End Of May Update

Computers

More fun python this month with lil projects in Django and Flask. Currently working on a simple dashboard for displaying the data collected by a solar array, cleaning up my own portfolio, and starting work on a lil web app to output nicely formatted ‘set lists’ of your Spotify playlists. That should be fun little introduction to the Spotify API and give me an idea of what might be possible. I also want to look into the YouTube API with an end goal of making a web app that allows users to easily generate their own power hours. Yessss

I also published an Alexa skill made through Amazon’s Alexa Skills Kit tutorial. It was fun, you should try it out. You can see mine which you’ll then have to enable before you can finally ask Alexa:

Alexa, ask privacy hub for a new privacy fact

Lulz, lulz, lulz. It was fun.

My buddy Andy left me a glowing review which read: “Great Facts!”

So yEaH, I think you’re gonna – l i k e i t –

Other highlights: a quick AWS seminar from 2ndWatch, a panel on negotiation in the workplace put on by the Diversity at Amazon group, a resume review/speed mentoring/job fair put on by TechJobsTour.com

Slowly working on my scheme to leave FB and sopp up my pool of personal information. After FB will come my Google accounts (but I first have to take care of the multitude of things already linked to my google accounts). Still trying to decide how I feel about sharing photos but I’ll save that for later…

Still interviewing for a variety of positions in Seattle.

In other news, I put my essential conf files on github as gists so now I won’t have to reconfigure my Arch system if my poor Lenovo ThinkPad Edge 15 finally gives up. My battery is now flopping out of my case because the plastic tracks that held it in quit. LinuxFest freebies came to the rescue. I had accumulated a multitude of stickers which are now taping my battery to my case. Beautiful. I also stuck some of the cooler ones on the cover. GNU Goat front and center.

Stay strong compy!

Don’t tell anyone, but I want a Lenovo t470. Look at that battery life…

But actually I’ll probably just get some >2015 laptop and upgrade RAM and pop in my SSD because I don’t really need intense computing power. So there’s no need to pay for that.

Music

I guess I was listening to a lot of classical music at the start of this month. Pretty sure I was studying for something or making something but that really is the prime music for my focus. People have been making awesome music for a long long time. I’d like to get a little more depth in my classical music listenin’; I know I love choral pieces. I want to put aside some time to listen to ‘Exploring Music with Bill McGlaughlin’, a show about.. uh, music… which I heard a lot on our NPR affiliate station in NW Ohio. Bill’s show introduces you to history and theory behind music in some theme – sometimes organized around the composer, a political event, or… any theme they felt like producing.

I’m also enjoying CFCF’s (Mike Silver) curation of ambient and classical tracks on a Spotify playlist labeled “CFCF Classical”. I’m going to FYF with a few friends this summer and this week I’ve been listening to a playlist made up of tunes from artists that will be at the event. Interesting mix. Nine Inch Nails will be headlining one of the three event days. Not really my cup of tea. But uh, Frank Ocean will be there. And Solange. If you follow my monthly ‘favorites’ playlist, you’ll see that some of those tunes on the playlist have wiggled their way in.

Here’s something I recently heard on Metropolis, a techno/house/edm show hosted by Jason Benteley and broadcast on the KCRW radio station in Santa Monica, CA.

And a Friday banger:

Also, here is my playlist of ‘April Favorites’ which I forgot to make public. Whoops.