The Curious Engineer

All blogs / General

Ben's Journal

blogbyben.com

A random collection of thoughts, comments and photos from Ben Simon.

GeneralTravelSoftware / engineering practice

’05’10’15’20’25
Posts
6,625 from 9 May 2005 to 30 Oct 2026
Posting
weekly (38 in the last year)
Kind
personal blog
Feed
https://www.blogbyben.com/feeds/posts/default

Latest

October 2026

  1. Unclogging the Publishing Pipeline: Introducing Just the Facts Posts

August 2026

  1. Maui Adventure - Day 6: The Road to Hāna, Mile by Mile

June 2026

  1. Maui Adventure - Day 6: A Pretty Gecko, an Unwelcome Mongoose, and the Mighty Sea
  2. Maui Adventure - Day 6: The Garden With No Flowers
  3. Maui Adventure - Day 5: Fantastic Pho, Found Under Fluorescent Lights
  4. Maui Adventure - Day 5: Chasing a Brown Sign Hat Trick
  5. Maui Adventure - Day 5: Wait for It, Snorkel Edition
  6. Maui Adventure - Day 5: Big Whale and Little Beach
  7. Maui Adventure - Day 4: The Aquarium I Almost Skipped
  8. 50 for 50: pocketmap — A Printable Reference for a Long Day of Walking

May 2026

  1. 50 for 50: The Route to a Better Route
  2. 50 for 50: An Adventure Half a Century in the Making

April 2026

  1. 50 for 50 - Notes From The Field
  2. 2026 Passover Seder in Review

March 2026

  1. Claude Code - Programmer's Partner and Torah Scholar?
  2. Review: People of the Book
  3. Maui Adventure - Day 4 - Hula and Stilts

February 2026

  1. Maui Adventure - Day 4 - Kapalua Tidepools
  2. Maui Adventure - Day 3 - Other Notable Creatures
  3. Maui Adventure - Day 3 - Hosmer Grove
  4. Maui Adventure - Day 3 - Sliding Sands Hike - Breathtaking In Every Way
  5. Review: The Line Becomes a River
  6. Maui Adventure - Day 3 - Here Comes the Sun

January 2026

  1. Maui Adventure - Day 2 - Kahakapao Loop Trail - So Many Aliens
  2. Maui Adventure - Day 2 - Speed Bumps and All
  3. Maui Adventure - Day 1 - Getting There
  4. Like X-Ray Vision For YouTube Content
  5. In Praise Of msmtp - Painless Email Setup For Your AWS Linux Box
  6. A Texas Sized Mystery: Solved
  7. Building A Better Digital Bat Signal - Part 3 - The Phone
  8. Building A Better Digital Bat Signal - Part 2 - The Server

December 2025

  1. Building A Better Digital Bat Signal - Part 1 - The Plan
  2. hbo-blogger.el: Still Editing Blogger Posts in Emacs, Still Loving It
  3. Sun Pillar!
  4. US open 2025 - Homeward Bound and Closing Thoughts

November 2025

  1. US Open - Day 3 - Tennis with Heart, Tennis with Drama
  2. US Open - Day 2 - Tennis Time (Finally!)
  3. US Open Day 1 - Chilling in NY

October 2025

  1. US Open 2025 - Day 1 - Getting To NY
  2. ESOXOFFORE Kids Camera - Command Line Tool Automation
  3. ESOXOFFORE Kids Camera - Review

September 2025

  1. Lightweight Google Photos API Command Line Access
  2. Easy Command Line SD Card Access
  3. Label 228's - Let's Make Some Street Art!
  4. Review: Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage

August 2025

  1. US Open 2024 - Day 4
  2. US Open 2024 - Day 3
  3. US Open 2024 - Day 2
  4. US Open 2024 - Day 1
  5. Google Meet Meets the Command Line
  6. The Three C's of a Pocket Tenach
  7. The Sound of the Omer
  8. Noshing on the Go - Part 3: Ben Bites to the Rescue

July 2025

  1. Noshing on the Go - Part 2: Nutrition or Convenience, Pick One.
  2. Noshing on the Go - Part 1: Experimenting with Macros

June 2025

  1. The Yellow Duck Effect

May 2025

  1. That's My Nephew! Ethan Orates, Graduates and Celebrates
  2. A Triple Crown Attempt and the YouTube API - Making Great Content Easier to Watch
  3. G's Baltimore Adventure - Choo Choo! - Visiting the B & O Railroad Museum

April 2025

  1. G's Baltimore Adventure - The USS Constellation
  2. Inspiration and Innovation for Peace - A Lesson from B'nei Brak

March 2025

  1. G's Baltimore Adventure - The USCG Cutter 37
  2. G's Baltimore Adventure - The USS Torsk

February 2025

  1. G's Baltimore Adventure - Day 1
  2. Review: The Ways We Hide
  3. Riviera Maya - Day 5 - Homeward Bound

January 2025

  1. Riviera Maya - Day 4 - Just Chill'n
  2. Riviera Maya - Day 3 - DIY Adventure

December 2024

  1. Riviera Maya - Day 2 - Touring In Style
  2. Riviera Maya - Day 1 - Arriving

November 2024

  1. Neabsco Creek Boardwalk
  2. Review: The Scrolls From The Dead Sea
  3. Puerto Rico Adventure - Day 9

October 2024

  1. Puerto Rico Adventure - Day 8
  2. Puerto Rico Adventure - Day 7
  3. Puerto Rico Adventure - Day 6

September 2024

  1. Puerto Rico Adventure - Day 5
  2. Puerto Rico Adventure - Day 4
  3. Puerto Rico Adventure - Day 3
  4. Puerto Rico Adventure - Day 2
  5. Puerto Rico Adventure - Day 1

August 2024

  1. gptel: Mindblowing integration between Emacs and ChatGPT
  2. Review: The Lost Apothecary
  3. Buzzard Hill, Appalachian Trail Hike - Close to DC, Far from Easy
  4. Review: The Dinosaur Artist: Obsession, Betrayal, and the Quest for Earth's Ultimate Trophy

July 2024

  1. Citi Open 2024 - 3 Hour Edition
  2. Death Valley - Day 5 - The Last Day and Last Word on Borax
  3. Death Valley Day 4 - Mosaic Canyon, Mesquite Flat Dunes and Luxurious Las Vegas
  4. Death Valley - Day 4 - Harmony Borax Works - A Lesson in Entrepreneurial Chutzpah
  5. Blessings from a Memory | A Weekend of Family, Friends and Food

June 2024

  1. Death Valley Adventure - Day 4 - Golden Canyon
  2. Death Valley Adventure - Day 3 - Desolation Canyon, Bantha and a Thanksgiving Feast
  3. Death Valley Adventure - Day 3 - Zabriskie Point, Tatooine, and Dante's View

May 2024

  1. Death Valley Adventure - Day 2 - Devils Golf Course and Artists Pallet
  2. Death Valley Adventure - Day 2 - Sidewinder Canyon
  3. Death Valley Adventure - Day 2 - Badwater Basin
  4. Death Valley Adventure - Day 1 - Arriving
  5. The All You Can Eat Buffet Ends Today
  6. Eat the Yard: Harvesting, Cooking and Eating Burdock
  7. Passover 2024: Really Digging This Year's Seder

April 2024

  1. A Cruft Free, Super Simple, WordPress Link Rendering Plugin
  2. Living History, IRL: Fort CF Smith
  3. Visting St Louis: From Jail to the Arch
  4. A Flyby of the Key Bridge Collapse

March 2024

  1. The Sad Trees of Columbia Pike
  2. out-of-band is officially out-of-bounds | Reviving emacs oauth2 with Google APIs
  3. The ABC's of Easy to Forget Hiking Essentials
  4. A Little Los Angeles
  5. Thought for Food: Three Tiers of Food Preparedness

February 2024

  1. Man-Bag Dump, 2024 Edition
  2. Man-Bag Dump, 2024 Edition: Let's Talk Philosophy
  3. A Bit of Burlington
  4. Review: Cryptonomicon
  5. Tasker: Saving Spouses one Profile at a Time.
  6. Wanted Lofty AI Automation; Got Epic AI Distraction

January 2024

  1. How It's Done: The Moby Wrap Hip Hug Carry
  2. Review: Cold as Hell by Rhett C. Bruno and Jaime Castle
  3. US Open 2023 - Day 3
  4. US Open 2023 - Day 2 - Night Edition
  5. Those bottles of formula will last us how long? And other lessons learned from our latest placement.
  6. US Open 2023 - Day 2 - Tennis. Finally!

December 2023

  1. Review: How to Write One Song by Jeff Tweedy
  2. US Open 2023 - Day 1 - 9/11 Memorial Museum and The Dinner That Almost Didn't Happen
  3. US Open 2023 - Day 1 - Visiting with Winnie-the-Pooh and His Remarkable Roommates
  4. US Open 2023 - The Flight and The Committee
  5. Review: Skybase 50-1000x Wi-Fi Microscope | Low Cost, Solid Performance
  6. All Aboard! The Perfect DC Train Adventure

November 2023

  1. Hot Dog Cooking Challenge: Tea Light Edition
  2. In Support of Local Public Art Projects
  3. Three Magical Days at Bradley Beach
  4. Cramming for an Astrophotography Opportunity
  5. Citi Open 2023 | Murray, Tiafoe and glimpse of Gauff
  6. Make It Obvious | Graphically Annotating Images with Metadata for Easy Analysis
  7. Finding a Photo's Who and When | Extracting and Scrubbing Exif Data

October 2023

  1. DSLR vs Cell Phone Camera: To Schlep or Not to Schlep
  2. On the Difference Between Answers and Understanding
  3. The $1.50, Ultra Compact, Field Expedient Rangefinder
  4. In Search of a Low Cost and Compact Field Expedient Distance Calculator
  5. Review: A Prayer for the Crown-Shy
  6. Taming YouTube, Part 5: Command Line Searching
  7. Taming YouTube, Part 4: Playlist Aging and Rotating
  8. Taming YouTube, Part 3: Declaring YouTube Playlist Bankruptcy

September 2023

  1. Taming YouTube, Part 2: Replacing OOB OAuth on the Command Line
  2. Taming YouTube, Part 1: Why?
  3. Rocky Mountain National Park - Day 5 - The Last Day
  4. Rocky Mountain National Park - Day 4 - The Return
  5. Rocky Mountain National Park - Day 4 - The Lakes
  6. Rocky Mountain National Park - Day 4 - (Very) Early Morning
  7. Rocky Mountain National Park - Day 3
  8. Rocky Mountain National Park - Day 2 - Afternoon

Every year

2026 312025 372024 532023 1002022 882021 1192020 802019 1542018 1892017 2002016 2582015 2842014 3902013 4122012 3462011 3752010 3902009 5472008 6172007 6912006 7532005 511