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bennesvig

3,229 karma · joined December 8, 2010

I blog here: http://bennesvig.com

Find me on Twitter: @BenNesvig

Email: hi@bennesvig.com

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bennesvig··on Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2024 – Show and tell
I've wanted to learn Music Theory for about a decade (only learned guitar tabs as a teen and to read sheet music as an adult). Love what you made and just got the premium course.
bennesvig··on Apple Reveals 'Vision Pro' Headset
Would require the headset being plugged in.
bennesvig··on Spotify deletes 70 Joe Rogan episodes
Some guests who got theirs removed complained on twitter, so this seems unlikely.
bennesvig··on Norm Macdonald has died
Norm's musings on death from his 2011 special: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrFU5wyd_C0
bennesvig··on Facebook launches its TikTok rival, Instagram Reels
The part about the algorithm might be referring to when you first join TikTok. THEN it shows you the most popular videos at the moment, adjusting quickly to a more personalized feed based on viewing/interaction behaviors.
bennesvig··on Ad Boycott of Facebook Keeps Growing
Ben & Jerry's spent less than $5k on Facebook and Instagram ads last month. They'll get more publicity value from joining the boycott vs. paying to run ads for a month or two.
bennesvig··on How to Find New Music
Rdio used to be my favorite app for music discovery before it got acquired/shut down.
bennesvig··on Verizon reportedly seeking to sell Tumblr
I was a heavy Tumblr user until I discovered Reddit around then, which made it easier to find the same type of content with more consistency.
bennesvig··on Ask HN: Which Bookmarking software do you use?
Big fan of https://pinboard.in
bennesvig··on Students don't seem to be getting much out of higher education (2018)
> If schools aim to boost students’ future income by teaching job skills, why do they entrust students’ education to people so detached from the real world?

Because the aim of school is to teach compliance, to sit quietly for 8 hours a day and do what you're told. I don't think it has ever been about learning truly practical skills. I don't even remember taking basic finance classes in high school.

bennesvig··on No Thank You, Mr. Pecker
Not sure why your comment is getting downvoted. It's absolutely true. It was obviously said as a joke.
bennesvig··on ChuChu TV is responsible for widely-viewed toddler content on YouTube
Yep, the videos that autoplay on kids content can be super creepy, borderline fetish/brainwashing content. The channel H3H3 summarized a few of the videos (Spiderman and Elsa come to mind). YouTube didn’t take action against those videos until a year later.
bennesvig··on The High Stakes of Surfing’s Wave-Pool Arms Race
Really hoping one of these wave pools makes its way to the midwest.
bennesvig··on Bytedance said to be valued at over $75B in new round
You likely mean ads for TikTok which Musically merged into after being acquired.
bennesvig··on A Cat Meme Photographer from a Century Ago
As someone who has made a lot of humorous memes professionally for brands, I agree that these aren't memes but are cute, funny pictures.
bennesvig··on What's the full story behind Elon Musk's involvement with the Thai cave rescue?
I don't understand the hate for Elon (though the response to Unsworth was disproportionate). His offer to help seemed to stem mainly from a curiosity in solving the problem and having the ability to potentially help. Great PR wasn't guaranteed from it (ex. if they used the sub and a kid died in it). Then came critiques from people on Twitter who have never built anything. Maybe it's a mix of envy + his willingness to fight back against inaccuracies.
bennesvig··on America’s Teens Are Choosing YouTube Over Facebook
One difference is that YouTube vloggers are kinda the new celebrity. A lot of kids would rather be vloggers than Hollywood celebrities.
bennesvig··on Drone Pilots’ Pay is Dropping
You have to know things about weather and reading maps that you'll never use when flying a drone, bu it only takes a weekend of studying to pass the drone pilot test.
bennesvig··on Drone Pilots’ Pay is Dropping
Flying a drone is much easier than most people think (at least drones from DJI or even the GoPro Karma). To not become a commodity, you have to provide something on top of just flying a drone to produce photo/video assets. For example, combining drone flying with storytelling (and ground footage) to create a video with a narrative is much harder, thus lucrative.
bennesvig··on Fake it till you make it: the wolves of Instagram
Probably because comments usually make it obvious if someone is using an automated bot to grow their Instagram account, which he definitely is.
bennesvig··on Pixar's Rules of Storytelling (2013)
I've read dozens of books on storytelling and Invisible Ink is one of my favorites.
bennesvig··on What I Learned Burning $14k on YouTube Ads for Candy Japan
As a marketer, videographer, and someone with a sweet tooth, I agree that it's a bad ad.
bennesvig··on What I Learned Burning $14k on YouTube Ads for Candy Japan
As a marketer, videographer, and someone with a sweet tooth, it's not a great ad. Get to the point. Show the actual product. Tease me with things I can expect to receive. Maybe show reaction videos of people opening and trying the candy (and loving it).

Also, you'd probably get higher ROI sending $14k worth of Candy Japan to YouTubers in the hopes they'd open it on their vlog and mention the website.

bennesvig··on What May Be U.S.’s First Drone-Linked Aircraft Crash Is Being Investigated
That seems very excessive, though regulation so far has been positive. Not that this is you, but fear of "voyeurism" is often said by people who aren't familiar with drones. I've owned multiple drones and would never consider them a spying tool since they aren't discrete/sound like a flying lawnmower. Additionally, most drones are equipped with wide-angle lenses which means you'd have to get pretty close to spy.

My main worry about drones comes from terrorists using them where crowds of people are gathered (concerts, events, etc), as other people have mentioned.

bennesvig··on The diabolical genius of the baby advice industry
I've found baby advice books to be 85% fluff/filler and 15% actionable advice. But that 15% can dramatically improve quality of life / the amount of sleep I get each night.
bennesvig··on Snap Revenue Surges 72% on User Growth, Advertising Gains
Snapchat has object recognition. With a ton of photos/videos stored in memories, they could get a decent idea of one's interests based on object recognition and text used in Snaps.
bennesvig··on Snap Revenue Surges 72% on User Growth, Advertising Gains
> The latest conference call was very enlightening in that it showed me how much snapchat was doing wrong and what they can do to fix it.

Just curious, what did you think they were doing wrong and needed to fix?

bennesvig··on Introducing Scrivener 3
I couldn't have written two books without Scrivener. Now I use it for a Commonplace Book.
bennesvig··on Identifying a Large Number of Fake Followers on Instagram
It's easy to tell on an individual basis if an Instagram account has something screwy going on.

- Check comments to followers ratio. - Check comment quality (are people tagging friends or leaving generic/spam "great pic" comments?). - Follow the account and turn on post notifications. By doing this you'll see how many spammy ads they post then delete an hour later. Many of these posts will have fake social proof on them.

bennesvig··on Snap Inc. Reports First Quarter 2017 Results
Snap calls itself the friends and family network for a reason. Instagram is a mix of celebrities, influencers, businesses, friends and family.
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