Judge John Hodgman - The Doctorow Doctrine

Episode Date: October 14, 2020

Cory Doctorow joins Judge Hodgman and Bailiff Jesse as they clear the docket! They discuss splitting the internet bill, operating system updates, pajamas on planes, playing acapella gospel music, GPS navigation, and spoilers!Cory's new book Attack Surface is OUT NOW! It's available wherever you get your books! Check out Cory's website craphound.com for info on where to download the audio book, which is narrated by Amber Benson! To check out Cory's virtual book tour, visit tinyurl.com/gogetemcory.

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast. I'm bailiff Jesse Thorne. We're in chambers this week clearing the docket and with me is Brooklyn's own Judge John Hodgman. Brookline and Brooklyn's own and also unnamed town in Maine that sounds like that. I only live in certain places, Jesse. Don't ask me why I'm drawn to them. I like a place where the line is delineated by a brook or any body of water, actually. Don't like it. If there's no river, I'm not there. Anyway, here I am. And guess what, Jesse Thorne? I'm not going to keep talking because we've got an incredible guest to join us in our trademark mix, as we determined before we started recording, our trademark mix of camaraderie and pettiness. Please welcome Jesse Thorne and listeners to Judge John Hodgman,

the incredible Corey Doctorow. Hi, Corey. Hi, John. Hi, Jesse. Hi, Jennifer. It's so great to be here. It's great to have you folks. If you don't know who Cory Doctorow is, you've done some things wrong in your life, but it's fine. Cory is an author, an electronic freedom frontiersman, a digital rights activist, a really fun, smart and funny guy. He was one of the editorial team at Boing Boing for a long, long time. Boing Boing, one of the Judge Sean Hodgman favorite, favorite websites. And you may remember Corey Doctorow as the author of one of the very nicest reviews I've ever gotten for anything I've ever written. In his review of Vacationland and Medallion Status, two books that I wrote. So this is, as Spy Magazine used to call, log rolling in our time.

But it is genuine affection with which we, and appreciation with which we ask Corey to join us today. Corey's the author of a whole bunch of novels. You should read them all. He's got one that just came out yesterday called Attack Surface, which is part three in the Little Brother series. Is that correct, Corey? It is correct-ish. It is the third Little Brother book, but it's a standalone novel for adults.

So you can read it even if you haven't read the other two, but you should read the other two. Cool. And what is it all about, the attack surface? So attack surface, like Little Brother, is a techno thriller. And what sets it apart from most of the rest of the genre is that instead of treating computers as like

metaphors the way that novelists and congress does it treats computers as actual things that have capabilities and limitations and finds the story lines that are latent in there and it's a book about a young woman who spent her whole life being a surveillance contractor she starts off working in the dhs on domestic surveillance becomes a beltway bandit, and ends up in a forward operations base in Iraq where she's spying on insurgents. Then she's in the former Soviet Union spying on pro-democracy activists. And she has to confront what her life's work is. The whole time she's been trying to make herself out to be a good person by finding compromises, none of which are very good or sustainable.

Like, you know, teaching the people she's spying on how to avoid the surveillance in secret. This is not the kind of thing your bosses are going to like. So she ends up back in San Francisco in her hometown where her childhood best friend is now a Black Lives Matter activist. And she is being surveilled by the very same cyber weapons that this character, Masha Maximoff, has spent her whole life building. And she has to figure out what it means to have talked yourself into doing something not so great

and then to come back and confront your moral legacy and how you can be better. John, just to, let me help you out here, just for context in what Corey said. San Francisco is a city on the western coast of the United States. It sits on a peninsula that protects a beautiful bay called the San Francisco Bay. Yeah, I always thought that that was just a novelistic metaphor like a computer, but you're saying it's a real thing? No, a lot of people think that it was invented for Star Trek IV,

The Voyage Home. Yeah, that's what I thought. thought but no it's a real city yeah yeah known for such notable foodstuffs as cylinders of rice and and hot meat and a tortilla and also rice wow cory is coming out guns blazing against the san francisco burrito he's shooting directly for my heart. Luckily, your bullet bounced off of the it's it that I always keep in my breast pocket. Attack service. So, you know, Corey, you've made your life talking about, thinking about, writing about, both in fiction and nonfiction,

about non-metaphoric computers, their capabilities, their limitations, their scary capabilities, their thankful limitations. And this sounds like a really fun thriller about someone having to reckon with the fact that they didn't do great stuff all the time and how do they make amends, which is something that we deal with a lot in society right now and here on the Judge John Hodgman podcast. And to be clear, the capabilities aren't just the scary ones, right? Like part of the story of this book and the story of my career and the story of how we think about computers is balancing the liberatory power of computers with their power to control and manipulate us. And, you know, this is someone who said, well, we'll probably never be able to make computers into a force for control, who's meeting her childhood friend who's made

computers the center of how she plans to liberate her city and her society from reaction and oppression, and who is running up against the ways that computers can be used for control and manipulation. So Attack Surface is available as of yesterday, if you're listening on release day of Judge John Hodgman. Anywhere books are sold, loaned, traded on the internet, and as an audiobook as well, right? Yeah, there's a really great audiobook. I don't allow DRM on any of my work because that is a centerpiece of my doctrine. And that's digital rights management. That's right.

We've got a lot of smart 13-year-olds who listen to this who know what you're talking about, but their parents are currently going, what the, huh? And the doctrine in question is the Doctor O Doctrine? The Doctor O Doctrine. It's pajamas on airplanes, no DRM, coffee and AeroPresses. Those are the three central tenets.

We'll get to pajamas on airplanes in a second. I know, I know. But explain to the dum-dums like me what DRM means and why it's bad and why you don't. Why it's not part of the Doctoro Doctrine doctoral program at Dr. Doctoro's University. My parents are Doctor and Dr. Doctorow, by the way. Oh, no. DRM is the stuff that stops you from using technology the way you want, like watching a European DVD in your DVD player, something you may remember from your video store days,

John. Right. It doesn't work very well. All of the audiobooks sold on Audible, which is the largest audiobook store in the world, it's owned by Amazon, they control more than 90% of the market, and all of the audiobooks sold on Audible, which is the largest audiobook store in the world. It's owned by Amazon. They control more than 90% of the market. And all of their audiobooks are sold with DRM. And if you want to remove it, you just type, how do I remove DRM from an Audible book into a search engine? So it's clearly not helping us. But thanks to an American law, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, that's been in place since 1998, it's a felony to remove it. It's a

five-year prison sentence and a $500,000 fine for a first offense. So you have this technology that doesn't stop piracy at all, but does make it illegal for you, my customer, for my work to take your audiobook to a non-Amazon player or reader or platform unless Amazon authorizes it. And you have to ask yourself, how is this possibly good for me? Now, of course, this is also like expanded into other domains. So, you know, the fact that if it's digital, you can put DRM on it means that you have companies like Medtronic who make the biggest ventilator, you know, workhorse ventilator. They use DRM to stop independent hospital technicians

from fixing their own ventilators. And it's a felony to do that. Why would that even be timely to talk about right now? Yeah, exactly. Notice to people in the future, ventilators are timely. So all of that to say that this is a really toxic dynamic. And the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit I've worked for for nearly 20 years now, we're actually suing the US government to overturn this law so that you can break DRM if you have a legitimate reason to do it. But in the meantime, Macmillan, my lovely publishers

who are very good to me, quite reasonably said, "'Hey, you don't wanna sell your audio book "'in the marketplace that is 90% of our sales, "'so we're just not gonna give you any money for the rights,, but you can keep them if you want, which was a very reasonable thing for them to do. And I don't want anyone to think I'm down on them for this. And I was like, I'll keep them. So I hired my friend, Amber Benson, who lives here in Southern California with me. Oh, you mean the actor? The actor, Tara from Buffy, also the novelist. She's an amazing novelist. And we went to Skyboat Media, which is one of

the powerhouse audiobook studios, also pretty close to us here in North Hollywood. And we got my sound editor, John Taylor Williams, to edit it. And then to prove that it could be a success commercially without Amazon, I put it up for sale as a Kickstarter pre-sale. And we just, as we're recording this a few days before it's going live, we closed the Kickstarter at about $270,000. Oh, congratulations. Yeah, it was really good. It's a record-breaking Kickstarter.

My hope is that this might convince publishers and authors, best-selling authors, authors who know how to reach a big audience, that they can make more money by doing a different kind of Audible exclusive, the kind that is exclusive of Audible. Because I'm going to sell this everywhere except Audible afterwards. Now, Corey, we released Judge John Hodgman as a.Zoom file.

Oh, good. I'm so mad at you, Jesse. I was just getting up to a Zoom joke. You go there first. You win. You win. I want to know why I can't get it in.midi format. Well, Corey Doctorow, author, digital privacy activist, thank you so much for joining us today via Zoom so that we can peer into your home and record your facial data for some database probably owned by a foreign government as we speak.

So thank you. I don't know why you need my social security number for me to appear, but I'm sure that the fact that you want to put it in the episode title will work out fine. And also, you did mention wearing pajamas on airplanes, a precedent in the Judge John Hodgman courtroom being that that is not allowable. You're going to make a counter argument to that a little later on in the podcast. But right now, we've got a lot of justice to clear off this docket. Jesse, let's get going. Here's something from Spencer. My housemate Josh refuses to contribute to the internet bill because he claims it's a luxury which he does not require since he uses his phone's unlimited data plan. I maintain internet is is a communal utility, available to everyone in the house,

regardless of how much they choose to use it. It's not about the money to me, but as the one responsible for collecting, it feels wrong and uncomfortable to ask everyone else to bow to his cheapness. Besides myself, I've spoken with two more of the six total occupants. They agree he should contribute his share. Corey, what is your impression? I struggled with this one because at first I was like, well, if he's really not using the internet, why should he contribute? But then I thought, what if this guy walked around with a candle all the time and said, why should I pay for the light bulbs? And, and, you know, the house wouldn't be a house without the internet, right? They wouldn't be able to do all the things they need to do. They

wouldn't have jobs. They wouldn't be able to summon 911. They wouldn't be able to, you know, go to school. They wouldn't be able to order dinner. They wouldn't be able to do all the things. I mean, the internet is now just firmly enmeshed in our life. Before the plague, it was a thing that was involved in everything we do. Now it's required for everything we do. And I just think that even if you don't use it, it's like, even if I, I don't admire the shrubs.

Why should I pay to water them? You're part of the household. It's a household necessity. I think you got to pitch in. I did actually follow up because that was my obvious question. Like, can it be true that Josh really only uses his phone for data and specifically his paid by himself, presumably grand person in unlimited data plan?

And according to Spencer, Josh does claim he only uses his phone data and he has no other devices that he's using that require Wi-Fi access. And also Spencer has checked with the rest of the housemates and they all want, they all want Josh to subsidize their Wi-Fi usage. Yeah. My one question, John, was why he had checked with two of the housemates, but not the other ones. It seemed a little shady, But if he's now checked with all of them. Well, Corey is an expert in fictional utopian societies or dystopian societies. It might be the rules of the house. They form a council.

There's a quorum to divide the Wi-Fi. I bet Corey still has an open Wi-Fi network for people who are passing by his front door like it was San Francisco in 1996. I did have one of those in San Francisco in 1999 in Potrero Hill. And people used it was on the early Wi-Fi maps. I would always know if someone was lost on the way to the airport because they pull up in front of my house to get directions from MapQuest. So I do not presently have an open Wi-Fi network because I live in the city of Burbank where we have 100 gigabit fiber passing under our foundations lab that the city pay for, but which I'm not allowed to use. It's only for large businesses and I have to use Charter Spectrum who are from hell. Yeah, I know. It's almost as like corporations are interfering

with technology for their own benefit. I mean, this is a, it's a radical hypothesis, but I think we could come up with a falsifiable experiment and see whether it's true. So I don't think these guys have a utopian society, by the way. I think that they are, in fact, members of different subcultures. And the reason that he only has two of the roommates is that the other four are steampunks. Why do you get that? Who do you get the steampunk from? If we're going to imagine a radical social experiment household with new social arrangements,

I just like the idea that there's a couple of them who are just LARPing Victorianism and therefore only communicate by semaphore. I can't wait to read this novel by you, Cory Doctorow. But let me ask you this technical question, because you know more about it than I do. Which is the better way to get your means and your funds up and down the internet highway, over the phone via unlimited data or via Wi-Fi? And you can answer that question in terms of quality, in terms of security, in terms of cost, in terms of benefit to society. I don't know. But like, if Josh is really just using his phone for data and nothing else in the house, is that good, bad, neutral?

I think it's okay. I mean, I think that in general, mobile hotspots are a little less reliable than fixed line hotspots. So, I mean, the question isn't Wi-Fi, it's like how the Wi-Fi gets into the house. I mean, one way to think about this is that we have one universe with one electromagnetic spectrum, and you're sharing it with everybody else, right? And only the slice of it. sharing it with everybody else, right? And only the slice of it. Once you take a wire and you wrap it in some insulation, then you've got like a little pocket universe, right? It has its own electromagnetic spectrum that is different from the electromagnetic spectrum that's right next to it, even if you're broadcasting the same frequencies. And so there is a capacity thing. So this is the nexus of the non-outlandish stupid claims about 5G. There are outlandish stupid claims about 5G, which made people go and burn them down. But the stupid claims about 5G are just that we can use 5G instead of fiber to wire up our cities because somehow these radio-based stations will give us fast internet without them needing to be connected to the fast internet.

Okay. And that's like saying you could have a really big faucet on your house, and it doesn't matter what kind of water main it's connected to. It's, you know, the faucet is not your problem there. So let's talk about water for a second, because I'm not sure I agree with you on this. Let's talk about water, right? If the house pays a water bill,

and Josh decides to only drink bottled water that he brings in. He only pees into a composting toilet that he has in his house and he takes care of all. He never touches a drop of water. This is like a dune type situation. Dune wears a still suit, totally water independent of the rest of the house. Should he have to pay part of the water bill simply because it's available? Okay. I'm going to make a different argument here. I'm going to, I'm going to scratch and refactor here. The reason he should do it is, is the

categorical imperative. If, if all six of these people sat down and said, well, you know, we all pitch in for the groceries, but I never eat lettuce. So I want 18 cents off my grocery bill. And, you know, we all pitch in for this. We all pitch in for that. And I don't even, I don't even like the TV. Why am I paying for the wall space that it occupies? You know, I never sat on that sofa. That six square feet of the sitting room that it occupies should be deducted from my share of the rent. To live in a house is not to have that arrangement. To live in a house communally and happily is to have an arrangement where you acknowledge that there are some positive externalities that other people benefit from, just as you benefit from their positive externalities.

I agree with all those things except the Wi-Fi. I'm sorry. Here's what I'm going to say. I'm going to give you, it pains me to disagree with my friend, Corey Doctorow. Even though I agree with Corey on all points, if it can be said truthfully, if Josh is not using that Wi-Fi, if he's not watching the television, right? If he's not streaming a thing, if he's like if it's true that the only Internet that he's getting is off of his own phone in no other way, then I do not feel that he needs to contribute to the Wi-Fi bill. OK, but because I'm going this as far as to disagree even slightly with Cory Doctorow, I'm going to give the most anti Cory Doctorow ruling I can. Spencer, you should spy on him.

Spy on him. Spy on him. Get a thing. Look, I know there's a thing because I have this thing, but I'm not going to advertise this thing. But you can get a Wi-Fi system that is monitoring who is using it at any given time. You will know. You will know, Spencer. If Josh even takes one, what's the smallest bit there is? a bit I'm going to make it a half bit you know what that's how small I'm going to make it it's pronounced a hay bit John

it's a groat if you haven't got a bit a hay bit will do if he takes even a hay bit of internet off you guys split it up evenly then he's hey bit of the internet off you guys, split it up evenly. Then he's taking advantage of the common good. But if he's not taking advantage of the common good, I don't think he has to pay for it.

I bet you he is. Spencer, I bet you're going to spy on him. And then you guys are going to have so much fun as your perfect society dissolves into chaos and anger and resentment and bitterness and camaraderie. Just like the Judge John Hodgman podcast. and anger and resentment and bitterness and camaraderie, just like the Church of John Hodgman podcast. This is like one of those people who goes to dinner with a group of people and says, well, I only got a drink, so I'm only paying the tip on the cost of the drink.

Yeah. I won't split the tip. Yeah, look, I'm not saying that Josh is a generous person or even a genial person, but I think this is slightly different than the kind of person who goes to dinner and says, I really wasn't that hungry.

So I'm not paying. How about the kind of person who says my gate guarded community should have a private firefighting arrangement. And if you don't pay the firefighter tax, they should let your house burn down.

Yeah. What about that, John? But if I lived in, all right, all right, all right, you know what, fine. I'm living in your gated community. I've taken a look at your fire department, and I think it's dumb. I don't think they're good at it. I'm hiring a private firefighter to live with me. That's the name of this sitcom.

My private firefighter, John Hodgman and his private firefighter played by Rob Riggle by Rob Riggle. Oh, sold in the room. Come on. Living together in a gated community. Just waiting for a fire to bust out. Is the character's catch line.

Thank you for your service. Sure. Pass me the salt, thank you for your service? Sure. Is that what they say? Sure. Pass me the salt. Thank you for your service. You can get in on this IP. Who ate my peanut butter?

And then Rob Riggle says, I did. And then you say, thank you for your service. Here's something from Rob, not Riggle. I seek to file suit against, or maybe it's Riggle.

Doesn't say that it's not Riggle. I just presumed it's not Rob Riggle. Hey, Hodgman, Riggle here. Could be Rob Corddry. Who knows what Rob it is? Probably Rob Hubel, though. I seek to file suit against my friend Tyler. Tyler will not update software on his phone until the device forces him.

Every time this happens, he sends me a message complaining about an update that the general public received months and sometimes years before him. His complaints are usually trivial, like the position of a button being a farther reach for him now. I would like you to order him to update his phone software and stop making me relive a software update months after it happened. I love how Rob acknowledges that a software update is inherently traumatic and something you don't want to relive. No matter what so-called improvements are there, it is like, why have you just changed my whole world around? I just got used to having my thumb there. Corey, what do you think?

So I think that he's right for the wrong reason. Yeah. I mean, keeping your software updated is like getting vaccinated because the problem with your phone being broken into is not just what happens to you, although that can be really horrific, but also what happens to the people you communicate with and their data being compromised and the people whose data you have on your phone. It's actually, you could subtitle this, why Andrew Yang is wrong. Because the whole idea that you should be paid for your data. Oh boy, I'm getting out of here.

Yeah, yeah, right. I don't want these letters. But the idea that you should be paid for your data. Welcome to the Cory Doctorow only podcast. Well, look, just the idea that you should be paid for your data is really incoherent. Because like, who owns the fact that we're having this conversation? Is it me or you? Which one of us gets to sell it to Facebook?

Me. Really? Yeah. And what if you're rude to me us gets to sell it to Facebook? Me. Really? Yeah. And what if you're rude to me? Between me and Jesse. But what if you're rude to me and I want to disclose that fact to other potential guests? Should you get a veto because you have a property right in the fact that I was on your podcast? Wait a minute, Jennifer, did Corey not sign the NDA? Wait a minute, Jennifer, did Corey not sign the NDA? So anyway, I just think that like, this is the thing, right? I have your data on my phone because it's also my data, right? The pictures of us together, your phone number in my address book, all of that stuff.

It's starting to sound like a threat. Yeah. So for that reason, you should be updated. And then the other thing is that he's right that updates suck because they break everything. And you should have the right and ability to put it back the way you want it. I miss old Twitter. So in a perfect world, Tyler's unwillingness to update should be tolerated and encouraged. Wait a minute, in terms of features, but not in terms of security. Tyler should be updating regularly for the purpose of the security of his data and the other people whose data he's collected in his own phone, correct? Sure.

And just so his phone doesn't end up part of a botnet that's being used to, like, spread ransomware to hospitals and shut them down. You know, just for all of that good stuff. Yeah, Tyler, does that sound like fun to you? Also, you're bothering your buddy, Rob, by complaining about something you should have done months or years ago, apparently. Yeah. Update your stuff. What kind of phone and kind of phone security do you have going on, Cory Doctorow?

Do you have a rec? So I don't have a phone rec. I just have like a phone council of despair, which is that we live in feudal times and there are bandits and there are warlords. And the warlords have got these castles called Google and Facebook. So you can have a PDP-11, you can have a PDP-8, you can have a PDP-9. Anyway, you know, that basically if you stay updated and it's a reputable vendor and they're large, they will keep you safe from everyone except them most of the time. And that's where I've landed. On my laptop, it's a little better. I use,

you know, ThinkPad hardware, but I use a version of Linux called Ubuntu that I've used for 15 years now. And I love to pieces. It's easy. It works. It's great. Ubuntu by Cory Doctorow, a brand new fragrance. Yeah, yeah, brand new fragrance. It smells like my palm sweat. It smells like palm sweat and privacy. Oh, so final ruling. Tyler, update your phone. Let's take a quick break. More items on the docket coming up in just a minute on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

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That's M-A-D-E-I-N cookware.com. Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast. We are clearing out the docket with our friend Corey Doctorow, whose new book, Attack Surface, is available now in both book and audiobook form. Read by Amber Benson. Yeah, Corey, we got something we need to address here. Yeah. So you may remember that there was a time when we had a partially functioning society that included air travel as a part of day-to-day life for most people, many anyway. And we established a precedent on this podcast that people who change into pajamas

for an airplane flight are monsters. And yet we have learned that our dear friend, Cory Doctro practices this very monstrous habit. Tell me about your airplane PJs and when was the last time you flew? Yeah, so let me tell you a story of the great before when, when we flew on airplanes and I fly a lot. I was EFF's European director for several years. I lived in London for 13 years and most of my family and work were in the U S and Canada. And there were months when I flew

across the ocean four times and I have a chronic pain problem like so many dudes who spend too much time in front of keyboards and dudettes. And I discovered that I could build a thing called the most comfortable man in the sky kit. And in that kit was a little sleeping bag that was silk on one side and down on the other. So you had a cold side and a warm side, a pair of really nice pajamas that I would iron before I flew, a buckwheat eye mask, a pair of slippers, a hot water bottle and an ice pack, some pretty good painkillers, and that I could just get on a plane. You realize the last thing is all you need. No, no, no.

It's not true because I tried it. Now I understand how it works. Change into my gym jams, crawl into my sleep sack, and estivate like a lungfish. Right? That, like, it was as close as I could come to my dream of ninja air, which is when you're flying tomorrow long haul. In the middle of the night, a ninja breaks into your house and blow darts you with sedative and shrink wraps you and packs your suitcase and packs you in the cargo hold of the airplane. And you're like wheeled to the curb, driven to your hotel, unshrink wrapped. All of your stuff is unpacked.

You're tucked into bed. The ninja opens the window. This is the most unrealistic part because they never open and then the ninja blow darts you with the antidote and like repels down the side of the building as you yawn and stretch with no perception of time having gone by you don't need a ninja to do that cory you just need what I have, a butler, a good one. Alfred. No, but seriously, look, airplanes are so uncomfortable and pajamas are so comfortable. And they're much more comfortable than the most comfortable clothes that you can wear that aren't pajamas, right? They're much more comfortable than a track suit, say. Do you wear a sleeping cap, a Scrooge-style sleeping cap? Do you wear a sleeping cap?

A Scrooge-style sleeping cap? I have pondered this, but I do not wear a Scrooge-style sleeping cap. I do just keep a bare head. But I do have Bluetooth sleep mask slash headphones. Yeah. That came up on the Judge Sean Hodgman podcast recently. Oh, I love them. Because people— Falling asleep to podcasts.

A woman was concerned about her partner falling asleep to podcasts and getting tangled in his earbud cords. Yep. But now they have special sleep masks with the Bluetooth things so people can listen to my dulcet tones as they fall asleep. Well, Jesse Thorne, you are the sartorial expert. How do you feel about Cory Doctorow's long haul, most comfortable person in the sky kit? I mean, Cory Doctorow is introducing two special circumstances to this situation. One is a physical disability. And as someone who suffers from a physical disability that's exacerbated by airplanes myself, I'm a chronic migraine sufferer and airline travel is a

big trigger for me, as you know, John, from having toured with me. It's really tough. I'm hesitant to get in the way of anyone's accommodations. Also, Corey is specifically talking about overnight flights, actual sleep flights, not just red eyes from coast to coast, but real 10-hour long haul. I mean, these are flights where if you fly on a fancy enough airline, they give you pajamas to wear. Yeah, yeah, that's true. I think it is reasonable to wear pajamas on an overnight flight where you expect to sleep a night's sleep.

And it's reasonable to do all this other stuff when you are trying to accommodate a physical ailment. Um, I think it's entirely possible to wear pajamas while sleeping on an airplane without, you know, getting in a taxi cab to the airport in your pajamas, um, or hanging out in a, in a, uh, in a flight waiting area in your pajamas, uh, or standing in a bunch of lines in front of normal adult humans in your pajamas. But if you're on an airplane and you're actually sleeping and you're wearing pajamas and they're appropriately modest, then I don't have a problem with that. You make me realize that I omitted something, which is that I change into the pajamas. And this is actually a feature and not a bug. It's gross changing in an airplane bathroom. But you land with clothes that you haven't slept in.

Right. And sometimes you got to hit the road running and you get out of Heathrow and you got to go straight to or or JFK or whatever and you got to go straight and do something well if you're going to do that it's so nice to have put on some clothes gone to the airport pack them away again neatly in the in the bathroom just a few hours after you put them on so they're still pretty fresh and then change just before landing yeah I I'm'm generally a proponent of clothing

being utilized for its purpose. And I think Corey sleeping in pajamas on an airplane that he has changed into is a perfectly appropriate use of pajamas, even though it is a weird situation where you're sleeping in public. And it's the same reason that I don't begrudge people wearing sweatsuits on airplanes,

even though I wouldn't wear a sweatsuit in public unless I was starring in a stage production of Rocky. But any kind of comfort, it's fine. But just a little acknowledgement that you're in public is nice. That's what I meant. Just a little acknowledgement of the other people. What does that involve?

I think there's a certain amount in people who are in their jam jams at the gate or going through security in their jam jams, which is to heck with y''all i'm a do me and part of dressing is about respecting the other people around you whether you like it or not like that that's the reason why we wear clothes most of the time. Sometimes we wear it because otherwise we'd be too cold or we'd get sunburned. But the main reason is to, you know, have a communication, have a conversation with the people around us.

And the message that you send when you're, you know, using an airport bathroom in your jam jams is my comfort is more important than anything else in the world. Well, I'll say this. The other benefit of changing in the airplane lavatory, you do this after takeoff as you're getting ready? No, no, before takeoff. Before takeoff. No, I get it. I have medallion status, so I board first and I make good use of that time. Well.

I'm changing the climate. Ask me how. Jennifer and Jesse, you may hang up now. I did not realize that I was talking to a fellow diamond medallion member. Oh, no, I'm BA, so I'm like a 33rd order mason. In any case, changing in the airplane lavatory before settling into bed is more acceptable than hanging around the airport in your pajamas because that's unnerving to other people. And also you're doing a service to the rest of your companions on the flight because after they see that you've changed into your silk pajamas, they're like, oh, well, he effectively just cleaned up all the pee and hairs from the floor. Very true.

While changing, while putting his clothes on the floor in there. So now it's much more clean in there for me. And, you know, we share a book birthday, right? I heard you mention that Medallion Status paperback is out on the 13th. That's when Attack Surface is out. And it made me think about- It's not a competition. No, no, it's great. I love sharing book birthdays. If the world wasn't wrapped in plague,

we would probably run into each other on the road in airport lounges and be in the same bookstore one after the other. Yeah, and then I could go up to you in the airport and say, you're still wearing your pajamas. I'm not sure you noticed. I'm doing a gig at the Brookline Booksmith for Attack Surface. I mean, we're still wearing your pajamas. I'm not sure you noticed. I'm doing a gig at the Brookline Booksmith for Attack Surface.

I mean, like, we're in each other's tracks. I once followed Salman Rushdie on a book tour and every bookstore I went to was like, you wouldn't believe the security. But I did, for Walk Away, I did. You inadvertently were part of the fatwa. You were following Salman Rushdie around the country. That's right. And running

into him in lounges and just like seeing him look just exhausted. So I went on 35 cities in 45 days for walk away in the US, Canada and the UK. And in the US, they put me up in the same brand of hotel over and over and over again. And you know how when you take like a glass from the bar up to your room, it's okay. I was flying really early in the morning and I really wanted to get just like one more hour of sleep on the plane. And so I thought if I just take this pillow from like one Marriott and then leave it in another Marriott, it's okay, right? What a, what a chain hotel life hack. And it's totally not okay. And every time I did it, I had the voice of John Hodgman in my head explaining why it wasn't okay. But I rationalized my way into it. I think that Marriott pillows are

fungible. I think it's fine. You move one to the other, it's fine. Here's what I got to say, though. One thing you haven't considered. I'm going to allow this. Presuming that you and your little sleep sack are not blocking access for other people to go use the bathroom. And I see he's waving me off. No, no way. 100%. Personally, I would never take a window seat unless I was wearing a still suit. You heard me mention that before. That's a thing from Dune.

If you listen to my Max Fun Members Only special episode where I guested on Friendly Fire. We talked about the movie Dune. We talked about still suits. I would wear a still suit if I had a window seat because I wouldn't have to use the bathroom because the urine and feces are processed in the thigh pads. That's a shout out to my David Lynch Dune pals. I will allow this doctor, doctor, a doctor in regarding pajamas on long haul flights. The most comfortable person in the air kit sounds fine to me, but you are missing one thing, Corey. And I'm surprised that you're missing this because you are such an advocacy of privacy. You're not thinking about dream theft.

You're sleeping with an open dome. Anyone could shoot a dream drone over your head and pick up your dreams. That's why you got to wear a sleeping cap, specifically a Judge John Hodgman brand dream theft prevention device sleeping cap. It has that embroidered on there. And we're going to make this product. I'm going to say I just ordered that product in my mind. So I'm 100% all over that. I know because I stole your dreams. I knew you were going to order it. That's why you got to get one. I'm going to get a sleeping cap and we're going to get it up at the MaxFun shop. And it's going to say Judge John Hodgman patented DRM protected dream theft prevention device.

It's a Faraday cage for your mind. There you go. Here's something from Savannah. My husband, Brent, plays gospel a cappella quartet music from the late 1980s and early 1990s with relative frequency. He says he finds it funny. I think he actually really likes it. We're not religious. I grew up as a preacher's daughter in a strict church where no musical instruments were allowed. I hate hearing these songs. They make me feel strangely claustrophobic. He thinks I should

learn to laugh at them. I want the judge to order an injunction stating that Brent cannot play these songs over our shared house speakers and especially not in the car on road trips. Then in parentheses, ask me about the Josh Groban incident. We did request some information about the Josh Groban incident, and it's about as you would imagine, Corey. Essentially, Savannah went on a- Groban. It's a classic Groban. It's a Brent. Brent and Savannah were on a 14 hour road trip from Indiana to South Dakota. And Brent made her listen to a Josh Groban religious song over and over and over again. And she found herself to be distracted and and and frankly triggered by it.

And it was very uncomfortable for her. So Corey, let me ask you this question. This is a personal question. Are you a religious person? Do you believe in God or whatever of any kind? No, I am irreligious. You are irreligious. Yes.

Do you, this is something of a leading question. Yes. Do you this is something of a leading a leading question. Do you think it's funny to play sincere, if somewhat sappy or ridiculous, but sincere religious music over and over to laugh at in your house, whether or not your formerly religious wife, who was raised in a religious environment, tells you that it's annoying to her specifically. Is that funny? Is it funny to make fun of religious music? Is that funny to you, Corey? Is that funny?

I sincerely like a lot of religious music. So this is a somewhat difficult discussion for me. Gordon Gano, the front man for the Vile Femmes, had a whole side hustle called The Mercy Seat that recorded some incredibly good gospel music. I could listen to it all day long. I often do. I mean, I think this is kind of a no-brainer, right? You share a space with other people. You've got to find a playlist that you both like. And each of you might ask the other one to tolerate a little bit of your favorite music. Like example i live with someone who labors under the unfortunate misapprehension that listening to talking heads all day every day for the rest of your life is not good

and uh and you know ask yourself how did you get there and who is this beautiful wife where is that beautiful wife and and and and so on and you, she's wrong, but I love her. And so sometimes I put on David Byrne's solo albums instead. And that's how we arrive at a marital bliss. Yeah, but she's not playing the talking heads because she thinks they're dumb and that it's hilarious. And she goes around the house going, listen to this big suit music.

And also she knows that you toured with the Talking Heads and it was a horrible experience in your life. Yeah, just to be clear, never toured with Talking Heads. It would have been great. I know. It could never be a bad experience. It would be the greatest. No, no, no, no. In fact, I once did a gig with David Byrne.

Back to book tours, right? Yeah, me too. I was on a tour. He was on a tour. We did a thing together. It was so good. He's so nice. So nice. I once did a book event. I hosted a book event with David Byrne at the Free Library in Philadelphia. And the decision was made, we both lived in New York and we both had independently come to the decision we were going to go back to New York that night on Amtrak. And the train was delayed by hours. And I sat with David Byrne and the woman who was helping him on his tour at the Dunkin' Donuts at 30th Street Station at 1 o'clock in the morning in Philadelphia for about an hour.

It was the strangest and best David Byrne experience I could ever have in my life. People were like, are you going to go see David Byrne's American Utopia? I know it's brilliant, but I've already seen the greatest show on earth. David Byrne drinking a Dunkin' Donuts coffee. Oh, my God. You're living the dream. But, you know, the most salient fact about any of this is that he's doing a thing that annoys his partner, and he does it all the time, and that's not cool.

I agree. I mean, it doesn't matter that he's laughing at it or not laughing at it. If it was something that was not gospel and he wasn't laughing at it and he still was like, hey, honey, here's a thing you hate. Can I play this thing you hate a lot? It would still make him a jerk. Right. But I don't see the point that I'm trying to make is it seems to me pretty clear that not even Brent likes this music. If he genuinely liked it,

right, then, then you would have a point of discussion, but he, he enjoys it. Ironically, it's like for him, it's the nineties or something. He's enjoying it ironically. And, and, and it bothers his partner. So I am, I'm a non-religious person myself. And in terms of my faith, I have very little, very little faith. But I will say that liking a thing ironically and hurting your partner is bad for your soul and earns you eternal damnation in the court of Judge John Hodgman. I once was on a sailboat that used to belong to Tina Weymouth. I'm going to get a connection to all of these talking heads. Let's take a quick break.

When we come back, we'll hear about using smartphone maps with our guest, Corey Doctorow. Hello, teachers and faculty. This is Janet Varney. I'm here to remind you that listening to my podcast, The JV Club with Janet Varney, is part of the curriculum for the school year. Learning about the teenage years of such guests as Alison Brie, Vicki Peterson, John Hodgman, and so many more is a valuable and enriching experience,

one you have no choice but to embrace, because, yes, listening is mandatory. The JV Club with Janet Varney is available every Thursday on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you. And remember, no running in the halls. If you need a laugh and you're on the go, try S-T-O-p-p-o-d-c-a-s-t-i hmm are you trying to put the name of the podcast there yeah i'm trying to spell it but it's tricky let me give it a try okay if you need a laugh and you're on the go call s-t-o-p-p-p-a-d-i it'll never fit no it will let me try if you need a laugh and you're on the the go, try S-T-O-P-P-P-D-C-O-O.

Ah, we are so close. Stop podcasting yourself. A podcast from MaximumFun.org. If you need a laugh and you're on the go. Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast. We're clearing the docket. Here's something from Jeremy. He says,

My girlfriend gets mad at me when we look at my phone's map for directions while walking around. She insists the phone should be oriented with north on the top, the way you might normally look at a map, so you can get a sense of where you are within a neighborhood. I orient the map so that it reflects the direction we're currently facing, allowing me to more easily plan left and right turns. Who's right? Who's wrong?

All right. For clarity here, Cory Doctorow, you should know that this isn't just some any Jeremy. This isn't some regular Jeremy. This Jeremy is a big Maximum Fund supporter. is a big Maximum Fund supporter. He's the mayor of Maximum Fund Town, New York City. And he's slowly trying to take over this podcast by submitting cases five to 10 times a day. And we've already heard one from him.

I think also between him and his partner, with regard to he would go into grocery stores and trim the vegetables before he took them to pay and leave the trimmings behind. So he would grab a bunch of radishes, right, and trim off all the radish leaves and just leave them for someone else to clean up and then weigh that and then pay that amount, obviously very wrong on many, many levels. And he was judged extremely harshly, maybe not even harshly enough. So you can tell that this court is somewhat prejudiced. I should recuse myself.

So I'm going to let Cory Doctorow judge this one solo. It's a no-brainer. He's right. He's right because you do you. He's right because all of us have different navigational capabilities. I often get lost in hotels that I've stayed in for multiple days and I get out of the elevator and I still go the wrong direction when I get out of the elevator like six times in a row. I have no sense of direction. I have no spatial sense. I knock things over. I trip over things, and I drop things all the time. And my wife has the most incredible spatial sense of all. She can like look down a corridor

at a picture at the end of the corridor, a hundred yards away, and say that picture is two degrees off true. And she will be absolutely right. It's a crazy superpower. Did you marry an AI? I married a former Quake champion. She was on the British Quake team. She has this incredible gamer sense. And, you know, and she's brilliant. And she's always in charge when we go out. And I have learned the hard way that every time I feel, no matter how strongly I feel, like we're going in the wrong direction, I'm wrong. And so like now I say things like, it feels like we should turn in the wrong direction. I'm wrong. And so like, now I say things

like, it feels like we should turn left, but you think we should turn right. So we're going to turn right because even though I feel that I'm going to turn right. Okay. And she's like, yes, you're wrong again. So this person is clearly married to someone who is much better at orienting themselves in space than he is or partnered with. And so that person, when they're controlling the map, should orient the map in ways that make sense to them because they're able to orient themselves around an abstract like North. Whereas if you are a poor and shrunken thing like me

with a debilitating geospatial deficit, then you need your map pointing in the direction that you're going. I also need to make the L and the R with my fingers to know which one is left and right. So, you know, there you go. Well, I'll tell you what, that's a very, very reasoned judgment. And it's hard to find a single flaw with it. Spatial relations and how you relate and perceive space in your own body is very highly personal.

space in your own body is very highly personal. I cannot imagine personally using a GPS on a phone while walking around or in a car while driving with it oriented north, as opposed to having it oriented towards the direction in which I'm going. I can't, the whole thing makes me nervous. I think you're absolutely right, except for one small problem with your judgment, Corey. And that is that if we were to follow your judgment, Jeremy would be correct. And I'm not sure that I can allow that in this courtroom. Jesse, you're the tiebreaker in this literal tribunal. Do we give this one to Jeremy or no? Honestly, I don't even know how you would even get your phone to always show the map pointing due north. It has a little sensor in it to tell what direction you're walking specifically,

so it won't do that. So I got to, I mean, it's a noble impulse, John, to rule against Jeremy. And I, every fiber of my being wants to rule against Jeremy. Jeremy and I, every fiber of my being wants to rule against Jeremy, but it's his phone. It's how the phone is designed to work. I think I got to go with Corey and say, Jeremy's right. Well,

I got to say, you know, I recused myself for a reason and now I regret it. Uh, what about you, Jennifer Marmer? Is there any way I can get out of this or do we got a rule for Jeremy? Yeah, you got

to go with Jeremy. Even though I think this sets an extremely dangerous precedent and an extremely slippery slope, I find in Jeremy's favor. Here's a final question from Jess.

My wife loves spoilers. For for example she will stop the movie and say i need to know does gandalf survive i've seen the studies that say spoiling things doesn't actually reduce the enjoyment of them so i shouldn't really care but here's what i see as the crux oh wow jess nominating themselves to be the crux finder. New crux finder. I like to suspend my disbelief during a rewatch. Maybe this time, spoiler alert, Gandalf doesn't survive. When I have to take myself out of the artist's own narrative and explain what happens,

it hurts my own enjoyment of the piece and does a disservice to the work. My wife says that if I know the answer to a question she asks, I should just tell her. But why should we stop a piece of culture in order for me to explain what is going to happen five minutes later? All right. Well, before we dig into Jess's issue with their wife, Corey, quick question. And this is a, name one of your favorite books or movies or pieces of culture.

Not your favorite, favorite, but just something you really love. And I've seen many or read many times. Neil Stevenson's novel Interface about election shenanigans. Yeah. Great seasonal book. That's a timely one.

Would you rather read a new book that gets you as excited as when you read Neil Stevenson's Interface for the first time? Or would you rather take, this is science fiction-y, so you'll like it. Or would you rather take a pill that would erase the memory of that book every time you read it so you could read it new over and over and over again. Oh my goodness. Yeah, I don't like either of those options. I reread that book because as a writer, I'm really interested in how he does it. Right. So I like the spoilers. And you know, as everyone knows, the world has 10 kinds of people in it, people who understand binary, people who don't, and people who understand ternary. And I am one of those people who, when I see a magic trick done really well, the thing I want to know is how it's done.

And that makes me happier. Right. And when, you know, I worked for Imagineering for a while, and the best night of my life was the overnight in the haunted mansion. Because even though I knew like intellectually I was all done, I think that there is a kind of enjoyment that you get from knowing what's coming and going, hey, look at how they're foreshadowing it. Look at how they set that up. Look at how they fake you out. All of that stuff actually, for me,

really enhances the enjoyment. Would you enjoy a magic trick? I mean, I understand when you see the magic trick, you then want to see how it works. You enjoy the haunted mansion, then you then want to see how it works. You enjoy the haunted mansion. Then you do. Then you then want to sleep over. I don't want to sleep over in the haunted mansion ever.

That's scary to me. That's a scary idea. That's as scary as swimming in the former 10,000 Leagues Under the Sea Lagoon with the robot underwater monsters in it. Scary. But I understand that impulse. But, for example, would you want to be like, I'm going to show you a magic trick, but before I show you the magic trick, I'm going to show you what the gimmick is. I'm going to show you how it works.

Would that be okay? Yeah, Penn and Teller doing the cup and balls with the transparent cup, 100%. I love seeing the praxis, the artistry. It's great. So, here's the thing, though.

I don't know. I don't know. Jess, the letter writer, the complainant, is stating that they have this ability to turn off their memory of a thing, to literally suspend their disbelief again and pretend they are watching it for the very first time. Now, if that's true, Jess, don't hide your light under a bushel. That's a superpower. If you have a switch in your head to erase your memory of a thing that you love,

that's something science should study. Don't be like Daredevil and hide your radar sense from the world so you can climb up and down buildings and punch people. Help solve a problem called blindness by sharing your superpower with the world. I guess what I'm saying is that if Jess does have this superpower, this ability to turn off their literal memory and re-enjoy, say, the Lord of the Rings movie fresh, that it would be unenjoyable to have that spell broken by your wife asking what's about to happen. You know, you're down there in the Mines of Moria and all of a sudden your wife makes you remember, all right, maybe this Balrog

shall not pass. But I think that maybe what's really happening here, because I'm not sure that you can really turn off your memory of a piece of work, that frankly, Jess simply is annoyed by the interruption of the moment of Jess's wife saying, stop, is he going to live or die? And by the way, now I can even remember Gandalf does live, but also dies. I don't even know. Maybe I have the superpower. No, you're thinking of Jesus. I think there's some parallels, on purpose parallels, perhaps.

The hair, the tablets. Yeah, that's right. The blowing of smoke rings. Famous part of the Sermon on the Mount. I think that Jess is throwing up all kinds of interference. Like this is a disservice to the work for me to explain what's about to happen. The work doesn't care.

The work doesn't care what you think. I was trained in literary theory at Yale University. The author is dead. All that remains is the text and the text lives without you. It doesn't care what you think. I was trained in literary theory at Yale University. The author is dead. All that remains is the text, and the text lives without you. It does not care if you are spoiling it for your wife, Jess. You are not probably able to actually erase your memory. Your wife is not ruining your enjoyment of this by making you, bringing you out of the story.

Your wife is annoying you because she's making you stop this thing, tell what's going to happen. And in this, in this point only, I have great sympathy. I see there's no problem with Jess's wife wanting to know what's going to happen ahead of time in the story, but that is not Jess's burden to inform her. There is a thing, Wikipedia. If you want to know what's going to happen in the story, because you want to know how the Lord of the Rings sausage is made or you want to know. Now I'm trying very hard. Now the back of my head is trying to remember what's the name of that special fancy traveling bread that they ate? Because that's what I want to say. What's the name of that bread?

That elf bread that they raised? Montreal bagels. Yeah. If you want to know how the Elf and Montreal bagels are made, go read the Wikipedia page before you see the movie. If you want to admire the film craft, read how the movie was made. But don't put it on your partner, Jess's wife, to explain it for you, especially not in real time, because that's not a fun way to experience that movie. That is an excellent ruling. Yeah.

Look it up for yourself. Don't subject someone else to your weird way of enjoying stuff. Someone who enjoys stuff in weird ways. That's right. So, Corey, before you go, just want to remind everybody Attack Service is out now as a print book, as an audio book, as an electronic

book, I would imagine? Certainly. Absolutely. And are you doing any events associated with this? There are eight nights of bookstore-sponsored events from the 13th to the 22nd of October, the Attack Surface Lectures, each with different guests, ranging from Amber Benson and John Rogers

to Sarah Gailey and Chuck Wendig, Runa Senvig and Wendell Snyder, and many other amazing guests. Bruce Sterling's doing a cyberpunk night with me, and you can get the whole schedule at tinyearl.com slash gogetemcory. G-O-G-E-T-E-M-C-O-R-Y. That shortened website again is

tinyearl.com slash gogetemcory. tinyearl.com, T-I-N-Y-U-R-L dot com slash G-O-G-E-T-E-M-C-O-R-Y. Just rolls right off the tongue. These shortened URLs sure are handy. Unforgettable, every one of them. Thank you very much. I'll look forward to seeing you and following you on the road, the virtual road.

The docket is clear. That's it for another episode of Judge John Hodgman. Our thanks to Corey for joining us today on the show. Thank you, Corey. Corey's new book is called Attack Surface. It's the third Little Brother novel. It is out now. You can visit Corey's website, craphound.com for more information on where to buy it. John, John, did you know that that, uh, website is named after a short story that Corey wrote and in the dawning days of podcasting, when I basically didn't know Corey, I may have emailed with him once. Uh, I read it for a still extant science fiction story podcast called escape pod. That was one of the first, one of the first

professionally produced podcasts. Yeah. They had to, they had to make escape pod that was one of the first one of the first professionally produced podcasts yeah they had to they had to make escape pod that was it was written written in the stars yeah yeah exactly i mean more ways than one right uh while you're at craphound.com you can check out cory's august 2020 book about tech monopolies how to destroy surveillance capitalism and posy the Monster Slayer, Corey's new picture book about a little maker girl who turns her toys into monster hunting weapons. Our producer is Jennifer Marmer. You can follow us on Twitter at Jesse Thorne and at Hodgman.

We're on Instagram at Judge John Hodgman. Make sure to hashtag your Judge John Hodgman tweets, hashtag JJHO, and check out the Maximum Fun subreddit. That's at MaximumFun.reddit. That's at maximumfun.reddit.com to chat about this week's episode. You can submit your cases to Judge John Hodgman at maximumfun.org slash JJHO, or just email hodgman at maximumfun.org. We'll talk to you next time on the Judge John Hodgman podcast. Hi, John Hodgman here again with a very special message. I apologize for not remembering that the special Elvin energy bar that Galadriel gives Frodo and company wrapped up in leaves is called Lembas bread.

There's a time when I knew all of us cold. I'm getting I'm getting older now, and I can't remember. I don't even remember if Gandalf lives or dies or what's going on with him. Lembas Bread, save your time. Don't write me a letter. But thanks. Also, don't write me a letter about this. Yeah, we should have called this the Doctorowit. We should have, you know, we're making so many jokes about Cory Doctorow's doctoral school. At no point did we ever make a Doctorow docket joke. So now I did. So you don't have to write me a letter about that either. But of course, if you want to write me a letter about anything under the sun,

you're always welcome to Hodgman at MaximumFun.org. Maybe this is a new segment. Don't write me a letter, but you can still do it anyway. All right, thanks. That's our show. MaximumFun.org. Comedy and culture. Artist owned.

Audience supported.