00:53.15 Stan Lemon all right, John. So um this week, I guess while we record, we're going to do our wine tasting as well, eh?
01:00.90 Jon Correct.
01:02.37 Stan Lemon All right. So for the listener at home, John and I both bought the Wall Street Journal Advent Wine Calendar, which ah has mostly been consistent. I guess we'll we'll come back to that. But tonight we are tasting a French Cabernet Sauvignon from 2024 called Bella Roche.
01:19.04 Stan Lemon called belar roche Bella Roche. I don't, i don't, I don't speak French. Um, so I'm pouring mine. It looks like you're pouring yours. I'll read the back here in just a second, Jonathan. Um, folks, this is what John and I do every night in Advent. We started this tradition last year. and I think, I think you'll find that, uh, wine is always good, but it is better when talking about it with friends. So me read the back of this. This is a little, little bottle. It's 187 milliliters. I'm guessing what that's like a five ounce, five ounce pour, six ounce pour.
01:52.08 Jon I think it's actually a little more, um, cause it's like a pour and a half.
01:57.71 Stan Lemon All right, hold on. 187 milliliter in ounce. What does that come out to? 6.3. You're right. That is a hearty pour and a half is what that is. Okay, so Bellaroche.
02:09.93 Stan Lemon Winemakers are always seeking to craft a special wine from special grapes. One so exquisite that it simply has to be christened their Bellaroche. This year, I was in no doubt that this coveted title should go to our Cabernet Sauvignon.
02:22.85 Stan Lemon The wine abounds with concentrated black currant. Ooh, ooh. Spice and toast. And while it may be a Cabernet, it's finely structured behind the succulent, juicy black fruit character.
02:34.01 Stan Lemon Save this special wine for a moment of pure indulgence and decant a good hour before safe. Whoops.
02:40.26 Jon We did not do that.
02:40.32 Stan Lemon Whoops. We're not decanting for full That's all right. right. And that's ah from Mark Hottie, who im I'm guessing is the the owner of the vineyard. I can't actually tell what the vineyard is. Yeah.
02:52.58 Jon Yeah, it seems like one of those other ah small batch things. What's this? Pays de Ock 2024. Okay.
03:00.96 Stan Lemon Yeah, I don't know. I'm going to look it up. um I actually have a bottle, at least one bottle of this on my shelf. So Pays d'Yoc is the region in France. um Yeah, I don't know. this is I'm fascinated. So Marcotti. I'll do some Googling while we look this up. But let's just, i don't know, let's maybe jump to the color.
03:21.41 Stan Lemon My lighting here is not great. We've been holding up a sheet of white paper behind the wine. oh that's ah That's a pretty deep color, isn't it?
03:29.05 Jon It is.
03:34.49 Stan Lemon Definitely
03:36.98 Jon I think that if it was a crayon, they would call it wine.
03:37.59 Stan Lemon looks like a halo. Yeah, I think it's a grandly call wine. So halo, I'm not getting much in the leg department.
03:48.36 Stan Lemon What do you smell, Jonathan? Because something jumps out at me right off the bat here.
03:52.86 Stan Lemon There's a lot of silence.
03:54.42 Jon There is a lot of silence. This is my not my forte in the wine tasting realm.
03:55.48 Stan Lemon Are you pondering?
04:00.25 Jon um
04:01.49 Stan Lemon Wait, not your forte. You mean like to speak quickly or, or just, uh,
04:05.53 Jon Well, speaking quickly is never my forte. I get that out ah from C.S. Lewis. But um the ah aromas and picking up scents on the nose are not my forte. I imagine my wine is still probably a little cold.
04:19.09 Jon But
04:20.09 Stan Lemon why is it cold? Where was your, where were you storing your wine?
04:22.55 Jon in the basement.
04:23.99 Stan Lemon Okay, now, actually, this is an interesting discussion point because most Americans chill their white too much and drink their red to too warm, right? Isn't that what you told me before?
04:32.97 Jon Correct. Drink whites too cold and their reds too warm.
04:37.75 Stan Lemon So your your red might be spot on. I'll tell you that what I get is a loaf of bread. It is a very yeasty, bready aroma.
04:43.83 Jon Interesting. I did not get that at all.
04:45.23 Stan Lemon Really?
04:45.59 Jon I'm thinking something... It's almost like baking spice is what I smelled originally.
04:52.34 Stan Lemon Really?
04:53.11 Jon Really?
04:55.13 Stan Lemon All right. Well, i'm I'm definitely not getting that. So let's, um, we do, we do.
04:56.60 Jon We have the same bottle today, so more on that later.
04:59.48 Stan Lemon We'll get to that. We'll get that. with that All right. So first sip.
05:04.57 Stan Lemon That's actually not as alcohol as I was expecting based upon the halo and how young it is. Um, that's definitely a Cabernet.
05:11.79 Jon That is definitely a Cabernet.
05:13.42 Stan Lemon Yeah. Nice, good red fruit in there.
05:18.47 Jon I say this is probably still young with how fruit forward it is. you get some more of the oak notes as it slides back on the palette.
05:31.85 Stan Lemon Yep. I get that as well. I get that as well. All right. Well, interesting, John. We'll talk about this as we go. So apparently we're supposed to decant it for an hour. i don't know anybody that decants the little bottles.
05:41.95 Stan Lemon so that's interesting. interesting It's on, right? But it can decant in the glass as we go.
05:45.87 Jon And I wonder if you said you have one of these on your wine rack.
05:46.07 Stan Lemon And maybe I do. Yeah. Let me see if I can look and see what it is. But, um, yeah you know, you made ah a little bit of a
05:52.94 Jon I'm just curious it's if they changed the label at all.
05:55.72 Stan Lemon No, that's how recognized that it was the the one that I have.
05:57.88 Jon Okay.
05:58.86 Stan Lemon Because I was like, oh the bottle.
05:59.38 Jon I just minified the label.
06:00.86 Stan Lemon Funny enough, last night when Mrs. Lemon went to grab a bottle off the shelf, this was next to the one that she picked. And I think she would have done better to pick this one. But you know what?
06:10.88 Stan Lemon The other one had to have been drunken sometimes. So it is what it is. It is what it is. actually have two, Jonathan. I have 2023 and have a 2024. And the is the same. and the bottle
06:20.83 Jon Right.
06:23.31 Stan Lemon is the same Yeah. Fascinating. So I am curious cause we have a, this is 2024. I have two of these downstairs and because they're different years, that means that I probably got them in different shipments.
06:39.72 Stan Lemon So, okay. Uh, this wall street journal advent one calendar has actually been, I think pretty spectacular. We are, we're recording this on day seven. um we had one gaffe, right? And i don't know if maybe, you know Wall Street Journal, I know, I know you probably listen to our podcast. So this this feedback's for you. um i think a good wine advent calendar is best shared with friends. And that is very difficult to do if the wines are not the same.
07:09.45 Jon Correct.
07:10.51 Stan Lemon So was it, was it day four we had the gaffe?
07:13.11 Jon It was day four.
07:14.38 Stan Lemon Day four.
07:15.27 Jon We had both opened our bottles before we realized that they were not the same.
07:15.37 Stan Lemon So day four, Yeah. And so now we won't do that anymore because basically you had a completely different bottle from what I had. You actually had a Malbec and I had a Chianti.
07:23.40 Jon Completely different bottle. Right.
07:25.55 Stan Lemon not even similar wines. That was the thing that i like really annoyed me. We could at least talk about a wine that was similar, but no, they put totally different wines in there.
07:36.71 Stan Lemon And I ended up opening every single door on my wine calendar in order to check for that wine, the missing one.
07:38.93 Jon Oh, interesting.
07:43.79 Jon You did. To make sure that we didn't just mess it up. um So fun fact, the Malbec that I had was also from the same French region as tonight's wine is.
07:47.75 Stan Lemon and
07:57.80 Stan Lemon Oh, okay. All right. Not by Mark Hottie though.
08:02.63 Jon No.
08:03.37 Stan Lemon Okay. Well, there's that. um There's definitely a current note to this one, Jonathan. it's I would say it's more in the front to mid tongue area. ah for For the dear listener, I am not a fan of current notes in my wine.
08:19.66 Stan Lemon I just generally, I don't think I like to drink raisins is what it amounts to. And I would say, Jonathan, you are, you're much more agreeable to the current.
08:29.19 Jon I am much more agreeable to the current. um There are definitely some that it's a little too much.
08:36.22 Stan Lemon So they messed us up the other day. We drank two different wines. We still, we still talked about it. Um, I think it was less interesting, conversation because we weren't comparing what we similarly had.
08:41.76 Jon Yep.
08:47.74 Jon Well, the worst part was i think we both wanted the other person to try the wine they had because it sounds like they were both two excellent wines.
08:53.79 Stan Lemon Yeah.
08:56.35 Stan Lemon No, there were, there were that I think, um, yeah actually if I, if I recall now, uh, so that was a good showing the night before was the fireman one, right?
09:05.56 Jon I believe so. That was surprisingly good.
09:09.40 Stan Lemon That one was fantastic. So it was El Bombero and um from, it was a Spanish wine. And I, you know, I like some Spanish wines. I don't like, that's definitely not my ah the center of my orbit as it were. I think in general these days, I always love a good French wine.
09:26.20 Stan Lemon hey This one's okay. um I like a good, we didn't decante for an hour.
09:28.64 Jon we didn't decant it for an hour, so it will come lively over time.
09:31.50 Stan Lemon That's true. maybe, but if it's, if it's got more, if the current becomes more lively, I that I'll be a happy camper here. Um, I like Italian wines, uh, as, as everyone in the universe should.
09:43.19 Stan Lemon And then lately it's been a Portuguese jam for me. I'd like, we had an actually, I think a pretty delightful, uh, Portuguese wine last night, Casa Santos Lima, uh, from 2023. But,
09:54.17 Jon yeah So that El Bombero Last Nights are the two that i have gotten the five star rating so far.
10:02.08 Stan Lemon Oh, you gave last night a five star. Really? I gave last night a four star.
10:03.90 Jon I did.
10:05.32 Stan Lemon i mean I might, I might have given it a four and a half if I thought about it more. Um, I, you know, we got a lot of wine to drink here cause it's a pouring and a half. Uh, but, uh, or ish, right.
10:17.92 Stan Lemon I guess a a European pour and a half cause Americans pour everything heavy.
10:21.77 Jon Right.
10:24.47 Stan Lemon So we five ounce pour in America, four ounce pour in the rest of the world something like that. Right.
10:29.59 Jon Sounds right. I'll trust you.
10:32.41 Stan Lemon So we got a lot of wine to get through here, but
10:33.44 Jon should ah We should have a disclaimer saying, we are not wine experts. We just enjoy drinking it.
10:38.49 Stan Lemon no, no, no. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's we do listen.
10:41.88 Jon ah
10:43.50 Stan Lemon We sound sophisticated, but in reality, it's still Stan and John and you know, we're, we're not going to be a sommelier anytime soon.
10:47.07 Jon Right.
10:52.10 Jon I think we we have the same glass as well, so our tasting experience should be similar because these are the ones that you sent.
10:52.28 Stan Lemon um
10:56.99 Stan Lemon Are these, Oh, the German crystal ones.
10:58.64 Jon Yep.
10:59.73 Stan Lemon I love these glasses. I love these glasses. Yeah, I went i went for, um because i I wasn't totally sure what the situation here would be while we recorded. I wasn't going to do the stemless because they didn't want to warm up the the wine with my hand.
11:10.61 Stan Lemon So I thought go full stem and see how it goes. But all right, well, I guess i would I would endorse the Wall Street Journal wine advent calendar.
11:21.34 Stan Lemon i don't remember Do you remember what it cost?
11:21.98 Jon I mean, we are seven days in and it has been pretty excellent. Like there's one that wasn't great. um The rest were good wines, even if they weren't my jam.
11:32.51 Jon um What do we pay for it? Somewhere around 200 bucks. Right.
11:36.54 Stan Lemon Was it, was that much for some reason i thought it was like 175. Maybe that was after the gift card. Cause we got a gift card as a result of getting it.
11:41.95 Jon Right.
11:42.82 Stan Lemon But I, you know, I mean, that's a, it's not a trivial amount of money, but I think it ah it was a good buy. And again, I really do enjoy hopping on a phone call and talking about wine.
11:54.48 Stan Lemon It would be better if you lived in Indianapolis and we could talk about it in real time, but you know, beggars can't be choosers.
11:58.28 Jon Agreed.
11:59.67 Stan Lemon So, yeah.
12:00.36 Jon Right.
12:01.20 Stan Lemon Yeah.
12:01.21 Jon All right. So I ordered this in, oh, you're right, Stan. I ordered this in October, October 22nd um and paid $160 for it.
12:13.88 Jon And then we got the $25 gift card.
12:14.30 Stan Lemon Okay. there go see
12:15.90 Jon twenty five dollars gift card
12:17.60 Stan Lemon that That to me is actually a steal, right? You think about this. So that's $6.66 for a glass of wine. I can't go into a nice restaurant and get a glass of wine that I like, right? so So I do get a little snooty. I'm not a wine expert, but I don't like most American wines. And so I typically order something that is from abroad. i would say the average glass of wine that I order is going to be between $11 $15.
12:44.76 Stan Lemon So, you know, what's that?
12:44.92 Jon Fair enough. I believe that there is some i American wines that we can find that you will enjoy.
12:51.87 Stan Lemon Yeah, yeah, you know, I mean, listen, um Oregon always puts out something decent, right? I actually, one of the wines that I bought a full case of is actually an American wine from California, from Sonoma, believe it or not.
13:02.40 Stan Lemon But so, you know, but it's it's abnormal, Jonathan.
13:02.59 Jon Nice.
13:04.92 Stan Lemon I mean, you know, there's just not the art that they have in Europe.
13:11.26 Jon The history.
13:11.79 Stan Lemon No. Yeah.
13:12.60 Jon So while we've been doing this, we have also been using it as an excuse to test out the wine tasting app, which Stan has architected and rewritten at least once.
13:23.29 Jon um And sometimes I pretend to be a product owner for it. So.
13:27.32 Stan Lemon Sometimes.
13:28.35 Jon ah
13:28.80 Stan Lemon Yeah. So this, gosh, man, we we we looked this up last time. we we built this forever ago, rewrote it, ah just to kind of modernize it with um my friend Claude Code, our our AI overlords, and have been trying to layer some features and capabilities onto it.
13:44.56 Stan Lemon And, you know, I think at this point, you've got seven tastings in there at least, right? You might have a few extra.
13:52.17 Jon Yep.
13:52.20 Stan Lemon And so the insights tab maybe is starting to become useful or at least interesting.
13:57.77 Jon It's interesting for sure.
13:59.29 Stan Lemon Yeah. I think the, did you, have you tried the scan wine label feature yet?
14:03.36 Jon I do. It is my favorite new feature that you have added. and looks like it probably messed up today's label, but.
14:10.94 Stan Lemon It's, it's, there's, I'll tell you what, man. It's not, so, so what, the way that it's working is it's doing OCR on the image and then it's plugging that into um the, it's plugging it into the,
14:26.59 Stan Lemon LLM on device, right? Which is, which is limited in itself. But I, I don't know what you got when you scanned it, but I got the winery was Roche, which obviously is wrong.
14:33.93 Jon Yep.
14:34.03 Stan Lemon Varietal, uh, Cabernet Sauvignon. It also listed the Cuvée as Cabernet Sauvignon for some reason, but I got the vintage, right?
14:39.33 Jon Yep.
14:40.19 Stan Lemon It, it messed up the Appalachian, but I don't even know. There's nothing on the front of the bottle that says Appalachian.
14:45.90 Jon Correct.
14:46.04 Stan Lemon Um, it would be interesting. Let me try re-scanning the back. Have you tried to re-scanning the back?
14:49.47 Jon I have not. You go for it. I'm going to continue with my data entry.
14:53.88 Stan Lemon So, um you know, there's definitely more sophisticated ways. Oh, it nailed it.
15:00.60 Jon Yeah?
15:00.86 Stan Lemon Well, not not totally nailed it. It's, oh, that's, you know what? i'm I'm actually happier with the back than I was with the front. So,
15:08.09 Jon What did it put for winery?
15:08.16 Stan Lemon um
15:11.16 Stan Lemon it did not find a winery. It just listed Bella Roche, which is wrong. So, the way that this presents itself, the way that this bottle presents itself, I could see why it would think that, right?
15:17.46 Jon OK.
15:22.05 Stan Lemon I think if we didn't know
15:22.12 Jon Yeah.
15:24.44 Stan Lemon Well, if we hadn't read the description in the back, but you know, the the bottom line is, is there's much more sophisticated models that we'll look at. In fact, you know what? I wonder if i said chat GPT using these attributes and this bottle of wine, what would you fill in?
15:44.41 Stan Lemon What it would say, because I would love to so like offer a chat GPT thing, but I'm not going pay for it as what it amounts to. so
15:52.25 Jon So that means that we have to price it accordingly.
15:56.41 Stan Lemon Yeah. Yeah. Well, i don't know how you do that, man. I'm telling you the economics of of that whole jam is ah challenging at best. So here's what I'm to I'm going using the form from my app, what values would you fill in using this wine label from the back of my bottle?
16:20.19 Stan Lemon cup my bottle And then we'll see what it does and how long it takes to, um, the nice thing about the Apple on device, um, um Models is they're cheap and relatively fast.
16:34.11 Stan Lemon So it's, ah, here we go. Winery. It thinks Bella Roche region. It got that right. Pays d'Auch France varietal cab sab vintage 2024. Cuvée is not specified on the label style, red alcohol, 13.5% bottle. Yeah. So it actually did quite frankly, just as good as the OCR of the back label um with the Apple foundation model. So there you go.
17:00.03 Stan Lemon who Who would have guessed, Jonathan? Who would have guessed?
17:02.73 Jon Who would have guessed?
17:04.75 Stan Lemon We've got to figure out where to take this next. we're going to get a bunch of data. By the way, dear listener, if you would like to be a beta tester for the wine tasting application, please reach out at podcast at twistoflemonpod.com and let us know because I'd be happy to hook you up with a test flight.
17:18.86 Jon And we would love to hear your feedback.
17:22.35 Stan Lemon Absolutely. I think for the winery, I'm going to put Mark Hottie.
17:26.94 Jon That's what I did as well.
17:27.18 Stan Lemon And I think for the Cuvée, I'm going to put the Bella Roche.
17:29.34 Jon Bella Roche. Yep, that's what I did.
17:30.42 Stan Lemon Yeah. Yeah. See, this one to put in indication, Geographique Protégée, which don't that means, but it sounds fancy.
17:40.08 Jon That's probably the controlling entity.
17:43.34 Stan Lemon Control entity. There you go. Yeah, you know, it's been interesting. A lot of this has been imported into the Lake Forest area of Chicago. This one's actually imported into Santa Rosa, California.
17:56.40 Stan Lemon So go figure. All right, Jonathan, what next?
17:58.57 Jon Hm.
18:03.06 Jon Um, so we started our new years and goals discussion last week because we wanted to give it the time that it's deserved. Um, and it kind of told me that maybe I should start thinking about if I want to do anything for 2026 and what should it be?
18:20.62 Jon So I have a list, Stan.
18:22.32 Stan Lemon Oh, okay. Well, let's go over this list. I had not seen this list.
18:24.75 Jon this is This is not a finalized list, um but I think that in general, the theme of 2026 should be clarity for myself.
18:25.80 Stan Lemon this is a, okay. All right.
18:36.92 Stan Lemon Clarity. Okay.
18:37.63 Jon Clarity.
18:37.75 Stan Lemon Ooh, theme. Do you always set a theme for your goals?
18:39.92 Jon I don't, but it felt right. so Going off vibes here. Okay.
18:43.86 Stan Lemon Going off vibes. All right.
18:45.33 Jon um So some of these are goals and some of these are habits to either continue or to work on some more. So starting off with some goals, actually, i guess I have really one goal and then I have a savings financial goal. But the first is to read four Shakespeare plays. So basically one a quarter.
19:07.76 Stan Lemon Have you picked out what they are?
19:09.81 Jon I have and ideas around what they are. So in within the last few years, I have read ah Romeo, Juliet, Hamlet, and Macbeth. So I did not include those.
19:21.10 Jon There is only Sure.
19:21.47 Stan Lemon it's It's also a little, i think it's a little cliche to to say, I'm going to read Hamlet this year, right? i mean my Maybe be not cliche, but like, you know, those those are well-known ones.
19:26.80 Jon ah the
19:31.44 Jon Correct. And the others aren't necessarily not well-known, but ah the one that I have read on this list, I read, i think I was a sophomore in high school the last time I read it, and that is Julius Caesar.
19:44.66 Stan Lemon Okay.
19:44.75 Jon So I would like to revisit Julius Caesar.
19:44.94 Stan Lemon Oh,
19:47.47 Jon The other three I have are Othello, King Lear, and The Tempest.
19:50.74 Stan Lemon that's great play. Oh, all right.
19:54.38 Jon So...
19:54.76 Stan Lemon You've made some good choices. um I am, I think Othello is my favorite Shakespeare play.
20:01.49 Jon yeah
20:02.32 Stan Lemon Yeah. i've That one I've read several times. You know, Jonathan, okay, hold on. Say say the four again. You're going to read Othello. going to read The Tempest.
20:10.16 Jon I have Julius Caesar, Othello, King Lear, and the Tempest.
20:11.74 Stan Lemon Julius Caesar.
20:14.74 Stan Lemon Okay. Jonathan, I will read those with you.
20:16.73 Jon Yeah. Yeah?
20:18.86 Stan Lemon Yeah, you just tell me when you're going to start.
20:19.15 Jon Okay. Sounds good.
20:20.14 Stan Lemon i will I will read all four of those with you.
20:22.41 Jon Cool. Well, we'll start in 2026.
20:25.02 Stan Lemon All right. Good deal.
20:25.62 Jon I picked four because I figured one a quarter, but it doesn't have to be that structured.
20:26.14 Stan Lemon Hopefully...
20:29.33 Stan Lemon Well, and none of those are particularly long either.
20:29.34 Jon so
20:31.69 Stan Lemon i mean, most Shakespeare plays are not like exceptionally long, but I know it's great.
20:31.76 Jon Right.
20:36.25 Stan Lemon I think I, at some point, want to circle back. It's been a long time since I've read Macbeth, and I'd love to go back and read Macbeth. A Midsummer's Night always jumps out, much ado about nothing.
20:47.99 Stan Lemon But you've you've chosen some good ones, so we'll do this. i I'm game.
20:51.76 Jon So like, I keep thinking, like, I don't have any I do have Hamlet on my shelf, but I don't have any other Shakespeare on my shelf. um So like I know it's all in public domain, so I can just go read it.
21:04.21 Jon But I think those are cool things to have on a bookshelf as well, which you may disagree with because you do not like things.
21:04.80 Stan Lemon There you
21:11.80 Jon So...
21:12.40 Stan Lemon So, okay. First of all, I have, dear listener, behind me, I have two shelves loaded with books. So it's not that I dislike the paper product. I just, it has to have purpose.
21:22.82 Stan Lemon I'm not a collector, right? I don't i don't think of myself as a collector. I'm a selective, um what do we call it? A selective acquirer. I don't even know what the what to call it, but like I have the things that I have
21:33.42 Jon works as good as anything else. So...
21:34.83 Stan Lemon Yeah. All right. There we go. Select the acquire. So, okay. um Funny story though, when ah I think you know this, when I went off to college, I disposed of anything that I could not fit in the two duffel bags and my backpack that I took to college.
21:48.66 Stan Lemon Like I i liquidated a massive amount of things in my life. There were some things I left behind that I, you know, like, like toys and stuff that I wasn't really considering because it was out of sight, out of mind, but my desk drawers were empty.
22:00.53 Stan Lemon My dresser drawer was empty. There was nothing under the bed. Like I, I, you know either got rid of it or put in these bags and off I went. And I got rid of a volume that I bought on like blowout sale at Borders.
22:14.42 Stan Lemon The works of William Shakespeare is a huge volume um of all of these
22:18.67 Jon Which are generally not fun to read.
22:21.78 Stan Lemon No, like, okay. Yeah. Yeah. Like the logistics of it. Right. Like a big book is not, is not fun.
22:24.46 Jon Right.
22:26.26 Stan Lemon Correct. But it was a fantastic single volume of a bunch of stuff. And there were in the middle was a section of his sonnets. Right.
22:34.99 Jon Nice.
22:35.57 Stan Lemon And, I, for whatever reason, my last year, actually, I probably know the reason my last year of high school, I read like a sonnet every other day just cause I could. Right. And, um,
22:48.46 Stan Lemon I got rid of that volume and I actually, actually look back and I regret on that. ah wish I had, I wish I kept it.
22:52.00 Jon Yeah.
22:53.07 Stan Lemon So
22:53.66 Jon Well, I'm sure there are many other volumes like Gladstone.
22:56.34 Stan Lemon do you, when you look at buying books these days, do you like, how do you pick out the edition that you're going buy?
23:03.41 Jon um so i guess most recently i bought a copy of jr tolkien's letters from father christmas um and i went kind of with this holiday edition so it's got like a ribbon that will um mark your place and it's got hard bound things like that so for shakespeare i'm probably gonna go to half price books and pick them up for ah buck fifty so
23:22.39 Stan Lemon Okay. So
23:29.42 Stan Lemon interesting. Okay. So are you familiar with Easton press?
23:33.52 Jon ah Not particularly. Name sounds familiar, but that's about it.
23:36.59 Stan Lemon I'm telling you, man, my, my Instagram ads are very peculiar. This is, this is one of the things,
23:40.69 Jon Are these the ones with like all of the collector's edition, like the Lord of the Rings website I keep getting?
23:47.28 Stan Lemon Yes. Yeah. Now, I didn't know about the Lord of the Rings ones when I bought my leather bound editions, but it is what it is.
23:48.14 Jon Okay.
23:53.56 Stan Lemon ah
23:53.90 Jon No.
23:54.61 Stan Lemon I actually have a friend who has a bunch of Eastern press prints. They've been doing this for a long time. They're fine leather bound. I think they're they they just look beautiful, right?
24:03.91 Jon Yep.
24:04.24 Stan Lemon And there is value in a beautiful book. I think they only produce a single volume of Shakespeare, though. I don't think they do individual volumes, which is kind of a shame, but yeah.
24:12.39 Jon Got it.
24:17.45 Jon Okay. So that's number one. How does that play into clarity? um I don't think there's probably anyone living who knows all that Shakespeare has done for the English language.
24:29.84 Jon um So that's part of it. And I think the second part is i often consume a bunch of junk, frankly. um So going back to ah kind of these pillars of the English language, of storytelling, um and that have stood the test of time plays into that as well.
24:51.06 Stan Lemon I'd like to believe that I influenced you a little bit on this because for the last two years I've been reading books that are classics, Good, Bad, and the Ugly.
24:56.85 Jon I mean, I generally read at least one classic every year.
25:00.65 Stan Lemon didn't you You read the the Odyssey recently, didn't you?
25:03.44 Jon Yep, I've read both ah The Iliad and The Odyssey recently.
25:03.50 Stan Lemon The Iliad. Okay, yeah, those that's those are heavy books. so
25:09.39 Jon I have not ah touched The Aeneid recently, though, so maybe that should make the list.
25:13.62 Stan Lemon You started that though, right?
25:15.86 Jon Not recently, no.
25:16.94 Stan Lemon Oh, okay, all right. All right, those are those are big lists.
25:19.66 Jon I've also got Dante's Inferno sitting back on my shelf, too, which I would like to revisit at some point, too.
25:23.18 Stan Lemon oh ah my my dear friend, Professor Reed, loves Dante's Inferno. um that is That is like one of his favorite books.
25:30.85 Jon Actually, might be all three, but
25:34.10 Stan Lemon i get So I guess it's a poem, right? it's not a book, it's a poem.
25:36.89 Jon It's an epic, yeah.
25:38.09 Stan Lemon Yeah, but it's, I mean, it's epic poetry, right?
25:40.73 Jon Correct. I should see if my volume is written in poetry or not.
25:41.53 Stan Lemon Yeah.
25:47.33 Stan Lemon Hmm. This was the journey I went down
25:49.23 Jon I think my my English teacher uncle did give it to me for Christmas many years ago. So.
25:55.86 Stan Lemon So you'll be able to judge how good he was at his craft based on the addition that he gave you.
26:00.78 Jon Sure.
26:02.64 Stan Lemon So yeah it's it's actually, this is an interesting discussion in its own right, because you know you look at Beowulf. I read Beowulf at the beginning of the school year this year. I chose an edition that was structured as poetry, right? And I did it after, actually, no, sorry, Sir Godwin. We did this Beowulf too, but the the the story here is actually about Sir Godwin. Sir Godwin and the Green Knight, which is fantastic, by the way. um I chose an edition that was structured in poetry,
26:32.69 Stan Lemon if There were some that were questionable, but by and large, it was it was good. And I did it against my better judgment because I actually, like before we set out on this journey, I wanted to use Tolkien's translation, which is just prose, right?
26:44.95 Jon Yep.
26:45.68 Stan Lemon And I chose not to because he uses more complex English and it it wasn't structured as poetry. And I felt like it was important that we read these poems as poetry. I don't know if that actually mattered in the grand scheme of things.
27:01.36 Stan Lemon um But, you know, I think it's an interesting consideration. And if Tolkien is willing to do Sir Godwin in prose, then I feel like I should probably be too.
27:11.60 Jon Maybe. um I think my question is, why not both, Stan?
27:15.95 Stan Lemon Because there's only so many hours in the day.
27:16.34 Jon And then make your own decision.
27:18.42 Stan Lemon Only so many hours in the day. Yeah.
27:20.94 Jon So that's Shakespeare. um Like I said, I have a savings goal. It's basically hitting targets and different funds. So there's that. Then we move into habits.
27:31.50 Jon um And it's really being intentional about family time. um So maybe that is carving out specific... nights that are dedicated to be family nights and being present and making clear distinctions of, hey, this is when I'm recording a podcast or this is when it's family time and we hang out together as a family. um I think there are different aspects to that, too, um both like.
28:00.37 Jon Dad time and then husband wife time, so.
28:04.20 Stan Lemon Okay. I was going to ask, is there a date night somewhere in there?
28:07.77 Jon Uh, sure. I never really call it a date night, but,
28:11.98 Stan Lemon Well, a night that you and Mrs. Kohlmeyer leave the house, preferably without the child.
28:19.14 Jon uh, that is not currently in the plans, but it's still early.
28:21.46 Stan Lemon You should, okay, Jonathan, Jonathan, four times. Here's, I'm going I'm going challenge you Consider a goal four times over the next year. You take Mrs. Kohlmeyer out on finger quotes date night, right?
28:34.58 Stan Lemon And you find someone to watch the little one.
28:38.74 Jon All right. Sounds good.
28:39.60 Stan Lemon i believe
28:40.18 Jon That sounds doable.
28:40.37 Stan Lemon Believe me when I say with the first child, it's the hardest and probably also the most needed. So, yeah.
28:47.28 Jon Okay. Sounds good.
28:49.10 Stan Lemon Do not be like me, Jonathan. I did not do date night until well into child three. um Mistakes were made, but.
28:58.34 Jon All right. Well, I do have concert tickets for June, so that will be one of them.
29:04.08 Stan Lemon This is the Ed Sheeran thing?
29:05.42 Jon Yes, we're going to see Ed Sheeran at Summerfest in Milwaukee.
29:08.72 Stan Lemon Okay, right. And you so your family is in Milwaukee, so you're going to leave Lily with the grandparents.
29:15.46 Jon Grandma will get to watch Lily and Grandpa, presumably.
29:17.39 Stan Lemon Okay. And you've you've rented a hotel room for you and your missus as well, right?
29:23.84 Jon I have not currently, but it is in June. So...
29:27.73 Stan Lemon Okay. Jonathan, reserve the hotel room. make this Make this a full overnight date night affair. You will not regret it, Jonathan. You will not regret it.
29:37.20 Jon I think while we're in Milwaukee, Anna also wants to take Lily to the zoo.
29:37.45 Stan Lemon Okay.
29:41.39 Jon um But I think we have the full weekend.
29:44.46 Stan Lemon You know, yeah with as close as you are to like the real zoos of the country, why don't you just go down Chicago and go to the Brookfield Zoo and the Lincoln Park Zoo?
29:57.04 Jon nostalgia
29:58.42 Stan Lemon Okay. I just, I've actually never been to the Milwaukee Zoo, but being Milwaukee is a small suburb of Chicago. i imagine it's like a petting zoo.
30:06.93 Jon ah The Milwaukee County Zoo used to be really great. Anna did go recently and said it's not as great. So it's possible.
30:14.19 Stan Lemon Okay, all right. Okay, so dedicated family time. I like that. I think that's a good goal. I think structure around that's good. um What else you got?
30:23.22 Jon Write more words.
30:25.58 Stan Lemon Like you the human John or John channeling through ai
30:31.28 Jon ah um i think it will probably end up being a mixture specifically depending on what i'm writing um so like i think ai definitely plays a role both for idea generation and for finishing um and really as like your peer reader um so i think it will be a mixture but in general um i think i want to write more that could be journal entries that could be blog posts that could be LinkedIn posts. Um, but more so as an exercise of developing my thinking around certain topics.
31:12.38 Jon Um, and I think that can change drastically depending on what's going on. Maybe it's about wine. Maybe it's about work. Maybe it's about Lord of the Rings. Um, thanks.
31:21.47 Stan Lemon how How will you know that you have achieved the goal when the year's over?
31:26.59 Jon um So right now it's habit forming goal. So what I have penciled in is write for 10 minutes a day. So I don't have to produce anything um necessarily, but I have to work towards something every single day with the written word.
31:44.25 Stan Lemon Okay, and how will you track your progress?
31:49.09 Jon That's a good question, Stan. You have an app for that. I have not.
31:54.27 Stan Lemon I do, no, i not one that I built, but not yet.
31:56.73 Jon Not one that you built, but you used one.
31:58.39 Stan Lemon Yeah. Yeah. i use I use an app called streaks, um, to track streaks of things, right?
32:00.83 Jon Interesting.
32:03.78 Stan Lemon Uh, in fact, actually right now, the only thing that I have in it is to track my youngest child's, uh, showering routine. So, uh, the older two have graduated out of the application. They no longer have streaks for showers. I can just trust that they're not going show up to dinner stinky, but youngest, uh, it's still a journey. And so, um,
32:23.29 Stan Lemon we track it there, but I have used it. In fact, actually I use this app to track my reading habit when I began, uh, my reading habit. Right.
32:32.23 Jon Mm-hmm.
32:32.25 Stan Lemon And then, I'm to think what else that I've tracked in it. Uh, over the years. That's a big one because that actually helped me get on on track. um i think don I think this app costs money. i don't think it's free, but it's worth it. And the developer's really responsive and he's he's great and all that. I've used in the past, like when I went to physical therapy, I had to do stretches every day.
32:55.07 Stan Lemon right And so I used it to track my progress on doing those. For a while, i was recording my blood pressure every other day. used it for that. so it's it's And that that was kind of cool because i would take the blood pressure with my WeThings blood pressure cuff.
33:10.81 Stan Lemon It would sync. It would then go over into Apple HealthKit, excuse me, Apple HealthKit. And the Streaks app would notice it and then mark off the streak. So that was cool, right?
33:19.90 Jon That is cool. Yep.
33:20.70 Stan Lemon Yeah. um If you're in the fitness stuff and you like Apple streak ah the rings in general are are just not healthy, right? Like the doing something every single day creates this mindset where like I break the streak and now i've completely screwed up and you don't want that. So you can do pretty cool things with streaks, including skip days and adjust the calendar and like, you know, adapt it for yourself. like there's There's a lot of value in that, but...
33:45.37 Stan Lemon That might be something to consider is getting the streaks app and setting a goal to write for 10 minutes.
33:52.95 Jon This may also play into the next one, which is write more code. Again, AI assisted probably.
34:01.47 Stan Lemon Yeah, assistant. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
34:03.16 Jon um But that's basically an exercise in problem solving.
34:08.51 Stan Lemon Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
34:09.85 Jon So that that's where ah we do that. I think for measuring that, that's probably not going to be an everyday thing um for me. um But I'm thinking at least three contributions to GitHub repos per week.
34:24.22 Stan Lemon How big is a contribution?
34:26.09 Jon It doesn't have to be anything. It just has to show up on the graph. So.
34:31.00 Stan Lemon Okay. So the graph will show if you post or an issue.
34:33.65 Jon It's issues, pull requests, commits, stuff like that.
34:34.95 Stan Lemon Yeah. All it. Okay. All alright As long as you're informed.
34:37.71 Jon Yep.
34:37.97 Stan Lemon Yeah. Okay.
34:40.83 Jon So there's that. wrapped into the last two is push, i push AI in meaningful ways. Um, I think we are already seeing a lot of garbage AI usage.
34:54.17 Jon Um, so I think I want to figure out where does this tool help? Where should I not use this tool? Um, and then see really what possibilities it opens up.
35:08.67 Jon Um,
35:10.68 Stan Lemon So it sounds like baked into that is the notion or at least the hypothesis that you're using AI in a, quote, garbage way.
35:19.07 Jon I mean, there's definitely some of that.
35:21.71 Stan Lemon Okay, color me curious. what ah Give me an example of a garbage use of AI in your day.
35:28.06 Jon I mean, it's just like different weird search things. So...
35:33.99 Stan Lemon Oh, just search things? Want ask questions? Or asking questions wanting answer
35:37.74 Jon There's some of that. um and I do a lot of stuff that I don't actually do anything with. so My in-laws sent us a Ninja Creamy for the holidays. so I'm like, what the heck do I do with this thing? um Then it came up with stuff, but I didn't actually go do anything with it.
35:58.01 Jon um
36:00.99 Stan Lemon But you might, right? Let me ask you this.
36:02.84 Jon Maybe. But at that point, when I opened something different,
36:04.71 Stan Lemon Do you archive chats in ChatGPT or just leave them there?
36:07.71 Jon I just leave them there for the most part.
36:09.56 Stan Lemon Okay. So then if you don't do anything with it, basically it's going to fall off the list at some point.
36:16.12 Jon Right.
36:16.76 Stan Lemon Okay. Do you ever think about taking the output, like the thing that you're going to do and maybe clipping it into someplace that is more stateful tracking oriented, like ah like a notes app or even a reminder?
36:28.28 Jon I do for things that aren't just, you know, exploratory curiosity things.
36:35.13 Stan Lemon Hmm. Okay.
36:35.71 Jon I wouldn't say that I'm necessarily using AI in a garbage way, but like if you look at social media posts um or content that has really lazy prompting um and very clearly AI, um i think there is a lot of garbage output from AI.
36:52.72 Jon You are much further along in your wine than me. Has it opened up at
36:55.26 Stan Lemon Yeah, I was just holding my glass to look at the color ah for the for the listener. It is is an absolutely beautiful red. It is the color that I would expect every Cabernet Sauvignon to be. I will say, Jonathan, I have picked up a little bit more of your baking spices note on the nose. It's a little less yeasty. Yeah.
37:15.87 Stan Lemon i I think the current taste has stayed consistent. i would say it's tolerable. This is just a red fruit Cabernet, in my opinion.
37:20.89 Jon Interesting.
37:23.87 Stan Lemon like this is This is a completely presentable and approachable Cabernet Sauvignon, and i would recommend it to a non-wine drinker as as like just a good place to be.
37:38.17 Jon Yeah, I think I agree with you. i have noticed um it has opened up over time. So there's slightly more depth that's still not a lot of depth, especially for a Cabernet.
37:50.78 Jon Um, but I would say the, the current has actually balanced out a little bit for me.
37:51.91 Stan Lemon There's just not, ah there's not a bunch of complexity here. i will say, I feel like.
37:59.13 Stan Lemon Oh, fascinating. Okay. I just like, once I get current in my mouth, man, I can't get it out. Um, see if this makes any sense. I don't know if I ever said about this about ah wine before, but I feel like I'm noticing the tannins more here, 37 minutes into this glass than when I started.
38:15.19 Jon Yeah.
38:16.22 Stan Lemon oh okay. all right. So that doesn't sound totally ridiculous.
38:19.71 Jon I don't think so.
38:20.70 Stan Lemon Okay. right. That's fascinating. By the way, dear listener, Jonathan taught me what tannins are. While sitting on a cruise ship, ah yeah actually it was that first cruise ship where I think you got me into drinking wine because we learned that there was sommelier bin, that we could ask the sommelier for recommendation with dinner.
38:37.58 Jon Oh yes.
38:40.87 Stan Lemon And ah we got, I don't even remember the total sequence here, but we got a red wine and you remarked about the tannins. And I was like, I have no idea what you're talking about. And you described it.
38:51.35 Jon Well, and i think that like Mrs. Lemon would um occasionally poke fun at wine tasting and would talk about tannins in wine without actually knowing either. Right.
39:01.72 Stan Lemon Yeah, 100%.
39:02.10 Jon Sure.
39:02.76 Stan Lemon I used to it too, right? like there's this There's this nearly infamous story of Aaron Fanker, my friend, bringing down his bride-be to meet me, and we went out to Ruth's Chris, and I ordered a bottle of wine because I thought that was like the fancy high flutant thing to do.
39:18.78 Stan Lemon And I rattled off words that I had heard another friend of ours, William Swirla, say while tasting a bottle of wine, probably in St. Louis, like five, six years before then,
39:31.19 Stan Lemon And I have no idea to this day if the wine we had was smoky, fruit forward, or, uh, leggy. But I think those are the three things I probably said. And, uh, I just remember the waiter going, uh, very astute, sir. And then pouring the glass and asking if I wanted to keep it. I was like, yeah, sure. I didn't know any different.
39:50.17 Stan Lemon Um, you know But that cruise ship that we went on we discussed wine. we discussed we First of all, we we drank it slowly, which I'm not doing with this glass here at 39 minutes into this conversation.
39:57.72 Jon Yep.
40:01.53 Stan Lemon But we drank it slowly and we talked about what we were tasting. And it's not, quite frankly, it's not too different than talking about like craft beer or craft cocktails.
40:13.25 Jon Yep.
40:13.40 Stan Lemon right I would say it's a little more subtle and a little more nuanced, perhaps. But yeah.
40:20.25 Jon Anyways, I don't remember what we're talking about.
40:21.24 Stan Lemon So healthy use of AI, Jonathan.
40:23.61 Jon And really pushing it um and seeing where I can use AI more, I think, or um really taking imagination and trying out things in imaginative ways and seeing where this tool makes sense and where we can do some really cool things with it.
40:42.55 Stan Lemon So I imagine this will play into your coding a goal, right?
40:46.08 Jon Yep, for sure.
40:46.37 Stan Lemon No surprise there. Writing goal seems like it could be used on both sides of the equation in terms of like what you're writing about, but also how you're polishing your writing.
40:56.40 Jon Yep.
40:56.50 Stan Lemon Um,
40:56.73 Jon And I think like I use it a lot um to clarify thinking already. Like I try to argue with AI. I think at one point you basically told me that AI was telling me I'm a jerk without coming out and saying it.
41:12.66 Jon um So I use it um in that way a lot too, to clarify thinking and to actually think through things um because right now it's pretty much AI or a phone call with you. So,
41:22.04 Stan Lemon yeah Are you going to branch out from ChatGPT in 2026?
41:24.05 Jon um,
41:26.10 Stan Lemon Okay.
41:27.64 Jon ah Very potentially. um I don't know if I'll pay for anything else. There's got to be a compelling reason for me to switch paying, especially since we're still in flux where things this person releases and then there's a reaction release um and things of that nature.
41:43.25 Stan Lemon So I've spent, as you know, quite a bit of time with Claude. I spent a fair amount of time with Gemini, both professionally and unprofessionally. That didn't sound right. Professionally and outside, in whatever, in in my hobby time.
41:57.33 Stan Lemon Oh boy.
41:57.56 Jon Personally.
41:58.49 Stan Lemon Personally, there we go. Personally. Unprofessional is not personal. Personal not unprofessional. Okay, got it. Note to to self. um So those are the, I think those are the big competitors. You could argue that Grok is in that list, but I really think the big three at this point are Gemini, ChatGPT,
42:17.59 Stan Lemon And Claude, I would say i think you should at some point next year spend some dedicated, repeated, consistent time with Claude because the answers you get, especially in terms of the criticality, I think will be different. and I think you'll find it insightful.
42:33.40 Stan Lemon I today, so we've got this for a future discussion. We're not going to go into today, but I will often use ChatGPT for nutrition tracking. And I decided today to try it in Claude. I use Claude mostly for technology related queries, um even when not in Claude code.
42:51.38 Stan Lemon But I decided to it today.
42:51.83 Jon Well, that's kind of who they developed it for too, right?
42:55.80 Stan Lemon They definitely have a bent towards it. I don't know that I could say confidently that they developed it for developers, um but ah there's definitely a bent for it. And yeah we've talked in the past about how you know there's as well there's this race towards AGI, right?
43:12.29 Jon Yep.
43:12.61 Stan Lemon AGI is augmented general intelligence or whatever, right? Something like that.
43:16.80 Jon Yep.
43:16.85 Stan Lemon Yeah. Yeah. or autonomous, I don't i don't know, AGI. So super intelligence, right? Like complete independence, autonomy, autonomous, autonomous channel? I don't know. What does AGI stand for? Hold on. What does AGI stand for?
43:27.98 Jon It's gotta be autonomous, right?
43:30.80 Stan Lemon This says adjusted gross income. I don't think that's right.
43:33.93 Jon Well, it is right in a different context.
43:35.25 Stan Lemon Artificial general intelligence. Gosh, we were so off. Artificial general intelligence. So this is this is where the computer is now more intelligent than you are and able to make um decisions independently and like,
43:51.61 Stan Lemon I don't even know. Here, I'm going to read the definition. It's a hypothetical type of AI that would possess the ability to understand, learn, and apply its intelligence to solve any problem that a human can. And a difference from narrow eye that exists today, which is designed for specific tasks like language translation, translation or image recognition.
44:12.51 Stan Lemon So just think about different level autonomy, a different level independence.
44:15.16 Jon So basically the big step in all the sci-fi movies where the robots take over the world.
44:17.88 Stan Lemon Okay. Exactly, right? Yeah, 1,000%, right? um Data on Star Trek, right? Or, ah yeah I don't know, C-3PO on Star Wars, maybe?
44:24.88 Jon Yeah.
44:30.61 Jon I don't know.
44:31.81 Stan Lemon think I think AGI, I think R2, I think R2 is AGI.
44:31.93 Jon That would be a good thing to... Okay.
44:35.29 Stan Lemon i think i think r two i think r two is agi
44:37.50 Jon R2 for sure.
44:38.27 Stan Lemon So anyhow, there's there's this like theory out there that the way to AGI is to train a model to write code because then it can it can write code for the next thing that it can't do, right?
44:52.06 Jon Right. Mm
44:52.67 Stan Lemon And that's that's how you represent learning and adaptation within this space. So if that statement is true, if there's any truth to it, then Anthropic has doubled down on tools that are really good at writing code.
45:07.29 Stan Lemon and That may serve developers right now, but in the long term, it strives towards this AGI model. That's the theory. So I don't know that Claude got a bent towards developers per se. I think it has a bent towards things that are really useful to developers right now.
45:21.85 Stan Lemon um you know We'll see in the fullness of time. None none of these companies are short-sighted, right?
45:26.63 Jon Right. Nice.
45:26.94 Stan Lemon they're they're ah They're hedging bets on games far longer than most of us ever get to play. So where i was going with this though, Jonathan, is I think you should spend some time with Claude because I find myself getting more critical answers.
45:38.88 Stan Lemon And today with the nutrition tracking, you know, ChatGPT will coach me along and be like, rah, rah, go stand. And Claude today was like, you've just hit a sodium bomb in your diet.
45:51.95 Stan Lemon You should wind it back, right? And I was like, oh, okay. That's a little more little more stop than I'm used to getting from
45:56.23 Jon There we go.
46:00.13 Jon This is the bluntness we're looking for.
46:00.32 Stan Lemon a I think so. I think it's the thing that's missing, right? And we've tried with our instruction set on ChatGPT and whatnot to try and get it to be like more critical and push back, but it's it's just this is not going to.
46:13.61 Stan Lemon Yeah. And there's...
46:14.66 Jon Yeah.
46:15.05 Stan Lemon um I can't remember talked about this, but your friend Dharmesh posted a link to a study that I think was done by OpenAI about why, and like like the origin of hallucinations, right?
46:20.76 Jon My friend, yes.
46:28.97 Jon Right.
46:29.08 Stan Lemon Or why there's a propensity for hallucinations and the notion being they have trained models to... what was it they said, try to be right or try to be encouraging, right? They don't want, they don't want it to like tell you, try to be positive. And so they're trying to seek out an answer that works for the conversation rather than is factual or not.
46:49.25 Jon Right.
46:49.31 Stan Lemon So there's, there's something interesting there too. Like if if a model can tell me like, shut up, Stan, you're being stupid. I think I want to pay for that model.
46:57.71 Jon I think I would agree with you. Um, and I'm curious if you think that's an us thing or if the general populace would want this. Cause I can see like why chat GPT would try to have that baked in if they're going after consumers.
47:15.07 Stan Lemon i don't I think this is a thousand percent of us thing. um I think in general, people don't like to be told that they're wrong about anything, which is...
47:18.36 Jon Okay.
47:21.63 Jon But I feel like, especially as you get into some of this research stuff, like you needed to be factual, um whether it hurts your feelings or not, right?
47:31.45 Stan Lemon Yeah, but but how many people in America today are researchers or scientists, right? That's a small percentage.
47:37.05 Jon Yeah.
47:37.90 Stan Lemon And so for the vast majority, i think like we just want an answer. And quite frankly, like I think most people, i'm I'm going to try not to go theological with this, Jonathan.
47:48.21 Stan Lemon Most people want a sycophant in their corner, right? Someone who's like, hey, Stane, you're doing a good job. Keep it up, right? um
47:54.36 Jon It's interesting because I feel like that would annoy me.
47:57.09 Stan Lemon It would annoy you. yet Yeah, yeah. You are like...
48:02.08 Stan Lemon Cheerleaders, beware.
48:02.17 Jon Go away and leave me alone.
48:03.24 Stan Lemon If you are in Jonathan's proximity, beware. No, but but i like i think I do think there's a certain...
48:07.81 Jon Hey, my wife played a cheerleader in high school musical in high school. So...
48:12.45 Stan Lemon Oh, there you go. Well, ah all right. So much to be unpacked. But this is where I think people have come to like ChatGPT as my imaginary friend.
48:26.24 Stan Lemon i was actually just talking to somebody about this last week.
48:29.12 Jon Well, we talked about this with the prompt examples that just were like, are people really using it this way?
48:32.09 Stan Lemon Right, on the ChatGPT announcement. Yeah. Well, and funny thing, i was talking to um someone in the education space last week and in their house, right, they basically come up with a rule that we will not have imaginary friends in AI.
48:48.00 Stan Lemon ah And I'm over here like, sweet mother of pearl, I hope my kids aren't doing that. I don't think they are, but I think that plays into this. Everybody wants a sycophant, right? Everybody wants a cheerleader, and we can find one in the current implementation of ChatGPT. You remember when 4.0...
49:08.08 Stan Lemon came out or was it for one? i don't know. It was somewhere in there, right? and And it was like over-indexed on being a sycophant. Even Sam Altman, I think, even used that word.
49:14.37 Jon All right.
49:15.98 Stan Lemon By the way, I've been using that word well before Sam Altman ever dropped it into our everyday vernacular. But the, yeah, obviously a hundred percent.
49:23.70 Jon He obviously took it from you.
49:26.34 Stan Lemon Yeah. He called me up on the weekend and he was like, Hey Stan, I need a word to describe.
49:29.09 Jon So my friend Darmesh and your friend Sam.
49:30.65 Stan Lemon Yeah. yeah that's Yeah. And I was like, Sam, it's a sycophant. You could just go, go out there and tell the world that it's too sycophanty, which is not a real word, right? Like you can't just throw the Y on the end of a word and make a word. That's not how that works.
49:42.43 Jon Remember that when we go and read Shakespeare.
49:42.48 Stan Lemon Um, but, Yeah, well, Shakespeare gets to do whatever he wants because he's creating like language on the fly, right? um But, yeah man, I totally lost my train of thought. Oh, everybody wants a sycophant. 4.1 had that like bent and they've been trying to wind it back because I think it was too overt. And that that actually, I think, is more concerning to me.
50:06.43 Stan Lemon So when they started winding it back, they were they were not like changing the nature of it. They were trying to make it less in your face about being a sycophant. So we all have these little secret code you know cheerleaders in our phones in the form of ChatGPT.
50:20.96 Stan Lemon And I think for most of us, we don't realize it. Right?
50:25.79 Stan Lemon I used to go into performance evaluations and my manager would open up with all the things I've done well. And i was like, look, I legit said this three years in a row.
50:36.83 Stan Lemon um We've only got 30 minutes. I know what I'm doing great. Tell me what I need to improve on. right? That I don't think is normal.
50:47.55 Stan Lemon Um, and I think most people don't want to hear like, cause the, the whole question, where do I need to improve is ultimately like, what am I doing wrong? Right.
50:58.62 Stan Lemon But like maybe less extreme wrong, you know? So what am I not doing?
51:01.95 Jon Or what am I not doing?
51:04.09 Stan Lemon Yeah. There's, there's that's maybe that's a better look at you being my own little sycophant right here on the podcast. So, but, but I, I,
51:11.93 Jon I feel like I balanced that out with being blunt. So I got that going for you.
51:14.62 Stan Lemon There you go There you go Ultimately, i think there is an opportunity for models which are more critical in how they approach you and present information to you.
51:26.74 Jon Mm-hmm.
51:27.13 Stan Lemon And I definitely don't think that's ChatGPT. Now, I still love ChatGPT, but this is why I would say in 2026 is you are figuring out how to use AI, right? In a productive, healthy way. Like what's what's the directionality of all this?
51:40.73 Stan Lemon Bringing clarity to your use of AI, Jonathan, to try branching out a little bit and seeing what type of experiences you get.
51:49.79 Jon All right, I'll probably do it.
51:51.07 Stan Lemon There you go. 20 minute little, you know, sidewinding through true what a sycophant is. But is that, so I'm curious, is that the end of your list?
52:03.71 Jon I have one more.
52:04.96 Stan Lemon Okay, what is it? All
52:06.43 Jon Smoke more pipe.
52:09.02 Stan Lemon right. thank you This is a hobby of yours.
52:11.45 Jon And ultimately, whether that is actually smoking a pipe or is less important than having ah set time to actually reflect on things in my brain, because I'm very much a leave me alone so I can process things. um You saw some of that in last week's episode where I'd been in the car for eight hours and couldn't even form full sentences. um So...
52:35.65 Stan Lemon So i I was reading something, in a book, a self-help book that someone bought me, which is a story and of itself about, I guess there's a lot of science.
52:44.48 Jon So then isn't it someone else helping you though?
52:47.22 Stan Lemon What's that?
52:48.29 Jon If someone bought you the book, isn't it? It's no longer self-help.
52:52.06 Stan Lemon It depends what their intention was in buying the book is what I would say. So, um but the the book made this claim that there is legitimate science and research around meditation, the cognitive improvements it can make. And I'm really curious about this. I haven't had a chance to do my own deep research.
53:11.44 Stan Lemon I'll have to have to plug it in the chat GPT, I guess. But I think that's what you're saying. I think your pipe smoking is your meditation moment.
53:20.19 Jon Yeah, I think that's true. Um, and really being intentional about making time to do that. Cause I think we live in a culture where we're always looking for some kind of stimulus, right?
53:33.02 Jon Um, whether it's the phone, whether it's going out to be with people, whether it's in your case, building Lego sets or writing code or something like that. Uh, but what if we just intentionally slow down, um and really take time to process thoughts or to think up things rather than constantly but be bombarded with external stimuli.
53:58.97 Stan Lemon The Art of Doing Nothing.
54:02.24 Jon Right. um And I think that like, it doesn't necessarily have to be doing nothing. Like you can be on a walk, right?
54:14.24 Jon And you are walking and processing these types of things. Um, but it's get away from the screens, get away from responsive mode.
54:24.87 Jon Um, and just trying to see where your mind takes.
54:26.59 Stan Lemon you you You call that Legos, but like leg Legos are not responsive, are they?
54:31.74 Jon I mean, you're still, i would still call, Legos are so different from what you do day to day in your job um that it probably does function like that for you. so but
54:43.68 Stan Lemon I like creating something that's not in the technology space is what amounts to it.
54:47.68 Jon Right. I think that there's also room to
54:47.96 Stan Lemon That's why i like Lego, I think.
54:52.41 Jon you don't always have to be producing something either. um I think we spend a lot of time talking about productivity and getting more done more efficiently. um But at some point there is time to just rest and maybe enjoy the things that your productivity have brought to you. I think you have found that specifically on your cruises.
55:15.20 Jon um Days at sea more so than port days, but...
55:18.59 Stan Lemon yeah
55:19.29 Jon ah
55:19.61 Stan Lemon I mean, i do i do enjoy being on a boat and having nothing to do and just sitting and watching the waves.
55:24.95 Jon Yep.
55:25.18 Stan Lemon um i I would call it the art of nothing. I actually think walking is still the art of nothing. You know, walking, breathing, they're they're roughly the same thing. if you don't If you stop doing one or the other, you're not going to a good spot, right?
55:38.33 Jon Sure.
55:39.17 Stan Lemon You said something though that that struck me. You're seeking out, how'd you say it? Seeking out interaction or seeking out, don't remember what you're saying.
55:48.13 Jon Stimuli is what I said.
55:49.01 Stan Lemon Stimuli, sneaking out stimuli.
55:49.05 Jon like
55:50.75 Stan Lemon I actually don't think we seek it out. I think it seeks us out. I think in 2025, yeah, I think we just stumble into it is my my sense.
55:54.37 Jon You think so?
55:58.39 Stan Lemon I could be wrong.
55:58.85 Jon what What if you look at your oldest and when she has nothing to do?
56:03.67 Stan Lemon When she has nothing to do. Um, I mean, she's still surrounded by things that seek her out, whether it's a guitar or a book or a notepad.
56:14.90 Stan Lemon I, but like we, I don't know.
56:17.92 Jon Ooh, music is an interesting one too.
56:18.41 Stan Lemon The,
56:20.37 Jon Like, I think that you playing guitar is also a form of this because you aren't like working on it to do a performance or anything like that. But I definitely feel more rested when I go and sit down at the Clavinova and just mess around for 30 minutes.
56:36.21 Stan Lemon Interesting. I will. So I think, I think I agree with the outcome there. i will say that in, in a day for me, if I pick up, if I'm just like picking around to goof around, you know, uh, I may be trying to learn something, but if I sit down and actually try to play a piece, that's the hardest thing I do in a day, hands down for me.
56:58.07 Jon Yeah. And I think there's something about structured practice versus just doing something to you like structured practice would still be work and not rest. Um, but if you're just messing around with chords that, you know, like, I think there's something rejuvenating about that.
57:07.61 Stan Lemon Yeah.
57:15.89 Stan Lemon It could be. I'll have to think about that the next time I sit back and pick up my guitar, Jonathan. um All right. Interesting. So last the last conversation we had stimulated you to produce a list for next year.
57:29.91 Stan Lemon um I have not made it as far as you, but I've started write down parameters for myself for next year based upon our previous conversation. So I think the next time we get together, we'll we'll probably have another glass of wine because it'll still be...
57:43.35 Jon So be admin.
57:43.85 Stan Lemon uh advent yeah and we can talk maybe about my list if it's matured beyond uh the things that i've written so
57:50.97 Jon There you go. Well, I think that we are accomplishing your goal of giving this conversation more time rather than dropping it in the last episode of the year.
58:01.40 Stan Lemon there we go all right i don't know you know it's funny you say that that was like a goal i don't i it was more like
58:07.67 Jon It's not goal, but you you made the comment. So...
58:10.29
Stan Lemon
Well,
58:24.15 Jon Here we are.
58:24.85 Stan Lemon All right. Until next time, John.
58:26.65 Jon Until next time.