If you haven't guessed by now my name is Ben Reser. While I finally decided to do the first real personal website I've bothered with since 1996. I don't really intend to make the site about me per se. But for the perversely curious here are a few details.

I live in the Seattle, WA area. Have a cat named Rocky (he has no tail but he's not a minx). I grew up in Topeka, KS (too hot and too cold for my tastes). The call of the trees and the mountains and a summer job brought me to the Seattle area in 1997 and I haven't moved away since. In case you're wondering no I don't normally dress like the picture to the right. That was taken at a friends wedding. But since it seems to be one of the best pictures taken of me (or at least of me recently) it seems to be appropriate to use.

People ask me all the time what I do for a living and well the answer to that isn't entirely clear. From 1997 to 2000 I ran RegNow. But since then I've been taking a long break. I'm in the process of starting a new company Siaer Networks. What we do is well somewhat in flux, when it's finally a viable business perhaps I'll get around to figuring out how to explain it. However, I have spent a lot of time contributing to Open Source software of late. Especially Mandrake Linux. Basically I'm an entrepreneurial programmer.

I will not bore you with how great Rocky is or how much I love some activity here. All I'm doing here is expressing my opinion and listing the various projects I have going. To put these things in a context I've included some of what I call "vital statistics."

Name: Ben Reser

Age: 47

BirthDate: 245495520 ( geek speak for date/time )

Gender: Male

Race: should you care?

GPG/PGP Key: benreser.asc

pub   4096R/16A0DE01 2011-01-28
      Key fingerprint = 19BB CAEF 7B19 B280 A0E2  175E 62D4 8FAD 16A0 DE01

IRC NickName: breser

Current Hangouts: #svn and #svn-dev on irc.freenode.net (formerly Open Projects Network)

Current Desktop: MSI KT3 ARU Motherboard with AMD XP 2100+ Processor; 1.5GB of PC2700 RAM; 60 GB ATA/133 5400 RPM Hard Drive; Matrox G450 Dual Head Video Card; ATI Rage 128 Video Card; Sun 21" Monitor; Samsung 760VTFT 17" Monitor; Samsung 170MP 17" Monitor; Samsung DVD ROM drive. Yes that's right kids 3 monitors hooked up to one machine for a desktop resolution of 3840x1024. This computer is running Mandrake Linux 9.0. It used to run Mandrake Linux Cooker, but XFree86 4.2.99 doesn't work right with my Xinerama setup..

Current Laptop: Apple PowerBook G4 aka a Titanium with a 500MHz G4; 512 MB RAM; 30 GB HD and a display resolution of 1152x768. This machine is running Mandrake Linux 8.2/PPC. I also have a Dell Inspiron 7500 but it isn't what I use mostly anymore.

GeekCode:

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Version: 3.12

GCS/B d-(+)@ s: a- C++++$ UBLVS++++(++)$ P+++$>++++ L+++>++++ E---
W++(-) N(--) o? K? w--(++)@ O- M-()@ V PS+(+++)@ PE++(-)@
Y++(+)@ PGP++>+++ t+()@ 5 X R(+)@ tv-(+)@ b+(++)>+++ DI++ D G
e(*) h++ r%()>+++ y?**
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Finally for those wondering what went into this site. Well it was made with vi, gimp and various other pieces of free software. My rants page uses Elena Alvear Bravo's invisible engine that runs her journal which interestingly enough she calls invisible. Though I have done some modifications to it myself. On top of that using the Palm::DateBook module I extract journal entries from my Palm Pilot and insert them automatically into my rants page.