Studio711.com – Ben Martens

Apple Watch

applewatchThe new Apple Watch launched recently with the usual media frenzy. They sold out almost immediately though it’s anyone’s guess what that actually means in terms of the number of units sold. Personally, I’m a bit uninterested in the whole smart watch thing. Some day we might get there, but the tech is pretty infantile at this point. I haven’t worn a watch since college which was about the time I started carrying a cell phone. At this point, wearing anything on my wrist drives me bonkers and would take quite a while to get used to.

The Apple Watch will be the first time a lot of people have seen a smart watch, but rest assured that there are lots of them on the market that do pretty much exactly the same thing as the Apple product. Apple isn’t really inventing anything here, but they don’t have to invent to make money.

If you really want to dip your toe into the smart watch world, I’d point you to the Pebble. It has been around for a long time, does the core things that you really care about (seeing notifications at a glance), and because of the screen technology, the battery lasts for a week instead of lasting for a day… or less.

benmartens April 17, 2015 Gadgets

I-405 Construction Update

i405We live right off of I-405 so we have been living with the enormous construction project for years. However, it’s slated to finish this fall and some of the details about the new traffic flow are starting to come out:

  • An extra lane is being added between NE 6th and NE 160th St
  • That extra lane along with the existing HOV lane will be “express toll lanes.” Cars with enough occupants will travel in them for free, but others can pay to travel in them.
  • During peak hours, three people are required to use the express lanes. In off peak hours, two people will qualify.
  • The rate for non-HOV users will vary based on the traffic. More traffic? Higher rate. They try to keep traffic flowing on those lanes by pricing people out of them.
  • Motorcycles are always exempt as with other HOV lanes.
  • You need a new “Flex Pass” to use those lanes. If you already had a switchable pass, you can call for a free upgrade.
  • There are defined entry and exit points for the express toll lanes.

I’m interested to see how much the extra lane helps traffic. Having the defined entry and exit points should help keep the traffic segregated a bit. For example, there’s no entry point right at 520 which will hopefully reduce some of the congestion as 520 drivers merge onto 405.

I do wonder about the sensibility of adding an extra HOV lane instead of regular lane. I really hope that it’s being done because this actually reduces commute times for everyone and not as some environmental action to try and force people to carpool.

Thankfully I have multiple routes that I can take to and from work. 405 is just one of the options. With almost 200,000 people traveling this stretch of road every day, I’m sure I’m not the only one who is eager to see how this is going to turn out.

benmartens April 16, 2015 Commentary

No More Custard

peakscustardlogoAfter Tyla and I bought our new kitchen table last month, we decided to celebrate with some Peaks Frozen Custard. We love their custard but don’t get to go very often because it’s on the Seattle side of the lake. Since we were already over there, it seemed like a good fit.

I did some quick searching around to find the quickest route there and discovered that they were closed. Not just closed for the day, but closed permanently. And what’s more, they had been closed for 1.5 YEARS! Wow! I, umm, guess it had been a while since we were there.

The couple articles available online don’t offer a strong reason why they quit. This article provides most of the information that I found and they quote the now-defunct Peaks website as saying:

We could not be more grateful to all of you amazing custardmers. It has been 5 years of wonderful. So why would we close? Peaks is a small family business that takes 100% of our families attention. We had fun, but now we’re on to a new lifestyle! At the same time, our lease comes to an end- so it was renew, relocate or stop!

Goodbye Peaks! I’m sorry we didn’t visit you more often!

benmartens April 15, 2015 Commentary

Saw Blades

diablosawbladeNow that I finally have a shiny new saw, I decided that I started wondering how my old table saw would work if it had a nice new blade on it. Maybe I could get the old blade sharpened, but I kind of just want to start with a new blade and then take care of it properly from the beginning.

I started reading about saw blades and WOW, there are a lot of things to know about the blades. There are different diameters, different blade shapes, different angles for the teeth, different numbers of teeth, different thicknesses for the blade and the list goes on. This article from Rockler is one of the best ones I found for summarizing all the info but here is a quick summary of what I learned:

  • My table saw and my circular saw use the same diameter blade so I can buy one blade and use it either place.
  • Miter saws should generally have a higher tooth count since you are mostly doing cross cuts (~60-80 teeth) while table saw blades should have a lower tooth count since you are mostly doing rip cuts (~24-40 teeth.)
  • If you have less than a three horsepower motor, consider using a thin kerf (thickness) blade. The tradeoff is that the blade might deflect more, but since you are removing less wood, your motor can power through the cuts easier. You’re also generating less dust!
  • Most saw blades have a positive angle to the teeth meaning that they lean forward. Miter saws benefit from a slightly negative tooth angle. This gives you a more controllable cut and also helps to prevent the saw blade from pulling the back side of your wood up into the air.

The saw blade that came on my miter saw is probably better suited for my table saw so I’m hoping to move that over and then buy a higher tooth count blade for my miter saw.

benmartens April 14, 2015 Woodworking

Easter vs. Christmas

emptytombAs we drove to church on Easter morning, I thought about how different it was than Christmas morning. Many of the stores were still open and traffic was about average for a Sunday morning. Almost nobody had been taking vacation at work the previous week and only parents with kids on spring break were taking the following week off. I bet a large part of the population didn’t even know it was Easter.

As a Christian, it’s hard to decide whether Easter or Christmas is a bigger holiday. Both are critical to my future. I suspect that a lot more people understand the importance of Christmas than Easter. A couple years ago, I wrote an explanation of what Christmas means for the Christian. Today I’ll do the same thing for Easter. If you’ve ever been a little curious why we get excited about this holiday, here’s your chance to find out.

At Christmas we celebrate the almighty God coming to earth as a human. That in itself is pretty impressive, but if that’s all it was, we’d all still be in a bad spot. That’s because every one of us is sinful. We’ve all broken God’s law at least once (more like millions of times) and God demands perfection to enter heaven. So on our own, the only fate for us at death is eternal damnation in hell. But that’s where Easter comes into play.

Jesus didn’t just hang around on the earth for a while to sight see. He was here to live a perfect life and take the punishment for ALL of us. His death, which we remember on Good Friday, wasn’t just one man dying. It was God punishing His only Son for our sin. But it doesn’t end there. On Easter morning, Jesus rose from the dead proclaiming his power over death and the devil.

Without the death and resurrection of Jesus and without our faith that it happened, when we die, we would be judged by our own track record. We’re all sinful so we’d all be condemned to hell. But because Jesus did die and rise. Those who believe will not be judged on their own record. Instead, Jesus steps in and points out that he paid the price for our sins so God the Father counts us as blameless and we enter heaven for eternity.

So THAT is why Christians are so excited about Easter. We should be this excited every day of the year, but Easter is an extra special reminder of the incredible gift that we have been given.

P.S. I’m turning off comments on this post because I’m not looking to start a public discussion, but if you want to know more about what I believe, you can of course ask me or check out this website from our church group. I also left out specific Bible references to keep this short and approachable, but I’m happy to provide passages to back up everything written here.

P.P.S. If you want to hear Pastor talk about this more in his sermon from this past Easter service, you can view it on YouTube.

benmartens April 13, 2015 Commentary

Five Years

Hey God, it’s me. Five years ago on this day, Tyla and I stood before you and promised our lives to each other. Just checking in to say that it’s all going well! Thank you for bringing us together!

weddingbridge

benmartens April 10, 2015 Family

March Madness Wrap Up

Congrats to Jim for pulling out the win with 121 total points! He correctly picked Duke as the winner of it all. Not too shabby. Three people had more correct picks than Jim, but getting those final games right is critical to winning the bracket challenge.

I used Bing predictions to create my bracket. I’ve been impressed with all the things they have picked correctly (elections, football games, etc.) I think the tournament was a bit too many unknowns because all the errors get compounded.

Rank Owner Correct Picks Points
1 JimM 40 121
2 LoganB 44 100
3 TimS 38 88
4 AndyB 44 87
5 JayA 41 85
6 BenM 38 75
7 AndyD 34 60

The NCAA won’t let me embed the One Shining Moment video. So instead, maybe you’d be interested in John Oliver’s excellent monologue about how much money the NCAA makes while players go hungry.

benmartens April 9, 2015 Fantasy Sports

Debit Card Scam

cardfraudI feel like I’m pretty immune to online attempts to scam me out of my bank information. The routine is well-defined: if I get an email from my bank, PayPal, etc, I never click the links in the email. Instead I open a browser and manually go to their site and try to verify what they told me I needed to do in the email.

But for some reason, phone calls can be a bit trickier. Yesterday I got a call saying that my debit card had been locked and I needed to unlock it. We had a little goofiness going on with our bank account yesterday anyway so this was completely plausible. “Press 1 to talk to someone about this.” Ok, I did that. “Please enter your 16 digit debit card number so we can look up your account.” Umm… red flag. It was getting weird. So I hung up, turned my card over, and I called the number on the back. I asked if my card was locked and if they had just called me. Nope.

Don’t ever believe someone coming to you acting in a position of authority and asking you for information. ALWAYS verify their identity independently first by contacting them through the officially documented channels. If it is legit, you’ll be able to do it. And if they try to push you into just believing them, that’s even more reason to be wary. If they’re legit then they will almost certainly comply. For example, I had a call from Visa telling me that my card was stolen and they started asking for personal information. I stopped the guy, asked for his extension and told him I’d call him back. I called the number on the back of the card, punched in his extension, and got right back to him. Identify verified (and he was impressed with the extra check.)

You only have to screw up once to get in a mess.

benmartens April 8, 2015 Commentary

Goodbye Oskar

Goodbye to our dear Oskar
Your cancer had spread too far
It happened so fast
This day was your last
Now you’re a bright doggie star

I met you seven years ago
With my future wife in tow
You warmed all our hearts
But not with your farts
And you loved us too I know

You came with us on our dates
And sometimes you licked our plates
To stop any crime
You barked all the time
And tried to run through the gates

You weren’t always the smartest one
But you filled our days with fun
Your life was worthwhile
You made us all smile
And now your time here is done

oskarfamilyphoto

benmartens April 7, 2015 Poetry

Open Sprinkler Review

opensprinkler_v20s_5-500x500When Tim installed my irrigation system, he was kind enough to throw in a free irrigation clock that he had sitting around. It’s a standard Hunter model (probably $75-100) and it worked great, but every time I looked at it, I thought about how simple the device really was and that I should be able to control it from my computer. Standard industry offerings are hundreds or thousands of dollars with monthly fees. They’re mostly intended for commercial use.

After a little searching, I found opensprinkler.com. Somebody else had the same idea and made such a nice package that he is able to sell it. The basic model is Arduino based but there are Raspberry Pi and Beagle Bone versions too. I chose the standard model for $155.

Installation was a snap. I labeled all the wires from the existing clock and transferred them over to the Open Sprinkler unit. I also ran an Ethernet cord from the clock in the corner of my garage up into the network closet. (It is SO convenient having the network closet share a wall with the garage!) I turned the unit on and very quickly was turning the sprinklers on and off from my computer. With a little extra configuration I was able to do it from my phone.

Why? Well yes, it’s a toy, but it also makes it very easy to walk around the yard testing zones or turning them on to blow out the line. Also, last summer I’d wake up to hear the rain and realize that my irrigation was scheduled to run in the morning. To avoid wasting water, I had to turn off the house alarm, go out in the garage, turn the program off, come back in, turn the alarm back on, and go back to bed. Now I can just reach for my phone and adjust it… if I even need to (more on that below.)

Aside form the convenience factor, here are some other features that I love:

  • I can completely manage the system from the comfort of my couch instead of standing in the garage.
  • Programs can be set to start based on sunrise or sunset. General recommendations for lawn watering are to do it a little bit before the sun comes up to avoid the hot sun burning off the water but also not let give moss a wet, dark place to thrive. This setting makes that super easy.
  • By checking the weather online, the system can automatically adjust the programs based on the humidity, temperature and precipitation from the previous days. This either means skipping an entire program or just running it for fewer minutes.
  • Programs can be set to run every N days instead of on specific days of the week.
  • You can view a log of when each zone was on. This will be nice when I try to track water usage and also to evaluate how well the Open Sprinkler system is performing.
  • As the software gets updated and perfected, I can update my unit with the click of a button.

All in all, I highly recommend this product so far. As long as it actually does the job of controlling the irrigation system without ever crashing, I’ll be very happy!

benmartens April 6, 2015 Gadgets, Geek, Home Improvement