October 6, 2025 • 43 mins
Special thanks to Josh for joining us on this episode!
00:00:00 - Intro
00:01:51 - Git and Tonic
00:06:24 - Interns as a Service
00:15:04 - My First Backseat Driver
00:20:44 - Crowdbutchering Liquor
00:30:22 - Baby Simulator Apps
00:41:46 - Outro
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
I'm Scott, I'm Russell, and I'm Leo.
This is Spitball.
Welcome to Spitball.
Where three firmware flashers and a guest empty, our heads of startup
and tech product ideas that we have stuck up in there so you can all have them for
free.
(00:25):
Anything that we say is yours to keep.
And this week, Russell, I believe you brought our guest.
Well, yes, I did.
Uh, I brought Josh here who is, um, a incredible musician by trade, by
practice, by hobby, while also doing expert roofing advice, we'll say.
(00:46):
Sales, maybe.
Um, uh, and let's just say, uh, and soon to be father, he is, I would say he's a
composer, that level of musician. So for all those listeners out there, he is no
joke. He is a serious musician man. Look him up. I'm sure he'll plug his handles
(01:08):
and his albums later. You know, I'm overhyping him but yeah I try to overhype Josh a little.
What?
And yeah, that's my guest today.
Welcome to the show Josh.
Yeah, thanks. Thanks. I do. I am enough of an attempted musician that my Instagram handle is Josh holes music
(01:31):
So wonderful follow like subscribe. I don't know if that's try hard or not
What give a band camp I don't have a bad I have a sound there's some stuff on SoundCloud
Just my just my rapping. All right
Well, welcome. We're so glad you're here. And
(01:52):
Every week we like to start off with a a warm-up game of some kind this time
I'm gonna call this one get in tonic
So the intersection of what we do here is alcohol and coding of course, and I have a list of terms here that
Either apply to the bartending industry or to the coding industry
And so I just I'm gonna give you one and you tell me whether or not you think it's one or the other
(02:14):
This would include for example if I said
Rubber ducking you guys I'm sure all know that that's when you are debugging something by explaining your code to a rubber duck
That's on your desk because it uses a different part of your brain
That of course has nothing to do with bartending and you all do that right so we start as we always do this week
Josh
Linting l-i-n-t-i-n-g is that a bartender term or a coding term?
(02:39):
Mmm. It's gotta be bartending. It's definitely scanning your code for bugs style
Organization that sort of thing linters are a plug-in for your code environment Wow roof or roof really shows out
Scott fat washing
I'm gonna guess
coding trimming off bad
(03:01):
overbloated code infusing your spirit with fats like bacon or coconut oil
Yeah, yeah not your soul
- Confusing your eternal soul.
- My spirit?
- No.
- I know, okay.
- Russell, yak shaving, like the animal, Y-A-K, yak shaving.
(03:25):
- Wow, that's definitely a bartender term, for sure.
- Agreed.
- All right, that's getting sidetracked
on a chain of trivial tasks in coding
before you get to the real one.
We're 0 for 3, this is going great, I'm having fun.
- Of course, yak shaving.
- Brutal.
- I have actually used that in a meeting before.
I think we're yak shaving on this.
Let's get back to the real issue.
(03:46):
Josh--
Did you coin that?
You coined that phrase.
No, that's a real thing.
Google it.
Josh, bike shedding.
Bike shedding.
Bike shedding.
I know this one.
Actually, awesome.
It's bike shedding?
Bike shedding.
I'm just imagining a bicycle and then something
that's shedding.
I'm going to go coding.
(04:08):
That is very good.
Yes.
Yeah, there we go.
You have a really big, complicated building,
You don't want to think about the huge problem
So you all debate about the bike shed because that's the thing that's more tangible and easy to decide on okay nice
It's a building metaphor. You know roofer you got it
(04:31):
Scott dirty dumping I just okay everything in me screaming
This is drink
But I'm gonna go with my strategy and say this is coding because it's always the opposite
Pouring your shakers contents a nice directly into the glass
Russell clobbering that happens at bars, so
(04:53):
Unintentionally overwriting an existing file
VHS right overwriting, right?
Did you get this from Urban Dictionary? No, no. I've been googling. I do my research. I do my own research
One more time through the shaking round Josh tree shaking
(05:15):
It's coding come on coding it's coding very good
Yes, that's where you have your program automatically go through all the code and remove the stuff that you are actually using foliage
foliage another
roofing adjacent right
Maybe more than the rest of you Scott whip shaking we did tree shaking now whip shaking I
(05:38):
Have no idea this one. I'm gonna go bartending shaking a few ice chips and
And then Russell hard shaking oh
It's a dance move. Oh, okay
that sounds like a bartender term but it's got to be a coding term because it doing the Scott move a
vigorous Japanese shake technique for a silky drink texture
(06:01):
Two steps ahead of us now
- Yes. - Three for nine.
- I doubled that, oh, I'm not thinking that hard about it.
- The opposite of what I think.
- I think you each got one, but Josh got two.
Well done, very good.
- Nice job.
- There's a lot of very silly categories of terms
in technology in general.
You got your silly startups and your silly domain names
and your silly weird coding terms and stuff.
Silly programming languages.
(06:21):
There's a lot to draw on for these games.
- Yeah.
- All right, Scott, you're up first this week.
What do you got for us?
- Okay, I recently moved into a new home
and I have been surrounded by projects,
more than I have had in a very long time in my life where it's just, I, every,
everything needs something.
Every room needs something.
Every object needs a place.
(06:42):
I am just drowning in more work than I have had in a long time and just
getting my normal daily life together.
And I've realized like, I need, I need multiple Scots.
I need multiple people to help me, but it is just me.
And I've realized like, I need an intern.
I would love an intern right now.
So can we just do interns as a service?
(07:02):
I can hire a person with no skill sets whatsoever
and I can just bring them in my house and say,
do this thing.
I will show you once and just repeat this forever.
And then when you're done, move on to this thing over here.
I don't care if it's getting me coffee
or if it's painting a living room or something.
I just want more sets of hands
that I can order around to do this.
(07:25):
And that is the entire idea.
And I desperately want this.
- Uber for interns.
You said that they have to have no skills.
(laughing)
- They have to, it's a requirement.
- It's a skill.
- If they have skills, they cost too much.
- Well, yeah, that's the other thing.
When you apply to be the intern on the app,
you list all of your skills,
(07:46):
you have to prove them to some extent,
and then the cost, the cost to rent you,
is reflective of the amount of skills you have.
But Scott's cheap, so he's gonna go
with all the no skills.
- Right. - Exactly.
- Yep. - Heaps.
-I almost said servant on here, but that brought me back
to the whole Airbnb for servants conversation.
I'm like, "We're going to call them interns and just go from there."
(08:07):
-Intern, no, very fancy.
It's an internship.
-What's the website you can hire a person for a single job or something?
-Mechanical Turk?
-Fiverr does stuff, but it's musical or artist.
-Yes, I don't remember.
Jackrabbit or something?
-Oh, yes.
-Taskrabbit.
-Taskrabbit.
Thank you.
Yes.
I was thinking Taskrabbit on there and I was looking on there for how much does it
(08:29):
cost to paint my living room or something and it was just an obscene
amount so I'm like great I'm gonna get someone with no skills on there I'm
gonna show them on a tape and then walk away and then come back for the next
time be like okay now do this and then walk away and I'll clean up the carpet from all the terrible painting job
No you hire another intern to do that. You have a fleet and you have an intern
(08:51):
manager. Intern. Wow. Anyway that is my whole thing I want an intern this week guys.
- An intern.
- You deserve one.
- That's actually kind of cool.
- You could, you might get this found out
and it may not be scalable or sustainable,
but your whole thing with your previous startup
was that people who graduated from that startup
(09:12):
got to kind of pick their own job title
and put whatever work experience
that you felt like endorsing.
There is an opportunity here for you to like,
offer up some resume fluff in exchange, right?
- Our hourly rate was awful,
but they got unlimited beer and pizza
and my God, did we get them their next job.
We worked our butts off to make sure
(09:33):
that they got the best recommendations
and everything we could do.
Everyone won.
VP of painting my living room.
That's now on your resume.
- Project managed a renovation on a home work space.
(laughing)
- I feel like I, yeah, this is like
when I have my little brother who doesn't have a job around
(09:55):
And I'm like, hey dude, you wanna come paint this
for 20 bucks, like come on by, I'll paint these rooms
and I'll give you like 40 bucks.
He's like, okay, sure.
Like I can't mess up, right?
It's my, you know, well kind of.
And then you're just doing your own thing
in the other room.
But like, yeah, it's your little brother.
He's always gonna mess up, right?
But you tell him--
- It's the scamps down the street
who are running the lawn mowing business
(10:16):
but a little more broad.
- Yeah, like taking the personal,
like or you have a buddy who's like,
oh, I, you know, throw him a couple bucks
for whatever reason, 'cause he just would do
something like that, right?
Like, there's like, but maybe, maybe not just any old job,
like you have a different friend
to do a different thing usually.
This would just be that as a service,
it sounds like, right, Scott?
(10:37):
Like you're, like that one guy that you know
that can mow my lawn without fail, like, I don't know.
Like Carl, like our buddy Carl,
who was our guest on the show.
If you needed to weld something,
you know who to call, right?
You're gonna go to his house and weld or something,
Like that's a really niche thing that you might need.
- Well, it's a thing though.
Like you gotta think of these jobs as like,
(10:57):
would I trust an intern to weld?
- Would I trust an intern to weld?
Probably not.
- You're right, you need somebody like, yeah.
This is for home projects though, right?
- Yeah, let's avoid getting into the liability issues
in some of this.
You'd open to the door, you're like,
would I trust somebody to weld?
- Here's a flamethrower.
- Let's not.
(11:18):
- Put a no skill intern do this.
Yes or no.
I like the idea that it would be a resume building thing for them, but then on the
resume, they would have to list like the previous employer.
And I don't know if they would list that app or they would list you.
Just get an LLC.
That sounds super fancy.
And then just put their name under that.
That's right.
That's right.
(11:39):
That's part of the service.
I was the SVP of execution at whatever enterprises.
Yeah.
Execution.
Furniture building.
Every Ikea piece of furniture that I ever needed to build,
I would have just hired somebody immediately.
You could hire me actually, I enjoy doing this.
(11:59):
- Follow these instructions, do this.
- It's adult Legos, you don't like that?
- See, it's fun once,
but not when you have to assemble
every freaking piece of furniture in a house going through.
- Why is TaskRabbit, I've kind of forgot that existed,
why is that expensive?
It seems like, is it not a race to the bottom?
- It was more of, hey, I need someone to do,
I need someone to help me,
(12:20):
Honestly, scrub out the upstairs bathtub, paint the downstairs,
mow the back lawn, do all these different things.
It was person on there would be like, "This is my skill set.
I'll do this.
This is my skill set.
I'll do this."
There wasn't a cross-platform general for everyone.
You were having to hire too many people.
I want one size fits all, even if it's mediocre to the core.
(12:40):
Yes.
This is like a babysitter problem too.
With a babysitter, you build a relationship with them.
You have them come back multiple times a week.
You kind of want that experience not a couple times. You know every other week. You know you can barely
They start raising my kids. I don't see my kids
Sudden where am I I suddenly have so much free time
(13:05):
Forget where I am sometimes I
Give I loan them my credit card I go to Wichita
That's guys have all thought this out. Yeah, I guess so
There's something about the relationship of like, all right
This guy's gonna come back to my house or gal is gonna come back to my house to continue
Painting and cleaning up the mess they made to if they have no skills
(13:28):
There's a little bit of the week after
They clean up the mess like a typical uber driver
They can kind of screw up like one or like door - driver
They can eat a fry or two and they get away with the five the four point nine stars
I'm sure you know, but uh maybe not in this scenario. There isn't even a rating system
There's no profiles is nothing you just get a blank in turn. Just a quarter. I'll take four
(13:55):
Give them names when they arrive there's just no have a number. Oh you want just numbers
You're fucking blank profiles
You don't talk to these people, Scott.
You use the app.
You say, one, talk to two and three.
You build a queue of tasks.
(14:17):
They've got headphones in, and they're just doing it.
And you never interact with them.
It's beautiful.
This is Black Mirror.
This has become Black Mirror.
And then you wear a crown and a robe.
Well, four will put it on you.
They try and introduce themselves, and you say,
no, no, no, I'll stop you right there.
I don't need to know your name.
This is a transaction.
(14:39):
Exactly. You don't speak to me.
You're my intern from the app.
You speak to 15, 15, speak to three and four.
He's in charge.
You speak to 15 and when 15's gone, 18's in charge.
Someday you hope to be a 15.
If you work long enough, 28.
(15:01):
Maybe.
All right, Leo, what do you got for us this week?
- All right, have you guys used one of those
haptic feedback steering wheel video game controllers
in the last like 10 years?
Like a wheel at an arcade that actually gives you the rumble
and you have to fight the car as it's moving and stuff?
(15:24):
They're getting really good and it's very fun,
not very expensive.
I think it would be a neat quasi-educational thing
to stick that in the back seat of my car
in front of my kids and pair it with an OBD reader
so that when I'm moving the pedals or steering wheel,
it is giving real time what I'm doing to the kid.
I don't think it'll be a two-way communication, of course.
(15:46):
I don't think they should be able to affect
the steering wheel and stuff,
unless maybe there's a driver's training.
You know how there's a driver's training cars
that have the two steering wheels and gas pedals
and brakes and stuff?
Maybe this is that too, I don't know,
a little aftermarket accessory.
But I think it'd be fun if I could be like,
look, buddy, see we're at the stop sign now,
now press the gas pedal and off we go,
and whoa, and he like sees it move
and he can put his feet on it too, or her feet,
(16:08):
and rest 'em and move and stuff,
and kind of feel how the car's moving.
Slightly easier way to ease into driver's training
sort of thing when you're younger,
or maybe even this is a precursor
to feeling natural with a car for driver's training.
I don't know.
It'd just be a fun accessory to build.
And I think that the car's OBD2 port,
which is underneath the steering wheel
of every single car,
(16:29):
I think gives enough data to build something like this.
And every car since the '80s has that little port.
- Whoa.
and just live stream a dash cam up front to an iPad
or something in front of them.
- That'd be cool.
Yeah, I mean they could see out most of the windows
pretty good, but yeah, that could be a nice little add-on too
but yeah, I want a haptic feedback secondary steering wheel
(16:51):
set for my kid in the backseat.
- So when you're not driving, when you turn right
the wheel will also visualize, yeah.
- Maybe they could even fight it.
(laughing)
-I want to give them a score at the end of each car trip
to be like, "How well did they follow along with Dad?"
-Oh, yes.
-How many times would they have crashed?
(17:12):
-The new Mario Karts have modes that you can turn on
where it'll gently guide young children back onto the track for them.
-Oh, yes.
-Automatically press the Go button.
You could even have this where there's a scale
between the steering wheel is completely loose
and they're just trying to match it up with you as best as they can
versus it's really telling them where you're going right now.
(17:33):
So it could be like a game where they have to turn
when you're turning and like you said,
you get a score at the end or something.
That'd be fun.
- Yeah, I'm imagining the wheel,
they're holding the wheel
and then there's a screen behind the wheel
where yeah, the wheel turns
and they have to line up the wheel with the screen
or something.
- I'm embarrassed to say I didn't even think about like,
(17:54):
they can't see directly ahead.
It doesn't make sense, they need some sort of thing.
I don't know, I guess I was kind of picturing
they can see good enough, but yeah, you're right.
There needs to be some kind of windshield representation
back there probably.
Or maybe they're just big enough to sit in the passenger seat
and this clamps onto the glove box, I don't know.
- That'd be cool.
- Yeah, originally I imagined a three year old
and then I thought, no I have to start a little bit later.
(18:16):
- Just a little bit.
- Than that.
- This sprung up because my five year old
started asking me a couple weeks ago specific questions
about how much I was using the pedals and stuff.
Like, so you're not doing it at all right now?
Nope, we're just creeping forward
because gas cars will just sort of move on their own
if you don't hold the brake.
Like, he didn't get any of this.
And I'm like, yeah, I guess unless you bring a kid
to like a field in the middle of nowhere
and you let them sit on your lap or something,
(18:37):
there's not really a great way to communicate this
to them in real time, you know?
Make a game out of it.
- This is way better than an iPad in the car.
You know, it mixes it up every once in a while, right?
Like long car trip, feel the bore.
- Start swerving on the highway, yeah.
- Yeah.
(laughing)
Start swerving on the highway.
- Yeah, it'll be fun.
(18:58):
Here we go, kids.
Hang on.
Dad, there's a cop up ahead.
Oh, amazing.
Right?
I see it in my mirror.
Right, the Tesla would definitely be able to
transition into this really easily
'cause there's already footage everywhere.
I feel like this would be the coolest toy ever.
(19:20):
Back, like, I don't know.
You could call it Backseat Driver.
Oh man, that just came to me.
That's good.
-Sure, Bryce is my first backseat driver.
That's right.
-It's an adult joke.
-I could just picture you, Leo, freaking out.
"Okay, dad's going to take a nap now.
Milo, you have the controls."
[laughter]
(19:41):
-Dad, no.
-Keep us on the road.
-If you had siblings though, you could rotate it.
I guess like--
-Get two of them and compete.
-Yes.
Who's going to be the better driver?
-Yes.
Line it up.
-Oh, you would have gone past that stop sign.
Yes.
If they do, if they do crash the car, then there's some sort of rumble.
(20:06):
You can just hear there's like a clink, clink, clink, clink, clink,
like cash going elsewhere out of it.
Flies out of a piggy bank on the screen.
Bad news.
You got to call the insurance company daughter.
Oh, no.
We're on hold again.
It's all part of the simulation.
Yeah.
Dialing State Farm insurance.
(20:27):
This is supposed to be fun.
No, it's not.
It's life.
You could have chosen a higher premium, low deductible plan.
But you're regretting that now, aren't you?
The kid has to pick insurance plans
before they start the game and stuff.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
(20:49):
All right, Russell.
What do you have for us this week?
All right, so the other day, I don't drink a lot of liquor
now.
I've been having the same bottles for like five or six years, I think.
Me too.
And I don't want to buy a full handle or like a fifth of booze anymore, but I want to buy higher quality.
(21:13):
And so I think my idea is really simple.
It's like buying with five friends to keep the prices down or like have some fun with it.
Really high quality booze.
like it's social, it's different,
keeps things interesting, and now it's like
the service is bottling it and shipping it
to all five friends, or however many,
(21:36):
and now you're trying like this high selection of booze.
Free advertising, you know, or like,
you, like the liquor companies love this
because they sell a lot more, probably.
They get a lot more, you throw a coupon in there
for each one or something, right?
And, uh, you turn it into a marketing, a blend of marketing samples and selling.
(21:59):
Right.
It's like, it's like, yeah.
So we're a service that advertises and sells your liquor to groups of individuals.
Like those sample boxes every month you get a Japanese candy or whatever,
but instead it's a flight.
That's right.
That's right.
And it's a, and it's a social element where everybody in the friend
(22:19):
group splits the bottle.
rather than only just a portion of many different things
only come to you.
- Part of this could be the service facilitating
that conversation and like rating dialogue,
rating system or something, yeah.
- You could probably get Fireball sometime
and then the podcast could do a Spitball Fireball tasting.
(22:42):
- We love Fireball in this podcast.
- They're gonna be our first corporate sponsor.
This week's episode is brought to you by Fireball Whiskey.
The only sponsor we would accept.
Can you please start every episode with that until we get a sponsorship from them?
And no one else.
Thank you, Fireball for...
We spit the Fireball out.
(23:03):
Russell, I like this.
You, there's, there's an app called Untapped where you can rate beers and
IPAs or whatever, which is, which is definitely not the same thing, but I
liked, I liked the social element of rating the same beer that one of my
other friends did, I haven't done it for five years.
So I'm sorry, Untapped, if you're listening.
But yeah, I liked the social element of it.
(23:27):
- I did Untapped, right, too, for a little bit.
And it was cool when you had the right friends
that were using it a bunch.
And yeah, it was always fun.
And yeah, this would be, I think, is it an app?
Or there's probably cool ways to reveal your rating
or something, right?
All right, y'all submit it when everybody tries it,
and then notification goes out.
(23:49):
Oh, Josh submitted his rating.
Boom, everybody gets their rating.
You know?
- Many, many years ago, we did this in person
at one of our mutual friends' house.
Oh, Phil's, who was on the show long ago.
And we did a wine tasting where we rated 10 or 12.
And I think Welch's grape juice was like number two
or number three of the fanciest wines.
(24:09):
- We learned we were very bad at drinking wine.
- Oh no. - It's only those moments,
right, where like, oh wow, I can't believe
fireball whiskey, no, something won, you know?
-Yeah. Oh, it's so exotic.
-My first thought for this, Russell, was D&D groups,
where you have a group of people or guys or whatever
that meet at the same regular enough.
You know that there's a meeting coming up
(24:29):
and you buy one bottle of super fancy stuff,
you split it four ways or five ways, whatever,
ship it to everyone if they're all in different locations
and you're all drinking the same thing that day.
-The cost too would be awesome because in theory,
you could cut the-- It'd be the same price as buying it yourself.
-Yes, I'd love to split a fancy bottle of whiskey
with all of them during the session or something.
It's like going in on a cow with your friends, but instead it's a nice
(24:55):
top shelf Jameson limited or something.
Hey, those pair, those pair well together actually.
This is a bundle.
A good steak.
Pair with the farmers, pair with the farmer out here and do it yourself.
Yeah.
You can facilitate that yourself or hire somebody on, on Scott's
TaskRabbit site, the intern.
He's gonna have to drive it down to...
(25:17):
Hire the intern to pour out each bottle of Oxford
or McCallum or a lot of the world.
Just sell the hardware, Russell.
It's just like a one input, five output spigot looking thing
where you're poured it on top and you sell a bunch of bottles.
Invent a funnel.
Yeah, invent a funnel.
But it comes with all the bottles and you brand it right.
People eat that up.
Yeah, yeah.
Drink it up.
(25:37):
Drink it up, sorry.
Is there...
[laughter]
What's the deal with the little airplane travel size bottles of liquor?
Are they only the bottom shelf stuff?
Why is it that you can't get like really, really good,
tiny, small bottles of whiskey is an invented thing, right?
- Yeah, what's the best liquor I've seen in one of those?
I don't know, I don't have any attention.
- They just don't wanna dilute their brand with that?
(25:58):
- We're so close. - That's interesting.
- Man, that's true, they do sell those little bottles,
so that might just be good too, right?
(laughing)
- No, no.
- This would be the--
- Not usually.
- We're not poo-pooing your idea, we're saying--
- I wanna be sharing the exact same bottle
- I think the whole industry is like right on the precipice
of this being a good idea.
(26:19):
That's already implemented.
- It's all been leading to this.
- Yes, exactly.
- We would be the ones that would sell the ones
that you couldn't get in little bottles.
- Honestly?
- There we go, there's our niche.
- Can you just get someone's product and resell it again?
- That's what you get five spigot funnels for.
- I think so.
- I don't know, it seems like, is this legal?
(26:41):
Do you have to get a liquor license to do this?
You got the liquor license all you have to do all you have to do is start by uniting the five most expensive brands of
Whiskey, which I'm sure there will be no disagreements
No at all and just sell those five to begin with that's when you get off the ground and then you can maybe
Blossom from there one bottle at a time Johnny Walker
(27:02):
Lagavulin McCallan what else Glenn Fittich Jameson another one Jameson you have to have fireball. It's like a dessert shot
When you've already had the other ones so fireball serves it tastes good
free
Please sponsor us fireball. Yeah, now that you say that I think you're you're right McCallan
I guess all these scotches. I remember seeing the little bottles and they're dope this would be for like whistle
(27:27):
I don't think whistle pig right there a smaller one ounce. Oh, yeah
Yeah, like a five split of whistle pig something that's not popular
There's a there's a gin company out in in Vermont that I would love everybody to try a bottle
It's like I would almost buy it for my friends just this if it got sent and delivered
(27:49):
That would actually be like you're maybe gonna do it. I know like I could
Maybe there is something to the why don't I just buy the bottle split it and send it sell the hardware
So you should sell the kit you're selling a 48 pack of small bottles and a funnel
cork system that's what you're doing and a label maker
(28:20):
Staples the share share a drink kit you know it's funny the remote drinking bar
Set this is this is why but like the same reason why Spitball exists like there's that thought of me doing that and then if
I were to actually go out and buy the kit put it in my house
Find a location for it and not have my wife kill me right with all the other shit I have
(28:42):
Like and this is this service is to outsource that concept, right?
So yeah, you could buy this or we could do it for you. Right? So we sell both
All right, we'll sell you the kit and if you don't want to deal with the kit, we'll do it all
Well, it's a week rental. Why do you need it again? You just send the kit back when you're done
No, it's a subscription service and they keep sending you bottles and then you keep splitting it along with the pre-packaging so I can
(29:08):
Ship this one-off bottle to my friends. DRM'd bottles that are only compatible with your funnel
It's like cure eggs. Oh
Yeah, I honestly think you could do subscription if it's just for the packaging where I sent Russell a bottle Russell also has a funnel
Next week he sends one back to me and we just keep
(29:30):
The sisterhood of the traveling whiskey. Exactly. Yes
Could be the brotherhood but the bro, I see I see I'll be part of a sisterhood. I don't know girls can drink whiskey
Yeah, girls love fireball sibling hood. Okay, we'll keep it. I
Can see I like Scott's idea could they those people could be those non skilled workers could be assembling
(29:53):
Everything and then Leo's kids could be driving
Could be the delivery people for Russell's product.
Corporate synergy.
I didn't, I honestly,
this is obviously my first time on Spitball.
I didn't know that this would just happen.
You guys would just sit.
We've all been waiting to see how they all fit together.
(30:14):
Can't wait to see where your slot's right in.
This is, yeah, I think it's gonna be a left,
out of left field, but.
That's okay.
We should kick it to Josh.
Yeah, kick it.
Let's hear it.
Josh, what do you got for us?
Yeah, the mini announcement was made earlier that I'm going to be a dad.
(30:35):
And so that's, that's been on my mind.
Yeah, snaps is fun.
Also anxiety.
Applause for that.
Applause for that.
Because it's more prominent than anything else.
But do you guys remember, I don't know, I'm from Nebraska.
Do you, um, did you guys have a class in middle school where you had to take care of a fake baby?
(30:59):
Ah, I never did it, but people in my high school did, yes.
When I say, when I say fake, I mean basically an animatronic baby that actually pseudo-responds.
It cried.
It would cry and you would have to pick it up and then kind of soothe it and the baby would have sensors on it showing that you were taken care of.
Yes, and you could fail being a parent.
(31:22):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
It was an assignment, yes.
- I can't believe it.
That class was called Family Consumer Sciences or something
and that was in like seventh or eighth grade.
I wasn't even in high school.
I don't know, they might have been trying to shock us
into not having kids.
Anyways, the idea--
- Was it a contraceptive?
- Yeah.
- It's a contraceptive.
- 'Cause the thing would cry at all hours
(31:42):
of the day and night and stuff.
You'd have to like get up and put it,
ours had like a key that you had to like put in the back
that would like--
- Yeah, yeah, yeah, maybe.
- Yeah.
- I don't think, yeah, I think it was like shifts.
So you would only take it home for like two days in the whole semester and
then somebody else would another time.
So it wasn't, it wasn't the full blown, like three months rehearsal of this, but
(32:02):
my idea is akin to that, but it's a more social media-ized version of this, which
is an app, I'm sure that I'm sure you, you have brought up many an app in your
time here, but it's an app that basically functions as an Amber alert to people
that are in a position like me, which is before I'm about to have a kid.
So I feel unprepared, right?
(32:24):
This app would serve to prepare me to the lifestyle that is beholden to a baby,
to beholden to a baby that will cry, poop, yell, run away, whatever.
And so, yeah.
And the app would be controlled by maybe your friends.
So maybe you three.
(32:45):
So, so, so I,
where it gets interesting.
I have the app.
You also have also have the app, but I am like the parents in the app.
Yeah.
And you guys and whoever else are my friends, you guys can just log onto the
app and say, send Josh Amber alert.
His baby just had a blowout.
(33:07):
The diaper it's gushing at the seams and I have, and I have like three minutes to
respond to the app to get to wipes.
Or I get a failing or I get a failing grade.
Um, this is going to help your anxiety.
Yeah, that's the proposal.
Yeah.
The, the idea was that it would be like, yeah, that it would prepare.
(33:31):
It's a practice run.
Very fun.
But, but yeah, so of course you mentioned the anxiety, which is absolutely valid.
And the reason why I'm not pushing for this beyond this episode, but, but, um, I
I think there would have to be some sort of limit on the app.
Like, okay, Josh just got bombarded two hours ago.
(33:53):
Nobody, so like Leo just,
Leo just gave Josh an Amber Alert two hours ago.
So now there's like, you can't do it again
for another two hours or something.
- Just like real babies, yeah.
- It can't, well, this is my wishful thinking.
- You cried two hours ago, baby.
You don't get to cry.
(laughing)
(34:14):
- No more crying.
- Okay, okay, maybe not.
Honestly, yeah, maybe if I fail,
if I fail the tests enough times,
then it just gets worse and worse
and the time spread out, yeah.
- What if you paired it with a friend
that actually has a baby
and it was sending all these alerts
when their baby actually does?
(34:35):
- Oh wow, interesting.
- Or just you, the dad, is live tweeting
what your kid is doing at all points,
if anything specific happens.
- There are many apps for this.
So there are like, uh, keep track of when baby does all of its things that babies
do when you've nursed and what side all that stuff is, there's a hundred apps,
(34:56):
but I've never seen one with a feature that then pushes that notification
as an alert to another person who's not in the family.
That's fun.
You're like almost there with some of these tracking apps.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Individualized social media.
Yeah.
Cause I have, we have like the pregnancy tracker apps and there's many of those,
but the social component to a lived experience
(35:18):
with a baby life.
- We used apps to track baby's weight
because he was having trouble gaining weight
when he was very, very little,
and it was very helpful to have that graphed out,
measured and stuff.
Having things like that is pretty common.
- Yep, tracking every feed, every, yep, diaper, wet.
But it's funny, when you said that, Leo,
(35:38):
I was like, oh, I would never wish that on anybody I know.
The reason yeah the whole idea of you begging for this is nightmare fuel
Sadistic I would pay a lot of money to not have your app
This is the dopamine torpedo. Yeah, right
This is this sounds like an app that would be offered in some country. That is like utopian. It's required in Finland
(36:04):
That's why they're doing so well
Yeah
existed for years.
- This app would be so fun.
Like if a bunch of dudes--
- It'd be fun for you guys and horrible for me.
- Well, you turn this into like a fund, right?
So like you know how men, like girls have baby showers
and all this stuff?
(36:24):
Like dudes would have this app where every time
they sent you this, they gave you a dollar, right?
Or something towards the diaper fund.
- They have to do the in-app purchase in order to get
five poo bucks that they then use to ring your phone
five times, yeah.
- I would--
- This is a fundraiser, that's fantastic.
- Yup, and now everybody's motivated to do it.
Josh is getting some real training.
(36:45):
We have the fun of the pain that we're giving to Josh.
- We skim 30% off the top.
- Josh has to do a good job though,
otherwise it won't count.
He has to finish buying those wipes within three minutes,
otherwise he doesn't score,
he won't get the money at the end.
- Take a picture of them and they upload to the app.
- Love it.
- Yeah, that's what, so all these,
(37:07):
like you have a bunch of mini games, right?
You could literally like scratch a screen
or something like to find the wipes, right?
It could be on your phone, but the point is--
- No, no way, this has to be a training thing.
- Yeah, you have two minutes to learn
how to install a car seat, go.
(laughing)
- It could be picture mode, it could be like, you know.
- It's like WarioWare, where it's just throwing
(37:29):
random mini games at you, but they're all relevant.
You gotta learn exactly what temperature
to warm a bottle to, go!
- Oh yeah, yeah, that's right.
- Too hot, too hot! - There's so much nuance
to every little thing, yes.
- Too hot.
(laughter)
- It's been sitting out for too long, too cold.
- Learn how to sanitize this set, go.
- And then all of a sudden if you take too long
(37:50):
you just hear thud in the app and you're like,
you're screwed.
Not like the baby fell or like something.
(laughter)
- What did you mean?
- Something knocked over?
- Of course.
- Thud?
(laughter)
-What? -Yeah, for sure.
(38:11):
The sound of failing to be a parent.
Third.
[laughter]
Oh, God. Shake, shake, shake, shake.
[laughter]
Harlem Shake starts to play.
All of a sudden, I'm making money
because Josh is never taking pictures of his diapers in time, right?
Or something.
Oh, how crea--
No, no, no. There's no way that--
Yeah, I--
The idea that if I fail, I have to send--
(38:34):
You receive money.
[laughter]
I lose money if I fail?
[laughter]
Oh, boy.
- Yeah, that's absolutely wild.
But the money aspect to that,
introducing the money aspect to that,
that sounds actually, I think I would,
I would of course be more willing to endure
the brutality of that app if I knew I was getting a buck.
- You got a little bit of a, oh shoot,
(38:55):
what's the, when everyone donates to medical fund.
- GoFundMe.
- Yeah, a little bit of a GoFundMe going on, yeah.
- Yeah.
- Dude, the 2 a.m. message, Amber Alert.
- Right, yeah.
- 3 a.m.
- Yep.
(imitates alarm)
- That's a $5 donation though.
- Yes, right.
Each, depending on the horribleness of the Amber Alert,
(39:18):
more money.
- It's a tiered system, yeah.
- It does build in your monetization strategy
because the app forwards on $4.50
of every $5 to you or whatever.
- It's gotta be like baby monitor crying sounds, right?
You can't just have it be an alarm.
It has to be like, oh.
There's a certain dread when you hear a squawk
(39:40):
in the middle of the night,
but then it goes quiet for a minute on the baby monitor
that can't be replicated with an alarm sound.
Like, is this going to, I'm awake now,
with, okay, I think they went back to sleep,
and then three minutes later it actually starts crying.
- Oh, wow.
I think you're onto something there.
I think it's-- - It's gotta be baby sounds.
(40:02):
- It could be even more money
to record your own imitation of a baby sound,
which I can imagine Russell doing.
- Amazing.
(imitating baby sounds)
- It's a really low grunt.
- Dad.
(laughing)
Dad, I need my whistle pig.
(40:24):
(laughing)
My one ounce bottle.
- I have a coworker whose text message tone on her phone
is this (imitating phone ringing)
sound that just so happens to be the same god damn mp3 that our baby monitor makes when
its battery is about to die.
Oh, man.
And every time it is a heart attack.
(40:46):
It is, if I'm out in public, if I'm out in public in a store and some baby is crying,
I get palpitations about it.
It is a-
Oh, it's a PTSD.
You don't get to, yeah, you don't get to replicate that with a little bing bing bing
That really cuts to the core.
(41:06):
But maybe that's why this is necessary.
Maybe it hardens you a little bit.
Yeah, could be.
You get calloused.
I wasn't calloused.
I needed this going in.
You're so right.
There's no research on this yet.
My speculation, prove my speculation wrong, you know.
That's right.
It's a little rattlesnake poison, right?
It's like that.
It takes a little bit of time.
(41:27):
It's a vaccine.
Build up that tolerance.
People do that, right?
I'm not the only one, right?
Iocane powder.
You guys want to take a little bit of rattlesnake venom
every day?
Single peanut M&M's.
Is that-- that's the reason that you bought a rattlesnake?
OK.
[LAUGHTER]
I thought it was for the kids.
You wanted it organic?
Well, I got to be ready for my rattlesnake bite, right?
Well, dear listener, if you are listening to us
(41:49):
while rocking an infant at 2 AM, we are there.
We understand.
Thank you very, very much for listening and spending
the night with us.
And we hope you enjoyed yourself.
And thank you very much for joining us, Josh.
This was wonderful.
Yeah, my pleasure.
I appreciated it.
Good laughs, everybody.
- Very good.
Our website is Spitball.show.
There you can find links to our YouTube channel,
(42:09):
other social media.
Hey, if you have an idea,
record a pitch to us in a voice memo
and send it on over to podcast@spitball.show.
Maybe we'll discuss it on the show.
That's also how you can follow us on the Fediverse,
such as Mastodon.
We are podcast@spitball.show
or on BlueSky @spitball.show.
Our subreddit is r/SpitballShow.
Our intro/outro music is "Swingers" by Bonkers Beat Club.
Please, if you wouldn't mind,
(42:30):
You know that one friend who just had their like ninth kid, and you're like, I don't understand
how they can survive anything like that.
That is war.
That is hell.
Send them a link to our show.
We think that they really enjoy this episode.
And if you wouldn't mind on that app that you're listening on right now, leave us a
review.
Apple Podcasts, Spotify, whatever it is that you're listening on.
That is the best way for people to find out about the show.
(42:52):
New episodes coming out in two weeks.
We will see you then.
I'm Scott, I'm Russell, and I'm Leo.
This is Spitball.
Welcome to Spitball.
Where three firmware flashers and a guest empty, our heads of startup
and tech product ideas that we have stuck up in there so you can all have them for
free.
(00:25):
Anything that we say is yours to keep.
And this week, Russell, I believe you brought our guest.
Well, yes, I did.
Uh, I brought Josh here who is, um, a incredible musician by trade, by
practice, by hobby, while also doing expert roofing advice, we'll say.
(00:46):
Sales, maybe.
Um, uh, and let's just say, uh, and soon to be father, he is, I would say he's a
composer, that level of musician. So for all those listeners out there, he is no
joke. He is a serious musician man. Look him up. I'm sure he'll plug his handles
(01:08):
and his albums later. You know, I'm overhyping him but yeah I try to overhype Josh a little.
What?
And yeah, that's my guest today.
Welcome to the show Josh.
Yeah, thanks. Thanks. I do. I am enough of an attempted musician that my Instagram handle is Josh holes music
(01:31):
So wonderful follow like subscribe. I don't know if that's try hard or not
What give a band camp I don't have a bad I have a sound there's some stuff on SoundCloud
Just my just my rapping. All right
Well, welcome. We're so glad you're here. And
(01:52):
Every week we like to start off with a a warm-up game of some kind this time
I'm gonna call this one get in tonic
So the intersection of what we do here is alcohol and coding of course, and I have a list of terms here that
Either apply to the bartending industry or to the coding industry
And so I just I'm gonna give you one and you tell me whether or not you think it's one or the other
(02:14):
This would include for example if I said
Rubber ducking you guys I'm sure all know that that's when you are debugging something by explaining your code to a rubber duck
That's on your desk because it uses a different part of your brain
That of course has nothing to do with bartending and you all do that right so we start as we always do this week
Josh
Linting l-i-n-t-i-n-g is that a bartender term or a coding term?
(02:39):
Mmm. It's gotta be bartending. It's definitely scanning your code for bugs style
Organization that sort of thing linters are a plug-in for your code environment Wow roof or roof really shows out
Scott fat washing
I'm gonna guess
coding trimming off bad
(03:01):
overbloated code infusing your spirit with fats like bacon or coconut oil
Yeah, yeah not your soul
- Confusing your eternal soul.
- My spirit?
- No.
- I know, okay.
- Russell, yak shaving, like the animal, Y-A-K, yak shaving.
(03:25):
- Wow, that's definitely a bartender term, for sure.
- Agreed.
- All right, that's getting sidetracked
on a chain of trivial tasks in coding
before you get to the real one.
We're 0 for 3, this is going great, I'm having fun.
- Of course, yak shaving.
- Brutal.
- I have actually used that in a meeting before.
I think we're yak shaving on this.
Let's get back to the real issue.
(03:46):
Josh--
Did you coin that?
You coined that phrase.
No, that's a real thing.
Google it.
Josh, bike shedding.
Bike shedding.
Bike shedding.
I know this one.
Actually, awesome.
It's bike shedding?
Bike shedding.
I'm just imagining a bicycle and then something
that's shedding.
I'm going to go coding.
(04:08):
That is very good.
Yes.
Yeah, there we go.
You have a really big, complicated building,
You don't want to think about the huge problem
So you all debate about the bike shed because that's the thing that's more tangible and easy to decide on okay nice
It's a building metaphor. You know roofer you got it
(04:31):
Scott dirty dumping I just okay everything in me screaming
This is drink
But I'm gonna go with my strategy and say this is coding because it's always the opposite
Pouring your shakers contents a nice directly into the glass
Russell clobbering that happens at bars, so
(04:53):
Unintentionally overwriting an existing file
VHS right overwriting, right?
Did you get this from Urban Dictionary? No, no. I've been googling. I do my research. I do my own research
One more time through the shaking round Josh tree shaking
(05:15):
It's coding come on coding it's coding very good
Yes, that's where you have your program automatically go through all the code and remove the stuff that you are actually using foliage
foliage another
roofing adjacent right
Maybe more than the rest of you Scott whip shaking we did tree shaking now whip shaking I
(05:38):
Have no idea this one. I'm gonna go bartending shaking a few ice chips and
And then Russell hard shaking oh
It's a dance move. Oh, okay
that sounds like a bartender term but it's got to be a coding term because it doing the Scott move a
vigorous Japanese shake technique for a silky drink texture
(06:01):
Two steps ahead of us now
- Yes. - Three for nine.
- I doubled that, oh, I'm not thinking that hard about it.
- The opposite of what I think.
- I think you each got one, but Josh got two.
Well done, very good.
- Nice job.
- There's a lot of very silly categories of terms
in technology in general.
You got your silly startups and your silly domain names
and your silly weird coding terms and stuff.
Silly programming languages.
(06:21):
There's a lot to draw on for these games.
- Yeah.
- All right, Scott, you're up first this week.
What do you got for us?
- Okay, I recently moved into a new home
and I have been surrounded by projects,
more than I have had in a very long time in my life where it's just, I, every,
everything needs something.
Every room needs something.
Every object needs a place.
(06:42):
I am just drowning in more work than I have had in a long time and just
getting my normal daily life together.
And I've realized like, I need, I need multiple Scots.
I need multiple people to help me, but it is just me.
And I've realized like, I need an intern.
I would love an intern right now.
So can we just do interns as a service?
(07:02):
I can hire a person with no skill sets whatsoever
and I can just bring them in my house and say,
do this thing.
I will show you once and just repeat this forever.
And then when you're done, move on to this thing over here.
I don't care if it's getting me coffee
or if it's painting a living room or something.
I just want more sets of hands
that I can order around to do this.
(07:25):
And that is the entire idea.
And I desperately want this.
- Uber for interns.
You said that they have to have no skills.
(laughing)
- They have to, it's a requirement.
- It's a skill.
- If they have skills, they cost too much.
- Well, yeah, that's the other thing.
When you apply to be the intern on the app,
you list all of your skills,
(07:46):
you have to prove them to some extent,
and then the cost, the cost to rent you,
is reflective of the amount of skills you have.
But Scott's cheap, so he's gonna go
with all the no skills.
- Right. - Exactly.
- Yep. - Heaps.
-I almost said servant on here, but that brought me back
to the whole Airbnb for servants conversation.
I'm like, "We're going to call them interns and just go from there."
(08:07):
-Intern, no, very fancy.
It's an internship.
-What's the website you can hire a person for a single job or something?
-Mechanical Turk?
-Fiverr does stuff, but it's musical or artist.
-Yes, I don't remember.
Jackrabbit or something?
-Oh, yes.
-Taskrabbit.
-Taskrabbit.
Thank you.
Yes.
I was thinking Taskrabbit on there and I was looking on there for how much does it
(08:29):
cost to paint my living room or something and it was just an obscene
amount so I'm like great I'm gonna get someone with no skills on there I'm
gonna show them on a tape and then walk away and then come back for the next
time be like okay now do this and then walk away and I'll clean up the carpet from all the terrible painting job
No you hire another intern to do that. You have a fleet and you have an intern
(08:51):
manager. Intern. Wow. Anyway that is my whole thing I want an intern this week guys.
- An intern.
- You deserve one.
- That's actually kind of cool.
- You could, you might get this found out
and it may not be scalable or sustainable,
but your whole thing with your previous startup
was that people who graduated from that startup
(09:12):
got to kind of pick their own job title
and put whatever work experience
that you felt like endorsing.
There is an opportunity here for you to like,
offer up some resume fluff in exchange, right?
- Our hourly rate was awful,
but they got unlimited beer and pizza
and my God, did we get them their next job.
We worked our butts off to make sure
(09:33):
that they got the best recommendations
and everything we could do.
Everyone won.
VP of painting my living room.
That's now on your resume.
- Project managed a renovation on a home work space.
(laughing)
- I feel like I, yeah, this is like
when I have my little brother who doesn't have a job around
(09:55):
And I'm like, hey dude, you wanna come paint this
for 20 bucks, like come on by, I'll paint these rooms
and I'll give you like 40 bucks.
He's like, okay, sure.
Like I can't mess up, right?
It's my, you know, well kind of.
And then you're just doing your own thing
in the other room.
But like, yeah, it's your little brother.
He's always gonna mess up, right?
But you tell him--
- It's the scamps down the street
who are running the lawn mowing business
(10:16):
but a little more broad.
- Yeah, like taking the personal,
like or you have a buddy who's like,
oh, I, you know, throw him a couple bucks
for whatever reason, 'cause he just would do
something like that, right?
Like, there's like, but maybe, maybe not just any old job,
like you have a different friend
to do a different thing usually.
This would just be that as a service,
it sounds like, right, Scott?
(10:37):
Like you're, like that one guy that you know
that can mow my lawn without fail, like, I don't know.
Like Carl, like our buddy Carl,
who was our guest on the show.
If you needed to weld something,
you know who to call, right?
You're gonna go to his house and weld or something,
Like that's a really niche thing that you might need.
- Well, it's a thing though.
Like you gotta think of these jobs as like,
(10:57):
would I trust an intern to weld?
- Would I trust an intern to weld?
Probably not.
- You're right, you need somebody like, yeah.
This is for home projects though, right?
- Yeah, let's avoid getting into the liability issues
in some of this.
You'd open to the door, you're like,
would I trust somebody to weld?
- Here's a flamethrower.
- Let's not.
(11:18):
- Put a no skill intern do this.
Yes or no.
I like the idea that it would be a resume building thing for them, but then on the
resume, they would have to list like the previous employer.
And I don't know if they would list that app or they would list you.
Just get an LLC.
That sounds super fancy.
And then just put their name under that.
That's right.
That's right.
(11:39):
That's part of the service.
I was the SVP of execution at whatever enterprises.
Yeah.
Execution.
Furniture building.
Every Ikea piece of furniture that I ever needed to build,
I would have just hired somebody immediately.
You could hire me actually, I enjoy doing this.
(11:59):
- Follow these instructions, do this.
- It's adult Legos, you don't like that?
- See, it's fun once,
but not when you have to assemble
every freaking piece of furniture in a house going through.
- Why is TaskRabbit, I've kind of forgot that existed,
why is that expensive?
It seems like, is it not a race to the bottom?
- It was more of, hey, I need someone to do,
I need someone to help me,
(12:20):
Honestly, scrub out the upstairs bathtub, paint the downstairs,
mow the back lawn, do all these different things.
It was person on there would be like, "This is my skill set.
I'll do this.
This is my skill set.
I'll do this."
There wasn't a cross-platform general for everyone.
You were having to hire too many people.
I want one size fits all, even if it's mediocre to the core.
(12:40):
Yes.
This is like a babysitter problem too.
With a babysitter, you build a relationship with them.
You have them come back multiple times a week.
You kind of want that experience not a couple times. You know every other week. You know you can barely
They start raising my kids. I don't see my kids
Sudden where am I I suddenly have so much free time
(13:05):
Forget where I am sometimes I
Give I loan them my credit card I go to Wichita
That's guys have all thought this out. Yeah, I guess so
There's something about the relationship of like, all right
This guy's gonna come back to my house or gal is gonna come back to my house to continue
Painting and cleaning up the mess they made to if they have no skills
(13:28):
There's a little bit of the week after
They clean up the mess like a typical uber driver
They can kind of screw up like one or like door - driver
They can eat a fry or two and they get away with the five the four point nine stars
I'm sure you know, but uh maybe not in this scenario. There isn't even a rating system
There's no profiles is nothing you just get a blank in turn. Just a quarter. I'll take four
(13:55):
Give them names when they arrive there's just no have a number. Oh you want just numbers
You're fucking blank profiles
You don't talk to these people, Scott.
You use the app.
You say, one, talk to two and three.
You build a queue of tasks.
(14:17):
They've got headphones in, and they're just doing it.
And you never interact with them.
It's beautiful.
This is Black Mirror.
This has become Black Mirror.
And then you wear a crown and a robe.
Well, four will put it on you.
They try and introduce themselves, and you say,
no, no, no, I'll stop you right there.
I don't need to know your name.
This is a transaction.
(14:39):
Exactly. You don't speak to me.
You're my intern from the app.
You speak to 15, 15, speak to three and four.
He's in charge.
You speak to 15 and when 15's gone, 18's in charge.
Someday you hope to be a 15.
If you work long enough, 28.
(15:01):
Maybe.
All right, Leo, what do you got for us this week?
- All right, have you guys used one of those
haptic feedback steering wheel video game controllers
in the last like 10 years?
Like a wheel at an arcade that actually gives you the rumble
and you have to fight the car as it's moving and stuff?
(15:24):
They're getting really good and it's very fun,
not very expensive.
I think it would be a neat quasi-educational thing
to stick that in the back seat of my car
in front of my kids and pair it with an OBD reader
so that when I'm moving the pedals or steering wheel,
it is giving real time what I'm doing to the kid.
I don't think it'll be a two-way communication, of course.
(15:46):
I don't think they should be able to affect
the steering wheel and stuff,
unless maybe there's a driver's training.
You know how there's a driver's training cars
that have the two steering wheels and gas pedals
and brakes and stuff?
Maybe this is that too, I don't know,
a little aftermarket accessory.
But I think it'd be fun if I could be like,
look, buddy, see we're at the stop sign now,
now press the gas pedal and off we go,
and whoa, and he like sees it move
and he can put his feet on it too, or her feet,
(16:08):
and rest 'em and move and stuff,
and kind of feel how the car's moving.
Slightly easier way to ease into driver's training
sort of thing when you're younger,
or maybe even this is a precursor
to feeling natural with a car for driver's training.
I don't know.
It'd just be a fun accessory to build.
And I think that the car's OBD2 port,
which is underneath the steering wheel
of every single car,
(16:29):
I think gives enough data to build something like this.
And every car since the '80s has that little port.
- Whoa.
and just live stream a dash cam up front to an iPad
or something in front of them.
- That'd be cool.
Yeah, I mean they could see out most of the windows
pretty good, but yeah, that could be a nice little add-on too
but yeah, I want a haptic feedback secondary steering wheel
(16:51):
set for my kid in the backseat.
- So when you're not driving, when you turn right
the wheel will also visualize, yeah.
- Maybe they could even fight it.
(laughing)
-I want to give them a score at the end of each car trip
to be like, "How well did they follow along with Dad?"
-Oh, yes.
-How many times would they have crashed?
(17:12):
-The new Mario Karts have modes that you can turn on
where it'll gently guide young children back onto the track for them.
-Oh, yes.
-Automatically press the Go button.
You could even have this where there's a scale
between the steering wheel is completely loose
and they're just trying to match it up with you as best as they can
versus it's really telling them where you're going right now.
(17:33):
So it could be like a game where they have to turn
when you're turning and like you said,
you get a score at the end or something.
That'd be fun.
- Yeah, I'm imagining the wheel,
they're holding the wheel
and then there's a screen behind the wheel
where yeah, the wheel turns
and they have to line up the wheel with the screen
or something.
- I'm embarrassed to say I didn't even think about like,
(17:54):
they can't see directly ahead.
It doesn't make sense, they need some sort of thing.
I don't know, I guess I was kind of picturing
they can see good enough, but yeah, you're right.
There needs to be some kind of windshield representation
back there probably.
Or maybe they're just big enough to sit in the passenger seat
and this clamps onto the glove box, I don't know.
- That'd be cool.
- Yeah, originally I imagined a three year old
and then I thought, no I have to start a little bit later.
(18:16):
- Just a little bit.
- Than that.
- This sprung up because my five year old
started asking me a couple weeks ago specific questions
about how much I was using the pedals and stuff.
Like, so you're not doing it at all right now?
Nope, we're just creeping forward
because gas cars will just sort of move on their own
if you don't hold the brake.
Like, he didn't get any of this.
And I'm like, yeah, I guess unless you bring a kid
to like a field in the middle of nowhere
and you let them sit on your lap or something,
(18:37):
there's not really a great way to communicate this
to them in real time, you know?
Make a game out of it.
- This is way better than an iPad in the car.
You know, it mixes it up every once in a while, right?
Like long car trip, feel the bore.
- Start swerving on the highway, yeah.
- Yeah.
(laughing)
Start swerving on the highway.
- Yeah, it'll be fun.
(18:58):
Here we go, kids.
Hang on.
Dad, there's a cop up ahead.
Oh, amazing.
Right?
I see it in my mirror.
Right, the Tesla would definitely be able to
transition into this really easily
'cause there's already footage everywhere.
I feel like this would be the coolest toy ever.
(19:20):
Back, like, I don't know.
You could call it Backseat Driver.
Oh man, that just came to me.
That's good.
-Sure, Bryce is my first backseat driver.
That's right.
-It's an adult joke.
-I could just picture you, Leo, freaking out.
"Okay, dad's going to take a nap now.
Milo, you have the controls."
[laughter]
(19:41):
-Dad, no.
-Keep us on the road.
-If you had siblings though, you could rotate it.
I guess like--
-Get two of them and compete.
-Yes.
Who's going to be the better driver?
-Yes.
Line it up.
-Oh, you would have gone past that stop sign.
Yes.
If they do, if they do crash the car, then there's some sort of rumble.
(20:06):
You can just hear there's like a clink, clink, clink, clink, clink,
like cash going elsewhere out of it.
Flies out of a piggy bank on the screen.
Bad news.
You got to call the insurance company daughter.
Oh, no.
We're on hold again.
It's all part of the simulation.
Yeah.
Dialing State Farm insurance.
(20:27):
This is supposed to be fun.
No, it's not.
It's life.
You could have chosen a higher premium, low deductible plan.
But you're regretting that now, aren't you?
The kid has to pick insurance plans
before they start the game and stuff.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
(20:49):
All right, Russell.
What do you have for us this week?
All right, so the other day, I don't drink a lot of liquor
now.
I've been having the same bottles for like five or six years, I think.
Me too.
And I don't want to buy a full handle or like a fifth of booze anymore, but I want to buy higher quality.
(21:13):
And so I think my idea is really simple.
It's like buying with five friends to keep the prices down or like have some fun with it.
Really high quality booze.
like it's social, it's different,
keeps things interesting, and now it's like
the service is bottling it and shipping it
to all five friends, or however many,
(21:36):
and now you're trying like this high selection of booze.
Free advertising, you know, or like,
you, like the liquor companies love this
because they sell a lot more, probably.
They get a lot more, you throw a coupon in there
for each one or something, right?
And, uh, you turn it into a marketing, a blend of marketing samples and selling.
(21:59):
Right.
It's like, it's like, yeah.
So we're a service that advertises and sells your liquor to groups of individuals.
Like those sample boxes every month you get a Japanese candy or whatever,
but instead it's a flight.
That's right.
That's right.
And it's a, and it's a social element where everybody in the friend
(22:19):
group splits the bottle.
rather than only just a portion of many different things
only come to you.
- Part of this could be the service facilitating
that conversation and like rating dialogue,
rating system or something, yeah.
- You could probably get Fireball sometime
and then the podcast could do a Spitball Fireball tasting.
(22:42):
- We love Fireball in this podcast.
- They're gonna be our first corporate sponsor.
This week's episode is brought to you by Fireball Whiskey.
The only sponsor we would accept.
Can you please start every episode with that until we get a sponsorship from them?
And no one else.
Thank you, Fireball for...
We spit the Fireball out.
(23:03):
Russell, I like this.
You, there's, there's an app called Untapped where you can rate beers and
IPAs or whatever, which is, which is definitely not the same thing, but I
liked, I liked the social element of rating the same beer that one of my
other friends did, I haven't done it for five years.
So I'm sorry, Untapped, if you're listening.
But yeah, I liked the social element of it.
(23:27):
- I did Untapped, right, too, for a little bit.
And it was cool when you had the right friends
that were using it a bunch.
And yeah, it was always fun.
And yeah, this would be, I think, is it an app?
Or there's probably cool ways to reveal your rating
or something, right?
All right, y'all submit it when everybody tries it,
and then notification goes out.
(23:49):
Oh, Josh submitted his rating.
Boom, everybody gets their rating.
You know?
- Many, many years ago, we did this in person
at one of our mutual friends' house.
Oh, Phil's, who was on the show long ago.
And we did a wine tasting where we rated 10 or 12.
And I think Welch's grape juice was like number two
or number three of the fanciest wines.
(24:09):
- We learned we were very bad at drinking wine.
- Oh no. - It's only those moments,
right, where like, oh wow, I can't believe
fireball whiskey, no, something won, you know?
-Yeah. Oh, it's so exotic.
-My first thought for this, Russell, was D&D groups,
where you have a group of people or guys or whatever
that meet at the same regular enough.
You know that there's a meeting coming up
(24:29):
and you buy one bottle of super fancy stuff,
you split it four ways or five ways, whatever,
ship it to everyone if they're all in different locations
and you're all drinking the same thing that day.
-The cost too would be awesome because in theory,
you could cut the-- It'd be the same price as buying it yourself.
-Yes, I'd love to split a fancy bottle of whiskey
with all of them during the session or something.
It's like going in on a cow with your friends, but instead it's a nice
(24:55):
top shelf Jameson limited or something.
Hey, those pair, those pair well together actually.
This is a bundle.
A good steak.
Pair with the farmers, pair with the farmer out here and do it yourself.
Yeah.
You can facilitate that yourself or hire somebody on, on Scott's
TaskRabbit site, the intern.
He's gonna have to drive it down to...
(25:17):
Hire the intern to pour out each bottle of Oxford
or McCallum or a lot of the world.
Just sell the hardware, Russell.
It's just like a one input, five output spigot looking thing
where you're poured it on top and you sell a bunch of bottles.
Invent a funnel.
Yeah, invent a funnel.
But it comes with all the bottles and you brand it right.
People eat that up.
Yeah, yeah.
Drink it up.
(25:37):
Drink it up, sorry.
Is there...
[laughter]
What's the deal with the little airplane travel size bottles of liquor?
Are they only the bottom shelf stuff?
Why is it that you can't get like really, really good,
tiny, small bottles of whiskey is an invented thing, right?
- Yeah, what's the best liquor I've seen in one of those?
I don't know, I don't have any attention.
- They just don't wanna dilute their brand with that?
(25:58):
- We're so close. - That's interesting.
- Man, that's true, they do sell those little bottles,
so that might just be good too, right?
(laughing)
- No, no.
- This would be the--
- Not usually.
- We're not poo-pooing your idea, we're saying--
- I wanna be sharing the exact same bottle
- I think the whole industry is like right on the precipice
of this being a good idea.
(26:19):
That's already implemented.
- It's all been leading to this.
- Yes, exactly.
- We would be the ones that would sell the ones
that you couldn't get in little bottles.
- Honestly?
- There we go, there's our niche.
- Can you just get someone's product and resell it again?
- That's what you get five spigot funnels for.
- I think so.
- I don't know, it seems like, is this legal?
(26:41):
Do you have to get a liquor license to do this?
You got the liquor license all you have to do all you have to do is start by uniting the five most expensive brands of
Whiskey, which I'm sure there will be no disagreements
No at all and just sell those five to begin with that's when you get off the ground and then you can maybe
Blossom from there one bottle at a time Johnny Walker
(27:02):
Lagavulin McCallan what else Glenn Fittich Jameson another one Jameson you have to have fireball. It's like a dessert shot
When you've already had the other ones so fireball serves it tastes good
free
Please sponsor us fireball. Yeah, now that you say that I think you're you're right McCallan
I guess all these scotches. I remember seeing the little bottles and they're dope this would be for like whistle
(27:27):
I don't think whistle pig right there a smaller one ounce. Oh, yeah
Yeah, like a five split of whistle pig something that's not popular
There's a there's a gin company out in in Vermont that I would love everybody to try a bottle
It's like I would almost buy it for my friends just this if it got sent and delivered
(27:49):
That would actually be like you're maybe gonna do it. I know like I could
Maybe there is something to the why don't I just buy the bottle split it and send it sell the hardware
So you should sell the kit you're selling a 48 pack of small bottles and a funnel
cork system that's what you're doing and a label maker
(28:20):
Staples the share share a drink kit you know it's funny the remote drinking bar
Set this is this is why but like the same reason why Spitball exists like there's that thought of me doing that and then if
I were to actually go out and buy the kit put it in my house
Find a location for it and not have my wife kill me right with all the other shit I have
(28:42):
Like and this is this service is to outsource that concept, right?
So yeah, you could buy this or we could do it for you. Right? So we sell both
All right, we'll sell you the kit and if you don't want to deal with the kit, we'll do it all
Well, it's a week rental. Why do you need it again? You just send the kit back when you're done
No, it's a subscription service and they keep sending you bottles and then you keep splitting it along with the pre-packaging so I can
(29:08):
Ship this one-off bottle to my friends. DRM'd bottles that are only compatible with your funnel
It's like cure eggs. Oh
Yeah, I honestly think you could do subscription if it's just for the packaging where I sent Russell a bottle Russell also has a funnel
Next week he sends one back to me and we just keep
(29:30):
The sisterhood of the traveling whiskey. Exactly. Yes
Could be the brotherhood but the bro, I see I see I'll be part of a sisterhood. I don't know girls can drink whiskey
Yeah, girls love fireball sibling hood. Okay, we'll keep it. I
Can see I like Scott's idea could they those people could be those non skilled workers could be assembling
(29:53):
Everything and then Leo's kids could be driving
Could be the delivery people for Russell's product.
Corporate synergy.
I didn't, I honestly,
this is obviously my first time on Spitball.
I didn't know that this would just happen.
You guys would just sit.
We've all been waiting to see how they all fit together.
(30:14):
Can't wait to see where your slot's right in.
This is, yeah, I think it's gonna be a left,
out of left field, but.
That's okay.
We should kick it to Josh.
Yeah, kick it.
Let's hear it.
Josh, what do you got for us?
Yeah, the mini announcement was made earlier that I'm going to be a dad.
(30:35):
And so that's, that's been on my mind.
Yeah, snaps is fun.
Also anxiety.
Applause for that.
Applause for that.
Because it's more prominent than anything else.
But do you guys remember, I don't know, I'm from Nebraska.
Do you, um, did you guys have a class in middle school where you had to take care of a fake baby?
(30:59):
Ah, I never did it, but people in my high school did, yes.
When I say, when I say fake, I mean basically an animatronic baby that actually pseudo-responds.
It cried.
It would cry and you would have to pick it up and then kind of soothe it and the baby would have sensors on it showing that you were taken care of.
Yes, and you could fail being a parent.
(31:22):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
It was an assignment, yes.
- I can't believe it.
That class was called Family Consumer Sciences or something
and that was in like seventh or eighth grade.
I wasn't even in high school.
I don't know, they might have been trying to shock us
into not having kids.
Anyways, the idea--
- Was it a contraceptive?
- Yeah.
- It's a contraceptive.
- 'Cause the thing would cry at all hours
(31:42):
of the day and night and stuff.
You'd have to like get up and put it,
ours had like a key that you had to like put in the back
that would like--
- Yeah, yeah, yeah, maybe.
- Yeah.
- I don't think, yeah, I think it was like shifts.
So you would only take it home for like two days in the whole semester and
then somebody else would another time.
So it wasn't, it wasn't the full blown, like three months rehearsal of this, but
(32:02):
my idea is akin to that, but it's a more social media-ized version of this, which
is an app, I'm sure that I'm sure you, you have brought up many an app in your
time here, but it's an app that basically functions as an Amber alert to people
that are in a position like me, which is before I'm about to have a kid.
So I feel unprepared, right?
(32:24):
This app would serve to prepare me to the lifestyle that is beholden to a baby,
to beholden to a baby that will cry, poop, yell, run away, whatever.
And so, yeah.
And the app would be controlled by maybe your friends.
So maybe you three.
(32:45):
So, so, so I,
where it gets interesting.
I have the app.
You also have also have the app, but I am like the parents in the app.
Yeah.
And you guys and whoever else are my friends, you guys can just log onto the
app and say, send Josh Amber alert.
His baby just had a blowout.
(33:07):
The diaper it's gushing at the seams and I have, and I have like three minutes to
respond to the app to get to wipes.
Or I get a failing or I get a failing grade.
Um, this is going to help your anxiety.
Yeah, that's the proposal.
Yeah.
The, the idea was that it would be like, yeah, that it would prepare.
(33:31):
It's a practice run.
Very fun.
But, but yeah, so of course you mentioned the anxiety, which is absolutely valid.
And the reason why I'm not pushing for this beyond this episode, but, but, um, I
I think there would have to be some sort of limit on the app.
Like, okay, Josh just got bombarded two hours ago.
(33:53):
Nobody, so like Leo just,
Leo just gave Josh an Amber Alert two hours ago.
So now there's like, you can't do it again
for another two hours or something.
- Just like real babies, yeah.
- It can't, well, this is my wishful thinking.
- You cried two hours ago, baby.
You don't get to cry.
(laughing)
(34:14):
- No more crying.
- Okay, okay, maybe not.
Honestly, yeah, maybe if I fail,
if I fail the tests enough times,
then it just gets worse and worse
and the time spread out, yeah.
- What if you paired it with a friend
that actually has a baby
and it was sending all these alerts
when their baby actually does?
(34:35):
- Oh wow, interesting.
- Or just you, the dad, is live tweeting
what your kid is doing at all points,
if anything specific happens.
- There are many apps for this.
So there are like, uh, keep track of when baby does all of its things that babies
do when you've nursed and what side all that stuff is, there's a hundred apps,
(34:56):
but I've never seen one with a feature that then pushes that notification
as an alert to another person who's not in the family.
That's fun.
You're like almost there with some of these tracking apps.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Individualized social media.
Yeah.
Cause I have, we have like the pregnancy tracker apps and there's many of those,
but the social component to a lived experience
(35:18):
with a baby life.
- We used apps to track baby's weight
because he was having trouble gaining weight
when he was very, very little,
and it was very helpful to have that graphed out,
measured and stuff.
Having things like that is pretty common.
- Yep, tracking every feed, every, yep, diaper, wet.
But it's funny, when you said that, Leo,
(35:38):
I was like, oh, I would never wish that on anybody I know.
The reason yeah the whole idea of you begging for this is nightmare fuel
Sadistic I would pay a lot of money to not have your app
This is the dopamine torpedo. Yeah, right
This is this sounds like an app that would be offered in some country. That is like utopian. It's required in Finland
(36:04):
That's why they're doing so well
Yeah
existed for years.
- This app would be so fun.
Like if a bunch of dudes--
- It'd be fun for you guys and horrible for me.
- Well, you turn this into like a fund, right?
So like you know how men, like girls have baby showers
and all this stuff?
(36:24):
Like dudes would have this app where every time
they sent you this, they gave you a dollar, right?
Or something towards the diaper fund.
- They have to do the in-app purchase in order to get
five poo bucks that they then use to ring your phone
five times, yeah.
- I would--
- This is a fundraiser, that's fantastic.
- Yup, and now everybody's motivated to do it.
Josh is getting some real training.
(36:45):
We have the fun of the pain that we're giving to Josh.
- We skim 30% off the top.
- Josh has to do a good job though,
otherwise it won't count.
He has to finish buying those wipes within three minutes,
otherwise he doesn't score,
he won't get the money at the end.
- Take a picture of them and they upload to the app.
- Love it.
- Yeah, that's what, so all these,
(37:07):
like you have a bunch of mini games, right?
You could literally like scratch a screen
or something like to find the wipes, right?
It could be on your phone, but the point is--
- No, no way, this has to be a training thing.
- Yeah, you have two minutes to learn
how to install a car seat, go.
(laughing)
- It could be picture mode, it could be like, you know.
- It's like WarioWare, where it's just throwing
(37:29):
random mini games at you, but they're all relevant.
You gotta learn exactly what temperature
to warm a bottle to, go!
- Oh yeah, yeah, that's right.
- Too hot, too hot! - There's so much nuance
to every little thing, yes.
- Too hot.
(laughter)
- It's been sitting out for too long, too cold.
- Learn how to sanitize this set, go.
- And then all of a sudden if you take too long
(37:50):
you just hear thud in the app and you're like,
you're screwed.
Not like the baby fell or like something.
(laughter)
- What did you mean?
- Something knocked over?
- Of course.
- Thud?
(laughter)
-What? -Yeah, for sure.
(38:11):
The sound of failing to be a parent.
Third.
[laughter]
Oh, God. Shake, shake, shake, shake.
[laughter]
Harlem Shake starts to play.
All of a sudden, I'm making money
because Josh is never taking pictures of his diapers in time, right?
Or something.
Oh, how crea--
No, no, no. There's no way that--
Yeah, I--
The idea that if I fail, I have to send--
(38:34):
You receive money.
[laughter]
I lose money if I fail?
[laughter]
Oh, boy.
- Yeah, that's absolutely wild.
But the money aspect to that,
introducing the money aspect to that,
that sounds actually, I think I would,
I would of course be more willing to endure
the brutality of that app if I knew I was getting a buck.
- You got a little bit of a, oh shoot,
(38:55):
what's the, when everyone donates to medical fund.
- GoFundMe.
- Yeah, a little bit of a GoFundMe going on, yeah.
- Yeah.
- Dude, the 2 a.m. message, Amber Alert.
- Right, yeah.
- 3 a.m.
- Yep.
(imitates alarm)
- That's a $5 donation though.
- Yes, right.
Each, depending on the horribleness of the Amber Alert,
(39:18):
more money.
- It's a tiered system, yeah.
- It does build in your monetization strategy
because the app forwards on $4.50
of every $5 to you or whatever.
- It's gotta be like baby monitor crying sounds, right?
You can't just have it be an alarm.
It has to be like, oh.
There's a certain dread when you hear a squawk
(39:40):
in the middle of the night,
but then it goes quiet for a minute on the baby monitor
that can't be replicated with an alarm sound.
Like, is this going to, I'm awake now,
with, okay, I think they went back to sleep,
and then three minutes later it actually starts crying.
- Oh, wow.
I think you're onto something there.
I think it's-- - It's gotta be baby sounds.
(40:02):
- It could be even more money
to record your own imitation of a baby sound,
which I can imagine Russell doing.
- Amazing.
(imitating baby sounds)
- It's a really low grunt.
- Dad.
(laughing)
Dad, I need my whistle pig.
(40:24):
(laughing)
My one ounce bottle.
- I have a coworker whose text message tone on her phone
is this (imitating phone ringing)
sound that just so happens to be the same god damn mp3 that our baby monitor makes when
its battery is about to die.
Oh, man.
And every time it is a heart attack.
(40:46):
It is, if I'm out in public, if I'm out in public in a store and some baby is crying,
I get palpitations about it.
It is a-
Oh, it's a PTSD.
You don't get to, yeah, you don't get to replicate that with a little bing bing bing
That really cuts to the core.
(41:06):
But maybe that's why this is necessary.
Maybe it hardens you a little bit.
Yeah, could be.
You get calloused.
I wasn't calloused.
I needed this going in.
You're so right.
There's no research on this yet.
My speculation, prove my speculation wrong, you know.
That's right.
It's a little rattlesnake poison, right?
It's like that.
It takes a little bit of time.
(41:27):
It's a vaccine.
Build up that tolerance.
People do that, right?
I'm not the only one, right?
Iocane powder.
You guys want to take a little bit of rattlesnake venom
every day?
Single peanut M&M's.
Is that-- that's the reason that you bought a rattlesnake?
OK.
[LAUGHTER]
I thought it was for the kids.
You wanted it organic?
Well, I got to be ready for my rattlesnake bite, right?
Well, dear listener, if you are listening to us
(41:49):
while rocking an infant at 2 AM, we are there.
We understand.
Thank you very, very much for listening and spending
the night with us.
And we hope you enjoyed yourself.
And thank you very much for joining us, Josh.
This was wonderful.
Yeah, my pleasure.
I appreciated it.
Good laughs, everybody.
- Very good.
Our website is Spitball.show.
There you can find links to our YouTube channel,
(42:09):
other social media.
Hey, if you have an idea,
record a pitch to us in a voice memo
and send it on over to podcast@spitball.show.
Maybe we'll discuss it on the show.
That's also how you can follow us on the Fediverse,
such as Mastodon.
We are podcast@spitball.show
or on BlueSky @spitball.show.
Our subreddit is r/SpitballShow.
Our intro/outro music is "Swingers" by Bonkers Beat Club.
Please, if you wouldn't mind,
(42:30):
You know that one friend who just had their like ninth kid, and you're like, I don't understand
how they can survive anything like that.
That is war.
That is hell.
Send them a link to our show.
We think that they really enjoy this episode.
And if you wouldn't mind on that app that you're listening on right now, leave us a
review.
Apple Podcasts, Spotify, whatever it is that you're listening on.
That is the best way for people to find out about the show.
(42:52):
New episodes coming out in two weeks.
We will see you then.
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