Jonathan Swan *is* the face of 2020. Tap to see at full size.
You’ve probably heard about DonaldTrump’strainwreckinterview on Axios, but in case you haven’t seen it yet, I’ve posted it below for your…information? Entertainment? Abject horror at the fact that this jabroni is the head of the executive branch, has (hopefully well-managed) access to the nuclear codes, and a fanatical following of a sizeable chunk of the more aggrieved, hostile, gullible population of the U.S.?
The parking lot at the Publix at Dale Mabry and South Village, sometime around September/October 2016: I’m getting groceries at our then-regular grocery store (this is when we lived in Carrollwood) when a MAGA-capped guy in truck with Trump stickers throws an empty beer can at me, missing by a mile. “Go back to where you came from,” he yells, to which I reply “Learn to throw like a man!” as I pull out my phone. He drives off.
Charlotte Douglas International airport, October 2016: I’m traveling to my new job at the company formerly known as SMARTRAC, and a guy in line at Carolina Pit BBQ in a MAGA cap yells something I can’t quite hear at me. I walk toward him, asking in my best radio voice, “Would you mind repeating that?” As I close in, it become apparent that I’m a head taller — he bought into the stereotype that Asian men are meek and short — and he starts high-tailing it in the opposite direction, presumably towards his gate. He loses his place in line, I take it, and enjoy some barbecue.
This sort of courage/cowardice is consistent with a couple of contradictory mindsets:
I’ve been doing interviews with a number of companies in the quest for my next gig, and since we’re still in a pandemic, they’ve all been online. I’ve done enough of them to get to the point where I’ve figured a system and setup that works well for me. The photo above shows me, just after this afternoon’s interview, complete with handy annotations.
Here’s a quick run-down of the setup:
Primary laptop: The “Star Trek” screen, a.k.a. the one that the video chat lives on. It’s hooked up to two other monitors, where:
One is open to a Google doc containing questions that I want to ask.
The other is open to a Google doc of the research notes I wrote about the company interviewing me, their tech, their developer site, and their API. I actually found some typos in the docs and a bug in their sample code, and let them know about it.
Secondary laptop: This one displays notes about my experience, and the particular story that I want to tell to this prospective employer. In case you’re wondering, my current answer to “Tell me about yourself” is something along the lines of “I’m equal parts Tony Stark,Alton Brown, and Weird Al.”
Backup laptop: In case some technical issue with the videochat arises on the primary laptop, I switch to the backup laptop. I could switch to the secondary laptop for the video chat, but using that means that I lose a key screen of notes, and I don’t want to throw off my carefully orchestrated set of information that I can get at a glance.
Jupyter Notebook loaded on all laptops: If I have to demonstrate working code, Jupyter Notebooks let me do it easily, and with Markdown annotations, too!
Every once in a while, someone asks me how expensive accordions can get, and what you get for shelling out a lot of money. Pictured above is an example: The Celt, an accordion with Irish Tuning (I have no idea what that means) made by Fratelli Alessandrini (“Alessandrini Brothers”).
Unlike less expensive accordions — the kind I own, perhaps save the one that my friend Sean Galbraith gave to me — the Alessandrini Celt doesn’t have any plastic parts. The mechanical bits are metal, of course, but that’s a straight-up wood body, wood keys, wood switches, and wood grille.
Not only is it a visually beautiful instrument, but it also sounds beautiful. Here’s a demo video by The Squeezebox Shop in Scotland:
And now, the price. For an accordion made with these materials and this kind of craftsmanship in small production runs, you can buy at The Squeezebox Shop for… £4,495.00. At today’s rates, that’s about $5,750 US.
I might wait until my LLC’s making a little more money before picking up one of these.
Recommended reading
Ooooooh. I want them all. Tap to see at full size.
