SIMPLIFY DESIGN

“The notion is that a normal a very common technique of scammers is to rush you into something, to convince you of the scam by making it sound urgent. And if you wait a little while, stereotypically nine seconds, you can reconsider what they're doing, and then you can evade certain kinds of scams. I screwed up in that respect about ten years ago, but in a small way, I just lost a credit card number.”

“I'm afraid I've lost my confidence in Ivy League schools. How did that happen? Two substantial contributions to Ivy's were fairly ineffective. I should have made those contributions instead of big checks. I should have made them big checks, but given out multiyear based on milestones. So that's a lesson, a little painful, but the money wasn't wasted. It just wasn't used as well as I'd like.”

“Oddly enough, I did become more trusting. Unfortunately, during those years at first, I became less prepared to deal with bad actors, and I learned the hard way that if you're basically, honest, if you believe in the ninth commandment, you will never be able to confront successfully someone who lies for a living. And that was a painful lesson that took a couple years to sink in, and it wasn't a good year or two.”

“A lot of this revolves around communications because a lot of people who do great work, because they're skilled in the work, are not skilled in terms of communications. I'm now considering two big grants both at the same major university in the neighborhood, and I need to help them understand that they can't rely on university marketing communications to do a good job. They'll have to do it themselves.”

“Well, I just would wander in. I would introduce myself. They would panic. Then there would be introductions and photography. The deal is I wasn't out there, oh, to bust their chops. I just figured I needed to learn more about what was going on because while those ads were free, at one point, they started posting the same ads over and over and over again so that those sections were just unusable. I spoke to a lot of new apartment brokers, and they said that they didn't wanna have to post the same ads over and over again, and that if we charged a few dollars for those ads, that would solve the problem.”

“My gut tells me with no evidence is that people aren't genuine, aren't real on dating apps. The only basis for this thought is about twenty five years ago before Craigslist had dating sections, I met several women who told me they used the roommate ads for dating because in a roommate ad, a guy would be relatively honest. And not married, one.”

“The big problem is that people to do successful sites as time went on had to compete more and more. That meant they had to attract a venture capital, I guess, who made more and more demands of them, where people had to, extract whatever dollars they could out of their sight, and then I guess that began a process of what Corey Doctorow calls enshittification. He captured the process much better than I just articulated it.”

“What I find problematic is that when they have layers of management and too much spread out responsibility, there may not be enough accountability, multiple levels of sign offs slow things down. They operate very responsibly with annual budgeting and so on, and they do so in a way often that's too rigid. Plus, when they reach a certain size, like a 150, I think it's Dunbar number, then one part of the nonprofit doesn't know what the other part is doing.”

“He said that small talk is just bullshit leaving the body. And speaking as someone with very limited social skills, that's a way of life for me. I don't quite have the personal hygiene issues he has. Although as I get older, I use aging as an excuse for issues.”

“Well, let's say that there are some luxuries I enjoy. All the books I want, all the streaming TV I want, and my real idea of luxury is a really good shower. For me, a really good shower has good pressure. Doesn't have to be strong, but it needs to be strong enough. It has to be a walk in shower because of my previously mentioned decrepitude. I, don't wanna fall. And, also not wanting to fall, I want a grab bar. I'm afraid having grab bars everywhere is now becoming a household design criteria for me, and I wish that was a joke.”