Life with a Twist of Lemon

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