Studio711.com – Ben Martens

Cornhole!

A few weeks ago, I ordered some official cornhole bags, and Saturday I finally got around to building the boards. Since I helped Jay build his back in Jersey, I knew what I was getting into and was able to modify the design a bit. This time I used MDF for the surface boards and put hinges on the legs for easier transporting. Unfortunately it was pretty rainy so we didn't get to try them out, but I'm sure we'll get to play some night this week.

benmartens June 25, 2007 Commentary

Cornhole

What a weekend. I always forget how far away the east coast is until I'm sitting on a plane for 4815162342 hours. But I would turn right around and do it all over again. I had a great time.

Friday morning was the start of party preparations. We made trips to pick up a keg, CO2 for the kegerator, and supplies to make cornhole. We've talked about making cornhole ever since we saw it played up in Eagan. The game is kind of like horseshoes but with beanbags instead of chunks of metal, and you're trying to throw through a hole in a piece of wood. I might feature the game in an upcoming podcast, but suffice it to say, everyone loves cornhole. The game was in use for pretty much the entire weekend. Friday night, Talbot, Adam, Jay and I put a dent in the keg and stayed up until Lauren and Andy got in around 2:30.

Saturday was party day and there was plenty of meat on the grill, friends mingling, drinks flowing, and cornhole bags flying through the air. A huge thanks goes out to Jay and Juliet for opening up their house to us ruffians. You two have an amazing place and lots of great people to fill it. It was fantastic seeing everyone again (well, almost everyone.) I hope we can do it again soon!

Pictures are posted in the photo gallery.

benmartens May 21, 2007 Travel

K.I.S.S.

Keep It Simple Stupid. Thanks to RickB for pointing out that my photo frame submission scheme is way too complicated. I had grand plans for how it would work, but A) nobody really uses it and B) it's a crazy process. Maybe those two things are related.

So let's simplify things to one step:

  1. Email me any pictures you want to add to my photo frame.

I don't expect everyone to do this, but at least it will be simpler for those of you that do.

benmartens May 20, 2007 Projects

Open Source

I've opened up the source for the photo frame project. I mentioned it on the home theater discussion list at work and got a flood of replies. Hopefully people will actually contribute to the project and it won't become one of those half finished open source projects that I always see. The project is posted on CodePlex if you're interested.

benmartens May 17, 2007 Projects

Gas Crunch

Gas is expensive. The image on the right is one of my new Vista sidebar gadgets that shows gas prices in our area. You can mouse over it to find the cheapest stations. You can see that the average price out here right now is $3.47 making us the second most expensive state in the union. It hasn't changed my driving habits at all, but I'm really happy that I got the Subaru (27-30mpg) instead of the Envoy (12-15mpg.) Soon I'll be back on my motorcycle which gets 50+ mpg and then it will be even better.

There are lots of emails and MySpace messages going around about not buying gas on a certain day. It drives me bonkers. Do you really think this works? If you don't buy gas on Wednesday, you're going to have to buy it sooner or later. There's even a Snopes entry about this:

Gasoline is a fungible, global commodity, its price subject to the ordinary forces of supply and demand. No amount of consumer gimmickry and showmanship will lower its price in the long run; only a significant, ongoing reduction in demand will accomplish that goal.

benmartens May 16, 2007 Commentary, Motorcycle

Star Trek Photo Frame

This is a good example of what happens when I have too much time on my hands. It started when Tim and I were watching a Star Trek movie and thought about how it would be interesting if we could talk to the digital photo frame.

I downloaded the Microsoft Speech SDK and started coding. In just a few hours, we were able to talk to the frame and get information like the current weather and the current deals on Woot, SlickDeals, and Steep and Cheap.

It's still a little rough around the edges. I want to make it scroll the text vertically when there is too much to fit on a single screen. I'm also trying to figure out how I can get it to stream TV from my computer in the bedroom by simply saying "Computer, ESPN!"

So check out the video below for a demo of the voice commands in action. It was my first attempt at a two camera shoot (a digital camera and a camcorder.) It was a lot of extra editing work, but I think it was a nice touch. Unfortunately I forgot to align the color balances before shooting so I just went with black and white instead.

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

[UPDATE] Forgot to mention that this is also availble for download in the Videos section.

[UPDATE] If you would like to see the code or even contribute to it, head over to http://www.codeplex.com/photoframe/

var FO = { movie:"/web/projects/flash_flv_player/flvplayer.swf",width:"320",height:"240",majorversion:"7",build:"0",bgcolor:"#FFFFFF",
flashvars:"file=/web/video/startrek.flv&showdigits=true&autostart=false&showfsbutton=true" };
UFO.create( FO, "playerstartrek");

benmartens April 30, 2007 Projects

What’s Our Vector Victor?

During my brief stint with Lockheed in Minneapolis, I contributed a bit of code to an after-hours UAV project. Unfortunately I didn't get involved until almost the end of my time up there, but I was enthralled with the project. Since then I've always had an idea in the back of my mind to buy an off-the-shelf RC plane and add an autopilot to it.

The project either boils down to a ton of time or a ton of money. That might be changing though. Some clever individual has created a simple autopilot with pieces from the Lego Mindstorms kit. The kit now includes a gyro sensor and that is the piece that enabled this project. Currently the autopilot will maintain level flight and control the rudder to return the plane to the launch area.

If you see a tiny plane flying overhead taking pictures of you, look for the Studio711 logo on it. I'd love to create my own version of this project.

[source via slashdot]

benmartens March 16, 2007 Links, Projects

Summer Plans?

It's a sunny day and the days have been getting warmer so naturally my thoughts are wandering toward the fun that summer brings. What are you looking forward to? Here are some of mine:

  • Motorcycle rides to Rainier, Levenworth, the Olympic Peninsula, and the islands in the Puget Sound.
  • Hiking at Rainier.
  • Camping all over the place, including our trip to Deception Pass.

Kyle has been saying that I should get into mountain biking, and now Tim has his bike here and he's finding local trails. I might have to pick up a mountain bike and join him. It seems like everyone in Seattle rides a bike so I guess it's the thing to do, right?

benmartens March 14, 2007 Commentary, Motorcycle, Outdoors

Spring!

It's obvious that I love winter. All summer long I wait for the snow to fly so I can get out the planks and start carving down the hills.

But wow, spring is a fantastic time of the year! You can start walking around without a coat and driving with the windows down. The motorcycle comes out of the garage a lot more often and the clouds start to disappear. Birds are chirping and frogs are croaking.

The plan is to spend more time this summer camping and hiking in the mountains. The five of us already have reservations for Deception Pass in July, and Tim and I have talked about doing some hiking around Ranier.

It should be a great summer!

benmartens March 8, 2007 Motorcycle, Outdoors

Weekend Recap

Saturday started off with a trip to H&R Block. I always say I'm going to do my taxes on my own, but then tax season rolls around and I find myself in the comforting confines of H&R Block. I walk in and two hours later I walk out. No stress. No worrying. No procrastination. Uncle Sam cut me the biggest rebate check of my life. I think I need to adjust my W-4.

Saturday afternoon it got up to around 65 so I rolled the motorcycle out, cleaned it up, and took it out for a nice long tour. I'm loving winter out here, but I'm also looking forward to some nice warm days spent on the road.

After church, I headed up north with Tim, Chelsea, Matt and Laura for a quick trip to a casino and then shopping at the outlet malls. As promised, I made a stop at the roulette table, put $40 on black, and promptly won. It feels good to take money from the casinos. That money (and a lot more) was quickly spent by the girls as I assigned them both the honorable role of "Ben's personal shopper." I rarely buy new clothes and a lot of that is because I know I lack fashion sense. It's a lot easier to buy clothes when two females approve the purchase.

Now it's time to start the short work week. Thursday morning I fly back east to visit friends and take a trip to Maine for some skiing. They've been getting dumped on so I figured I would go check it out. Thankfully we're supposed to start getting snow up in the mountains here this week too (5-7 feet are predicted through Friday.) It has been pretty dry lately so all the skiers are happy to see that winter isn't over yet.

benmartens February 19, 2007 Commentary, Motorcycle