Dear Listener,

Episode 184 is a true no-agenda Sunday conversation that starts with pizza dough and quickly pivots into AI workflow reality. Stan and Jon compare how they are using chat tools for software work and resume drafting, including the frustration of multi-question UX and the limits of SwiftUI testing when you are trying to avoid regressions.

The middle stretch is a practical AI shopping stress test. A live Lego prompt shows what works when context and preferences are clear, but the wins are balanced by misses on shoes, home items, and in-store wine lookup. They also compare Google and Amazon sponsored placement and talk through what ChatGPT ads could mean for trust and usefulness.

They close with a broader media detour: podcast recommendations, Star Trek opinions, Downton Abbey catch-up, and one more tasting note on white Bordeaux as a wine style worth revisiting.

Thanks for listening,

Stan Lemon & Jon Kohlmeier

Dear Listener,

Episode 183 opens with a classic Stan-and-Jon food dispute: chicken "Philly" naming, pizza dough ingredients, and a playful scorecard on who has actually cooked for whom. That banter rolls into a Chicago road-trip recap, including suburban tavern-style pizza and the realities of teaching new-driver confidence in city traffic.

The center of the episode is Stan's Valentine's weekend in Chicago, with a stay at the Drake Hotel and a detailed review of Boka's seven-course Michelin tasting menu. He and Jon break down what made the meal stand out, from service and pacing to how each wine pairing changed bite by bite.

They wrap with a tech segment covering Apple's next event rumors, Siri delays, Vision Pro momentum, and hands-on Codex thoughts for practical AI work. The closing question for listeners: what should Jon cook the next time Stan visits Iowa?

Thanks for listening,

Stan Lemon & Jon Kohlmeier

Dear Listener,

Stan returns from the Disney Treasure with a mix of gratitude and hot takes. Bad weather wiped out most port plans, but the conversation turns into a practical breakdown of Triton class design: stairwells, crowd flow, dead ends, and why Cove Cafe access felt like a miss compared to older ships. Along the way, they compare the Treasure to Dream, Fantasy, and Wonder, with some surprising rankings.

Food and wine are the real headliners this week. Stan and Jon cover Marceline wins, Coco's standout show-and-menu combo, and Enchante as a full experience worth trying at least once. They swap tasting notes from multiple wine and champagne pairings, including Dom Perignon, Cristal, and a Robert Mondavi bottle that sparked a full Disney magic moment across dining rooms.

The episode closes with future cruise planning and a quick AI-state-of-the-union: Xcode's new agentic mode, Codex on Mac, Claude and Cursor updates, and waiting on ChatGPT's newer integrations.

Thanks for listening,

Stan Lemon & Jon Kohlmeier

Dear Listener,

Stan and Jon kick things off with a winter weather check-in and cruise daydreaming. They map out Stan's upcoming Disney Treasure itinerary, from a St. Thomas catamaran sail and Tortola beach day to Castaway Cay bike rentals. That quickly turns into a food strategy session: Enchante brunch, Palo dinner debates, late-seating pacing, and the sacred cruise popcorn bucket.

Next up is a night out in Carmel: a Mack McAnally concert at the Palladium, a deeply Italian meal at Ristorante Roma, and Stan's full-on wine ritual, complete with cork inspection and tasting notes. The conversation then pivots to AI: Jon's pro tip is simple—don't ask a model to generate content cold; feed it your raw thoughts and use it as an editor. They wrestle with AI-as-search, junk data, and the surprisingly hard quest for a classy tissue-box riser.

The episode closes with glow-up prompts from the kids, a 2016 photo throwback, and a quick gripe about the iPhone Photos overhaul.

Thanks for listening,

Stan Lemon & Jon Kohlmeier

Dear Listener,

Stan and Jon open with winter weather and what they're reading right now, from Julius Caesar and Father Brown to Dante's Inferno, Narnia read-alouds, and a fresh Hunger Games installment. Along the way they compare favorite books, illustrated editions, and why some classics still hit harder with time.

They shift into AI workflows and share a simple pro tip: tell ChatGPT (or Claude, or Gemini) to ask you questions one at a time. That turns a vague prompt into a structured interview, which is especially handy for work and life planning. They also touch on Claude's new Co-Work approach, Apple leaning on Gemini, and the appeal of ChatGPT Health tied to Apple Health data.

The back half is a tech frustration parade: HomePod reliability slipping, Siri missing obvious intent, smart bulbs acting up after Thread/Matter changes, and AirPlay feeling worse than it used to. Stan closes with a new Subaru and a better CarPlay experience that finally feels integrated, plus the perennial gripe about Face ID still missing on Macs.

Thanks for listening,

Stan Lemon & Jon Kohlmeier

Dear Listener,

Jon is back from California after a family trip to celebrate his dad's retirement, and Stan reads a LinkedIn post that sparked a bigger conversation about vocation, work, and why "follow your passion" can be a misleading north star. They talk about career pivots, using work as a means to support the people you love, and the pressure we put on young adults to pick the "perfect" path too early.

From there, the conversation detours into prompt injection: the risks when AI assistants read the web and can be tricked into doing the wrong thing. Stan and Jon talk about why it's hard to defend against, and how tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, or browser assistants could be vulnerable.

The back half is all Disneyland. Jon shares the highlights of Long Beach and Newport Beach, a whale watching trip that delivered dolphins but no whales, the magic of a Minnie Mouse encounter, and his evolving relationship with photos and selfies. The food talk returns too: In-N-Out vs Culver's, secret menu fries, and a nod to Chick-fil-A's uncanny consistency.

Thanks for listening,

Stan Lemon & Jon Kohlmeier

Dear Listener,

Stan and Jon open with Apple Fitness January challenges, with Stan chasing a 14-day exercise goal and Jon staring down a 24-day stand ring. That leads to a quick conversation about competitiveness, board games, and the intensity of Euchre players.

Stan shares why he has switched from Claude to Codex for his iOS side projects, noting better outputs and the value of forced checkpoints that keep runaway automation in check. They invite listeners to the TestFlight beta for Stan's wine tasting app and talk about personal site updates, WordPress hosting costs, and the perils of running multiple AI coding sessions at once.

From there, Stan recaps a quick Pittsburgh trip and a stop at Oakmont Bakery, celebrating how it has scaled up without losing quality. The episode closes with a deep dive on pasta: al dente technique, fresh noodles, favorite shapes, and why bucatini takes the crown.

Thanks for listening,

Stan Lemon & Jon Kohlmeier

Dear Listener,

Welcome to 2026! This is our first episode of the new year, and Stan and Jon kick things off by talking about New Year's plans. Jon is heading to Disneyland in Southern California with his family on January 3rd, while Stan is eager to hear if the experience lives up to Disney World.

Jon shares his Christmas cooking adventure: a dry-brined, convection-roasted chicken guided by ChatGPT. The conversation takes an unexpected philosophical turn when Stan poses an existential question about truffles. Why is a chocolate truffle called a truffle when truffle oil comes from mushrooms? Jon's compartmentalization strategy (chocolate = truffle, savory = mushroom truffle) proves more effective than Stan's ethereal floating-through-truffle-space approach.

Stan gives LinkedIn Premium a resounding two thumbs down, finding little value in the $40/month subscription for someone not actively job hunting. The discussion expands to social media algorithms broadly, with Instagram earning rare praise for actually surfacing interesting content (Lord of the Rings memes, woodworking, Pilates), while LinkedIn's algorithm serves up antagonistic clickbait and irrelevant tech posts. Stan also rants about ChatGPT's desktop app inexplicably hiding group chats.

The meat of the episode explores "taste" as a topic suggested by ChatGPT itself. Stan pulls out a 2014 book on architectural proportions to argue that some things are objectively beautiful based on geometry and natural ratios. They discuss how taste in code has evolved: Stan has become more tolerant of organizational differences but more militant about test coverage. The key insight? Good taste means building products that are easier for customers to use than they are for developers to build. Exposure to real customers through support rotations, sales calls, and advisory boards is the fuel that develops taste in product teams. As Stan puts it, "The voice of the customer is the cocaine for software engineering."

Thanks for listening,

Stan Lemon & Jon Kohlmeier

Dear Listener,

It's day twenty-two of the Wall Street Journal Wine Advent Calendar, and Stan and Jon are tasting a French Pinot Noir called Le Champs d'Etoilesse (the field of stars). The wine delivers a pale ruby color with high tannins, funky Pinot character, and notes of blackberry, cherry, and baking spices. After an hour of air, the tannins remain prominent but the smokiness mellows into something quite enjoyable.

The conversation takes a nostalgic turn as Stan recommends The Verge's new podcast "Versions," specifically the episode about AOL Instant Messenger. The hosts reminisce about their AIM screen names (Tetro4, Trekker1701, DunklerGeist07, and various iterations), crafting the perfect away message with Dashboard Confessional lyrics, and that iconic door sound when someone signed off. They discuss how AIM shaped internet culture and spawned everything from buddy lists to modern Slack.

Looking ahead to 2026, Stan shares his approach to goals this year: separating hobbies (reading, guitar, coding), habits (exercising, devotions), and actual goals. He's taking up running just to fill in the one missing trend in Apple Fitness, starting a gratitude journal at Mrs. Lemon's suggestion, and considering a return to bread baking. The biggest goal? Improving work-life balance by learning to leave work stress at work. Jon's brilliant suggestion: have Mrs. Lemon rate Stan's post-work mood daily in a vibe-coded "jerk-o-meter" app.

Thanks for listening,

Stan Lemon & Jon Kohlmeier

Dear Listener,

It's day sixteen of the Wall Street Journal Wine Advent Calendar, and tonight Stan and Jon are sipping an Argentine Malbec called Bracero from the San Juan region. The wine opens with earthy notes (Stan says grass, Jon disagrees), develops into blackberry and chocolate mid-palate, and proves to be an approachable three-star sipper that would work well for company.

The chocolate pie debate rages on! A listener email from Emily (one of Jon's coworkers who has dubbed herself a "Twistie") sparked a deep dive into dessert taxonomy. Stan conducted a 12-person survey at work where nobody had ever had chocolate pie, researched recipes from America's Test Kitchen to Alton Brown, and emerged with a nuanced position: chocolate pie with flour is basically a brownie in a pie crust, while pudding-based chocolate pie gets a pass. The question of whether all cake must be baked remains philosophically unresolved.

The conversation shifts to the Golden Globes' new podcast category (where's 99% Invisible?), OpenAI's new image generation competing with Google's Nana Banana, and a delightful tangent about ranking Lord of the Rings characters. Spoiler: Eowyn wins for Men of Rohan, Galadriel dominates the elves, and the dwarves need more research. Also, Stan definitely knows what Twitch is.

Thanks for listening,

Stan Lemon & Jon Kohlmeier

Dear Listener,

It's day seven of the Wall Street Journal Wine Advent Calendar, and tonight Stan and Jon are sipping a French Cabernet Sauvignon called Bella Roche while discussing everything from wine legs to label scanning mishaps in Stan's wine tasting app. Pro tip: apparently you should decant these little bottles for an hour, which they definitely did not do.

Jon reveals his 2026 goals, themed around "clarity." The highlights: reading four Shakespeare plays (Julius Caesar, Othello, King Lear, and The Tempest), being intentional about family time, writing more words, contributing more code to GitHub, and making time for pipe smoking as meditation. Stan commits to reading the Shakespeare plays alongside Jon and challenges him to schedule at least four date nights with Mrs. Kohlmeier.

The conversation takes a fascinating turn into AI philosophy, specifically the difference between ChatGPT's cheerleader personality and Claude's more critical approach. Stan shares how Claude called out his "sodium bomb" lunch while ChatGPT would have just encouraged him. They explore why most AI models are trained to be sycophantic and whether that's actually what users want - or just what they think they want.

Thanks for listening,

Stan Lemon & Jon Kohlmeier