Getting Simple

Andy 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 wor...

Andy 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...

Ian 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] dec...

Alex 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 b...

Zach 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 advance...

Nono 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...

Leire 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 Univer...

Frank 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 Associa...

Experiments 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 Mode...

Thoughts 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 Spi...

My 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...

Andrew 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...

Adam 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 cont...

Nate 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 e...

A 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...

Jordan 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...

Podcasting, 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 th...

Host 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 tec...

Host 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...

Host 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...

Host 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 atten...

Host 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, w...

Reclaiming 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...

Host 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...

Host 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 learne...