so great. There's just so much you can do with Minnesota Vikings and sharks and boats.

But

I have to stop your bad faith torment of your children in light of your own words,

your own understanding of how technology sparks the use of rage as

a dopamine hit.

You got to cut yourself off from that.

I absolutely encourage you to come up with another app idea.

That would be fine.

But in the meantime, Rudy's place is now the public square, the public domain. Judge John Hodgman, listeners, go for it.
Make it happen.

I will donate $100

to a pitch that makes sense to me.

Why am I doing this? Hodgman at MaximumFund.org.

If you can make sense of this idea,

I will invest $100 of my own money. That makes me the Chris Saka of this podcast.
Patrick, at the same time, I order you, don't scoff at your dad. You're lucky to have an interesting one.

And also,

you got to give him a segment on the podcast. You got to, at this point.
Everyone's dying for it. People are writing me right now.

The segment on Sin the Fields, Rudy's Place, the top segment on the number one Ultimate Frisbee podcast. This is the sound of a gavel.

Judge Sean Hodgman rules that is all. Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.
Patrick, are you satisfied with this verdict? Absolutely. I don't think I could ask for anything more.

I would certainly appreciate the judge's ruling that I need to not scoff at my father and appreciate him because I certainly do appreciate him, but I can always appreciate him more because he is very interesting.

He's a very loving father, and I can't have asked for anything more for one. So, as far as I'm concerned, come out of here with a father and potentially now another great segment on my podcast.

So, a win-win for me. Rudy, how are you feeling?

I think it's fair. I might need a little clarification because

there will be moments when I don't have to say a word, but just raise an eyebrow and they'll know what I'm thinking.

And whether that constitutes

a prohibited taunt or not is something that

I might need a further clarification on. Here's my ruling on that real quick.

You can raise your eyebrow whenever you God or whatever damn please, Rudy. And if Bridget

or Patrick comes to you or any of those cousins, I mean, they say to you, you're thinking about Rudy's place, aren't you? You just say, what? No, I'm not.

I'm thinking about ethics and gaming journalism.

Fair enough.

Well, Patrick Rudy, thanks for joining us on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Another Judge John Hodgman case in the books. Before we dispense Swift Justice, our thanks to Jen Cunningham for naming this week's episode.
There's an app Ellett Court for that.

If you'd like to name an episode, like like Judge John Hodgman on Facebook, that's where we ask for your suggestions. Follow us on Twitter at Jesse Thorne and at Hodgman.

Hashtag your JudgeJohn Hodgman tweets, hashtag JJ H. O.
And check out the Maximum Fun subreddit. That's at maximumfun.reddit.com to discuss the episode.
We're on Instagram at judgejohnhodgman.

Make sure to follow us there. for evidence and other fun stuff.
Our producer, the ever-capable and always with a made bed, Jennifer Marmon.

We can see her bed behind her in the video conference now. Well, you got to look, in the age of Rudy's place, you got to look good.
You got to come correct.

Yeah, Jennifer's bringing decorative pillow game. Okay, now let's get to Swift Justice.
I can never figure out what to do with them when I'm asleep. Decorative pillows.

I'm like, do I just put it on the floor? That seems weird. I put it on my desk chair.

I put one between my knees. I'm a side sleeper.
Oh, that's smart. That's smart.
That's good for your back. Now, Swift Justice, where we answer your small disputes with a quick judgment.

Jennifer from Arizona says, my husband insists on seasoning the cast iron pans every time we use them. We can't just clean them and put them away.

We have to clean them, oil them, and bake them in the oven for an hour. It's an argument every time.

Yeah, Jennifer's husband, you don't know what you're doing with the cat. That's not how you take care of cast iron pans every time.
You season them once,

and then after each use, you sleep with them between your knees. Everyone knows this.

No, I mean, I saw Jesse Thorne shaking his head there, too. It's not

sleep with them between your knees.

You just got to clean them, and then you give them a little bit of oil, a little oil coating,

and that's it. Right, Jesse? Yeah, I mean, you don't even have to give them a little oil coating, frankly.

The whole point of cast iron is that once it's seasoned, as long as you're not cooking something super acidic in it for a long time or really scrubbing it with a Brillo pad, that you can just cook with it indefinitely, essentially rinsing it out between uses, and it will get better and better over time.

Yeah. It's beautiful because it's imperfect, not because you're trying to perfect it every time.
You know, you can make errors in a cast iron pan. You can mess a cast iron pan up and then reseason it.

You know, to paraphrase David Reese, the author of How to Sharpen Pencils and also the co-creator of Dick Town on Hulu, bit.ly slash Dick Town.

The pursuit of perfection is the way of sadness. So take it easy on your pans.
If it looks dry, if it looks dry,

add a little oil between you. If it looks dry,

that's it for this week's episode. Submit your cases at maximumfund.org/slash JJ H O or email hodgman at maximumfund.org.
No case is too small.

We'll see you next time on the Judge John Hodgman Podcast.

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