Ben Bleikamp

"Palin isn’t a minister or priest. She isn’t a bishop. She is a celebrity, who spent ten..."

Tue, 12 Jan 2010 23:20:26 -0500

“Palin isn’t a minister or priest. She isn’t a bishop. She is a celebrity, who spent ten minutes trying to run a state much bigger than Texas with the population of the District of Columbia. When she says “it’s God’s will”, she is saying, it seems to me, either that her destiny is foretold as a modern day Esther (which is a strong theme among her Christianist supporters); or that it doesn’t matter what decisions she makes in office because God is in charge. So she is either filled with delusions of grandeur and prone to say things that believing Christians keep private out of humility; or she thinks she’s some kind of Messiah figure.”

- Christianist Watch - The Daily Dish

Vintage Lady Gaga Live at NYU - Captivated & Electric Kiss

Sun, 27 Dec 2009 12:50:28 -0500

Vintage Lady Gaga Live at NYU - Captivated & Electric Kiss

When will companies stop using this as a method to help...

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 13:54:31 -0500

When will companies stop using this as a method to help retriever your password? Almost none of these questions apply to me. I have no nieces or nephews, I am not 100% sure which cousin is the oldest, and I have no idea what my favorite childhood food was…I could go on.

If you are going to force me to use security questions, let me write my own.

"It takes three years to become an overnight success, sometimes more."

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 14:39:39 -0500

“It takes three years to become an overnight success, sometimes more.”

- Seth Godin

Photo

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 17:22:21 -0500

Google it

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 19:51:06 -0500

Bennett: whats the command for a full screenshot?
Ben: cmd + shift + 3
Ben: I think you mistook our IM window for Google, though.

I resigned from Bleacher Report last week after accepting a job at Yelp as a product manager. ...

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 12:47:37 -0400

I resigned from Bleacher Report last week after accepting a job at Yelp as a product manager. Officially, I am a UI product manager, meaning I am guiding design decisions and helping with interaction design across the site. I am very excited about the new position.

Leaving Bleacher Report was much harder than I anticipated it being, mostly because it was difficult to decide to leave the people I work with. The team that B/R has built is incredible. It’s easy to build a solid team if you’re Google or Twitter – recruiting consists of posting a job on your site and watching the thousands of resumés role in. As a start up without much hype, it takes a lot of work to hire the right people and I think Bleacher Report has done a great job.

The decision ended up coming down to where I wanted my career to be in five or ten years and this move will help me get there. Continuing as the designer at Bleacher Report would be great, but I don’t want to be a designer forever. Design is fun, but I have no desire to be a Creative Director and I am never going to spend the time learning to become a world-class visual designer.

Yelp is a bigger team, a bigger website, and my role is something that I haven’t done before, so it will be challenging.

Ironic.

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 02:22:35 -0400

Ironic.

Rent Payment Issues

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 18:24:59 -0400

I figured out why the company that manages my apartment complex (Avalon Bay) was not accepting my rent payments.

First, back story:

In August 2009 I was trying to pay my rent and it would not go through (I use a direct deposit from my checking account and pay online). The error said “Routing number must be 9 digits.” My routing number was 9 digits.

I called them and they assured me that it was an issue on my end and that I should double check my routing number with my bank. I assured them it was correct and that I use it on a number of sites (PayPal, credit card payments, etc.) But no, they insist I double check. I did double check, I was right.

I call back and imply that maybe the recent redesign of their resident backend and administration system might have broken something. “Oh no, definitely not, it was done by Intuit - they are VERY reputable!” Right…I ended up paying by phone two months in a row because the website wouldn’t work, but they assured me they were looking into it.

This month I tried paying again and got the same error. I decided to put my routing number in the “Account Number” field and my account number in the “Routing Number” field. It worked. Payment made. Whoever their developers are should be fired.

robot-heart-politics: god hates bible readers « god hates...

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 14:19:30 -0400

robot-heart-politics:

god hates bible readers « god hates protesters

So…are conservatives ruining the family if they get married and they aren’t virgins?

Homeless Man Leaves Behind Surprise: $4 Million

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 15:03:06 -0400

Homeless Man Leaves Behind Surprise: $4 Million:

A couple of things are interesting about this story:

He chose to be homeless and give up a lot of material comforts. He was happy
He was an atheist and still chose to donate a large amount of money to a religious organization.

Torture Doesn't Work and Here's Why

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 19:02:06 -0400

Torture Doesn't Work and Here's Why:

It turns out not only do two of the United States’ top interrogators disagree that torture is an effective interrogation technique — now scientists are chiming in and agreeing that no, torture is not an effective interrogation technique for getting valuable information.

In fact, torture makes it less likely that the information you get is valuable because it actually chemically alters what goes on in the brain and makes it more difficult to access certain parts of the brain…like those related to long term memory.

Good work CIA!

"The commonality between science and art is in trying to see profoundly - to develop strategies of..."

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 18:47:04 -0400

“The commonality between science and art is in trying to see profoundly - to develop strategies of seeing and showing.”

- Edward Tufte

"Facebook wants to aggregate status between friends. Twitter wants to aggregate status between..."

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 18:14:47 -0400

“Facebook wants to aggregate status between friends. Twitter wants to aggregate status between topics. This fundamental difference drives extremely different models for using micro-updates and subsequently renders Facebook and Twitter as non-competitors.”

- Hacker News

One of the better descriptions of the difference between Twitter and Facebook that I’ve read. I don’t think they are at war the way major media publications portray them to be. Facebook is closed, Twitter is open. Facebook will never be Twitter.

I suppose this headline at CNN is accurate, but is it really as...

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 12:46:40 -0400

I suppose this headline at CNN is accurate, but is it really as impressive as Facebook becoming cash-flow positive? It just perpetuates the idea that millions of users is “success.” That’s not success unless you can make money off of them.

"The simplest version works the best, and the first version is never the simplest."

Sat, 12 Sep 2009 17:25:43 -0400

“The simplest version works the best, and the first version is never the simplest.”

- On Prototyping

"Having waited decades for an innocent victim of capital punishment, the fact that we have finally..."

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 21:46:16 -0400

“Having waited decades for an innocent victim of capital punishment, the fact that we have finally found one won’t matter at all. In this new America we can execute a man for an accidental house fire, while the constitution stands silently by.”

- The elusive search for the sufficiently innocent criminal

Working hard

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 19:50:14 -0400

Winton: your mom's evil
Winton: if evil means totally hot
Winton:

"Don’t make something unless it is both necessary and useful; but if it is both necessary and useful,..."

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 14:37:12 -0400

“““Don’t make something unless it is both necessary and useful; but if it is both necessary and useful, don’t hesitate to make it beautiful.””

"One thing I would say so that there is no confusion out there is that this FCC will support net..."

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 23:37:48 -0400

“One thing I would say so that there is no confusion out there is that this FCC will support net neutrality and will enforce any violation of net neutrality principles.”

- FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski (via Benjamin Stein)

This might be the best news I’ve heard out of Washington in…ever.