Studio711.com – Ben Martens

Kindle Paperwhite 2 Review

I finally pulled the trigger on a Kindle upgrade (wifi with special offers version.) I finally realized that I’ve used a Kindle for at least 30 minutes a day pretty much every day for the last 4 years, so I would probably get some use out of a new one. Going from the second generation Kindle to the second gen Kindle Paperwhite was a massive leap. Some of the changes have been around for a long time, but here’s a list of things that I’ve noticed and enjoyed about the device design:

  • Backlight – The backlight is great, especially since most of my reading happens in bed after Tyla falls asleep. It’s better than a tablet or a computer because the text you’re reading is still physically there but now there is light around it to let you see what you’re reading. The light is completely adjustable, but if it ends up causing eye strain, I can still drop back to the old method of a book light.
  • Contrast ratio – Even without the backlight turned on to make the background whiter, the text is a lot darker and the background is a lot lighter.
  • Speed – Changing screens, opening books, opening menus, and flipping pages is all significantly faster than before.
  • Touch screen – I thought I would hate this but it actually works pretty well because the Kindle is so much quicker. The only downside is that to turn a page your thumb has to cross over onto the screen instead of just staying on the side where you’re holding the book. If I could design my perfect device, I’d probably drop the physical keyboard but keep the physical page turn buttons.
  • Battery life – This one isn’t really fair since the battery on my old Kindle had been through a lot of power cycles, but Amazon claims this new one will go two months between charges even with the backlight on!

The physical device changes are great, but the software changes are incredible! The first devices were about replicating the experience of a paper book, but now they’re taking advantage of their platform and doing things that books could never do.

  • Wikipedia – Not only can I get dictionary definitions for words, but I can also look things up on Wikipedia. And both of those show up in a flyout instead of changing to an entirely different screen.
  • Vocabulary builder – Anytime you look up a word, it goes into the Vocabulary Builder app. You can go back and quick yourself to see if you’re actually learning anything. Words can be removed once you decide you’ve mastered them.
  • XRay – This feature probably would have convinced me to keep reading Game of Thrones. You can highlight a character in the book and then quickly see everywhere in the book that they appear, seeing passages where they are mentioned to remind you who they are.
  • Pages/Locations – Even after four years, I never got the hang of locations. Having 300 locations left to the end of a chapter doesn’t really register, but now I can finally switch to page numbers. The numbers correspond to a printed copy of the book so you might not actually increment the page number when you flip the page on your ebook. But still, if I have 8 pages left, I know roughly what that means.
  • Scan forward/backward – You can quickly bring up an overlay and flip ahead or backwards without actually changing your place in the book. It’s a nice way to navigate to quickly answer something you forgot or to find the next good stopping point.
  • Minutes remaining – I saved my favorite feature for last. Based on how quickly you’ve been reading, it predicts how many minutes you have left until you hit the end of a chapter! This feature alone is almost worth the price of a new device.

All in all, I’m thrilled with the new Paperwhite. Other e-readers have come and gone, but Amazon has a winner on their hands.

benmartens October 24, 2013 Books, Gadgets

Fantasy Football – Week 7

Andy continued to stretch his first place lead with another win and scoring the most points in the league. He won the league back in 2011. Maybe this is his year again?

When I looked to see what my perfect roster would have been, it suggested that I should have started Drew Brees… who was on a bye week. Instead, I had picked up Jay Cutler as that matchup seemed really good to me. Unfortunately he got injured after one pass and an interception leaving him with negative points.

Now on to the weekly awards:

  • Highest Team Score: Andy had 145.10 (Record, Week 4: Tim had 195.50)
  • Lowest Team Score: Tim had 78.71 (Record, Week 6: Jim had had 72.17)
  • Biggest Blowout: Andy beat Luke by 34.68 (Record, Week 3: Dad beat Andy by 63.83)
  • Closest Win: Dad beat Austin by 7.02 (Record, Week 1: Logan beat Tim by 0.89)
  • Highest Scoring Player: Andrew Luck had 36.02 for Luke  (Record, Week1: Peyton Manning had 60.28 for Andy.)
  • Mr. Consistency:  I’m on a four game winning streak, and Luke is on a four game losing streak.
  • Deadbeats: None!

Stats mostly via TMQ:

  • Stretching back to last season, Kansas City has followed a 1-12 streak with a 7-0 streak.
  • The Jets broke a streak of five straight losses to the Patriots; Tom Brady broke a streak of nine touchdown passes against the Jets without an interception.
  • The Bears have more touchdowns on kick and turnover returns (five) than victories (four).
  • Buffalo won on the road for the first time in more than a year. Six of the Bills’ nine remaining contests are on the road.
  • Denver is on a pace to score an all-time-record 681 points and is second in its division.
  • Philadelphia has the league’s No. 2 offense but is averaging just 13 more yards gained than allowed.
  • The Cowboys, who entered with the league’s 30th-ranked defense, held Philadelphia 25 points under its scoring average.
  • Against Oregon, Washington State had 557 yards passing and 2 yards rushing.
benmartens October 23, 2013 Fantasy Sports

Hot Sauce!

I used to work with a guy from the Caribbean who made fantastic hot sauce. I haven’t gotten any hot sauce from him lately, but he did give him his (very vague) recipe. Logan, Andy, Tim and I decided to spend an afternoon trying to make our own hot sauce. Thankfully we were smart enough to do it outside on the side burner of the grill to avoid turning the house into a warzone.

Our first attempt used an equal mixture (by weight) of unseeded habaneros and papaya. It was HOT. Logan named this one “Devil’s Tears.” For our second attempt, we dialed back the peppers into a 3 to 1 mixture and included some mangoes with the papaya. That one is still quite hot, but if you enjoy hot sauces, it’s not too crazy to eat. Logan named that one “Agent Orange.”

We ended up with a lot of hot sauce between the four of us, but I think we’ll convene again at some point to try and make it even better.

The recipe that follows is for Agent Orange. If you want to try Devil’s tears then just adjust the weight of fruit to peppers.

Ingredients

  • 3lb 10oz papaya and mango (2 papayas and 3 mangoes)
  • 15.5 oz unseeded habaneros
  • 6 tsp minced garlic
  • 3 tsp ground cumin
  • 1.5 tsp dried mustard
  • 6 tsp salt
  • Vinegar

Directions

  • Seed the fruit and remove it from the skin.
  • Wear gloves! Chop the habaneros.
  • Combine fruit, peppers and spices.
  • Add vinegar until it almost reaches the top of the mixture.
  • Boil slowly until soft (30-45 minutes). Stir occasionally to prevent sticking.
  • Blend and store

Yield: 18 4oz jars

benmartens October 22, 2013 Food

Custom Storage And Desk: Part 1

The only want I’m able to distract people from the pile of boxes and junk along the wall in the man cave is with a 110” screen. On that same wall, I also had a tiny little cheap desk and chair setup that have been progressively getting worse and worse over the years. I had grand visions for what that area of the room could be, and after completing a bunch of other home projects, it was time to tackle this one.

My first decision was whether to do this myself or contract it out. To get a rough idea of material costs, I did a drawing in Google Sketchup using the dimensions of Ikea cabinets. I then got a bid from a contractor for one of these online cabinet places. The contractor’s design was definitely nicer than what I drew, but it was about 2.5 times the cost. While getting that bid might feel like a waste of time, it helped me a lot throughout the project because I knew how much money I was saving.

The cabinets were the first big steps in the project after the planning was done. They were quick to assemble and very easy to hang even with only one person. The design of the cabinets is really intelligent and allows me to easily swap shelves for drawers or vice versa if I ever want to later. I could also upgrade the cabinet facing without too much cost. I still need to pick out door pulls and cabinet handles but I’ll probably do that at the end.

Next up: shelving along the left side of the cabinets and a desk surface.

benmartens October 21, 2013 Home Improvement, Projects, Woodworking

Body Proportions

Do babies have big heads or short arms? Elijah can barely touch his hands together over his head. So does that mean that his arms are too short and will grow longer as he ages or that his head will shrink relative to his body?

The answer is that babies have proportionally bigger heads than adults. A child’s head makes up 20% of their overall height while an adult’s head is only 11% of their height. That means that if our proportions didn’t change as we moved through our lives, my head would be roughly twice as big as it is now!

benmartens October 18, 2013 Commentary

In Depth Orchestra Viewing

The London Symphony Orchestra published a great website that lets you have four concurrent HD views of their music and you can choose which view you want in each quadrant. There’s some extra stuff thrown in that lets you drill in for information about each instrument in each chair too. This type of thing has been promised since DVDs were first introduced but it has yet to see the mainstream.

benmartens October 17, 2013 Links, Music

Fantasy Football – Week 6

We’re back to having a little diversity in the standings. Andy is currently sitting in the top spot at 4-2. The game of the week for me was Jim vs. Tim. Not only did it rhyme, but they were battling it out to see who could win with the least amount of points. Tim eventually won with a score that, if not for Jim, would have qualified for the lowest score of the season. On a side note, Tim is the only player in our league who hasn’t made a roster move yet. Wonder how long he can keep that up? On a side side note, the two top scorers in our league were free agents!

Austin and I have been doing the league pick ‘em each week and he turns out to be pretty good at it, or at least he’s slightly better than guessing with a 9-7 record. Somehow I’m doing worse than blind guessing.

Now on to the weekly awards:

  • Highest Team Score: Ben had 144.05 (Record, Week 4: Tim had 195.50)
  • Lowest Team Score: Jim had had 72.17 (Previous Record, Week 5: Jim had 85.01)
  • Biggest Blowout: Ben beat Austin by 40.76 (Record, Week 3: Dad beat Andy by 63.83)
  • Closest Win: Tim beat Jim by 11.1 (Record, Week 1: Logan beat Tim by 0.89)
  • Highest Scoring Player: Cam Newtown had 36.68 as a free agent.  (Record, Week1: Peyton Manning had 60.28 for Andy.)
  • Mr. Consistency:  I’m on a three game winning streak.
  • Deadbeats: Dad and Luke both started injured players, but since they were playing each other I guess it cancels out? We haven’t had many deadbeats this year which is good but we’re getting into injury and bye times.

Stats mostly via TMQ:

  • Houston has given up a pick-six in five consecutive games.
  • In the Kansas City-Oakland game, there were 32 completed passes versus 13 sacks and three interceptions.
  • At one point, Oakland faced fourth-and-48.
  • The Giants are 0-6, have committed 23 turnovers, and are three games out of first place.
  • At 2:49 Eastern on Oct. 13, the Steelers’ defense recorded its first interception of the 2013 season.
  • Tom Brady had gone eight quarters versus New Orleans without a touchdown pass — until five seconds remained.
benmartens October 16, 2013 Fantasy Sports

Low Power Living Room

Tyla laughs whenever I start talking about light bulbs, but here we go again. Our living room, eating area and kitchen are now completely incandescent free. When we bought the house, that area contained 11 60-watt bulbs, 2 100-watt bulbs, and 5 40-watt bulbs. When all the lights were on, that was using over a killowatt every single hour! We spend most of our time in that area and if we left all those lights on for 5 hours a day, that’s $193/year in electricity bills. With the new combination of CFL and LED bulbs, that same usage would cost $32. Not too shabby. By my calculations, it will take us about 2-3 years to recoup the cost of the bulbs and then we’ll be saving money.

The tricky part of this was finding good 40 watt equivalent LED candelabra base bulbs. There aren’t a lot of them out there yet. I tried three different types:

  • Costco sells a 3 pack made by Feit. These were the cheapest at about $10 for three bulbs, but they were also the lowest quality. The light wasn’t the standard 2700K color that you get from incandescent. It was significantly whiter and it also has a delay when you turn it on.
  • Torchstar sells a bulb for $7 that turns on instantly but is a bit too white. It’s better than the Costco bulbs, but still not acceptable for a lamp that we use all the time in close proximity to other lights.
  • The winner was a bulb from Sexy LEDs. It has the right color and comes on instantly. If I had to knock it, I’d say that it’s not quite as bright as a 40w incandescent bulb. It was close enough for our purposes.

Unfortunately those Sexy LED bulbs are also the most expensive. I chose to use them in that main light fixture above our eating area and then use the cheaper Costco bulbs in the other areas of the house like the stairwell and the upstairs hallway. Color and delay don’t make as big of a difference there.

This will all pay off as long as the bulbs are reliable since part of the savings is that you basically never have to replace them. We’ll have to wait a while to figure out if that holds true.

benmartens October 15, 2013 Home Improvement

Government Shutdown Still Doesn’t Balance The Budget

This is as close as I’m going to get to being political, but I got to wondering if our 18th government shutdown meant that we were spending less money than we brought in (assuming the IRS would still operate to collect our taxes.)

So the first question is how much is the government spending during the shutdown? The estimated answer is that we have stopped about 17% of our spending. 83% of it is still trucking along unaffected. And secondly, how much of a deficit did we write into the 2013 budget? For that budget, we planned to bring in enough money to cover 76.3% of our spending.

Put those two facts together and you can see that even during this government shutdown, we are STILL spending more money than we collect.

And one final, somewhat-related thing before I return you to normal blog posts, KenC pointed me to a video that does a good job of putting all of these enormous numbers into perspective.

I’m sure people can take these numbers and use them to argue on either side of the aisle. That’s the beauty (and confusion) of our political system. But it’s helpful if we all start with the facts and go from there instead of starting with other people’s opinions that are screamed at us from the televisions.

benmartens October 14, 2013 Commentary

Grilled Steak Burritos

Tim and Chelsea have an amazing Mexican meal. They sent me the recipe, but they do it so well, I didn’t want to just copy them exactly. So instead I took pieces of their meal and changed it up a bit. The end result is something that makes my mouth water just typing this out. It’s a lot of work, but I think you’ll find that it’s worth it. And if you’re really pressed for time, there are plenty of places where you could take shortcuts.

Mexican Rice
You could make your own but I cheat and make this from a box/packet. Alternatively you could make some sticky rice with cilantro and lime juice.

Refried Beans

Ingredients

  • 1 can pinto beans
  • 1 can refried beans
  • 2 pieces of cooked bacon

Directions

  • Combine refried beans and drained pinto beans. Add two pieces cooked bacon and allow to simmer over low heat.

Pico de Gallo

Ingredients

  • 1 tbsp diced, seeded jalapeno
  • 1 tbsp diced onion
  • 1 tbsp chopped cilantro
  • 1/4 cup diced, seeded tomato
  • 2 tsp fresh lime juice
  • Salt & pepper

Directions

  • Combine!

Guacamole

Ingredients

  • 2 ripe avocados
  • 2 tbsp diced, seeded jalapeno
  • 2 tbsp diced onion
  • 2 tbsp chopped cilantro
  • 1/2 cup diced, seeded tomato
  • 1 tbsp fresh lime juice
  • Salt & pepper

Directions

  • Put it all in a bowl and mix it up. I use a fork to smash the avocado.

Marinade

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup cumin seeds
  • 5 jalapeno peppers, seeds and ribs removed, chopped
  • 3 cloves garlic
  • 1 tablespoon cracked black pepper
  • 1/3 cup fresh lime juice
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
  • 1 1/2 cups olive oil
  • 2 bunches cilantro (leaves and stems)

Directions

  • Toast the cumin seeds in a medium saute pan over medium-low heat for 5 minutes, or until fragrant.
  • In a blender, combine the cumin seeds, jalapenos, garlic, pepper, lime juice, and salt. Pulse the blender to finely chop ingredients. Add the oil and cilantro and puree until smooth.

Grilled Steak Burritos

Ingredients

  • 4 burrito size flour tortillas
  • 1 pound top sirloin
  • 1 cup shredded cheese
  • Sour cream

Directions

  • Make the marinade. Lightly score both sides of the meat with a knife so that the marinade will penetrate. Place the meat in a large plastic bag or bowl, pour in the marinade, and coat well. Marinate in the refrigerator for 24 to 48 hours.
  • Grill the steak.
  • When it’s done, pull it off the grill and cut it into thin slices. You may want to cut the steak perpendicular to the slices too so they are smaller and easier to eat.
  • Have each person prepare their burrito (no guac yet though!). Place the rolled burritos back on the grill. Grill until golden brown on both sides.
  • Top with guacamole and sour cream. Serve with rice and beans on the side or inside the burrito.
benmartens October 11, 2013 Food