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July 24, 2000
Maybe I'm in a small minority, but I'm still confused how so many people are duped every so often by an e-mail virus. Let's take this step by step:
A guy walks into his workspace at 7:30 a.m., preparing for another exciting day of whatever. He opens his inbox to find 50 e-mails -- 45 promising him to lose weight, financial freedom or cheap Viagra four from actual friends, probably chain letters and one other with a subject header of "Open repeatedly, this is not a virus," which of course is from virusdemon@viruscentral.com.
July 17, 2000
You cannot escape the Internet. OK, you're right, you can. You can move to Uruguay. But for all the trouble, you might as well find a computer and get busy.
A lot of people have been talking about designing a "homepage," which has nothing to do with your living quarters. Simply put, a homepage is the portal to the most important information on a particular Web site.
July 10, 2000
Computers can be your friends. No, they won't take you to lunch or buy you a drink. But they can do more than collect dust. Assuming you are human (and if not, don't let that stop you from reading), you probably fit into one of four categories:
1. You still use a typewriter, you're still building a bomb shelter, and your best friend in grade school was Robert "Robbie" E. Lee.
August 28, 1999
Editor's Note: This was Ben's final column while writing for the Crawfordsville (Ind.) Journal Review.
This will be the last column I write for the Journal Review. I may start them again sometime in the future. I would like to. But for now, this will have to do.
If any of you have column ideas, please still tell them to me and send them. I will keep a list, and somewhere down the road, maybe they will let me do this again.
August 21, 1999
In a day and age when there are so many different types of people, with various races, ethnicities and personalities, there is one type I'm more likely to associate with frequently.
I have an insatiable and unconscious desire to surround myself with Dr Pepper drinkers.
But IÃm also convinced that most Dr Pepper drinkers are psychotic.
Which comes first is unclear. And calling someone psychotic can be misconstrued, so Dr Pepper drinkers, donÃt take this personally. But ponder the following arguments.
From the Archive
February 1, 2017
For my Republican friends, you know, of course, that we don't see eye-to-eye on a lot of political perspectives. I'm inclined to believe that I'm right, but I also believe that many disagreements could be talked through enough to compromise. I don't believe I know everything on the political spectrum, so I'm willing to listen and maybe my mind can be changed. I know that despite our differences, you want what's best for the country, as do I.
May 17, 2007
Chatting with bots can be fun ... sort of strange, but fun. But what about bots chatting with each other? Can they determine that each other is not human?
Well, that's a tossup, but Discover Magazine tried to determine this particular item. ALICE and Jabberwacky have been chatting with people for quite some time now. And finally, they have been introduced.
February 2, 2010
OK, technically speaking, I am a human being. But my friend, co-worker and "Corporate Ties" cover designer, Sean O'Connor, has constructed a robot in my likeness.
August 5, 2004
There has been a lot of speculation lately about how much Google is worth, what will happen when the company goes public with shares, what's the difference between a google and a gaggle, etc.
So I did a Google news search on Google. Apparently the financial world is no longer so smitten with the search engine and more company. It seems the IPO figure Google is expecting is unflated, and on top of that, the company is buying back shares offered in advance to employees.
June 17, 2009
I found out the other day through an internal company email that AOL has recently purchased two companies as part of its local strategy initiative. I was immensely surprised when checking out one of them, Patch, which is essentially a community-based website geared toward providing info with a small-town flavor.