About the Site

My name is Ben Samuel and I’ve recently separated from the US Army after completing a 5 year term of enlistment. So, from the outset, my interest is in finding a job and if you think your company would benefit from someone who has sound practical and theoretical knowledge of database systems, please have a look at my personal web site where my resume is posted.

This site is based on some research I’ve been working on in fits and starts since I graduated from Drexel in 2003. There are two papers, one written using LyX, another using Mellel, neither really complete. There are bits of code, some of which are getting to be rather large bits, but most of it is documentation laying out a specification. Rather than waiting to produce the perfect finished product, I decided to work through it all again as a blog. The main problem this exercise addresses is I’ve never tried to write a book before and it’s hard to gauge whether people understand what you’re saying. So put it in a blog, read the comments and adjust as necessary; problem solved.

Regarding comments, they’re all moderated. All I really care is that you don’t abuse other commenters (you can abuse me all you want) and I’ll cut out naughty words so this blog stays safe for work. Also, if the comment seems unfair to someone else I’ll check with them before I approve it.

Finally, I apologize for the poor state of the HTML, but I found I just can’t afford the time it would take to handcraft every page. Most of the pages are actually written using MacJournal and unfortunately they tend to get butchered in transmission. It would be better just to do the whole thing in ASCII.