Hi there! Here’s a little bit of stuff about me.
- Born in Friesland, Netherlands
- Almae matres: Panama Elementary (Sunnyvale), Collins Middle (Cupertino), Fremont High (Sunnyvale), UC Santa Cruz (1988)
- Retired from Apple, Inc. after internships and full-time during 1985~2022
- Interests: Software, electronics, aviation, medicine, SCUBA, underwater communication, astronomy and physics, social justice
Some Links
Projects: https://www.redwinesgarage.com
- SharkShout SCUBA diving communication app for Apple Watch Ultra
Instructables Projects: https://www.instructables.com/search/?q=BenKoning&projects=all
- Subaru BRZ Dome Light Controller (to get around bad switch design)
- Subaru BRZ Footwell Light Controller (to get around bad brightness design)
- Dodge Viper Fuel Relay Controller (to work around a failed hard-to-replace pressure regulator)
- Optical Keyboard (a true hermetically-sealed touchpad)
Patent: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20140208091A1/en?oq=US20140208091A1
- Method of dynamically resizing enclosed storage device partitions
Media:
- Arcadia Images Of America series: Sunnyvale (128pp)
- Echo of the Future: A Tale of Sunnyvale (48min)
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Vietnam 2013 Trip
My friend Monte and I went on a trip to Vietnam in May 2013 for 10+ days for a friend’s wedding. Friendly people everywhere, incredible food, impossible language barrier. Did I mention incredible food?
Christina, who made this entire trip possible by not only planning it but also serving as translator, everywhere, all the time. Wow!
This is a typical view from the backyard of one of Christina’s relatives. We actually took a canoe through a narrow jungle river to reach their house. There, we were feasted with a banquet of fresh (as in, cut straight down from the (very high) tree) pineapple and coconut.
One afternoon, without warning, it started raining HARD. And as an old National Geographic photographer once wrote, “if it gets too rainy and too muddy and too dirty to keep shooting, then keep shooting!”. I got lucky on this shot; normally I’m terrible at trying to pan/pick motion things like this.