Ben Haskell's personal page

Work

Universal Smart Comp, Canonsburg, PA. 11/2009–present. Programmer.
MedRespond, Pittsburgh, PA. 10/2007–09/2009. Contractor.
One Planet, Pittsburgh, PA. 07–08/2007. “Summer Intern”.
Google AdSense, Mountain View, CA. 05–08/2006. AdSense Coordinator
WordNet, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ. 2002. Summer programmer. 2003–2006. Technical Support Specialist

School

Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA. 2006— Masters in Language Technologies at the Language Technologies Institute
Princeton University, Princeton, NJ. 1999–2003. Bachelors of Science in Engineering in Computer Science, Certificate in Linguistics
Omaha North High School, Omaha, NE. 1995–1999. Senior High (9-12).
McMillan Junior High, Omaha, NE. 1993–1995. Junior High (7-8).
Martin Luther King, Jr. (“King”) Primary School, Omaha, NE. 1989–1990. (3).
Jefferson Elementary School, Omaha, NE. 1986–1989, 1990–1993. (K-2,4-6).

Interests

I'm a bit obsessed with Audrey Tautou (IMDb). I have an Audrey Tautou fan site.
I love studying languages. I particularly like writing systems, how languages relate to one another and who speaks them where, and using computers to represent/manipulate language. So far, I've studied:
- Japanese: 4 years in high school, 2 in college (started over)
- French: 3 semesters in college
- Attic Greek: intensive semester after graduation
- Mandarin Chinese: semester
- Arabic: semester
- Welsh: passing interest
- Finnish: passing interest
I love flying. I'm an AOPA (Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association) member. I began flying at Princeton Airport (39N), but haven't flown in a very long time.
I'm a big fan of social networking sites. I have up-to-date profiles/info on several:
- Facebook.com (my Facebook profile): college-oriented, my favorite. I'm in the Princeton, CMU, Google, and Pittsburgh, PA networks.
- MySpace (my MySpace profile): horrendous visual and aural assault, but everyone's on it, so it's the best one for finding people.
- Last.fm (my last.fm playlist): tracks what music you play, in my case through an XMMS plugin (available for Windows Media Player, WinAmp, etc.).
- Del.icio.us (my del.icio.us bookmarks): “social bookmarking” site. I use it to share bookmarks between home/work/etc.
I have other profiles that I try to keep current, but don't always remember:
- Friendster (my friendster profile): the one that kicked off the latest craze (I was on SixDegrees.com back in 1998, but it went under). I stopped using it for a while when an update killed its Firefox compatibility, but I still check it for messages.
- Blogger (my Blog*Spot blog): Google's blog service. No real posts for me, currently.
- Xanga (my Xanga blog): blog site. No posts for me, currently.
- Orkut (my Orkut profile): Google's foray. I hear it's mostly Brazilian thieves, and I'm pretty sure it was a bad idea to keep it invite-only for so long.

My musical tastes generally run toward “indie rock”. My last.fm profile shows relatively recent listening trends, and I have a list of my CDs that I've ripped to FLAC and MP3. Seven of my top ten favorite bands are: (in no particular order)
In Myers-Briggs terms, I am an INTP [typelogic] [Wikipedia]. (I am sometimes an INTJ [typelogic] [Wikipedia], depending on the test.) In Keirsey Temperament Sorter terms, that makes me an Architect or an Inventor.
- Introverted completely dominates Extraverted.
- iNtuition has a fair lead over Sensing.
- Thinking blows Feeling out of the water.
- I'm nearly 50/50 on Judging vs. Perceiving.
I use Linux (almost always Gentoo). Windows is the bane of my existence, but Cygwin plus Console2 (for most work) and CoLinux (for using distcc under Gentoo) make the experience very bearable.

Quotes I like

Because dwm is customized through editing its source code, it’s pointless to make binary packages of it. This keeps its userbase small and elitist. No novices asking stupid questions. — http://dwm.suckless.org/
Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons — Woody Allen
Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood. — H. L. Mencken
The world is full of sheep looking for a shepherd even if he shears them regularly and eats mutton stew. — “wise old sage” on Yahoo! Answers: “Why do people become fanatics?”
Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public. — H. L. Mencken
As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron. — H. L. Mencken
Teaching is like telling a smaller lie each day. — unknown teacher [ref]

Family

I have a younger sister, Elisabeth Haskell. She and my parents, Charles T. “Tom”, III and Marlene Haskell, live in Omaha, Nebraska, where I grew up.

My dad's website

Where I've Lived

See the places I've lived on a map.

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 2006—.
Mountain View, California. May–August 2006.
Princeton, New Jersey. 2004–2006.
West Windsor, New Jersey. 2003–2004.
Princeton, New Jersey. 1999–2003.
Omaha, Nebraska. 1981–1999.

My other websites

Sites that are mine and mine alone

CMU site - my professional (vs. personal) site
Audrey Tautou site - My Audrey Tautou site.
WordNet site - site in my home directory on the WordNet server.

Sites I designed and/or still maintain

WordNet - the home page for the WordNet project
Haskell Family Association - home page for the Haskell Family Association
Independent Student Union - The Independent Student Union at Princeton University
Independent Student Guide - A guide for Independent students at Princeton University