Hi, I'm Ben Sibelman, a software developer at [Microsoft](http://www.microsoft.com) in Redmond, Washington. This is me with one of my most favorite posters (despite its slight astronomical inaccuracies), which nicely sums up my desire for large-scale, long-term perspective, and one of my favorite T-shirts, which represents my belief in the power of grassroots [movements](/SolSeedMovement) and [communities](/SolSeedCommunity) to change the world. (To hear and read Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot speech shown illegibly in the photo, [go here.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFpFlKy1Pso))
Currently, I'm working on the Photos app for [Windows 8](http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/consumer-preview?ocid=O_WOL_W8P_OandO_Home_EN-US), which provides a new "[Metro](http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-57370910-75/why-metro-now-rules-at-microsoft/)-style" interface for viewing and sharing your favorite "digital memories" or works of photographic art.
My previous employer was the Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI), which is a bit of a misnomer these days: they sell mapmaking and geographic analysis software to corporations, governments, and other organizations. Some of this software is used for ecology and conservation work, but I ended up on the team that makes nautical charting software. Such is life.
But ESRI's CEO, Jack Dangermond, is a fervent environmentalist. As he is fond of saying, the geographic perspective is a global one, ideal for managing and sustaining the planet we call home. And that's my perspective, too: I think best on the general, large-scale, long-term level.
My goals are very ambitious: I'm hoping to help shape the [SolSeed Movement](/SolSeed_Movement) into what Harvey Mudd Professor [Paul Steinberg](http://www.hmc.edu/academicsclinicresearch/academicdepartments/humanitiesandsocialsciences1/faculty1/paulsteinberg.html) calls a Thousand-Year Institution, one that could help maintain some of the core principles needed for a truly sustainable civilization.
You can also check out
[my website, Living Worlds Productions](http://living-worlds.org) (which I haven't updated in ages)
and
[my blog, OpenSpace4Life](http://scifiben.livejournal.com).
[SolSeed](/Category:SolSeed)
[SolSeedMovement](/Category:SolSeedMovement)