Blog
RSS feed2026
A guide to running realistic mock job interviews with ChatGPT or other LLMs, with prompt templates you can copy and adapt.
2022
Source control management, or SCM, is used to track changes in files over time. Software source code evolves as new features are added and tracking the history…
2014
As I was driving my son to daycare this morning, I was passed by a driver merging onto the highway. She was well past the on-ramp and was driving on the…
My use of computers over the past 20+ years has given me a new sense. When it activates, it feels like a little lightbulb is turned on in my brain, and I'm…
2013
If you use a computer, chances are you're familiar with passwords. There's a lot of debate over what constitutes a secure password, and that topic will NOT be…
Wow, it's been almost a year since I posted anything! I guess having a new baby tends to change up your priorities a bit. I've had 2 people mention blogging to…
2012
In the same way that audio software enables DJs to remix music, combining several songs together to create a new one, modern web technologies allow programmers…
I'm in the last few days before my first child is born. It's like that half-second where you're hovering in the air, the jump from the dry pier behind you and…
My wife & I are preparing for our first born and in the deluge of parenting books, we have been reading Dr. William Sears' Attachment Parenting book. When I…
I am really good at phrases. combining brevity and poetry. Sometimes you don't need all the words to get the point across and all the extras just make it…
Every March some 50,000+ people descend on my hometown of Austin, Texas to check out the latest in music, film and interactive tech in a giant marketing orgy…
2011
Today I'm going to tell you about regular expressions and how awesome they are. Background Regular Expressions are a way to define a pattern of letters/numbers…
For the past week, I've done a screen fast. That means I've tried to look at screens as little as possible. I do work on the computer, so take that with a…
I created a spreadsheet to measure how effectively I'm manifesting happiness in my life. You did realize this was a geeky blog, right? First, I created 7…
The Emperor Has No Clothes but Now We're All Nudists. or: How Our Culture Is Changing Sit back and grab a cup of coffee. I'm going to blow a hole in your mind.…
It is my belief that people who do not believe in evolution are simply suffering from a lack of imagination. That is, they have trouble imagining just how big…
GOAL: Upgrade to Android 2.2 on my Samsung Moment WHY: My phone sucks ass. Android 2.2 is supposed to be way better than 2.1 for performance and battery life,…
While working on our backups today, I ran into a problem with the windows command interpreter which is so amazingly broken I felt compelled to write about it.…
I got the following e-mail in my inbox on Friday: from mailer-daemon@my-server to benjamin@benjamins-computer date Fri, Jun 10, 2011 at 11:59 PM subject…
I now play Guitar Hero on the Expert Level. Over the course of the past 2 years, I've been able to watch myself learning this skill -- the first new physical…
I first wrote this short passage a few years ago. I've always liked the ring of it. It has good pacing. And it hits you like a punch to the gut. The rules were…
Effie & I just launched our new QR Code Scavenger Hunt game, Scavengeroo this past weekend. To build it, we spent 2 long weekends (Friday night, all day…
I don't like to wash dishes, and neither does anyone else in my household, but they have to get done. Since this is not an activity that I inherently enjoy, I…
Today kicks off sxsw 2011, the week-long conference hosted in Austin, TX every march celebrating film, music and interactive tech. I've spent countless hours…
The other day I was searching for some advice on Ruby on Rails. I got the usual links to message forums, experts exchange, HOWTO articles, documentation and…
communicationconversationdistributedforumssocialtagsthreadedtwitter
Some creative fiction inspired by the recent update in facebook's page handling... Use Facebook as Your Page You now have the flexibility to interact with the…
creativecultureentitiesfacebookfutureidentityinternetorganismsorganizations
Science and religion have supposedly been at odds with one another since the invention of science. I can see the difference, but I don't think it's such a hard…
Several years ago, I created my own Contact Manager application. I did it in Ruby on Rails because it was quick. I had it published online at a semi-public…