Episode 598: The Twenty Year Window

This week we bounce from weddings with questionable video evidence to universal vaccines, rogue dubstep artists named after shingles shots, and a time-loop story that left us… conflicted. Let's get into it. Real Life Ben officiated a wedding. It was beautiful. It was meaningful. It was legally binding. There may or may not be video proof. Somewhere, there's a phone with 3% battery and a shaky clip of vows. Or maybe not. Either way, two people are married and that's what counts. If you're going to officiate a wedding, here's the lesson: double-check the recording situation. Memory is not a backup drive. Ben also discovered that in newer versions of iOS, you can type to Siri. This is huge for anyone who has ever whispered a text into their phone in public and immediately regretted it. We are slowly evolving into silent thumb-typers talking to machines. The future is polite and awkward. Devon talked about how he uses ChatGPT — not casually, but intentionally. He uses it for work. He uses it to rewrite drafts, fix spelling, tighten arguments. Think of it as a second-pass editor that doesn't get tired. He went deeper into why he chose to pay for it and what "professional analysis" even means in an AI context. If you're billing by the hour, clarity matters. He also raised the question: does LexisNexis have AI baked in now? (Short answer: of course they do. Long answer: it depends how you define AI, which is half the battle in 2026.) Ben uses "AI" differently — mostly for data sifting. Large piles of information. Pattern spotting. Less magic robot, more extremely fast intern. Steven admitted he uses ChatGPT to help generate episode notes and images. If you're creating consistently, tools matter. The question isn't "Is this cheating?" The question is: "Are you using the tool to think better or to think less?" Big difference. We also watched The First Minute of Demi Adejuyigbe Is Going To Do One (1) Backflip — and yes, he does the backflip. Watch the full clip on YouTube and the full special on Dropout. Demi Adejuyigbe (pronounced DEM-ee ə-DIJ-oo-EE-bay) is sharp, chaotic, and there's a killer Marge Simpson joke in the full show. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kveA4wgIhI  Speaking of Marge — Marge Simpson is not dead. The French voice actress passed away. RIP. The character remains immortal yellow. Ben also plugged his ekphrastic poetry workshop — Write Poems with Me — happening Saturday 3/7 at the Beacon Art Show or online. If you've been waiting for a sign to try poetry, this is it. Show up. Make weird art. https://buttondown.com/penciledin/archive/write-poems-with-me-saturday-37-at-the-beacon-art/  Future or Now Steven brought in a wild one: a possible "universal" vaccine from researchers at Stanford Medicine. Instead of targeting a specific virus, this nasal spray supercharges the lungs' immune defenses. In mice, it reduced viral load, prevented severe illness, and even blocked allergic reactions. COVID. Flu. Pneumonia. Allergens. If this holds up in humans, that's not incremental. That's foundational. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/02/260222092258.htm  Ben followed with research suggesting shingles vaccines might lower dementia risk. Studies around the shingles vaccines Zostavax and Shingrix have shown reduced dementia incidence in vaccinated older adults. There's also data suggesting the vaccine may slow biological aging markers, including inflammation. https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/02/could-a-vaccine-prevent-dementia-shingles-shot-data-only-getting-stronger/  This is where Steven held his jokes until the very end. Zostavax and Shingrix are dubstep artists. "Twenty Year Window" is their debut collaboration. "Dementia" is their first single. Sometimes you need the bit. But seriously — if preventing viral reactivation reduces neuroinflammation and long-term cognitive decline, that's massive. It's early. It's correlation-heavy. But it's promising. Pay attention to this space. Book Club This week: All You Zombies by Robert A. Heinlein (1958). https://lecturia.org/en/short-stories/robert-a-heinlein-all-you-zombies/19420/  Time travel. Identity loops. Paradoxes stacked on paradoxes. There are also… problems. Ben had major issues with the problematic elements. And they're not small issues. The story reflects the era it was written in, and not in a flattering way. Devon didn't love the no-stakes feeling. When a story collapses into inevitability, tension can evaporate. If everything always already happened, what are we gripping onto? Steven's take: the story is valuable as a historical artifact. It shows where science fiction was. You can see the mechanics. The ambition. The blind spots. You don't have to endorse it to learn from it. That's maturity in reading: understanding context without pretending flaws don't exist. Next week, we're reading Presence by Ken Liu, published in Uncanny Magazine. Ken Liu tends to blend emotional precision with speculative ideas, so expect something thoughtful. https://www.uncannymagazine.com/article/presence/  Read it. Come ready. Final Thought This episode circled one big theme whether we meant to or not: Tools. AI tools. Medical tools. Narrative tools. Historical tools. The question isn't whether tools change the world. They do. The question is whether we're using them deliberately. So here's your small challenge this week: Pick one tool you're already using — AI, writing software, research databases, even your phone — and ask yourself: Am I using this to sharpen my thinking? Or to avoid it? Be honest. We'll see you next week.