H'm Manny Noah, and this is Devin and this is no such thing the show where we set up our dumb arguments and yours by actually doing the research.

On today's episode, why does everything suck?

No, there's no no such thing.

No touch than no touch, thank no touch, thank no touch thank.

All Right, fellas, Welcome to Devin Design Week, which is not a week.

It's just one episode of the podcast.

It will take you a week.

Break it up.

Uh, this is gonna be mostly me complaining about things in my life that I hate the design of.

So we're gonna be talking about Tesla door handles, We're gonna be talking about Michael Waves, and we're gonna be talking about couches.

So let's get right into it.

Let's dive in.

It's one am.

You know, you're at a bar.

It's a little too late.

You don't want to take the subway home, Pull up the Uber and lift ap.

You're comparing prices.

You call a car and Uber is a little bit cheaper.

And look what you got.

I got damn Tesla.

Helping the environment.

Helping the environment, sure, but why the fuck is it so hard to open the door in the Dan Tesla?

I don't know how to open this.

I'm poor.

I don't know how to open that.

I want to see you open the door.

You gotta grab it by your thumb.

Try it again, try it again.

Look, this is politics aside for this conversation.

I'm gonna be neutral on Elon Musk.

I love that, Okay, I love this.

The bumper stickers people get.

Oh, yeah, I got this before you shut the hell up.

No, it's where.

Do they buy those?

Even?

It's like, what the hell?

Anyway, So he's a genius.

This is great.

What have you ever done?

So?

And I will say this, you know, before I talk all this ship about Tesla's I'm not a car guy at all, you know, but people love to be like, what what car like?

If you could get your dream car, what would you get?

So for a while there, I was like, I don't know, Tesla's look kind of cool.

Yeah, that would be kind of cool to have a Tesla.

But then do y'all remember when Tesla started being on like Uber and left, and I would when I would see it, I'm like, oh, cool, it's a Tesla.

But then you get inside, I'm like, oh, these are not like the inside of Tesla's are not that nice, like they like you think of other luxury vehicles like Mercedia.

Yeah, yeah, you know, yeah, you get.

In, it's like comfortable, there's like, you know, cupholder.

It's like it just feels like more complete.

Yeah.

And I would get in these teslas and outside of the screen showing like the street, I was like, this feels kind of like a budget car, Like it's not comfortable, right, Like it's maybe the ride is a little bit smoother, but obviously the biggest issue is like what are we doing.

With the damn door handles?

Yeah, to get in is one thing.

All right, you're outside, You're like you got to push it in a certain way to like for it to come out, so you could pull it so that you can open up the door.

It's a little bit awkward, like your finger gets a little.

Bit of not much to grass.

No, once you even get it out.

Yep.

Is it a like I always wonder, is it a two hand operation where like you push one side, the other side pops in and then you grab it with that side.

But like every why do that?

You know, every other door?

That's one one thing we don't really complain about with anymore.

How to open them.

You know.

No one was like, yeah, it's like that.

One was like it's so hard to open a car door.

It's like, we got it.

You know, like the handles pretty ergonomic.

You know, you kind of do it.

It's pretty natural, opens up pretty easily.

Yeah.

The weird thing is because like I remember hearing some you know, Tesla super fans being like the point is that the car handle is hidden.

It's like flush now.

Yeah, but but like so many cars do that like in a way where like it's it looks invisible, but you can get under the handle and then pull it out, so it doesn't feel like a good excuse.

And then you know, getting in is one thing.

What's even worse is once you're in the car, I still to this day have not figured it out, and you're trying to get out, you gotta press the button.

Every time I do it, I'm putting the window.

Or like locking the car.

You got to press the button to like get out or something.

And I still don't quite understand how to do it because every time I'm doing it, I'm putting the window down a little bit like you're saying it's locking unlocking, and I'm like, how do I just open the door.

Well, we've been trained growing up in like the early two thousands, once cars were fine, like the ubiquity of cars were electric in the windows and the door locks.

We've been trained to look at a button that shows a car door and press that to lock the car lock the door.

Now, I mean, it does feel like kind of self explanatory, but like that's just what we think where we think we were locking it.

So when I see the button in the Tesla, I'm looking for a handle or something.

And every time, you know, it's when I get in there, I get kind of doory brain where I'm like, Okay, what did I do last time?

I don't remember because I'm like whatever I did last time was wrong.

Whatever I need to do now is but I didn't do last time, And every time I do it, I do the wrong thing.

And it's just like, why, what is the purpose?

There must be some sort of purpose to this.

There must be a reason that he has redesigned the car door handle, right, They're like, they're not just doing it to fuck with us.

Any theories as to why the outside makes sense to something like you're saying it could be flush a little bit more aerodynamic, you know, nothing sticking out?

Okay, yeah, why are the inside Why on the inside?

What is going on on the inside.

I would imagine if this was my car, Yeah, imagine by now.

I wouldn't understand how to use it.

But especially like you were saying at one a m.

Yes for me, oftentimes two, three, four am and I cannot put to I'm half asleep.

Yeah, and now I'm in the dark trying to figure out how to open my door, like I'm a three year.

Old and the driver's like yelling yeah.

I like in some some of them they put instructions.

You ever see They're.

Like, here's how you opened the door.

Study this, And I'm like, okay, we as adults can't figure this out.

It's too complicated.

That's not something I should have to think about when I'm getting into or out of a car.

All right, So that's the first thing.

Then I'm gonna get to the bottom of so number two on the things that I don't like.

Microwaves.

All right, I got a new microwave about six months ago.

My old microwave was randomly sparking.

Oh, so I just got like, okay, this is like a reasonably priced microwave that will fit in this slot, because that was the big thing I was concerned about, is just like the sizing of it.

So I got this new microwave, and for the most part, it's fine.

I'm someone who relies heavily on just add thirty seconds a button for most of this stuff I'm putting in there, and just do add thirty seconds.

Yeah, But over the last week or two, I've been trying to be a little bit more prescriptive with the microwave.

Right, So, like, for example, I was melting some butter.

I was having some seafood thing.

I was like, Okay, I'm gonna melt some butter for this.

I was like, okay, there's a soft oh yeah, melt button soft and meltain.

So I clicked that.

Nothing happens, all right, okay, so that gay.

Maybe I clicked that and then hit another.

Button like it didn't turn on nothing, Yeah.

It didn't turn on.

So I hit the soft melt then one.

Then it's like there's an S two on the on the microwave.

What the hell does that mean?

So I'm like, all right, I just hit start.

Nothing happens.

So then I'm just like, well, you know, clear it all out.

Yeah, just add thirty seconds and keep an eye on it.

Yeah yeah, it just butter.

Yeah.

But then you know they have the popcorn button.

There's other things on there.

It's like potato button.

Yeah yeah, like the frosty steak yehoa yep yeah.

And I feel like anytime I try to do anything outside of plus thirty seconds, I'm like, I got to rate a manual to use this.

Why isn't it Like, what's the point of the button If it's not simple?

Right, If you have a button, I should be able to press it and then just do the thing.

Mm hmm.

Yeah.

It's like the the Kevin Garnet and uncut jams.

What the fuck would you show me something?

If I couldn't have it, then what the would you bring it out?

Exactly?

Know what's your experience been with microwaves?

You have a positive microwave experience?

I try not to on my Maha stuff, I try to avoid the microwave oh less.

Honestly, growing up, my parents always had us cover the things in the markets.

Yes, yeah, I guess for health safety.

I don't know.

No, it's to keep it from splashing all over the place.

Oh no, ours was like a health thing.

I don't know health of what.

It was just like warming it up without exposing it to the other things in there.

I don't know.

Wait, okay, what are you covering it with?

Like another plate you had?

Oh okay, another plate.

Or sometimes microwaves come with the yeah, the plastic cover.

Yeah, remember we did a microwave cover thing.

Yeah, but that was more it would heat up well yeah and stop stop.

I could be wrong, but I think it was more like we don't want to have it in their raw to the microwaves.

We don't want that for a comedy.

We don't want the microwaves to do what they're supposed to want all that.

Just like halfway use it.

We just like a spinning in there, don't be we don't want the microwaves touching it.

Gross.

But yeah, I just feel like, you know, back to you know, the whole reason is Devin Design week.

I just feel like, why haven't we designed a more intuitive microwave?

You know, if I need to rate a manual to understand how to use it, then it just shouldn't be it.

It shouldn't be a button.

And then my third scenario here right, this one is I've been thinking about for a long time.

Like I've been in New York work gone on ten years.

Right before I moved to New York, I moved with two other of my good friends.

We stopped at some furnisure thrift store in Jersey on the way to like moving.

We got like, okay, we got to make an Ikea run and we got to stop on one of these furniture stores and get a get a couch.

So the couch we got was used.

It's kind of like old school, got a kind of like a floral print.

But We're like, this couch is so comfortable, and it was cheap.

It was like two hundred and fifty bucks.

Wow.

And so I've had that couch ever since.

And I will say this, this, my couch is the one of the most comfortable couches I've ever sat on.

Wow.

Okay, but.

It's had you know, it's had its it's fair share of wear in terms of like I've had, you know, multiple pets now on this couch.

Ten years of people sitting on it.

You know, things have spilled, you know, the threads are coming a bit unlose.

It was used at the time, So this couch is probably twenty years old.

If not that, but the structure of it, you know, this is an old school couch or the structure of it is solid.

Right, you sit on it, it's comfortable, it's not falling apart.

It's not like those Ikea couches where you like, if somebody sitting on one side, you're tilted over.

But it's about time for a new couch to come to my life.

Yepo.

So I've been looking around, I would say for the last five years, it may be longer than that.

I've been thinking about getting a new couch.

I've been going to places, I've been sitting on couches.

I've been looking online.

We are at a point in this country.

I don't know if this is true across the world.

Well, we have lost our way with couches.

Wow, And I'm telling you why.

We got basically two versions of couches nowadays.

Right.

We either have a couch that looks beautiful, beautifully designed like aesthetically if no one's sitting on it, wow, take a picture lovely, right, and then we have couches that are comfortable, not good to look at.

My couch not much to look at.

But you sit on that thing, you don't want to get up.

You're comfortable, like you know, you send in it, you could just you could fall asleep in it and your bus not hurting after sending it for twenty you know your back's not hurting.

And no one has figured out a way to do both of these things at a reasonable price.

That is, I agree with you there.

Couches are expenses.

Thousands and thousands of dollars for couches.

So let me ask you to how do you feel about your current couches?

Where did you get them?

So we got our couch.

It's a Hay couch heard of Hey the company?

Yes, nice, but we got to use so it wasn't as expensive.

They're not cheap though, Hay couches are not cheap.

I think we damn.

I mean it was.

I think it's fifteen hundred use more than one.

But the guys who had it previously were giving it on a huge discount, and they hadn't used it that much.

They hadn't use it two months or something.

They had to leave the city for some for whatever reason, you got to go.

So we got a really good deal on it.

Looks great, It looks great.

How comfortable is it I've only sat on it, y'all usually said it's really comfortable.

I fall right asleep on this thing.

The thing, the thing that makes it so comfortable is the depth.

It's so deep in uh in the you know.

The material is good.

So your hay one you're happy with.

We're happy with it.

But it's too big to fit in that living room.

See, this is another issue which I did not even mention living in New York.

It's size.

So I don't have that big of an apartment, so I need a couch, and like you said, I want a couch with a little bit of debt in the seat.

I don't want to be sitting on my couch and half my leg is off the couch.

I want to be able to sit in it.

But it also can't have a huge footprint, right that.

I have a small apartment, so it needs to I need to have a lot of room from my ass and everything else is pretty you know, to the couch.

And that's that's another issue.

So your hey couch, like you're saying, good seat, but it's kind of bag.

No, it's your couch story.

I'm trying to think we bought a couch.

I think maybe West mm hmm, maybe two years ago.

Now it's it's comfy, it's it's big, and it's got like the extra little section.

Okay, little Chase, Yeah yeah, So yeah, this is like, okay, we're actually gonna got a nice I had like a wayfair cheap little thing before.

It's like, all right, we're gonna get a nice upgrade.

This is something like we can move with us and like.

Take care of how you feeling about two years later.

I like it.

It's it's comfy, it's it's got a good depth, and like I could lay down and sleep on this and be pretty like definitely once while I'm there at three o'clock just relaxing.

Yeah, I got some music go on.

I'm happy with it.

I don't think it'll be my couch for my entire life, but.

See, but that's the way it used to be.

It used to be you buy a couch, my couch, and that's your couch until your kids, you know, are grown.

But now I feel like we get couches.

You've had this couch two years, you're already thinking about moving on from it, you know, you're talking about it.

I'm not gonna have it by rest of my life.

We used to have good couches.

And the other thing is the couches the build nowadays suck.

So many of the couches I see like because I'll see someone post a couch and I'll look up, Okay, this was son specific couch, someone who's had it for three or four years, and they're like, Oh, I love the couch when I first got it.

Now it's singing in there's things falling apart, like the structures are in as good.

And then the other issue you have is that if you want to get a couch, I know it's not as bad as it was during COVID, but you gotta wait a while.

Also, how am I expected to buy a couch online that I've never sat in?

Yeah, this is crazy anymore these places.

If you're an online couch place, you got to have a showroom.

I got to sit my ass on.

I'm not buying a couch.

I'm not sitting on all Right, we're gonna take a quick break, and when we get we're gonna hear about why some people are calling Tesla's door handles deadly.

We're gonna hear about the Steve Jobs microwave, and last but not least, we're gonna figure out what you should do if you're looking to buy a new couch.

Welcome to Week two of Devin Design.

Week.

Before the break, we were complaining about Tesla door handles a podcast.

Okay, you know time is a constructs Yeah, before the break, and we were complaining about three things got Tesla door handles, microwaves in modern day couches.

So I tracked down some experts to help us get to the bottom of all of my design qualms.

So first up, we're gonna tackle my issue with Tesla's annoyingly complicated door handles.

So I called up to someone who's been following this issue very closely.

My name is Arian Marshall, and I'm a staff writer Wired, where I write about transportation and tech.

So I really wanted Arion to break down the difference between a regular door handle and a Tesla door handle.

Automakers for many, many years have been showing off these kind of cool electronic door handles that only respond to you when you're close to them, and for a long time it was something you just saw on concept cars.

So it was like one of these things that was like that'd be cool and sexy one day, but like not practical until Tesla did it and they started doing on production cars in the twenty tens, and from a design perspective, there were a lot of people really excited about that because it was like, Wow, this is something that we didn't think made any sort of practical sense and just kind of looks cool.

Tesla likes to argue that it gives them a smidge more range because it makes the cars more aerodynamic because the door handles can be flat to the side of the car.

Some people have done sort of back of the envelope calculations and it really only gives them like a mile of extra range, so not a big deal, but it was like a cool, sexy, exciting thing.

Is that like the thinking behind the redesign is like it's more futuristic, it looks cooler.

Is that really?

Is there any functionality that's better outside of like you're saying, maybe saving a mile on your electric range?

Yeah, that kind of seems to be it.

It's I mean, one of the big things that people are looking for in luxury vehicles in New ebs is this real car of the future sense, And it's kind of become a signal that like, this is a future car.

It kind of feels like a spaceship, Like it feels like you're in the future.

And that's one way that car designers have found to really say like, Hey, we're going for it.

This this is a cool one.

Look at us.

I mean, why can't you have an aerodynamic car handle that is in a pain in the ass to open.

That's a really good point, mister musk, get on that.

So one thing I learned through this process too.

Right last time we were talking about you're in the back of a Tuesla, you're trying to get out, You're pressing the button.

The window's going down.

What the hell's going on?

So I learned that the window going down is a thing that actually happens on purpose.

You know, when you press that button and the window goes down a little bit.

Oh, when you're getting out of the car, that's the right button.

Window, that's the right button you're hitting.

I always thought, oh, I pressed the wrong button.

The windows going down, that's the window button.

I gotta press another button to get out.

Wow.

But no, So when you go to open the Tusla doors, whether you're in the outside or inside, the window goes down a little bit.

So that it can clear the trim.

So Tesla's have what's called like a tremless window, so the window goes right up to the roof, so ife weres to try to open the door while the window was completely up.

The window could potentially break because there's a seal that the window forms with the top of the roof, So the window goes down a little bit to break that seal so that you can open the door easily.

Wow.

So this blew my mind because I thought every time I was leaving the car, I'm pressing the wrong but I'm putting the window.

Then you're trying to go out too fast.

Essentially, Yes, you know, I need to press the button, give it up, due, Okay, now I can continue.

But I was pressing the button and thinking, oh shit, this is the wrong button.

Then I just stop and I'm like, I don't know what the private How do I get out?

And He's like, no, you idiot, that's what's supposed to happen.

But no one has ever explained that to me.

This is the first time I'm hearing of it.

That's why I love this podcast.

You learned something new every day.

All right, So Tesla does this thing that looks cool, right, they got these new door handles, they're automakers actually start copying them.

But despite it looking cool, there are some real complaints about this Tussel door handle.

Outside of me just being petty.

Bloomberg published this big report that really went deep into the issues with these door handles because they're electronic.

If the twelve volt battery that powers the car, so that's not like the big electric vehicle battery, but the littler battery that powers other little kind of incidental parts of the car, if it dies, you might not be able to get in or out of your car, really inconvenient.

Tesla and other automakers do have mechanical releases, but where those mechanical releases are is different in every car.

There's no kind of standard, and there have been complaints that in Tesla vehicles, particularly also in the vehicles from ribbyan another electric car maker, they are really hard to find, and that's like kind of inconvenient.

But in an emergency situation, if your car's on fire, if your child is in the back of your if you've exited the car and you're going to get the car seat and they're locked in the car, they can't find a mechanical release, So there have been some complaints and now we've seen actually there have been at least two lawsuits fired where people have alleged that people have died because they've gotten stuck in tesla's while the teslas have been on fire and the people have been unable to accept the cars because they've been unable to find these mechanical releases in time to escape.

So scary bad stuff, like something that looks cool but maybe has a serious downside.

Yeah, So, because these handles are electric, if something happens to your car battery, if there's a fire, you have to use a mechanical release to open the door.

And I was just poking around, like the mechanical cool releases are not like sometimes near the door, the sometimes under.

Seats and stuff.

So it's not in a place that you would naturally think to look like, Okay, this door handle isn't working all right, right next to it, I press this button and then it will do the same thing.

It's like you kind of need to know before you get into that situation what to do.

And I imagine most people, you know, you're not researching where are a mechanical release is in educating everyone who's going to be in your car or.

Do we know where the Tesla mechanical release.

It's different for each car.

There isn't like a standard for every single test.

Last it's in this spot.

Wow mm hmm, yep.

I remember reading about this like a year ago.

There was like some horrific crash.

The family of one of the victims of last year's deadly cyber truck crash in Piedmont is now suing Tesla.

Three college students died in the crash.

A lawsuit filed by the family of Christazukahara claims she suffered only minor injuries in the crash, but couldn't get out of the car or be rescued after the vehicle's main battery caught fire.

They say she died from either the flames or from smoke inhalation.

The family blames the cyber truck's door design.

A statement from the family reads, quote, her death was preventable.

We are filing this lawsuit not just for accountability, but because there are other families out there who may never know the risks until it's too late.

But it does seem like some changes are coming to the Tesla door handles.

Earlier this year, the Chinese regulator that that looks over like technology in the country put out a memo that they were going to be finally regulating these door handles.

So it seems like it will require Tesla to redesign make the mechanical release kind of next to or like right with the electronic door handles, so if, for example, the battery dies, you can still use the door handle really easily.

Tesla has now said that they're redesigning their door handles.

They came out and said this in September, and they're head of design went on TV and said, hey, we want to make this more intuitive to use.

Have you considered a redesign or a fix for these issues.

We actually have a mechanical release that's you know, basically right at the electronic one two, and we're combining the two so you know, in the moments that you're in a panic situation, the muscle memory to go to you know, what you know is right there, so you just pull a little bit further on the lever and you have the mechanical release.

So that's something that we're working on.

Yeah, and the reason why China is doing it is because they had a highly publicized incident where a Chinese automaker with these door handles, someone was driving in one of these cars.

They got into a crash and it seems that, uh, the person got trapped in the car and died while it was on fire.

And there's kind of an interesting dynamic here because I think a lot of people still have the idea that like things are underregulated in China.

It's the wild West in terms of products, like they're doing whatever, they're putting out whatever.

But actually China has been really at the fore run of auto regulations specifically, so we're now getting to this place where like the rest of the world might be taking cues from what China is doing.

And you said there was some news that broke today on this what was that news.

Yeah, So the news this morning is that the NITSA, the US regulator, put out a letter that said that they have gotten even more complaints from consumers about this door handle issues since they first announced their probe a few weeks ago, so they're basically like expanding the probe.

And then the other news that came out today is that there is a the family of a Wisconsin couple who died last year after their Tesla caught fire.

Are actually suing Tesla because they say that they were unable to There were actually five people in that car, and they say they were unable to escape because the door handles got stuck or didn't work.

The lawsuit claims Tesla's door design trap the couple inside the burning car.

The family is seeking to hold Tesla accountable for allegedly designing vehicles that make survivaal crashes fatal.

That's horrible.

It's like, looks cool, but yeah, you can get trapped in it.

You know, if your car's on fire.

Maybe not worth the cool design to ye.

Yeah, And there's a I think there's a a sort of interesting balance and I'm sure you see this not only in cars, but like the entire tech world, where it's like, we can do this with engineering.

Is it worth it?

Is it better than the stuff we have right now?

Like, it looks cool, it's fun, but does it like does does the wheel Like should we just stick with the wheel?

Do we need to reinvent the wheel?

Maybe we should just stick with the wheel that was working.

Yeah.

Yeah, it feels like with the car innovations, it made sense when windows stopped being like the roll up thing switched to the button because I don't know, it's like easier, it's like us easier.

But but for the door, it's like it hadn't solved the problem.

Like it's electric, but we're still pushing it with our you know, with physical force.

But it looks cool.

Couch for something.

Yeah, Next on things I hate for Devin design a week, we have microwaves, So we're actually gonna call up a fellow member of the Kaleidoscope family and three times Emmy Award winning journalists and hosts of the hit podcast Kill Switch Extra, Thomas.

All Right, Dexter, thank you for joining us.

I'm very happy to be here.

What's going on here?

You know, we just got done talking about Tesla door handles, and now we're on to number two on my list of things I don't like, which are microwaves.

Yes, we've all talked about our own microwave journeys, but I'm curious to hear about your own microwave journey.

So I hate my microwave.

There's like two branching thoughts here, like I really hate my microwave.

I bought it, I want to say I bought on an eBay or something like that, and there's so many buttons on it like that you can't really tell what's going on at a glance.

Like I think any kind of good design, you should be able to understand what's going on immediately.

Here's what you got to do with it, you know what I mean.

And it's like the start button is exactly the same size as the zero button, and it's also close to it, and there's all these different mode buttons, and so you walk to it, and you know you're tired or you're you know, inebriated.

You're tired and inebriated, and you don't know what to do with the microwave, and like you should be able to.

It's a microwave.

It's meant to make your life simple.

So why am I having difficulty when I want to warm up some soup?

So I've been thinking about that a lot.

And then at the same time, have y'all heard of the Steve Jobs microwave?

No, every once in a while, a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything.

The Steve Jobs microwave is Steve Jobs famously said we're gonna get to this, but famously said that any microwave should only have I think, like two buttons, which is the plus thirty second button and the start button, and that's it.

And I saw that online somewhere and I said, you know what, this actually makes a lot of sense.

And then I got curious and I started looking it up.

I don't think this dude said that.

Oh wow, got a classic Mark Twain situation.

Exactly.

Yes.

Yes, So I've been spending way too long on this, like way too long on this, and like the best that I can find is a bunch of people posting this on LinkedIn.

Oh it's a classic LinkedIn post.

Exactly.

This has the energy of like that quote as the energy of like very much.

It'll be like Steve Jobs famously said that a microwave should only have two.

It's really all about getting down to what's important.

And that's why I've laid off seventy percent of the people who I employed.

And it's really all about being powerful, Yeah, down to the essentials.

I really think this dude didn't say it, but there is maybe he did.

Maybe he did.

I just can't find the source of it.

Like I see it on Twitter, I've seen it on LinkedIn.

I've gone back as far as I can maybe I could do more research.

I don't know.

But whoever came up with this I think actually is correct.

I think they're actually right.

And so what I did, and just just as an experiment, like I tried looking around to see, okay, is there a microwave that only has a thirty second like a thirty plus thirty seconds stop and start?

Yeah, you know what I mean?

Those three I think, yeah, those are those?

Are it?

Oh?

Yeah?

Yeah?

And so.

I tried it.

I tried making my own Steve Jobs microwave.

What yeah, yeah, like not.

I can't.

I can't build microwaves like that.

I'm not no, no, yeah, you know, I three D print in my own microwaves.

No got a kickstarted going, yeah exactly, maybe maybe after this maybe we should started.

I don't know.

The Steve Jobs microwave, no such things.

Steve Jobs microwave sounds pretty good.

But so what I did was I honestly just duct tape.

I just put tape over everything I don't want.

And so the number pad blacked out, like all the different options blacked out, the logo blacked out.

I forgot who makes it?

The lawn.

I can't even diss the microwave manufacturing more because I forgot who made it.

It's just my microwave now everything every so it's not dug tape is like black tape.

But I've had it like that for like a year.

It's great.

So you blacked out everything.

But thirty seconds start and stop.

That's it.

Wow, that's it life changing.

You can walk up, you can be tired, you can be anebriad, you can be a combination of the above.

And there's only three buttons of press.

And it's not stop because it's not running.

It's not start because there's no time on it.

I guess I've better push thirty one option?

Really, like, do you only have one option?

And really, really you could pull out you could take out the stop.

Yeah, you can just open the.

Door because we could get it down to one button.

Frankly, there's one big button right there.

You could punch it just like you're mad.

Kind of.

In Yeah, this is perfect.

It's just a door.

Yeah, why I mean is on the is the door that way?

It could be you know a little smaller, Yeah, get more space for other things.

More viewing, Yeah there yeah, yeah, but we need to patent this before this episode comes out.

Yeah, we're going to be listening to this.

That's like true Nirvana, right, yeah, Singularity.

That was Dexter Thomas from the podcast kill Switch.

I absolutely want to see all this like email inbox or discord or whatever.

You guy.

Like like a week later, somebody's like, hey, y'all, I got it.

It's like a working prototype.

Stay tuned after the break.

Couches.

Couches, couches.

Third on the list for Devin Design Week was couches as a reminder.

I've been on the market for a couch for you know, last four or five years now.

Was this man sitting.

I have a couch.

I just want to get a new one.

You know.

I've been struggling to find something that's both comfortable and affordable.

Huh.

So I had to figure out why is it so hard for me to find a couch?

So I called out Sammy Reese.

My name is Sammy res I write the Snake Newsletter, which is on furniture and design, with mostly a focus on vintage furniture pieces.

I moved into the apartment i'm still in about twelve thirteen years ago, and it wasn't a time where it was very easy to get information on design if you were just kind of a regular consumer.

And I knew a little bit about you know, emes and so on, but not that much.

And I was convinced that there was good stuff out there because I needed to buy furniture, you know, sofa, couch, coffee table, all this stuff from my apartment.

So he spent some time doing some research, reading some design books, and talking to people in the design world, and soon he became known by people in the media industry as the design Guy.

And one thing that Sammy has written a lot about is this idea that although we as a society have gotten better in terms of fashion as a whole, it seems like we're lagging behind when it comes to design.

I don't think that's controversial.

I think probably I don't want to speak for a lot of people, but most people in design would agree with that.

Some of it, I think is just a function of the logistics of you know, furniture and clothing.

You can only have one couch at a time in your house.

Couches are more expensive than even a pair of you know, wildly expensive designer.

But one thing I think that's happened with why fashion has sort of gotten the head so much of design is that in the last kind of fifteen years, what we've seen a lot is sort of a vernacular understanding of fashion, either through street style or through Instagram photos of people's outfit.

Here are three things that you will find in my closet this fall in winter, let's.

Make the best lava that you've seen all fall.

So far, or through you know, photos of people on the runway, as opposed to let's say twenty years ago when there wasn't really any vernacular regular people dressing and then so that becoming more popular as well as the rise of vintage, and the rise of vintage effectively is all the clothing ever made is now available as opposed to just what is popular this season or what's being sold this season.

Has just kind of created a massive marketplace, i think for clothing and has allowed just people to dress better, which is a long long way of saying that there really isn't anything like that.

For design, it's very difficult to see different examples of people's homes that are outfitted in you know, really either point of vieways or beautiful ways or impressive ways.

For the most part, what we see are professionally interior designed.

Homes Hey day.

It's kindall general, welcome to my house, come on in, And those are going to be designed a little differently than someone who you know, goes to the flea market, you know, every week, or has been.

Gifted a couch.

And then some of it too is I think, you know again, fron Chow is more expensive.

The comparison to the popularity of like vintage clothing makes a lot of sense, because you don't really go to someone's apartment and see that they have a couch that's like from a different era, like on purpose, like they didn't seek out some old era couch.

I guess some like.

Right, ye, but it's not to your point, it's not as common as like everyone has some sort of you know, rift store vintage peer of something at this point.

And then if it's a couch from all the way back, then it probably is, you know, the integrity of it is like way less quality, like if it's actually from.

Back the I think you're going to learn something.

I think you're gonna learn some things.

Many good thing you're on.

Good thing you're on.

No such thing.

Yeah, now, I think there's just fewer.

I agree with him completely.

I think there's fewer examples of like, you know, if someone has like a really nice house, we've all seen it and talked about it at lant.

You know, it's like we are all sharing the same five references over and over again.

Yeah, all right, So getting back to couches, I wanted to know why do modern day couches suck.

The main explanation for this from you know, working on this, looking at this stuff talking to people in the industry is that material costs and labor costs are so much higher now than they were in the nineteen sixties, when maybe that was the last gasp of original American furniture that was designed really with a point of view, but it was also aimed towards you know, working people, young families, which is another way of saying it was very affordable.

And since then, if you were to make a sofa that was similar to I know, let's say the Eames Executive sofa, it's a nice, almost simple, you know, leather sofa, metal, you know, chrome legs, nothing really crazy.

We've all seen it like one hundred times.

And if you were to make something like that new, it sells.

It's got a sofa like I'm fifteen k now, but it's that's an emes.

There's no way to get that cost down to something reasonable, or that's what they say anyways.

And the other kind of more almost even granular explanations is that, well, you know, the wood has to be shipped in from China, and the timber is more expensive now and they're using lousier pieces of timber compared to the wood that they were using sixty years ago, which is why it's almost counterintuitive.

But you know, you buy an eight thousand dollars sofa in twenty twelve and it's not going to last, and this five hundred dollars sofa that your grandparents bought in the fifties.

Is a show room piece.

Still there you go, man, have any apologies to me?

I meant more, if you're getting a couch that was made in the eighties, it's been used so much that.

No, that's what that that's Yeah, I hear exactly what you're saying, and I disagree.

Okay, I think it holds up that.

If you put the twenty twelve couch in nineteen eighty, it'd be dull party.

Yes, we can at least have a conversation about the eighties couch.

So I wanted to ask him, you know, Sammy's an expert on design, what should someone like me do who's out on the market for a couch would be saying these new couches suck.

What What would your guidance to be for someone who like me who's looking to get a new couch.

Do we just got to buy advantage?

Is that the workaround?

Yeah?

I mean so selfishly because of my newsletter, which just guides people towards, you know, vintage furniture that you can buy it like normal accessible price.

Either that means you know, soelfa that sells for you know, four hundred five hundred bucks on an auction site.

And then the reason why it's so cheap is because you have to go through the little bit of a headache of setting up the auction, getting the shipping towards you.

And that's not too difficult.

I guide people through that.

But also even if I weren't writing this newsletter, it's effectively that's that's that's what I believe is the really it has the best value.

Vintage has the best value, but also has the most variety.

You ultimately have to buy a couch for yourself you're not buying something that you see, you know, on someone else's Instagram or in a magazine or you know, in a storefront or something like that.

It has to really click and you know, speak to you.

I guess maybe if you're a creative, esthetically minded person, let's say you want to kind of feel in your solar plexus or you want to have some sort of connection that you like when you're rifling through a racket a store or on eBay, you see something and you hear the click, and you're like, these are the pants for me?

And there's you know, one hundred pants on the rack, and they're all, if we're being honest with each other, they're all pretty much the same.

But one of them just speaks to you.

And there is that exists in design and furniture.

There's so much out there it's it's almost mind boggling.

So I hear this, it makes sense to me.

I think of like, all the couches that I see that I like the most are some sort of vintage pieces, especially like if I go to like you know, like furniture shore rooms or whatever.

Yeah.

But my one concern, which we kind of talked about with the online couches.

Is like, you don't get to do the sit tests.

Yeah, so it might look cool, no solve for that yet, But then I get delivered to my house.

What if it's not What if I don't you know, I don't love it in person?

Well so there isn't a test, and that is a thing.

And it's also you can sort of eyeball it a little bit.

Yeah, yeah, you know, you can email, you can email the highles and just be like, hey, is this a puffy couch?

Is you know, like is it comfortable.

A lot of this is my bias saying like, hey, look just buy vintage.

It's not a big deal, you know.

Or it is a big deal.

It's a pain in the butt, but it's not the world's biggest deal, especially if you're buying a vintage piece that's effectively liquid.

You know.

So so if you buy a pair of Levi's on eBay and they don't really fit you, but they're old Levi's with the you know, biggie, you can sell tomorrow, you know.

And it's the same thing with this furniture.

If you're willing to sort of take an l and get rid of a couch that you hate, for a couch that you think is like pretty.

Cool, there's sort of an endless supply.

Like if you were to buy one of these live octioneer couches and it's passes the eye test that it's pretty comfortable, and if you know, in April you decide you don't like it, you could sell it all my classifieds.

You'll get most of some of your money back, and then also you'll have the added advantage of you'll have leveled up your taste.

M h.

And that's the big thing I think is, you know, to level up your style, you you go through you know, four different style you know, evolutions and variations, and you go from this gene to this gene to this shoe to this shoe.

And the key I think to having a bigger, more robust kind of design understanding is people doing that.

It makes sense too.

And when thinking about like I, you so always think I would never order clothes online because I would have to try it first, but I've completely gotten used to it and yeah, obviously much different than like a giant couch.

But what he's saying makes sense.

It is interesting, like after having talked to him, you know, like someone who's so passionate about this stuff and actually, you know, does it for a living or whatever?

He does kind of change your mindset of like, yeah, why don't I just like take a risk and like do the thing.

And I think that like you was saying that, like you got to try some shit out to see like what works makes so much sense.

I think with like designed and furniture in our homes, we're just so like, all right, I get one shot at this.

If it doesn't work out, I'm stuck with it and I can't change.

My mind at least five or sixty Yeah, it's.

Like until it breaks essentially right, And it's like, no, why don't you buy something?

You know?

He was saying like, especially if you do your research and stuff ahead of time.

If I buy a couch that's say fifteen hundred dollars if I don't like it, but I've done my research and know it's like a couch that's going to hold up like on the market.

He's like, you can sell it for aenty twelve hundred and it's like, yeah, you're going to lose some money for it, but you got to sit on the couch for six months.

Or happier when you get your Ultimately it works, and like, especially when you're living in New York, like, if you don't want to deal with a real shipping thing, I'm sure there's people here like, yeah, easier here.

Probably there's a local furniture place.

Someone can take it off your hands and deal with most the most annoying actually pick it.

So it seems like, especially someone like you who's been wait, it would probably be worth taking the risk.

Yeah, all right, that's it for Week two of Devon Design.

Week.

Yeah, this is a lot of fun.

I will say, I'm gonna tease it for the newsletter.

I did ask Sammy, Okay, you got to pick a new couch that you would recommend.

What is it?

You're not gonna find out here?

You gotta go to that show.

You look at it.

You're not gonna it doesn't even make sense.

I'm gonna say it.

Then you gotta have to google it so that show you'll see the.

Couch to semi recommends.

And this guy's got taste, So uh, I'll tease it.

Consider yourself teased.

I think you've teased them.

More than I'm feeling teased.

So that was Week one of Devon Design.

I guess not Week one, the first annual Devon Design Week.

I'm gonna do number one of these, so email us at Many Noah Devin at gmail dot com, or call us at the number in our show notes and tell us the designs that you hate.

Our guest this week where Arion Marshall at Wired.

I'm going to link to her recording.

Dexter Thomas from the podcast kill Switch, make sure you take a listen to that, and Sammy Reese from the Snake Newsletters.

We recorded this a few weeks ago, so I've already spent way too much money on these live auction sites, so thank you, Sammy.

No such thing as a production of Kaleidoscope content.

Our executive producers are Kay Osborne and Manyesh Hadi Kudur.

The show was created by Many Fidel, Norah Friedman and me Devin Joseph.

Our theme in credit song is by Manny.

Mixing for this episode by Steve Bone.

All right, y'all, we'll be back next week.

We a new episode.

Let's just let's look the beat right out for a bit.

Wait, wait, wait, I forgot one thing.

Make sure if you like the show, you've listened this much.

You like the show, make sure you're following us and make sure you live a review.

Five star ratings really helps other people find the show.

Send it to a friend and fous on Instagram.

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Over such things.