For those who don’t know, Louis C.K. is a stand-up comedian. I personally find angry humor to be some of the funniest, and Louis C.K. is a balding, red-headed, middle-aged, middle-class, white guy who’s pissed off about everything. I’d heard that he’d recorded a live special and was making it available, DRM-free, for $5. That’s right — five bucks. I briefly considered torrenting it since I’m sure it’s all over the place by now, but in the end I decided that watching him rant and rave was worth the five bucks.

Research In Motion (creator of BlackBerry devices) has been tanking for quite some time. Now, that time is up. That’s enough Matt Alexander, writing for one37, in his piece entitled “That’s Enough, RIM”: The Playbook is dead. It’s taken a while for you to realize that, and I’m not convinced you’re fully aware, but you should really come to acknowledge it, RIM. Bargain hunters are not going to pick up a Playbook and say, “Wow! I can’t believe everyone spoke so negatively about this!

A very salient point by Isaac Asimov: There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”

Amazon Web Services is growing and we can’t hire people fast enough. For my team, I’m looking for some really fantastic PHP developers. Interested? Read on, take my advice, then get in touch at rparman (_et_) amazon. NOTE: This is not an Amazon-endorsed job description. These are my words and thoughts, so imagine that we’re at a meetup or conference and I’m talking to you one-on-one. If you don’t like what I’ve written here, blame me instead of Amazon. About me First off, I’m not a recruiter.

A web designer, online portfolio, XHTML, HTML 5, CSS 3, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Microsoft Office, ASP, JavaScript and SQL Server — all in this week’s issue of Clueless Recruiters. (Cue theme music!) Explanation There are few things that technical people are more annoyed by than technical recruiters. A very large segment of the technical recruiting industry has made a bad name for the rest of their industry by relentlessly spamming technical professionals after having not done their homework. These people hock job openings the same way that sleazy salesmen hock used cars.

The next version of PHP, which saw its first release candidate today, has some really awesome new features. You can see a complete list of changes in the README, but here are the ones that caught my eye. Classes Support for Traits (i.e., mix-ins; addresses the multiple-inheritance problem). Support for chaining from the constructor: (new Class)->method() Support for Class::{expr}() syntax. Closures inherit $this from the outer scope. Added ReflectionClass::newInstanceWithoutConstructor() to create a new instance of a class without invoking its constructor.

I’ve been accused of not knowing how to do a Technical Recruiter’s job, so I have no business telling them how to do it. That’s a fair assertion. What I do know, however, are all of the things that Technical Recruiters do that drive me absolutely crazy. Not all recruiters do these things so I don’t hate them all, but generally speaking, the entire technical recruiting industry has made a very bad name for itself amongst the people they’re trying to recruit.

Inspired by Daring Fireball’s Jackass of the Week columns, I’ve decided to do something similar for clueless technical recruiters who contact me for jobs that are clearly a terrible fit. Explanation There are few things that technical people are more annoyed by than technical recruiters. A very large segment of the technical recruiting industry has made a bad name for the rest of their industry by relentlessly spamming technical professionals after having not done their homework. These people hock job openings the same way that sleazy salesmen hock used cars.

I’m not able to upgrade my iPhone until next summer when the next iPhone will presumably be out. That said, I find this sort of technology absolutely fascinating and I absolutely love how easy Apple has made it all.

America loves to put people behind bars. When will we begin to allow professional reasoning and empirical data to guide our lawmakers? From PCR Consultants, citing POLITICO: In a disheartening turn of events Senator Webb (D-Va.), a long-time supporter of criminal justice reform in the United States Senate, had his bill shot down. The bill in question would have established a commission to review and propose changes to the criminal justice system in America. […] Individual Republican senators said they had come under pressure from local district attorneys and judges in drug courts to oppose [Senator Jim Webb (D-VA)].