Justice Extruded is Justice Denied

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman Podcast. I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.
This week's case, justice extruded is justice denied. Micah brings the case against his girlfriend, Jenny.

Micah would like to buy a 3D printer for their home. Jenny thinks their apartment is too small.
She thinks he should wait until they move into a bigger place. Who's right? Who's wrong?

Only one man can decide. Please rise as Judge John Hodgman enters the courtroom and presents an obscure cultural reference.

I don't know love.

I was built to judge, not to love.

So there is no use for me other than this.

Bailiff Jesse Thorne, please swear them in. 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 has no need for a 3D printer, as Dune figurines are commercially available? Yes, I do. Very well.
Judge Hodgman?

I should say that they are available, but rather rare.

You think I wouldn't want to print off myself a third-stage Guild Navigator if I had that option? How dare you? Heck, you'd settle for a second-stage Guild Navigator.

No, those guys, I have no truck with those guys. But let's get back to what we're doing here.

Micah, Jenny, you may be seated for an immediate summary judgment and one of yours favors, can either of you name the piece of culture that I referenced as I entered the courtroom?

Jenny, you are the defendant in this case, so you have the option to either guess first or make Micah guess first. What are you going to choose?

I'm going to let Micah guess first, as he's slightly more nerdy than I am, and I think he might have an idea of the answer.

So someone pointed out that

this all goes back to the Ferris Bueller controversy when the guy guessed the thing right away and I gave it to him and I didn't give the other person a chance to guess and people say you should give the other person a chance to guess.

Maybe they'll guess the same thing.

And there's a lot of game theory going on and some people, I'm just saying this for your sake, Jenny,

that if you have no idea, you have a distinct advantage to go ahead and just

name whatever Micah says because if he happens to be right, then he doesn't win and we have to go on that case. All right.
So you've already figured this out.

Maybe you're the one who wrote me that letter. Haha, just kidding.
Not one person wrote me a letter. 25 people.
Anyway, moving on. Micah, what's your guess? Oh, man.

Caught up in her schemes.

Beauty and the beast. Beauty and the beast goes in the guess.
And I presume, Jenny, that's what you're guessing as well. Beauty and the beast? Or did you have another one?

No, that's what I'll guess too.

All guess is wrong.

No. I was quoting

the actor Mila Jovovich essaying the part of Lilu, the perfect cosmic being from the movie Fifth Element by Luc Besson. Did you see the Fifth Element, you guys?

I have, yeah.

A few times. I would hope you had seen it, Micah, because it has an incredible 3D printing scene in it.
I mean, that's why I got a 3D printer. I just want to print a little mini Mila.

Well, just say you want to print a Supreme Being. Yeah.
Okay, sure. For those who have not seen that movie, please go and see it.
It's spectacular.

But the character, Lilu, that that Mila Jovich plays is essentially bio-printed based on a DNA sample of what remains of a single cell of her being that is recovered after a cosmic accident.

And bioprinting is a real thing, and maybe we'll talk about it in the case. But basically, we're verging on the three-dimensional printing of replacement livers and junk.

So get ready, everybody, for the future. I'm hoping Micah won't be doing that in our apartment, though.
Well, that's what this dispute is all about, Jenny.

Micah wants to have a 3D printer in the apartment that you guys share. And by the way, are you sharing it in the bonds of marriage or just go habitance?

No, we are sharing it in sin. All right.
Well, you know my judgment on that. I won't repeat it.

Micah wants to bring a 3D printer into your home. You do not want this, Micah,

for the benefit of listeners in our audience who may not know what we are talking about. What is a 3D printer?

Sure. There's a couple different kinds of 3D printers, but

the one that I'm. Oh, God, Micah, come on.

Break it down. Break it down for the 45-year-olds who don't know.
I know all their kids know. Sure.
So

basically, it's a printer, but instead of printing

documents, it prints 3D objects. It slowly builds them layer by layer.

Let me do this for you, Micah.

Sorry. I had to cut you off there.
You're not making a good case for a guy who wants to have a 3D printer. You can't even describe what it is.
It's a goofball sci-fi box that

you put on a counter or whatever.

And instead of printing out paper, it prints out three-dimensional objects using a process called additive manufacture, where plastic or other materials are precisely layered based on a three-dimensional design.

It essentially manufactures layer by layer almost any three-dimensional object that you can imagine. How's that sound? Did I almost get there? Yeah,

it makes your dreams come true with technology.

Made it sound pretty cool. As long as your dreams are plastic and smaller than a bread box.

Well, I don't want to get too big for my britches, so you know, I have small dreams.

And why are you interested in 3D printing? So I'm really into board gaming, and we're both into board gaming. So

it's not just you.

No, I love it too. Jesse,

make a note in the court records that

I know this is going to surprise some people. There are some Judge John Hodgman listeners who like board games.
Make a note. This is what I've been waiting for this whole time.

Honestly, I don't even think that the court record is going to believe this, and it's an inanimate object.

Have you ever seen a court record do a spit take?

All right. You guys both love board gaming.

And so, Micah, you want to print up your own

D and D miniatures or something?

Yeah, I mean, among other things, that'd be rad. But, I mean, I also want to sort of take a crack at making my own custom board games every now and then.

And, you know, I could also print off little widgets and whatnots to help fix things here and there. You're going to have to come up with more than widgets and whatnots.
What are you going to...

You can manufacture anything with this. Sure.
So

hangers.

We need pant hangers. So, I mean,

I don't want to get people too excited about the potentials that the 3D printer provides. You know what? I could not be happier to hear that answer.
That's fantastic.

You're going to make some pants hangers?

Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, shirt hangers too. It doesn't have to be a good idea.
Quick question.

Quick question.

Where are you going to get the designs?

Because what you have to do with a 3D printer is you have to have essentially a computer-aided design, a 3D model in virtual space to tell the printer what to build.

Are you going to design your own pants hangers? Please say yes. Are you going to download some pants hang designs off the internets?

I mean, I imagine I would start off small, like you some, um, some of the tried and true uh hanger designs. But eventually, I mean, I, I mean, the sky's the limit.

I could customize and make bespoke hangers, whatever my fever dreams come up with. Are you a virtual 3D designer or modeler by trade? No, but I have seen CAD programs.
Okay, what are you by trade?

Um, wear like a comp USA,

Yeah. Various places.
But yeah.

No,

I

actually just took the bar exam and I'm my post-bar exam break before I returned to working in a patent prosecution primarily. Congratulations.
Oh, thank you. And Jenny,

let me see if I can guess. You're a grad student studying library science with a concentration in information technology?

Information studies and technology. Oh, but I was pretty close, though.
You were very close. It was pretty good for a blind guess, right? Yeah, totally.
I'm surprised.

Let me see. Just from the sound of your voice, I'm going to guess that you interned at the Department of Conservation and Recreation, and in your spare time, you started rowing on the Mystic River?

I did, yeah. Very Bostonian sport.
Fantastic. So just for the record, Jesse, not only do they like board games, but they also are from New England.
This may be unprecedented. Duly noted.

I want to watch you write it down, Jesse. Write it down New England right now.
I'm I'm writing it. I also noted that Massachusetts is not a state, it's a commonwealth.
That's correct.

Mystic River is a river in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and it was also the name of

a horrible, depressing Dennis Lahane book and movie. I mean, not that the book and movie were horrible.
They were great, but it's hard.

Anyway, just don't get kidnapped when you're out there on the Mystic River, John Jenny. Linos Chenney, so you guys live together, and Mike has got pants all over the place that he can't hang up

and a desire for a 3D printer. Why do you want to deny him the chance to print all his dreams? I just want him to wait a little bit.

Wait for what?

Wait, we're thinking about getting a house

probably within the next year.

And I just feel like having a space that's more of a workshop, because I'm fairly artistic too. I do my own things.
So having a space that's for 3D printing. Whoa, whoa, whoa.

You're fairly artistic too. You also like board games.

What kind of things are you working up?

Are you making any pant hangers?

Mine are a little more 2D. I'm a more traditionalist, I guess.
I do a little printmaking, some drawing.

In the past, I've done ceramics and painting.

But I love the idea of us having a workshop together where we create things. Are you excited that ceramics are no longer necessary now that we have 3D printers?

Yeah, I guess I can just switch over right to 3D printing, but I like working with clay, so maybe

I'll stick with that for a little bit longer. Yeah, you guys could have a 3D fight.

Yeah, exactly. Who can build the best? Who can build the best

pants hanger? I don't think ceramic pants hangers would work quite as well, though. What would be special about the pants hangers?

It's one thing you're telling me you're making coat hangers with broad shoulders so that you don't ruin your tailored clothes, hanging them on narrow hangers.

What's so, what, like, what's a pants hanger? It's just a bar. I'll allow that question from the bailiff.
What's so great about a pants hanger, Micah? I mean, aside from the fact that they hang pants.

Describe what pants hangers are to our audience that is under 45.

Oh, sure. So you, um.

So they might know what chip clips are. So it's basically a chip clip for your pants that hangs.

Yeah, you know, that sounds like an awesome thing to make with a 3D printer. But Jenny,

you're working in clay. You're working in ceramics.
You're working in

all different media.

You said you did some printmaking. Do you have any equipment in the apartment that you're doing this stuff with? I do, and that's part of the problem.
We have a lot of stuff already.

We have two desktop computers.

We have two normal printers already, one photo, which is mine, and then a normal paper printer. Right.

We have a whole... shelf full of board games.
We have about five or six shelves of books.

I have some equipment, but it's all pretty well contained right now. Micah's great at organizing.
So it's.

Nice how you just jumped over that. I have some equipment, but tell me, give me the inventory.
Because everything you said so far is just the cost of doing business of being a young couple in a city

living together in sin. That's just

what you got. Yeah.

So I have a small press that's, I think, five by seven.

It's metal. It's

and I have a digital camera. Oh, when you say a small press, you mean like a very small.
Like a press. Not that you own and operate a small press that like publishes chapbooks of poetry or something.

No, it's it's mainly I do wood cuttings. So it's it's literally like um

like it has a metal bottom and then a metal top and a little handle and you you press you you print put the ink on the on the wood print and then put it on paper and then press it it down. Got it.

That's five by seven inches, I presume. Yeah, maybe it's a little bigger than that.

That seems a little five by seven. It's very small.
But not five by seven inches.

Oh, no, no, no.

That would take up quite a lot of room. You'd have to have a lot of nerve coming into my courtroom with a 5x7-foot woodblock press and saying boyfriend can't get himself a little 3D printer.
Yeah.

You could 3D print a 5x7-foot attachment to it, though.

Don't get cocky.

it's still an apple in your eye i could 3d print an apple come on stop i know what you could do i also have paints um some brushes um

like the tools i use for carving and then of course i have a couple canvases i think that's about it though for my equipment yeah you got a lot of junk yeah but it's it right now it all has its place in our apartment the important thing is it's yours and not his

i understand yeah how big is your apartment jenny I think it's about 650 square feet, around maybe 700. 700.
700. And how is it broken down? Into rooms, or is it a property brothers open concept?

Is it a law flow? It's fairly open concept, I would say.

When you enter and you're in the kitchen area

that kind of morphs into the living room and where my computer is. There are sliding glass doors.
And that leads into the bedroom, which is fairly small.

It's kind of a donut. So then you go into the bathroom and then into our closet.
And Micah's computer and office is in there, and that's where the 3D printer would go. Which is in your closet?

It's in the closet. It's a walk-in closet.
Okay. So it's fairly well-sized.
It would fit. He actually has his

virtual reality headset set up in there as well. Oh, Jesse Thorne.

Please make a note in the record. They also have virtual reality.

I can't. I'm too stunned.
I have to use my writing hand to pick my jaw up from the floor.

All right. Wait a minute.
Micah.

You live in a closet with a virtual reality headset? What?

Well, I mean,

when you put it that way, it

sounds kind of odd, but yeah, yeah, basically. What is in your closet again?

So we have like a walk-in closet,

and one side we hang the clothes on, and then the other side has this sort of recessed alcove area.

And we I've set up my desktop with a standing desk and a few other odds and ends, including the VR headset inside there, so I can use it in like a sitting position.

Only we do not have it as like a full room scale VR or anything yet.

I can only, we already heard that case. So

I just like that you're continuing to add rooms to this mythical house that you'll one day live in. Like you're imagining that you're going to move from the closet into the Winchester Mystery House.

Why 3D printed piece by piece, right? And we'll have seven stairways that don't go anywhere.

And a room where if you stand at one edge, you look enormous to cameras.

The houses that we are looking at would definitely have space. We would have a couple extra bedrooms for a while.

So there would be room.

Hopefully maybe a basement for the, like, to do art and 3D printing in. And then I'm not sure if we'd have a whole room dedicated to the virtual reality, but we'll see.

But, Jenny, Micah is in his closet, in his virtual reality cupboard, walking on his treadmill with his VR set on, traveling to distant lands next to his hung-up shirts, but not his pants.

Where's all your art junk?

My situation is in the living room.

The shared space. The shared space.
Yeah. I don't have my own little spot.
I mean, I do.

We sort of cornered off a spot

for my desk and where I do my stuff. Yeah.

Micah,

how big is a 3D printer? How big is the 3D printer that you want?

So, yeah, the one I'm looking at is like two and a half cubic feet. So

and I think you sent in some evidence for me to look at here.

Yeah, I sent in there should be some shots of the my computer desk and sort of showing the area that it would sort of fit into, assuming a few other things would get moved around

a little bit. There'd be a little bit of reorganization that'd be required, but there's pretty clearly from those photos, it's pretty clear like a spot that it would comfortably sit in.

Is a 3D printer in the closet a good idea? We'll find out after a quick break.

You're listening to Judge John Hodgman. I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.
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Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman Podcast. We're hearing the case, Justice Extruded is Justice Denied.
Micah brought a case against his girlfriend, Jenny.

Micah would like to buy a 3D printer and keep it in his bedroom closet. Is it a wise idea? Let's find out.

So you want to put this 3D printer underneath your desk in your closet. Yes, yes.

This is not a ventilated space. No, it is.
It seems to me. And my clothes also live in that closet.
And I don't really want them smelling like plastic and resin.

Well, that's the thing.

You send a link here to a website featuring the printer that that you want. It uses stereolithography technology.

This is an award-winning 3D printer that makes stereolithography printing technology accessible to engineers, designers and artists. The gold standards are professional.

What's the technology this uses? It it melts resin and then extrudes it into shapes?

Yeah, so it will focus

ba basically it focuses a laser into a a pool of goop and then um creating sort of a solid 3D object in the goop and then the goop falls away and you got the pantanger of your dreams waiting for you.

But doesn't this involve some off-gassing?

I mean,

have you investigated whether there are ventilation requirements for safe use of this machine?

I mean, from my understanding, I don't believe there are, but I mean, if that's the case, then I would look at other models. Or we...

Are the closet... So

the closet's connected to our bedroom

through the bathroom. That's not enhancing your case.
It's not merely that our clothes will be near it. We'll be sleeping next to it.

So what I'm getting at is that we have a, in our bedroom, we have a Juliet balcony.

So I could open the Juliet balcony. What is going on in this apartment?

And direct the human. You know that dream? Maybe you've never had it, but I've had it since I was a kid where you dream that you're in your house and then all of a sudden...

you discover a whole room or wing that you didn't know existed. That's your, you're, you're in my dream apartment.
All of a sudden there's a Juliet balcony there. What's going on?

I feel like it's possible that they live not in an apartment so much as a level of that game missed.

Oh, we're old. Well, I mean, it's, so one entire side of our apartment has basically

just doors with a fence in front of them. Micah, what full-motion video CD-ROM game would you say your apartment most resembles?

Is it Sherlock Holmes consulting detective?

Well, I mean, it's a circle, it's a donut, so like Pac-Man, maybe. Yeah.
Yeah, that's the other surreal element.

What is it encircling? Like a

ventilation shaft?

Or is your Juliet balcony into the ventilation shaft?

No, the Juliet balcony faces out outside the building. Wait, you don't know what's in the hole of the donut?

There's a door that we're not allowed to open, which is utility.

Who is entombed inside? That's the only question we should be answering here.

What desiccated remains will you find when you open that door?

I I believe just utilities, but I to be fair, I've we haven't been able to

pass there. When you say utilities, you mean like the gas meter reader?

I think so. Yeah.
Are you living in one of those popular puzzle rooms that people construct for visitors to be locked into and then they have to solve a puzzle in order to to get out?

Or are you living in the inspiration for one of those popular puzzle rooms?

I am frankly furious that the only photo I have of your apartment is of your depressing

office cupboard. I wish I had both one of those 360 videos of this apartment and a VR headset room in my apartment to watch it in.
But do you know what?

I take it back, Jenny, because you were about to say something that I didn't realize. Go ahead ahead and say what you do.
I took a video of our apartment.

Jesse Thorne, your dream has come true. You can

there's a VR video of your apartment. All right, let's take a look at this.
Obviously, this will all be posted on the Judge John Hodging page, maximumfund.org. All right.

Here we are walking through the mystery apartment. Here is the cupboard where he...
Oh, he's got a little nook. I see.

Oh, my goodness. Oh.

You guys,

the Marie Kondo inside me

is screaming and is about to burst out of my chest alien style and run away from your apartment.

Your bedroom door is a whiteboard. Oh, so much,

so many printers. Oh, you know, Micah, I was really on your side for a second.
But as I've taken this doughnut-shaped tour of your incredibly

charming but cramped lifestyle,

I don't see a surface where you could easily fit even a handsome 3D printer like this one.

Well, I would put it under that computer desk and then sort of move some of the stuff that's there now into storage.

Jenny, when are you guys going to get a house?

That really depends. We're thinking, we're taking the classes right now to get a mortgage and things, and we're seriously looking, but it's you're taking classes to get a mortgage? Yeah.

When you're a first-time homebuyer, there are classes available so you can get a better deal. Oh, cool.
So we're in the process. We're like really in the process of it.

Boston is very challenging. And Somerville, where we're looking, are pretty challenging places to get it, but we're hoping to do it within the next year or so.

Okay.

And the 3D printer that Micah wants to buy is listed here on this popular buying and selling website. It runs for about $1,800.
Is that something you can afford?

Are you $1,800 less than what you need for a down payment on your dream house? We are actually, with Micah's new job, he is able to afford that. All right.

Follow-up question.

Are you able to afford the Philips CD interactive console that you'll need to play the CD-ROM that your dream house comes on? I'm not sure. I ever looked into that one.
It's pretty expensive.

You buy it at Blockbuster. Oh, okay.

So, Jenny, if you were to sum it up, what is the big opposition?

I mean, obviously, your life is pretty cluttered, but also, obviously, you're already comfortable with a heavy amount of clutter. No offense, but that's what you're living in.
Yeah.

And clearly, Micah really wants this. So if you were to say your chief opposition to this, what would you say would be? Is it a safety issue? Is it a this far no further issue?

Are you afraid if he gets the 3D printer, he's going to be printing more junk to put on more surfaces in your house? What's the issue?

I would say that the biggest problem is I'm afraid of the disturbance the printer is going to cause, that it's going to be...

It's going to create smells, that it takes a long time to process.

And even though it's a pretty low level noise, that that is going to be something we're going to have to live with in our small space for a long time as it prints.

Micah, how long does it take to print a pants hanger?

Probably a few hours. I mean, I'm not really.
It depends on the size of the object, I think. I would think.

Yeah, well,

have you done a lot of 3D printing before on someone else's rig?

No, not directly.

Uh-huh.

And that's my other major point, is there are, since we are in a big city, there is places he can access 3D printers that are good in the time being.

So it's not like I'm completely depriving him of this. Is the 3D printer cafe the internet cafe of tomorrow? Yeah, it's similar.
There are maker spaces that have good 3D printers.

And we even have a friend who rents space in one and is willing to let Micah

sort of borrow his space and have access to these printers. Jenny, has Micah ever 3D printed anything before on his own?

Not that I'm aware of, unless he's doing it in secret. Micah, do you have a secret 3D printing habit? No,

I'm not having a I don't have a secret 3D printing night job or anything yet.

So Micah, Jenny mentions these maker spaces where you can go and rent some time on a 3D printer.

Why is that not an option for you? The the maker spaces are great and all, but you know, when I'm in a creative mood,

I don't want to sort of break that flow state. I want to be able to just, you know,

dive right into it without having to worry about scheduling and

working around other people and stuff. The creative part would be designing the object in virtual space, wouldn't it? I mean, the printing part is like, okay, do it now.
Beep.

And then five hours later.

I'd want to iterate on the end product basically as soon as I get it.

So it'd be nice if I could sort of, you know, turn on some Netflix app while it's printing or even sort of keep looking into improvements I could make while it's printing and then as soon as it's done I'd have it right there on hand.

Do you have problems with patience and delayed gratification in general?

I've been told that I'm a little scattered and impatient before by some people.

Are those people Jenny?

She is among them. Yes.
Yes, that's me.

Does Micah have problems being patient, Jenny? Yes.

Can you give me an example of another situation in which he rushes into something rather than waiting?

Or can't stand that he can't print his coat hanger right now? Yeah.

I think the great thing, one of the great things about Micah is he has a ton of ideas. So he has, besides.
So far, all I've heard is pants hangers. Yeah.
He hope he has some more.

But beyond 3D printing, he is also thinking about writing stories. He's doing computer programming.

So to me,

the 3D printing is on a long list of other objectives that he has. And I think that maybe

over time, the enthusiasm might wane a little bit.

But also, he has a tendency. The one thing I can think of is that, like, whenever he sees a book that he wants, he just immediately orders it.
He doesn't really wait and think.

And so sometimes we'll end up getting

like three to four to five packages of just books. And we have a lot of books already.
But when he sees something he likes, he likes to just get it.

And how do you feel about that?

I'm also a book hoarder, so I'm okay with the books.

And I'm okay with most of his things because I think

he does work really hard and he deserves to have fun too. But I think the 3D printer is just too invasive and

just not right for the space right now.

Are there any other gadgets or big purchases that you've made since you completed law school, Micah?

Yeah, I mean, the VR headset was

the big graduation.

And when you put on that VR headset and you look at that fake horizon, is there anything else on that horizon that you want to add to your life?

Any other uh gadgets and goo gaws and and what you would call widgets? Beyond the 3D printer. Beyond the 3D printer.
What happens next after the 3D printer?

The 3D printer looms pretty big on that horizon, but there's the

I think like a Roomba or something. Because we have a dog

that sheds quite a bit. I thought you meant because we have a dog that we want to scare.

No, the dog would probably play with it. He would think it's for him.

Are you more of a gadget head, Micah, than Jenny is? Or are you about even?

No, I'd say I'm pretty firmly in the lead there as far as

gadget purchases go. And how long have you wanted this 3D printer? Like, is this

an impulse that just hit you, or has it been since you saw Alessandra Nivola in Jurassic Park III 3D print a Velociraptor resonating chamber?

I mean, probably not that long, but definitely over the last few years. Certainly while I was in school doing computer science and working on a robotics sort of collaborative project as my capstone.

And the engineer, the electrical engineers had their own 3D printers and they could 3D print a whole bunch of stuff, which was super cool.

Have you had a crush on 3D printers longer than you have known and loved Jenny?

No. Which came first in your life?

Jenny came first. Jenny comes first in my life.
But of course,

if Jenny ends up leaving you because of this, you can just print yourself up a new girlfriend. Yeah, yeah.
A mini one.

A two-foot-tall one, but yeah.

Oh, well, if she leaves you, then there's no sense in getting the small 3D printer. Just turn your whole walk-in closet into a 3D printer.
It's true.

Jenny, what would you like me to rule if I were to rule in your favor? Obviously, don't get this 3D printer or what?

Yeah, just to wait until we move before we get it. And Micah,

obviously you want me to rule that you can get this 3D printer and put it under your desk? Yeah,

for sure.

It's all or nothing. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I would.

The ruling I'm seeking would be that I can.

Jenny is stopped from complaining about me buying a 3D printer and I'm allowed to buy it and print all the cool things I want to

to print.

Starting with the market. And all the things I could help I could print for us.
Yeah, pant dress hangers, pant hangers.

Micah,

why not just wait until you can move into a house and you guys can each have your own workshops?

So I mean that that's we're we're hoping that'll happen in the next uh year or two, but there's I mean no guarantee that we'll find the right fit in the, you know, within a year. So um

it's more of just like a

you know, one's an unknown. So that's just applying an unknown sort of time frame to this.
And I'd like to get into my 3D, my soon-to-be 3D printing prestigious career as early as possible. So I can.

So yeah.

I know.

That's really where the sentence ends.

So I can dot, dot, dot,

profound unsureness of what follows.

In that silence, I think I've heard everything I need to in order to make my decision.

I am going to print up some chambers, hop on into them, consider my verdict, and I will be back in a moment to tell you who's right and who's wrong.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom. Jenny, how are you feeling about your chances?

I feel really good. I feel like the video really clinched my victory here, but we'll have to see.
How about you, Micah?

I came in feeling pretty good and thinking I had some pretty sound arguments

in support of myself, but I think that's sort of slowly unraveled, Um, much like a poorly printed 3D object. We'll see what Judge John Hodgman has to say when we come back in just a second.

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 theatre, 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.

So you guys, 3D printers are cool, and I would love for Micah to have one. I do not have one,

but I've done a show here in New York for some time, and a regular attendee of the show, a guy named John Rosenberger, had access to a 3D printer.

and would frequently bring me things that he had printed out.

Some were his own designs, some were designs that he downloaded. So just here in my office, I can tell you I have a 3D printout of the Ice King's Crown from Adventure Time.

I have a 3D print out of the Great Pyramid of Giza.

I have a 3D print out of the logo of the Book and Snake Secret Society, a Yale Secret Society in New Haven, Connecticut, where I fell down the stairs once.

I have a three, these are things that he gave me. I have a 3D printout of the Dread Cthulhu from the H.P.
Lovecraft mythos.

And, you know, Micah, if you had come in and said that you were going to print any of those cool things, I would be like, yeah, you're getting that thing right now.

But you came to me with pants hangers, which I also kind of love. It's great.
You can make anything. And I can completely understand

why you want this thing. I completely understand your excitement to get it.
Now that you've passed the bar and you're embarked on your career and you're ready to buy some expensive grown-up toys,

I want you to have it.

And I'll have to say, if it weren't for Jenny, you might have it right now. I might have bought it for you

because your description of your apartment was wonderfully misleading.

I have to admit that your apartment is an incredible mystery box.

This video that you have taken of it is hypnotic to me.

And I'm only sad because you literally, you walk in a circle from the kitchen to the bedroom to the bathroom to the closet to the bed like and all around a secret mystery shaft that no one knows what it is and all of a sudden you're telling me there's a juliet balcony on it and and upstairs downstairs trapdoors and everything like even though i know what 700 square feet is

i imagine that this thing would go on forever

But the reality is, Micah, even though this thing is a circular apartment, that does not mean it is infinite. It is an ouroboros, a snake eating its own tail.
That's what your apartment is like.

On the one hand, it's a symbol for infinity. On the other hand, it's just a dumb snake that doesn't know what to eat.

And you have filled up your circular snake with the detritus of your lives together. The happy detritus.

There's a dog in there. I saw that.
Is there a cat too? No cat yet. Oh, I thought I saw a cat.
But that's the point.

Like, I'm seeing things that aren't even there because it's just such an overstimulating accumulation of happy life junk.

And the fact of the matter is that as much as I hate for you to delay your gratification,

all of your energy and money at this point should be spent

towards getting a larger apartment donut

so that you guys can expand in all of your creative endeavors.

But even beyond that,

I am

and perhaps unfairly but still profoundly concerned about the safety of having

a resin manufacturing device packed in underneath what is already a workspace crowded with other electrical devices,

all themselves crowded very closely to a bunch of flammable clothing.

Now,

I have not researched the safety specifications of this particular 3D printer and whether or not it has specific ventilation requirements or other recommendations for use. But that's not my job.

I'm just here to listen to you guys have a little fight.

It's your job not only to convince me, a fake internet judge, Micah,

but to ascertain for sure that this is something that is okay to have, not merely in one's home, I'm sure that's fine, but in a space as confined and jam-packed

with stuff as this is.

That should have been a question that you could have answered handily for me. And I could be wrong

about my safety assessment of your office closet,

but I would say I bet you I'm right. If you want to, if you're in a betting mood,

I want you to have this thing so bad, but the fact that you have not even 3D printed a thing yet when you have access to 3D printer via the 3D printer cafe and your friend is willing to let you use one also undermines your case as far as I'm concerned.

Because to me, it then feels like you're less serious about

logging some time and developing your interest in 3D printing and more about let me get the toy as quick as possible so that I can start making up the things and I don't even know what they are yet.

So for a lack of seriousness and no, I'm not going to say that because I know you're serious in your wanting,

but I want your wanting to mature a little bit. I want you to design your wanting.

I want you to program in your wanting and I want you to slowly print.

your wanting and slowly print the 3D printer of your dreams by logging some time in on those 3D printing cafes,

practicing a little bit of delayed gratification.

Because the truth is, in life, as you will soon discover in your hunt for a home,

the most important and lasting things cannot be printed up in a couple of hours.

You have to kind of work for it and suffer disappointment and to get that house taken out from under you by someone else.

And you're living in an expensive city, and you got to put your things together. You got to have some sacrifices.

I know it's hard not to want to just buy all those grown-up toys,

but the fact is this is a toy and your toy box is full at the moment. So practice some delayed gratification, get yourself a bigger place, and then go crazy and print yourself some Cthulhu's.

This is the sound of a gavel.

Judge John Hodgman rules, that is all. Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits.
the courtroom. Micah, how do you feel?

I'm not, I have to say I'm not totally surprised. I guess I didn't present the strongest argument.

And I hadn't really considered the flammability issue, which I probably was a mistake.

But yeah, it makes sense.

A little bum still. Still really want to 3D print all the things, but I can wait.
How do you feel, Jenny?

I'm excited and a little sad that Micah hasn't thought about the flammability issues or 3D printing in a closet. So

I'm glad that we're going to have to wait until we have a little more space. Micah, Jenny, thank you for for joining us on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

In just a minute, we'll be delivering some swift justice. But first, some thank yous.
Our thanks to Tom Brinton, who named this week's episode. Thanks, Tom.
Justice Extruded is Justice Denied.

If you want to name a future episode, like Judge John Hodgman on Facebook, we ask there.

And speaking of social media, follow us on Twitter at Jesse Thorne and at Hodgman. Hashtag your Judge John Hodgman tweets, hashtag JJ H O, and check out the MaxFun subreddit to discuss this episode.

Now,

let's deliver some justice.

Tara M wants to know, is it okay to take sugar or condiment packets from a restaurant or cafe if you don't intend to use them with the thing you bought from that establishment?

This one cuts closely to my quick, Jesse, because when I was on tour promoting That Is All and then the comedy show that grew out of That Is All, Ragnarok, still immortalized on Netflix.

You can watch it any old time.

At every tour stop, I would go into a convenience store and I would buy a soda or something, and then I would go over to wherever they kept all their salt and sugar packets

and their comments packets, and I would take all of their packets of mayonnaise because I had a gag where I would throw packets of mayonnaise at the audience at the end of the show.

Something that I'm sure worked out for the custodial staff of every theater I was in. Great.
In any case, I came to realize two things.

One, yes, I was buying something there, but taking all of the packets of mayonnaise is stealing.

Two, it turns out that you can drop ship whole boxes of mayonnaise packets to every theater on your tour. So did that solve your problem, Tara?

No, because you don't want to throw packets of mayonnaise at anyone.

You want to steal from places their condiment packets and their sugar packets, even though you don't intend to use them on your purchase. I would say, look,

within reason, you can take a couple of things. You don't know, maybe you will end up sprinkling some sugar onto the

beef jerky that you got at that store or whatever.

In fact, if it'll make you feel better, I order you to do exactly that. You can take a few condiment packets, but you got to put it on something you bought.
And then you are fulfilling your contract.

Here is a shorter one. Jordan M.
would like a judgment on, and this is a direct quote in totality: totality, Crocs.

No.

Wow. That's bolder than I expected.
Their time has come, and their time, and it's long gone.

What if you're a small child or you're on a boat? Those are usually the exceptions that I provide people.

I will say, yes, they are great for kids, but I will also say grown-ups should not dress like kids. And I've owned them, and I loved them, and they were great for me at a time in my life.

But if you're on a boat, put on some boat shoes.

We should explain that for a time you worked on a Mississippi River boat. That's why your pen name is Mark Twain.
Crocs are a very functional shoe. And for what they do, they do it very well.

They are very comfortable and they are waterproof and they float. Those are the things they do good.

And if you are a child or someone who is working behind the scenes on your feet all day. I know Mario Batali loves them, Crocs.

If you need them for some very functional, specific purpose,

then go for it. But there was a brief time when they were fashionable, and they are not anymore.
And I'm sorry, Crocs.

Every time I pass by your Crocs-only store in Soho, I weep with amazement that you are still able to afford that rent. Good for you.

And so I feel very confident that I am not causing Crocs any problem by saying, knock it off with the Crocs. Crocs, good for you, bad for America.

It's my bailiff talking. If you've got a case for the Judge John Hodgman podcast, share it with us.
Maximumfund.org slash JJ Ho. As you can hear, big or small, we judge them all.

You can also email us at hodgman at maximumfund.org. Our producer on the program, Jennifer Marmer.
Thank you, Jennifer. I'll talk to you next time on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.
Bye-bye.

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