During my last job, I occasionally was invited to interview candidates for the web development team. Usually I’d receive a copy of their resume a few days beforehand with the instructions to review it, and I’d take a few minutes to read their resume and usually pop them into Google to take a look at their online presence. Throughout this process I began noticing things that I saw to be mistakes, probably propagated by the avalanche of resume advice that permeates the job seeking culture. This caused me to rethink my own resume, and I’ve wanted to share these things for a while.

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By now, most if not all of us have seen the graphic images from UC Davis, where students were pepper sprayed at point blank range by two officers of the campus police force. These images have become more and more commonplace in our society, which is quite sad. The news seems more and more consistently filled with stories of police actions that cross the boundaries of what we might consider acceptable, and the reality is that technology has made it easier to catch these officers “in the act.” But what is terribly heinous is not the actions themselves (though they are); it is the systematic setting of internal policies that allow these activities to take place – and often, go unpunished.

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In the past few days, the alarm has been sounded in the technology community for us to help defeat the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). This legislation, while well-intentioned, is crafted in such a way that it would give private companies the power to shut down other private companies, and require the government and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to initiate a system for DNS blocking and domain seizure. The law’s vague language and powerful provisions combine to create a law that has the power to shut down sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube – or more realistically, the next generation of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. This isn’t hyperbole, it’s real.

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When I began writing this blog back in August of 2008, I stated that I wanted to write about the things that I cared about. At the time that list included a slice of technology, largely focused on the LAMP stack. As I’ve changed over the years, I’ve also increased the things that I care about: family, aviation, travel, Python, cooking, and others. Since I don’t have time to start a blog on all of these topics individually (I’d do nothing but blog!), it only seems natural that I would start writing about them here.

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Five months ago, I had an opportunity to accept a contract to work at Mozilla as part of the webdev team. There was a match for my skills on a contract basis, and even though it meant leaving permanent employment for the uncertain world of contracting, I knew it was something I would never forgive myself if I didn’t engage. I didn’t know then just how right my decision was, but after spending a week in Portland with the team at OSBridge, I was shown just how right my decision had been.

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