Hacker News: benvanderbeek

New comment by benvanderbeek in "Retro-Tech Parenting"

benvanderbeek — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 21:34:19 +0000

Plane trips and long car rides are screen free with my 4 young kids (3-9) but that’s more about gluttony for punishment than principle.

In a post-truth world truth-seeking is more important

benvanderbeek — Fri, 10 Oct 2025 23:14:02 +0000

Article URL: https://iai.tv/articles/in-a-post-truth-world-truth-seeking-is-more-important-than-ever-auid-3382

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45544890

Points: 68

# Comments: 60

Synth Kit - littleBits

benvanderbeek — Mon, 18 Nov 2013 17:17:25 +0000

Article URL: http://littlebits.cc/kits/synth-kit

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6755409

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

New comment by benvanderbeek in "Ask HN: Who is hiring? (March 2013)"

benvanderbeek — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 20:05:35 +0000

nuCourse (http://nuCourse.com/careers) Garden Grove (Orange County), CA

Wholesale distributor of mobile accessories.

Hiring developers and non-technical positions.

#152 on most recent Inc 500 (fastest growing private companies in US).

Great place to work. Warm, friendly, exciting, growth potential, good work/life balance.

New comment by benvanderbeek in "Antidepressants, Tap Water, and Autism"

benvanderbeek — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 19:11:31 +0000

Long Beach, Calif.: 2 (meprobamate and phenytoin). [1]

I'm drinking an anti-epileptic and an anti-anxiety. That sucks.

[1] http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-03-10-drugs-...

New comment by benvanderbeek in "Sorry, Geeks, Microsoft Excel is Everywhere"

benvanderbeek — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 17:10:09 +0000

The problem isn't the lack of workarounds. The problem is that we have all departments - Purchasing, Marketing, Operations/Warehouse, Sales, Finance, IT - working with sku's in spreadsheets. Every single time, every single person needs to know the workaround(s), and as other people are mentioning, you then have to hope it's not somehow saved as something else. And also as mentioned, if someone else has worked with the data before you get it, good luck restoring it to what it was before.

But yes we'll probably stick a letter in there.

New comment by benvanderbeek in "Sorry, Geeks, Microsoft Excel is Everywhere"

benvanderbeek — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 19:20:12 +0000

My company's part numbers are in the form 00-0000. After enough conversations about how to convert back to this format from the date Excel changes it to, we've finally just decided to change our sku format. A rolling change though, so we'll still be dealing with it till the current 5k sku's are all EOL.

I also hate the scientific notation default, in addition to the leading zero. Guess what, UPC's exist and no one wants them in scientific notation.

New comment by benvanderbeek in "Gmail was down"

benvanderbeek — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 22:15:44 +0000

Postini setup process and support are a joke. You can call someone who tells you to look at a help file, and the help files point to help files, which have no screenshots, and reference menu and navigation options that don't exist. Also asking them how to get Postini to work with Google Apps was like speaking a foreign language to them, as if we were the first person to need this. Despite the fact that it was up-sold to us as an add-on to Google Apps.

Other than Postini, though, I do like Google Apps.

New comment by benvanderbeek in "The island where people forget to die"

benvanderbeek — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 19:43:44 +0000

Bing Liu is one of the researchers working on this. I've discussed Amazon review fraud detection with him. http://www.cs.uic.edu/~liub/

New comment by benvanderbeek in "New $250 Chromebook"

benvanderbeek — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 17:50:34 +0000

I have an iPad 3 and a Chromebook. I like and use the Chromebook much more, because of the built in keyboard. I know plenty of people who would hate using a Chromebook and much prefer their iPad for everything. To each his own.

Will Paid Reviews Bite Amazon Back?

benvanderbeek — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 03:56:41 +0000

Article URL: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/08/will-paid-reviews-bite-amazon-back/261582/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4447027

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

New comment by benvanderbeek in "The White House just open sourced their first Github repo"

benvanderbeek — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 16:35:18 +0000

"you can choose the left or the right lane of the conveyor belt to the butcher house."

I am going to use this phrase, thanks.

New comment by benvanderbeek in "Why Ratings Systems Don't Work"

benvanderbeek — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 16:49:56 +0000

Regarding the unhelpfulness of online reviews, my company has problems with manufacturers/sellers writing 5-star reviews of their own product listings (ASIN's) on Amazon. We've begun (manually) data mining 5-star reviews to identify whether each 5-star-reviewer has any other reviews (or wish list, to indicate the possibility of a real user account), then calculating the % of reviews written by no-history user accounts. Of the ASIN's we've assessed, the gut-level-doesn't-seem-like-heavy-review-fraud listings can be in the 6% range, whereas the looks-like-review-fraud ASIN's are above 20%. We're working with Amazon to identify and penalize these manufacturers/sellers, but internally at Amazon the Seller Performance team is separate from their Community (user review) team, so it presents a challenge. Also hard for them to separate valid complaints from sour grapes complaints.

New comment by benvanderbeek in "How well does Khan Academy teach?"

benvanderbeek — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 15:31:11 +0000

My friend works for ALEKS. I agree it's a very solid approach.

New comment by benvanderbeek in "How SEO Killed Online Reviews"

benvanderbeek — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 18:27:59 +0000

Amazon review fraud is rampant, and with enough effort, they'll do something about it. I've worked w/teams there who, over time, develop very complex queries on the back end, and use these to remove sellers who violate policy. There are all kinds of additional tricks sellers or manufacturers use to make their reviews look legit, such as using Amazon gift cards to prevent tracing back to a specific credit card holder, and to ensure the "Verified Amazon Purchase" indicator shows on the review. Helpful votes are crucial and there seem to be very complex rules behind which votes get counted and which don't. Some combination of accounts being related via credit card on file, IP address, possibly length of user account history, etc. One difficulty for Amazon is that their community review policing department is disconnected from their seller performance team. My company's work with them has improved the communication, as well as the realization that user accounts that leave fraudulent reviews cannot be treated as merely rogue buyer community members, but rather have to be tied back to sellers and manufacturers who are the real benefactors of these fraudulent (positive or negative) reviews.

We've come a long way from manufacturers blatantly paying people for positive reviews. http://www.thedailybackground.com/2009/01/16/exclusive-belki...

New comment by benvanderbeek in "Your iPhone calendar isn’t private—at least if you use the LinkedIn app"

benvanderbeek — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 17:12:09 +0000

Last paragraph:

As for what the app will do moving forward: "We will no longer send data from the meeting notes section of your calendar event. There will be a new 'learn more' link to provide more information about how your calendar data is being used." LinkedIn says these updates are already live on the Android app and will be coming to the iOS app shortly.

New comment by benvanderbeek in "Show HN: Get a better job offer, anonymously - my weekend hack"

benvanderbeek — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 18:27:22 +0000

Error when trying to delete: We're sorry, but something went wrong. We've been notified about this issue and we'll take a look at it shortly.

New comment by benvanderbeek in "What Happens When You Swear At Your Users"

benvanderbeek — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 18:17:31 +0000

I love that it was "too many times" - how many is too many? After the 3rd time seeing Asshat on a large screen you decided to go clean? ;)

New comment by benvanderbeek in "The Pirate Bay Wants You To Really Download A Car"

benvanderbeek — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 21:57:49 +0000

Makes sense, thanks for connecting the dots while my imagination was not working.

New comment by benvanderbeek in "The Pirate Bay Wants You To Really Download A Car"

benvanderbeek — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 22:08:43 +0000

I apologize for my lack of imagination, but what does this mean? "We’ll be able to print food for hungry people. We’ll be able to share not only a recipe, but the full meal."