Ben's Journal

Back in college, I was a user of X-windows and the FVWM window manager. One of the neat features of this UI was the ability to support mu...

The Problem The other day I wanted to write a function in Scheme that did the following: Function url-info takes in a URL and does th...

Here's the marketing text from a package of Diet Coke: Research shows that all beverages contribute to proper hydration. That means ...

Here's the marketing text from a package of Diet Coke: "Research shows that all beverages contribute to proper hydration. That mea...

I just finished helping a friend get his home network setup. He's moving into a new place that's pre-wired with CAT5 almost everywh...

We busted out the waffle maker and Bisquick for a real Sunday breakfast. Even though we hadn't used the waffle maker in some time, the...

Shira got a call at work - the house alarm was going off. After using her past police experience to clear the area when she got home (no, ...

In the spirit of TipBin : To remember to get your parking ticket validated at the super market, stick it in your wallet in front of your Vi...

My friend Christian recently finished coding a new web app - TipBin.com . It's a simple and cool concept - the site is a repository of...

Look at this proud father - holding his new 3G, Samsung Blackjack phone. Beamer even installed Google maps on it, so he was finally able to...

Shira mentioned to me that I've been using the word PMA without defining it for the world. Whoops. PMA is an acronym for Positive Me...

I was poking around for Open Source project management tools when I came across activeCollab . On the front page is a introductory screen...

I just noticed one of my servers was acting kind of sluggish. I ran an uptime and was greeted with: [xxx@yyy zzzz]$ uptime 15:34:23 ...

Mr. Barry and I did not start off on a good note. I listened to the first disk of his Money Secrets , and found it more annoying than enter...

Tonight I visited a new doctor (nothing even remotely life threatening, promise) for the first time, and this is my lesson-learned-post. N...

I've been debating if it's appropriate to blog my reasoning for my vote yesterday morning on the latest Scheme standard . My decis...

I see - it only feels like 101F degrees , it's really a nice cool 92F out there. Looking outside my office window, I can almost see ...

In The Beginning Blogs have always served a pretty standard purpose: they are individual's publishing platforms. In the early days, t...

Here's another perspective on twitter: it's a publication, not a communication tool . Interesting stuff. I'm still not 100% s...

We put the team to work this evening to shuffle around Jade, Tonya and Chris' office. I think the switch around was a success. The roo...

Last night Shira and I saw The Simpsons movie. I have to say, I wasn't that impressed. OK, it got me laughing a few times, and after sl...

Some of what I saw while Ben and Justin were working on Justin's Truck . Interesting views.

Forgot all those self help books. Just buy a buffer and go around buffing out scratches for people. You'll be performing an act of m...

I'm helping Justin put new brakes on his truck. My jobs: blogging the experience, giving moral support and pumping the brake pedal...

Forget fancy stainless steel appliances. And you can keep your internet accessing refrigerator. Make my next fridge one covered in a wh...

A bit of excitement at the office, as a pretty nasty looking accident just happened outside our window. This means that we have to sta...

I give you the web's next hacker. I asked him if he had his own blog yet, and he told me no. Though, he may just be keeping it under a...

After my rant last night about the poor battery life of my phone, a partial "solution" came to mind. Why don't I take an cell ...

I think it's safe to say that I'm the first person on the planet to have my veggie tex-mex meat like substance on, get this, wheat b...

At 4pm I noticed my battery was down to 1 bar. At 7pm tonight, I was completely out of juice. This is unacceptable. I charged the phone com...

This morning I was trying to write a query against pg_locks but received this gem of a message: ERROR: could not identify an orderin...

Richard Ziade had a really clever idea - what if he combined sketching on an electronic whiteboard with a podcast? The result, sketchcasti...

Big thanks to Teresa for the surprise thank you gift she gave me tonight. Not only was it a wonderful surprise, but the gift itself is...

Kelly told me about Pandora.com - an Internet radio station with a twist. Rather than just being a stream of one genre, you seed it with ...

That whiteboard sure looks heavy. I bet I should be checking the level instead of blogging about it. --Ben

The Cove by Catherine Coulter is your typical FBI-super-agent-saves-the-day-gets-the-girl novel. It's got action, romance and an absur...

I was on the phone chatting with my ER doctor brother, and he used a couple phrases that I thought were cool enough to repeat here. They ma...

Helping Nick and Lauren move in. I have to say I'm enjoying that: (a) we are unloading and not loading and (b) that it's not my crap...

Welcome Nick and Lauren to town! We are having a critical discussion - what kind of phone should Lauren switch to? She's going to be on...

Really got a kick out of this one. If you think of a better one, you should make your own .

And who's the unsung technical hero of this whole grandma medical experience? SMS. SMS has made a huge difference in this case... - I co...

So I'm sitting here before heading back to DC. My trip went well. Grandma's doing better now than before I arrived (thanks to lots...

I have to confess - I kind of enjoyed driving the mini-van around. Sitting all high up, with my backseat a 1/4 of a mile back, you get a di...

Behold! I give you a glimpse of airport hell. Or at least the view in front of Airport Hell. I'm sitting at gate B5 at Midway Airport. ...

Sitting around in Grandma's hospital room I noticed two novel UI's... 1. Tagging - no not that kind of tagging. A perforated card w...

Recently, Jacob Nielsen worked with a consultant who is a "world leader in his field" on developing his website . The topic of...

I'm Rich! I'm Rich! I got this note in my e-mail: BRITISH NATIONAL LOTTERY HEADQUARTERS: 28 TAN FIELD ROAD, CROYDON,LONDON CUST...

The whiteboard in Grandma's room is small - but I'll make do. Think the nurses will be annoyed if I fill their whiteboard with UML?...

Can I get internet on this sucker? Its got a keyboard and a trackball... --Ben

Grandma and I are moving from critical care to some other part of the hospital that's for less intensive care patients. Hey, we'll ...