Ben Stanfield's blog

Word of the Day: Semen

Posted Wed, 04/05/2006 - 10:01 by Ben Stanfield

Dear Google,

Perhaps you might want to rethink including Dictionary.com's Word of the Day, yeah? Well, unless you're going to define Santorum tomorrow.

Phillip K. Dick on George Bush's Illegal Wiretapping

Posted Tue, 03/21/2006 - 02:07 by Ben Stanfield

Sometime during 1976, Philip K. Dick, the most important American writer of the 20th century, wrote about the secret police state in America. His words ring true 30 years later as we confront a President willing to brag about breaking laws to spy on American citizens, so I've typed them out here to share with you.

Lacy and Salima

Posted Mon, 03/13/2006 - 15:38 by Ben Stanfield

Lacy and Salima

Neo Benolithical Discourse on the Meaning of Ideas

Posted Mon, 02/13/2006 - 12:36 by Ben Stanfield

So, an unindicted co-conspirator and I were having a little chat about neo futurism (and by little chat I mean making fun of stupid words like neo-futurism), spurred by a post on the site of one of my dear friends, who keeps an eye on Chicago's art scene. Here it is, courtesy of Chatfu:

Skype Sucks (And EBay Sucks, Too)

Posted Wed, 02/01/2006 - 22:49 by Ben Stanfield

So, I signed up for Skype about a year ago. And then when I was starting to investigate Podcasting, I signed up for SkypeOut. You give them money, and they allow you to call real phone numbers through their software. I can't imagine using the computer as a normal phone, but it's handy for recording conversations. I haven't used most of the $10 worth of credit that I bought 6 months ago, and I just got this email about it expiring soon.

Early 21st Century Art

Posted Thu, 01/26/2006 - 13:41 by Ben Stanfield

Want to own a unique piece of early 21st century American art? Now's your chance to bid on this painting by Chicago-based artist Sarah Alana.

Not my usual humour

Posted Sat, 01/14/2006 - 03:07 by Ben Stanfield

But.... This is the Best Blonde Joke Ever.

Why Were You Unix People Hiding This?

Posted Fri, 12/30/2005 - 07:39 by Ben Stanfield

Alright, Unix gurus. You and I are now officially on thin ice. I've been using Unix in some for or another (mostly MacOS X) for about 5 years now, and none of you ever thought maybe you should mention gnu screen before now? It's only, you know, potentially the most useful little unix utility I've ever found.

It also has one of the funniest "bugs" listed ever. From the bugs section of the man page for screen:

A weird imagination is most useful to gain full advantage of all the features.

I look like Lindsay Lohan

Posted Thu, 12/29/2005 - 01:10 by Ben Stanfield

The incomparable Michael pointed out a fun little site that will take a picture of you, analyze it, and compare it to their celebrity database, so you can see which celebrity you look like.

My favorite result was that I have a 44% resemblance to Lindsay Lohan. Who knew. For your amusement, below are the other celebrities I resemble. Mr.

My New Piano

Posted Wed, 12/28/2005 - 23:25 by Ben Stanfield

Ok, so it's not actually a piano. But it is musical. Well, the name is at least. Sonata. And it does have a "piano black" finish. Here she is:

Yes, I bought a PC. Case. But the reason we have a lazyweb is so that you can recommend a mother board and CPU for it. Justin's given me some great advice so far, but I thought I'd open the floor to more comments/suggestions.