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Welcome to BenWoods.com

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Winning, but before a true prize even existed

April 3, 2024

This year, 2024, marks the 42nd year (should be 43 years in a row since the tournament was canceled in 2020 due to COVID) that I have picked at least one NCAA men’s basketball bracket. I have copies of many of them, including the one from 1981, when I picked my Louisville Cardinals to win the championship. That was the year they lost their first game on a halfcourt shot. Some people might be deterred after that jarring experience, but not me! Then again, I was only 5 when it happened.

Figs are fun

March 28, 2024
figs are fun

It is really remarkable that after writing online stories for 25 years, I have a topic today that I’ve both never written about and something I know more about than almost anything else.

That thing is figs.

How did we get to this point? My uncle had a fig tree in his backyard, and we lived at his house 16 years ago. Coincidentally, my father-in-law also had fig trees, so when we bought a new house 14 years ago, we accepted a gift of a fig cutting and planted it in an auspicious backyard location.

Book review: "The Genesis Machine" by Amy Webb and Andrew Hessel

June 21, 2022

Great book that runs the gamut of synthetic biology

The term "natural" used to be substantially easier to apply to basic items like fruit and animals. It is both exhilarating and frightening to consider "improving" genetic material, but humans have a knack for putting their marks on everything imaginable.

Super Recognisers unite!

August 1, 2021

During high school and college, I worked at Kentucky Kingdom amusement park in Louisville, Ky. Besides battling racuous crowds and the blazing heat, one thing that was interesting to me was trying to keep track of the different people I was seeing throughout the day. As a games attendant (a.k.a. carnival barker), I would attempt to personally say things to people that I saw multiple times, whether at different games or at different parts of the park. This was mostly just a sales tactic, and I think the customers likely thought I was training to have my own magic show.

Knitting

May 2, 2021
I did this. It is fun.

Pagination

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From the Archive

Everyone's playing electronic solitaire except me

May 24, 2008

Back in the early '90s, during the golden age of desktop computing (I chose golden only because neither bronze nor ice seemed appropriate), there weren't a ton of games around that were easily accessible. Sure, you could purchase real games at the computer store, or you could borrow your friend's floppy disks for more enjoyment. You could play solitaire or Minesweeper, perhaps even Tetris, and you could switch screens relatively fast to pretend to be working.

Looking for celebrities easier than contacting them

February 1, 2004

So the other day, I remembered I needed to contact Michelle Branch.

This seemed like a simple goal at the onset, but there were various problems: How would I go about actually doing this? What did I need to tell her? Who is she anyway?

Here's a way for the U.S. government to keep track of you

May 22, 2006

How easy would it be for the United States government to keep tabs on people via the Internet? Soon, Congress could call a vote against Net Neutrality, which would allow ISPs to deliver partner websites faster than others. While this would be disruptive to the World Wide Web as a whole, this still wouldn't give access to data logs from all ISPs.

Living in cardboard maybe isn't so bad

January 2, 2005

Building a playhouse/fort out of a cardboard box used to be a chore enough. Now, Australian researchers and architects have created something that goes beyond that: a fully sized and usable cardboard house that can be completed in six hours by just two people.

Being Bill Gates has its drawbacks

November 19, 2004

Maybe it's nice to be the wealthiest person in the world. I guess it would be nice to have a full-time maid or someone to butter a piece of toast for me, if that's what rich people do these days. But you may want to think again about being rich when you hear the number of spam messages that Bill Gates gets every day.

Pagination

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Spumoni Press

Spumoni Press

If you’re in need of help with publishing a book or developing a web site, check out Spumoni Press.

Solving Problems

Check out the latest book in the Caimans at Work series! The caimans’ new store is the talk of the town. But with success comes navigating the speed bumps along the way. Have no fear – Raymond and Damon are always up for the challenge, whether they are finding a recipe, picking the right color, just doing laundry or investigating a peculiar mystery at their favorite place - a party, of course!

© 2024 Ben Woods.

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