Shows
Getting Simple#74: Andy Payne — Grasshopper 2Andy Payne—architect and software developer at McNeel—on Grasshopper 2's latest features.
Andy Payne is a licensed architect and software developer at Robert McNeel & Associates, the company behind Rhino and Grasshopper 3D. He is a Doctor of Design graduate from Harvard's Graduate School of Design (2014). Andy has lectured and taught workshops throughout the US, Canada, and Europe, and his work has received awards from several leading academic organizations. Andy has also co-authored several software plugins and desktop apps (including Firefly and Monolith). At McNeel, Andy works on the Grasshopper and Rhino.Compute projects for...
2024-06-1115 minGetting Simple#73: Andy Payne — Grasshopper, Rhino Compute, Teaching, Learning to Code & Gen AIAndy Payne—architect and software developer at McNeel—on the origins of Grasshopper, Grasshopper 2, Rhino.Compute, teaching, learning to code, generative AI, open-source code, and his journey.
Andy Payne is a licensed architect and software developer at Robert McNeel & Associates, the company behind Rhino and Grasshopper 3D. He is a Doctor of Design graduate from Harvard's Graduate School of Design (2014). Andy has lectured and taught workshops throughout the US, Canada, and Europe, and his work has received awards from several leading academic organizations. Andy has also co-authored several software plugins and desktop apps (including Fire...
2024-04-301h 21Getting Simple#72: Ian Keough — Hypar, Open Source, Remote Work, Monetization, and Generative AIIan Keough—CEO and founder of Hypar and the father of Dynamo—on how Hypar is creating the next-generation platform to design, generate, and share buildings, and thoughts on open-source software, visual programming, authorship, monetization, and generative AI.
Connect with Ian
Hypar
Hypar Elements
Hypar on Discord
Favorite quotes
“What would we have to build to have [our new AEC software stack] decoupled from all of the historical and legacy software?”
“I just can’t stand toil.”
“You don't wanna penalize the customer for using the system more.”
Links
Revit
Tekla
AutoCA...
2023-06-301h 03Getting Simple#71: Alex O'Connor — Transformers, Generative AI, and the Deep Learning RevolutionAlex O’Connor—researcher and ML manager—on the latest trends of generative AI. Language and image models, prompt engineering, the latent space, fine-tuning, tokenization, textual inversion, adversarial attacks, and more.
Alex O’Connor got his PhD in Computer Science from Trinity College, Dublin. He was a postdoctoral researcher and funded investigator for the ADAPT Centre for digital content, at both TCD and later DCU. In 2017, he joined Pivotus, a Fintech startup, as Director of Research. Alex has been Sr Manager for Data Science & Machine Learning at Autodesk for the past few years, leading a team t...
2023-04-261h 45Getting Simple#70: Zach Kron — Art, Creativity, and Personal EvolutionZach Kron, senior product manager at Autodesk, on making and selling pen plotter art, evolving with your projects, capturing ideas, and remote work.
Zach is a Senior Product Manager at Autodesk, a global provider of design software. Since 2007, Zach has been involved in the research and implementation of digital tools that drive real world building projects and increase the availability of advanced design practices. While his focus is on making software, Zach also participates in teaching, hands-on workshops, hackathons, and all other forms of design technology community development.
You can find Zach...
2022-12-071h 13Getting Simple#69: Q&A with Nono — Podcasting TipsNono Martínez Alonso shares tips on producing a podcast, building an audience, booking guests, content formats, motivation, and goals.
Here's my recent conversation with Steve — who wants to build a YouTube channel about the joy of making and listening to music, emphasizing health and well-being — where I shared tips and insights from five years of podcasting.
Links
Riverside is the tool I used to record this episode remotely.
How to monetize YouTube
Perl, Java, and JavaScript are programming languages
People mentioned
Lex Fridman
Tim Ferriss
Seth Godin
Joe R...
2022-10-2633 minGetting Simple#68: Leire Asensio Villoria and David Mah — Systems UpgradeLeire Asensio Villoria and David Mah on decoding and upgrading design systems, reverse engineering the creative process, knowledge dissemination, the long tail of niches, Erwin Hauer and associative models, book writing and publishing, and much more.
Leire Asensio is a senior lecturer in urban design and architecture and Co-Director of the Advance Digital Design + Fabrication (ADD+F) at the University of Melbourne’s school of design.
David Mah is a senior lecturer in urban design and architecture at the University of Melbourne’s school of design.
Previously, both Leire and Davi...
2022-09-301h 18Getting Simple#67: Frank Harmon — Writing, Drawing, and Sense of PlaceFrank Harmon on the purpose of writing and sketching, what makes great writers, artists, and architects, and the importance of giving people a sense of place.
Frank Harmon, FAIA, is a nationally renowned award-winning architect, a professor of architecture at NC State University’s College of Design. and a popular mentor to four decades of student architects. A graduate of the Architectural Association in London and a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, he has also taught at the Architectural Association and has served as a visiting critic at Harvard, the University of Vi...
2022-07-2946 minGetting Simple#66: DALL-E 2, The Creative Process, and Blogging ToolsExperiments with OpenAI’s text-to-image generation AI system DALL-E 2, mini-essays on the creative process and being done, and blogging tools you can use.
Links
DALL-E 2, Explained by Nono (video)
Variations of "A minimalist 3d render of a balloon car" plus "A sunflower" by Edward Hopper by Nono x DALL-E
OpenAI’s DALL-E 2 publication
Google Imagen: Text-to-Image Diffusion Models
Google Parti: Pathways Autoregressive Text-to-Image Model
The meaning of done (post)
If it's not fun, you shouldn't do it (post)
Another one of those (post)
Folio: Nono’s content management system
Substack, Twitter Writer & Medium (bloggin...
2022-06-2923 minGetting Simple#65: Sketches — It's Nice to See You, In PersonThoughts on traveling and meeting people in person after the COVID-19 pandemic.
Favorite quotes
"You can do anything that you set your mind to, but you don't have time to do everything.” —Frank Harmon
Links
It’s nice to see you, in person (post)
Back from Atlanta (post)
Nono’s blog
Nono’s sketches and stories
YouTube channel
Kean Walmsley’s blog post
A.I. Artificial Intelligence by Steven Spielberg (movie)
Has the Pandemic Transformed the Office Forever? by John Seabrook for The New Yorker
Books
Formulations by Andrew Witt
Pe...
2022-05-3111 minGetting Simple#64: Habits & Passion ProjectsMy current habits, the podcast, the blog and sketches, the YouTube channel and the live stream, my new recording studio, monetization, crypto, and the importance of learning and play.
Books
Essentialism by Greg McKeown
Links
My ‘atomic habits’ (podcast)
My writing habits (podcast)
Nono’s blog
Nono’s sketches and stories
Which one would you like to read? (post)
NFTs
Solana (cryptocurrency)
YouTube channel
Readwise
The Flatten Layer, Explained (video)
People mentioned
Ian Keough
Andrew Witt
Joanie Lemercier
Aziz Barbar
David Allen
Dieter Rams
Cal Newport
Chapters
00:00 · Introducti...
2022-04-2040 minGetting Simple#63: Andrew Witt — Formulations, Mathematical Design, and WritingAndrew Witt, associate professor at Harvard University and author of Formulations, on how mathematics and computational methods transform the way we think, design, and make art.
Andrew Witt is co-founder, with Tobias Nolte, of Certain Measures, a Boston/Berlin-based office for design futures and an Associate Professor in Practice of Architecture at Harvard University. Trained as both an architect and mathematician, he has a particular interest in a technically synthetic and logically rigorous approach to form. His work has been shown at the Centre Pompidou, Barbican Centre, Futurium, and Haus der Kulturen der Welt...
2022-03-242h 11Getting Simple#62: Adam Menges — Visual Programming, Social Fintech, Bitcoin and NFTs & Lessons Learned Building Software ProductsAdam Menges is a founder at Lobe and a former Apple employee, currently working on something new.
Adam Menges is a product designer, entrepreneur, and engineer located in San Francisco who specializes in artificial intelligence and visual programming languages. He’s a former Apple employee and founder at Lobe, a company acquired by Microsoft that aims to make deep learning accessible. You can contact Adam to find out more at adammenges.com, and reach out to him at adam@adammenges.com and +17204840285.
Books
The Timeless Way of Building by Christopher Alexan...
2022-03-041h 11Getting Simple#61: Nate Peters — NFTs, Generative Art, Making Your Own Tools & Online AttentionNate Peters on being intentional, digital art and generative NFTs, the advantage of established creators, and the fast pace of artificial intelligence & crypto.
Nono hosts the Getting Simple podcast, sketches things that call his attention, writes stories about enjoying a slower life, and records live streams and tutorials on creative coding and machine intelligence.
Nate works as a software engineer for Autodesk. Before joining Autodesk, he earned his Master of Design Studies in Technology at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and a Bachelor of Architecture at Iowa State University.
...
2022-02-231h 41Getting Simple#60: The Short-Sightedness of Web3 and Blockchain, Anonymity & Original Ideas of Where We Could GoA conversation with an anonymous guest on how new technologies can help promote positive moral behavior, blockchain and crypto concepts, digital art and NFTs, the convenience of centralization, online identity, impostor syndrome, the ever-newbie, and lots more.
Favorite quotes
“Writing code is talking to computers, but you also have to talk to people through your code.”
“How do we figure out, in a digital age, what is good and what should we aim for as a civilization, as a society?”
“Information is the resolution of uncertainty.” —Claude Shannon, 1948
Books
Collected Papers from Claude E...
2022-02-071h 12Getting Simple#59: Jordan Gray — Creative Friction, Storytelling in Design, Passion Projects & the Beginner FeelingJordan Gray on creative friction, the fine line between passion projects and work, storytelling in design, and overcoming the beginner feeling.
Jordan Gray works as a Visualization Specialist at Hanbury.
Architecture and design always have a narrative—an evocative, deeper meaning. From napkin sketches, to drawing sets, to post-construction marketing, each medium for client communication is key to architectural storytelling. I've always had a passion for the visualization toolset, recognizing how renderings, photography, and filmmaking go hand-in-hand with the design process. It's my proverb to practice openness to new methods when there's a bet...
2022-01-211h 51Getting Simple#58: Goodbye, 2021Podcasting, live streaming, sketching, and writing highlights of 2021, and why you should start writing in public.
2020 has been an incredible year in many ways. Yet I didn't expect COVID to be as present in 2021 as it was in 2020, honestly. Wherever you are, I hope that you're staying safe and healthy and can be, at least, in contact with your close friends, even if you can not spend time with them in person. Join me as I revisit my achievements in podcasting, live streaming, sketching, and writing over the past year. Happy new year!
2022-01-0220 minGetting Simple#57: Bytes — The Black BoxHost Nono Martínez Alonso and Aziz Barbar on how complex machines work, technological polarization, and the growing need to make algorithms understandable.
Nono hosts the Getting Simple podcast, sketches things that call his attention, writes stories about enjoying a slower life, and records live streams and tutorials on creative coding and machine intelligence.
Aziz is an architect and design technologist. He occasionally teaches design courses on computation and the built environment.
Favorite quotes
"Do we have a backup plan? Very few of us know, we're just blindly t...
2021-12-1313 minGetting Simple#56: One Year of Live Streams — Teaching & CodingHost Nono Martínez Alonso and Jose Luis Garcia Del Castillo on teaching and coding live.
Nono Martínez Alonso hosts the Getting Simple podcast, sketches things that call his attention, writes stories about enjoying a slower life, and records live streams and tutorials on creative coding and machine intelligence.
Jose Luis García del Castillo y López is an architect, educator, and Doctor of Design in Technology by the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where he teaches Computational Design. He runs a weekly Computational Design Live Stream at ParametricCamp.
2021-11-2940 minGetting Simple#55: One Year of Live Streams — Live Q&AHost Nono Martínez Alonso replies to audience questions on the evolution of the live stream after a year of weekly streams.
Books
Atomic Habits by James Clear
Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport
Deep Work by Cal Newport
Links
Nono.MA Live Playlist
Suggestive Drawing (and an in-depth tech dive)
CATIA, Digital Project and Gehry Technologies
Harvard GSD
Parametric modeling
People mentioned
Jose Luis Garcia del Castillo
Panagiotis Michalatos
Carmen Chamorro
Adam Menges
Cal Newport
Special thanks
Bittor Arrillaga
Jean-Marc Couffin
Juanda Cabrera
Mayur Mistry
Ricardo Césa...
2021-10-2632 minGetting Simple#54: Bytes — NFTs & Digital ArtHost Nono Martínez Alonso and Aziz Barbar on non-fungible tokens (NFTs), blockchain, cryptocurrencies, and digital art.
Listen to this episode to learn about non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
Note that cryptocurrencies and stock options are highly volatile markets, and you shouldn't make financial decisions based on this episode.
Nono hosts the Getting Simple podcast, sketches things that call his attention, writes stories about enjoying a slower life, and records live streams and tutorials on creative coding and machine intelligence.
Aziz is an architect and design technologist. He occasionally teaches d...
2021-10-1630 minGetting Simple#53: Machine Learning-Based Audio Editing, React, UI Libraries, NFTs, and COVIDHost Nono Martínez Alonso and Nate Peters on the machine learning-based audio-editing solution this podcast is being produced with, web components, React and UI libraries, the effects of COVID-19 in our work lives, NFTs and cryptocurrencies, and the new informal catch-up conversation podcast format we're testing out.
Nono hosts the Getting Simple podcast, sketches things that call his attention, writes stories about enjoying a slower life, and records live streams and tutorials on creative coding and machine intelligence.
Nate works as a software engineer for Autodesk. Before joining Autodesk, he earned h...
2021-10-1230 minGetting Simple#52: Sketches — Work or WalkReclaiming time to be human.
I'd love to hear from you.
Submit a question about this or any previous episodes.
Join the Discord community. Meet other curious minds.
If you enjoy the show, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than 60 seconds and really helps.
Show notes, transcripts, and past episodes at gettingsimple.com/podcast.
Theme and exit songs, Sleep and A Loop to Kill For, by Steve Combs under CC BY 4.0.
...
2021-09-2202 minGetting Simple#51: Bytes — StyleGANHost Nono Martínez Alonso and Aziz Barbar on StyleGAN, NVIDIA's state-of-the-art machine learning algorithm that generates convincing images.
Listen to this episode to learn about StyleGAN.
Nono Martínez Alonso hosts the Getting Simple podcast, sketches things that call his attention, writes stories about enjoying a slower life, and records live streams and tutorials on creative coding and machine intelligence.
Aziz Barbar is an architect and design technologist. He occasionally teaches design courses on computation and the built environment.
Favorite quotes
"Do we learn less be...
2021-08-0510 minGetting Simple#50: FreedivingHost Nono Martínez Alonso and Jose Luis García del Castillo on the mindfulness of breath-hold diving and being deep underwater, best practices, equipment, and techniques, equalizing your middle ear pressure, scuba versus freediving, and recommendation systems.
Before parting ways at the boarding gate, Jose Luis and I captured our first impressions after a week of freediving classes; what we learned, what we loved, and things we thought we knew but didn't.
Big thanks to Paco González Castro, Biaggio Alessandro Picardi, Fernando, and Georgia for an unforgettable week.
Non...
2021-07-1425 minGetting Simple#49: Cristóbal Valenzuela — Machine Intelligence, Interfaces for Creativity and Originality, the Freedom of Being a Startup, and RunwayRunway's co-founder Cristóbal Valenzuela on the need for new creative interfaces to control complex algorithms that focus on results (not technology), the freedom of being a startup, and how machine intelligence is changing how we think, design, and make art.
Cristóbal Valenzuela is a technologist, artist and software developer interested in the intersection between artificial intelligence and creative tools. He is Runway's co-founder.
Previously, he co-founded Latent Studio, a creative studio specializing in machine learning and artificial intelligence. He also contributes to OSS and helps maintain ml5.js. His work ha...
2021-06-3018 minGetting Simple#48: Héctor Ruiz — Magic and The Art of IllusionismIllusionist Héctor Ruiz on getting started and standing out as a magician, how COVID-19 changed his world, his take on talent, effort, creativity, success, and entrepreneurship, and more.
Héctor Ruiz is an illusionist from Spain that performs over the planet with his show amazing and amusing audiences. In the last years, Hector has performed at some of the most important TV shows in his field at the largest cruise ships in the world and has toured with big international magic productions. He is looking forward to having you in the audience to sh...
2021-05-3159 minGetting Simple#47: Bytes — IntroHost Nono Martínez Alonso and Aziz Barbar introduce the Bytes series—concepts at the intersection of digital technology and culture in a language we can all understand—and talk about cloud storage.
Listen to this episode to learn more about the series, its name and format, co-host Aziz Barbar, and what's coming.
Nono hosts the Getting Simple podcast, sketches things that call his attention, writes stories about enjoying a slower life, and records live streams and tutorials on creative coding and machine intelligence.
Aziz is an architect and design techn...
2021-05-0611 minGetting Simple#46: Luis Ruiz Padrón — Sketching, Writing, and Teaching Through The Lens of ArchitectureLuis Ruiz Padrón on the creative process behind his sketches, writing, and publications, seeing the world as an Urban Sketcher, identity, teaching, technology, life, success, and more.
Luis Ruiz Padrón is a PhD architect. He teaches Architectural Graphic Expression at the University of Málaga; drawings of cityscapes is his main interest as a scholar but also his first source of pleasure, sketching them himself.
He belongs to the Urban Sketchers global community and is the founder of the local group in his city.
He collaborates weekly as a c...
2021-04-261h 23Getting Simple#45: Habits — Looping PlaylistsA practice to focus by listening to the same songs, over and over again.
Chapters
0:00 · The compact disc and streaming services
0:56 · The walkman and repeat mode
2:51 · Looping playlists, the practice
8:09 · Repeat one
9:38 · My playlists
10:35 · Focus Zero
11:07 · Focus A
12:14 · Focus B
13:56 · I'd love to hear from you
I'd love to hear from you.
Submit a question about this or any previous episodes.
Join the Discord community. Meet other curious minds.
If you enjoy the show, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? I...
2021-03-2314 minGetting Simple#44: Mini-RetirementsTechniques, challenges, and reasons to live as if you were retired.
Chapters
0:00 · Intro
0:28 · Marc's question
1:12 · What are mini-retirements?
3:56 · Challenges
7:04 · Vacation slack
8:38 · How much money do you need?
10:17 · Financial independence
11:42 · Creating your own products
12:54 · Passive income, freelance, and full-time
14:02 · Money is time
16:08 · Safety
17:39 · Enjoy every day
19:09 · Pause
20:30 · Living as if you were retired
21:31 · Do you need a mini-retirement?
22:13 · I'd love to hear from you
I'd love to hear from you.
Submit a question about this or any previous episodes.
Join the Discord community. Meet other curious minds.
If you enjoy t...
2021-03-1322 minGetting Simple#43: James Melouney and Selene Urban — Overcoming The Fear of Meditation, Practices, Authenticity, Connecting With Your Audience, and MoreJames Melouney & Selene Urban on how to get started with meditation, self-discovery, building trust and connection with your audience through a humane and authentic message, and key learnings from their entrepreneurial journey.
James Melouney is an eclectic mix of mathematics, finance, strategy, marketing, meditation and self-discovery. He graduated with a University Medal in Mathematics & Finance before becoming a management consultant. Though since then, James chose to follow his calling in life and authored two books: The Art of Success and Simple Living (March 30, 2021 release). James dedicates himself to living honestly and authentically. To rise...
2021-02-281h 42Getting Simple#42: Mike Gabour — Falling in Love With the Ocean, Dark Showers, Attention, The Sensorium, and The Contents of his BackpackStrategist, investor, community builder, and NGO founder Mike Gabour on mindfulness and attention, meditation and dark showers, the multiplier effect, minimizing time in front of the screen, the contents of his backpack, and falling in love with the ocean.
Mike Gabour is a first generation immigrant, born on the Mediterranean ocean in Alexandria, Egypt.
He is Co-founder and Managing Director for Koinonia, a micro-lending organization which empowers marginalized entrepreneurs in Egypt. Leadership Workshop Facilitator for The Littlest Lamb, an orphanage in Cairo which nurtures underprivileged children. Co-founder of Pequod, an app built...
2021-01-311h 12Getting Simple#41: ALGO — Lessons from Teaching, Live Streaming, Publishing, and 3 Years of PodcastingHarvard's Jose Luis García del Castillo and host Nono Martínez Alonso on teaching, live streaming, the guilt of postponing things, the difficulties of delegating tasks and micro-management, the fear of shipping creative work, and lessons learned after forty podcast episodes.
This episode opens the ALGO series—conversations between Jose Luis García del Castillo y López and myself on teaching, machine learning, coding, and creativity.
It's been three years since I last interviewed Jose Luis, and I enjoyed learning how his life changed when he became a Doctor of Design...
2020-12-2458 minGetting Simple#40: Music or Podcasts? Commuting, Meditative Walks, and SolitudeDuring your commute, do you listen to music or podcasts?
Books
Deep Work (and productive meditation) by Cal Newport
Links
My Podcasts Not Music blog post (2014)
Oak meditation and breathing app
Hurry Slowly podcast by Jocelyn K. Glei
Deep Questions podcast by Cal Newport
People mentioned
Adam Menges
Cal Newport
Chapters
00:00 · Intro
03:38 · Why not music, by default?
04:20 · Focus and meditation
04:53 · Why listen to podcasts?
05:46 · Solitude
06:24 · Meditative walks
07:16 · Once-in-a-lifetime audios
10:06 · My commute
11:46 · Remote work
12:38 · Listening together
13:23 · TL;DR
13:31 · What's your take?
I'd love to hear from you.
...
2020-12-1013 minGetting Simple#39: Roberto Molinos — Plan for Failure: The Peace of Mind of Being Patient and AntifragileModelical's Roberto Molinos on the benefits of being patient and embracing uncertainty, a series of techniques, theories, and books that can help you rethink your company and market your products, and his 4-day workweek.
Roberto Molinos is an architect and holds a Master of Advanced Studies in Structural Design from Madrid Tech - Madrid (ES). He has developed undergraduate and graduate research with Rafael Escolá Foundation and POLE Europe program, completing essays on the use of information technologies in multidisciplinary projects.
Roberto is the Managing Director of Modelical, a technology consultancy working a...
2020-11-181h 26Getting Simple#38: Sketches — NewsletterversaryCelebrating a year of weekly sketches and stories.
Today, I bring you an episode that celebrates a year and a half of weekly sketches and stories. At the time I published this essay on my blog, I was at fifty-three publications. But as I write these lines, I'm at seventy-one posts. Happy Newsletter-versary!
Repetition, repetition, repetition. It works, it works, it works. —John Maeda
Links
The Laws of Simplicity by John Maeda (book)
My published sketches (blog)
My British Museum basalt stone statue sketch and story (blog)
My wr...
2020-11-0603 minGetting Simple#37: Adam Menges — Lobe: Machine Learning Made SimpleMicrosoft's Adam Menges—founder at Lobe.ai and a former Apple employee—on helping people build intelligence into their apps by making it simple and understandable, his unconventional education, having death present, regret avoidance, grit, and his daily routine for note-taking, file management, meditation, and much more.
Adam is a product designer, entrepreneur, and engineer located in San Francisco who specializes in Artificial Intelligence and visual programming languages. He spent time working for both Apple and SendGrid before starting his own company, Lobe, which was acquired in late 2018. Adam is continuing his work on maki...
2020-10-2659 minGetting Simple#36: Daniel Natoli — The Making of SisyphusDirector Daniel Natoli on the making of Sisyphus, Getting Simple's first short film. A man is condemned to repeat a useless task day after day.
It's easy to fall into the trap of mindlessly repeating the same routine over and over again. Every once in a while, we need to be reminded to stop and reflect; To meditate on whether what you’re doing makes sense; To find out how to get out of the loop and do what gives you joy.
There’s no need to measure how productive each of your...
2020-09-1607 minGetting Simple#35: Habits — Atomic HabitsHow to create good habits and break bad ones.
This episode is part of the Habits series. In this excerpt from my interview with Scott Mitchell (episode 29), Scott and I discuss what atomic habits are, how to use them to create good habits and break bad ones, how I started implementing them in my daily routine more than a year ago, the difference between flow and deliberate practice, and why you should schedule your leisure time.
Links
Habit tracker sheets template
Flow
Deliberate practice
How To Start New Habits That...
2020-08-2612 minGetting Simple#34: Sketches — Quantity or QualityGenerating lots of ideas might help you achieve originality.
Notes
Skill and expertise let you judge your own ideas to better identify the good ones and discard the bad ones.
"Many people fail to achieve originality because they generate a few ideas and then obsess about refining them to perfection." —Adam Grant, Originals
I'd love to hear from you.
Submit a question about this or any previous episodes.
Join the Discord community. Meet other curious minds.
If you enjoy the show, wo...
2020-08-1204 minGetting Simple#33: Carmen Chamorro — From 9-to-5 to Freedom, A Journey to A Portfolio CareerPortfolio careerist Carmen Chamorro on the benefits of working in different fields, managing multiple interests, and how recognizing a potential Renaissance-like profile might positively influence your career.
Carmen loves change and disagrees that we must define ourselves in only one single and exclusive way.
She is a natural learner and can draw on a wide range of commercial, educational and voluntary experiences that allow her to connect with different clients in personalized ways.
Carmen is a certified life, business and career coach that draws on two years of university study in...
2020-07-2056 minGetting Simple#32: JR — Insisting Simplicity, Frugal Practices to Achieve Financial Independence, and Permaculture DesignInsisting Simplicity's author, JR, on crafting your own routine from scratch, writing, blogging, frugal practices to achieve financial independence, permaculture design, the struggles of making a living as an artist, and more.
Insisting Simplicity is a blog about simple living, minimalism, and adventure travel that JR writes to celebrate life, our planet, and the richness of simple living.
"I'm obviously attracted to the concept of simple living and to a stoic aesthetic and something that is boiled down to the really fundamental things in life that matter."
"You don't...
2020-06-261h 28Getting Simple#31: Kean Walmsley — Fun, Freedom, Flexibility, and FamilyAutodesk's Kean Walmsley (@keanw) on prioritizing fun, freedom, and flexibility, traveling and working around the world with family, blogging, teaching, remote work, and the post-COVID world.
Kean Walmsley works at Autodesk Research, based in Neuchâtel, Switzerland.
Kean joined Autodesk in 1995 and has worked in a number of Autodesk offices around the world – in the UK, the US, India and Switzerland – and in a number of roles, both technical and management-focused. He spent several years working in the Autodesk Developer Network and four years as a Software Architect for the AutoCAD product line...
2020-05-281h 40Getting Simple#30: Sketches — Stories Are the AnswerHere's an episode in memory of Patrick Winston which opens the new Sketches series with a short piece on story understanding with artificial intelligence and my experience attending Winston's 6.034 lectures at MIT. "Don't just tell me it's a school bus. Tell me why you think it's a school bus."
I've sketched for the last 365 days. A year ago I decided not only to sketch daily but to write short stories and publish them online every Tuesday. The first story went out on July 2, 2019. And today is the first time I'm telling you one of...
2020-04-3010 minGetting Simple#29: Scott Mitchell — Experimentation in the ArenaScott Mitchell jumps in time to dissect his own experimentation life philosophy, his efforts to remove creative friction, and his worldview. An experimental episode on Scott's metaphor of the arena, experiments he's carried out over the past years, and his current solo adventure.
Scott Mitchell is a designer and software engineer currently working out of Boston, Massachusetts. Scott is the founder of stud.io (stud-io.org), a construction technology company focused on automating fabrication processes for geometrically complex projects. He previously worked as a software engineer at Autodesk as part of the Architecture, Engineering...
2020-03-311h 50Getting Simple#28: A Year of TransformationWhat I've learned and what's changed over the past year, and new habits that seem to be here to stick with me for years to come.
We're more virtually connected than ever before. Yet, we seem to be more disconnected from one another than any former civilization. We've created shallow ways of communication (say, email or instant messages) which generate a false sense of connection. It's harder to connect in deep ways with our closest friends—where a brief walk, talking on the phone, or a video conference may suffice. But, surprisingly, we spend a...
2020-02-0616 minGetting Simple#27: Tatjana Dzambazova — The Art of Asking The Right QuestionsTechnology whisperer Tatjana Dzambazova on asking the right questions to avoid the waste of talent, connecting and inspiring others, becoming vegetarian, and the myth of a better life.
Tatjana is Director of product management, software solutions, at Bright Machines, a software-driven-manufacturing start-up based in San Francisco.
Tatjana's career started as an architect—she practiced over 12 years in Vienna and London. In 2000 she started her 18-year design technology journey with Autodesk, mainly in dual role of product manager for many new, disruptive software solutions, and a global technology speaker. In her two decades work...
2020-01-151h 16Getting Simple#26: Habits — WritingNono's daily writing process, tools, and techniques.
I believe the ultimate goal of writing is to touch others; to make our words resonate with our readers. Today my spoken words are for you.
This episode is part of an experimental series titled Habits in which I share how myself (and others) do certain things and why, hopefully unveiling workflows, techniques, habits, and routines that you can make use of right away. Specifically, this episode focuses on writing and what's helping me write more consistently. I share the software tools and gadgets that...
2019-12-1824 minGetting Simple#25: Nono Martínez Alonso — The Origins of Getting SimpleNono Martínez Alonso on his story, his worldview, how and why he started Getting Simple, and the struggles and joys of making a podcast about simple living, doing less better, and crafting your own lifestyle.
Nono Martínez Alonso hosts The Getting Simple Podcast—a show about how you can live a productive, creative, and simple life, in the form of friendly, long-form conversations with creative from eclectic areas—sketches things that call his attention, and writes about enjoying a slower life.
Nono is an architect and computational designer with a pencha...
2019-11-301h 27Getting Simple#24: Nate Peters — Design for GoodNate Peters on democratizing design tools and using his design skills for good, dealing with internet junk, potential misuses of machine learning, and more.
Nate Peters is a computational designer and software developer with experience in design optimization, digital fabrication, and machine learning. Nate received his Master of Design Studies in Technology from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and his Bachelor of Architecture from Iowa State University. Currently he works in Boston as a software engineer in Autodesk’s AEC Generative Design Group. At Autodesk he has assisted in the design and construction of...
2019-10-281h 17Getting Simple#23: Andrew Witt — Letting Ideas GrowHarvard University's Andrew Witt on the power of ruminating ideas, understanding complex problems, curating signals, geometric simplicity, introspective automation, and finding time for reflection.
Andrew Witt is co-founder, with Tobias Nolte, of Certain Measures, a Boston/Berlin-based office for design futures and an Associate Professor in Practice of Architecture at Harvard University. Trained as both an architect and mathematician, he has a particular interest in a technically synthetic and logically rigorous approach to form. His work has been shown at the Centre Pompidou, Barbican Centre, Futurium, and Haus der Kulturen der Welt, among others.
2019-09-271h 04Getting Simple#22: Scott Young — Ultralearning, How to Master Hard Skills, Outsmart the Competition, and Accelerate Your CareerScott H. Young on quickly mastering hard skills, acquiring knowledge, and becoming good at things that seem impossible to you right now.
Scott H. Young is an author, entrepreneur, and ultralearner. After learning MIT's 4-year computer science curriculum in less than twelve months, Scott taught himself four new languages in a year. In his book Ultralearning, Scott shares the principles and methods that he and other ultralearners employ to quickly master new skills, acquire knowledge, and become good at things that seem impossible to you right now.
Connect with Scott on scotthyoung...
2019-08-062h 02Getting Simple#21: Cristóbal Valenzuela — Machine Learning for CreatorsTechnologist and artist Cristóbal Valenzuela on powering your creative work with artificial intelligence, co-founding RunwayML to put machine learning in the hands of creators, and his take on simple living and creativity.
Cristóbal Valenzuela is a technologist, artist and software developer interested in the intersection between artificial intelligence and creative tools. He is co-founder of Runway and researcher at New York University ITP.
Previously, he co-founded Latent Studio, a creative studio specializing in machine learning and artificial intelligence. He also contributes to OSS and helps maintain ml5.js. His work ha...
2019-07-181h 07Getting Simple#20: Pier Gustafson — Drawing Fast, Thinking SlowArtist and illustrator Pier Gustafson on living a simple life with what makes him smile, the messy creative process behind projects, clients, and deadlines, and being an artist in the twenty-first century.
Pier is an artist who presently designs maps, monograms, logos, invitations and other illustrations usually for print. His passion is drawing. Though he explores various media from simple pencil to the iPad he tends to favor vintage fountain pens, which he collects and repairs and sells to other artists and calligraphers. (A pen made 100 years ago still works and works better than...
2019-06-261h 11Getting Simple#19: Panagiotis Michalatos — Slow Down From What?Panagiotis Michalatos on the luxury of choosing to be simple and the emerging trend of simplicity, the power of intuition, questioning our creative interfaces and workflows, and his love for screens.
Pan Michalatos is an architect, lecturer in architecture technology at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and a Principal Research Engineer at Autodesk. Between 2006 and 2010 he worked as a computational design researcher for the London-based structural engineering firm AKT.
Along with colleague Sawako Kaijima, Pan provided consultancy, and designed computational solutions, for a range of high-profile projects. They have also developed...
2019-05-301h 30Getting Simple#18: Getting Lost on the ToolsNono Martínez Alonso on forgetting who you were trying to help, the main point behind creating tools, and the case of Machina, with Jose Luis García del Castillo y López.
Computer programs help us do things we couldn't do before. Often, programs provide new ways of doing what we were already able to do — faster, easier, more precisely — fostering experimentation and unleashing our creative potential.
At times, though, we get lost along the way. We focus on small details and forget about the whole picture. Trying to make the tool a...
2019-04-3016 minGetting Simple#17: Saba Ghole — On Growth MindsetCEO of NuVu, Saba Ghole, on creating an innovation school & reinventing high school education; growth mindset; art and design as expressive mediums; changing places; simple life habits; technology; and more.
Opportunities to talk to people like Saba Ghole and learn about how they understand life and what drives them to do what they do every day, is what moves me to continue with the Getting Simple project.
"I had a chance to reminisce with Nono about what it means to get simple and embody a growth mindset on his very special podcast...
2019-03-311h 36Getting Simple#16: Matt Jezyk — The War for AttentionTesla's Matt Jezyk on his rituals to slow down and stay afloat amongst all the things competing for your attention; embracing change and automation; techniques to be more creative; the rationale behind his ten-year life cycles; why he just transitioned from Autodesk to Tesla; and a lot more.
Matt works as the Sr. Staff Software Engineer at Tesla in the group that designs and builds the "Gigafactories." He develops software to smooth out the design, fabrication, and construction process. Matt’s group is responsible for developing smart factories for upcoming Tesla products.
Pr...
2019-02-281h 38Getting Simple#15: Antonio García Guerra — A Holistic Approach to YourselfAntonio García Guerra, PhD from the University of Oxford, on the importance of physical activity, social time, and information to be more creative and perform at your maximum cognitive capacity.
Antonio Garcia Guerra is a recently graduated PhD student from the University of Oxford. He was born in Badajoz (Spain), but grew up by the sea in Málaga. In his own words, "The sun didn't wash the nerd away." Antonio studied Biotechnology as an Undergraduate at the Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona. Before graduating, he took a detour and stayed in Boston (USA...
2019-01-291h 01Getting Simple#14: Craig Long — The Unexpected Life PlanCraig Long on how life is in the moments you didn't expect, quieting your inner intensity, helping others achieve complex goals when they don't know where to start, remote working, and disconnecting from technology.
Craig grew up in the mountains of Wyoming wanting to be an architect, and studied architectural engineering with an emphasis in mathematics at University of Kansas. He currently works at Autodesk, Boston, developing software for other designers that — like he did for several years at Zahner — heavily rely on computers to build intricate designs.
After knowing Craig for a fe...
2018-12-201h 29Getting Simple#13: Ben Fry — Co-creator of ProcessingCo-creator of "Processing" and founder of Fathom Information Design — Ben Fry (@ben_fry) — on the beginnings of the Processing programming environment, the use of information design and visualization to understand complicated data problems, and his approach to design, life, & work.
Ben Fry is founder and principal of Fathom Information Design, a studio in Boston focused on understanding complicated data problems. He holds a Ph.D. from the MIT Media Laboratory and is a Lecturer at MIT. Fry has authored and co-authored multiple books and develops "Processing" — the programming environment he co-created with Casey Reas used b...
2018-11-191h 29Getting Simple#12: Jiyoo Jye — The Challenge of ArtArtist, designer, and educator Jiyoo Jye on the struggles of making art and choosing your projects; education at an innovation school as a creative; when to share your work and the role of feedback; media consumption and technology; and her approach to a simpler, greener life.
Jiyoo is a visual artist, designer & educator. She works at NuVu Innovation School, where students learn within an architectural Studio model and create multi-displinary & collaborative projects. Ji has a Master's in Design Studies from Harvard University, Graduate School of Design and a Bachelor's of Fine Arts from Carnegie...
2018-10-1051 minGetting Simple#11: Nathan Melenbrink — Who Decides What's Important to You?Researcher Nathan Melenbrink on his research on simple robots, teaching, his efforts to bring news neutrality to the internet, liking new things, acquiring taste, and much more.
Nathan is a Fellow in Computer Science at the Wyss Institute, where his research focuses on swarm robotics for construction. He has taught courses related to design, computation, robotics and CAD/CAM at institutions such as MIT, Virginia Tech, and the University of Hong Kong, and is currently an Adjunct Professor at Northeastern University. His industry experience as an architect and computational designer includes offices such as...
2018-09-041h 23Getting Simple#10: Nono Martínez Alonso — Who's Up Next?Host Nono Martínez Alonso gives a brief overview of what's new and what's coming to Getting Simple over the next months. Discover who's up next on The Getting Simple Podcast in September, October, and November 2018.
This month's interview features Ian Keough — The Father of Dynamo — who shares insights on working remotely full time, getting started with a startup, the flow state, and a lot more.
New interviews are already underway, listen to this mini-episode and discover who will be on The Getting Simple Podcast in September, October, and November.
Ep...
2018-08-1604 minGetting Simple#9: Ian Keough — How to Make Better Decisions FasterHypar's Ian Keough on automating the generation of the built environment to help stakeholders make better decisions faster, writing code from his garage.
Ian Keough (@ikeough) is the founder of Hypar. He writes code from his garage to automate the generation of the built environment to help stakeholders make better decisions faster. Trained as a fine artist and architect—and known as The Father of Dynamo—Ian believes efficiency breeds quality and automation yields better, higher-quality products. This episode uncovers the Ian Keough beyond Dynamo—including his life habits, tactics to get into the flow s...
2018-08-011h 53Getting Simple#8: Saurabh Mhatre — Space-saving Deployable MechanismsSaurabh Mhatre talks about the simplicity behind deployable systems, the chaos of taking pictures, mindful photography, material science, social media, productivity tools, and more.
Saurabh grew up and studied architecture in Mumbai. He holds a Master in Design Studies with a focus on technology from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he currently explores how flat deployable mechanisms can morph into three-dimensional shapes with minimal actuation, to enable ephemeral uses of mundane items and facilitate their storage and shipment, as part of his research at the Material Processes and Systems...
2018-07-0147 minGetting Simple#7: Julia Hayden — How You Affect the PlanetJulia Hayden talks about how our actions affect the planet, ways to fight our throw-away society and minimize waste, her love for tiny houses, and a lot more.
Self-defined environmental activist, Julia believes her studies at Connecticut College in Environmental Studies and Botany made the ways in which her actions affect the planet be present in her daily life.
She is conscious of the lifecycle of everything she consumes (from production to landfill) and emphasizes the power of communities to give away, lend, share, and repair what breaks to minimize waste.
2018-06-1652 minGetting Simple#6: Peter Boyer — Running Away from Centralized and Addictive TechnologiesPeter Boyer (@ptrbyr) talks about his efforts to run away from notifications and centralized technologies toward decentralized, encrypted-by-default alternatives; and also about self-driving cars, being in relation with nature, addictive technologies, uses of machine learning for design, and a lot more.
Peter defines himself as a software engineer with experience in distributed systems, programming languages, and computer aided design on the web. Self-declared "incapable of getting bored," he believes in learning by doing and by asking naive questions, and enjoys how, in computer programming, experimentation is free — unlike in other disciplines such as architecture or...
2018-05-011h 50Getting Simple#5: Andrés Colubri — A Personal Narrative to Bring Your Interests TogetherAndrés Colubri (@codeanticode) on how he manages to do seemingly different things—such as art, computational biology, or open-source development—by connecting them around one overarching theme.
Andrés grew up in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he obtained his doctoral degree in mathematics at the Universidad Nacional el Sur.
After living in the United States for a while, he went back to Buenos Aires to distance himself from the academic scene and revisit his interests on the visual arts, drawing, and animation. It was then when he crossed paths—and got hooked—w...
2018-04-011h 16Getting Simple#4: Jacob Hamman — Virtual Reality and Life Habits to Prevent and Reverse Alzheimer's DiseaseJacob Hamman on how virtual reality and healthy life habits can help prevent and reverse Alzheimer's disease.
Jacob grew up in Phoenix Arizona. After studying architecture at the University of Southern California (USC), he worked as an architect at Gehry Partners for seven years. He holds a Master in Design Studies in Technology from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where he developed Archiverse, an immersive virtual reality modeling environment to create massing models at early stages of the design of a building.
Jacob's life shifted after his mom was diagnosed with...
2018-03-011h 12Getting Simple#3: Jose Luis García del Castillo y López — Will Robots Simplify Your Life?Jose Luis García del Castillo on robot control accessibility, learning from open-source software, the joy of being an educator, simple living, eating healthy, and more.
Jose Luis is an architect, computational designer, and educator who advocates for a future where programming and code are tools as natural to designers as paper and pencil. In his work, he explores creative opportunities at the intersection of design, technology, fabrication, data, and art. His current research focuses on the development of digital frameworks that help democratize access to robotic technologies for designers and artists. Currently, he i...
2018-02-011h 22Getting Simple#2: Zach Kron — Putting More Ideas Into The Things We MakeZach Kron (@zachkron) talks with Nono about how new digital tools allow designers to work (and wether these tools make our lives simpler), and about life habits, boredom, constant connectivity and disconnection, digital clutter, and more.
Zach describes his daily job as "Banging digital tools with a stick to make them break." Since 2007, Zach has been involved in the research and implementation of software that drives real world building projects and democratizes advanced design practices. Before joining Autodesk—where he is a senior product manager–Zach worked as a designer in several Boston-area architectural offi...
2018-01-011h 09Getting Simple#1: James Melouney — How to Lead Your Best LifeAuthor James Melouney on the art of success, self-motivation, positive habits, and purpose.
James is the author of the book The Art of Success, a book to help others lead their best life.
Connect with James on Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube.
Books
The Art of Success by James Melouney (also available on iTunes, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo)
How To Read a Book by Mortimer J. Adler.
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2017-12-0135 min