Studio711.com – Ben Martens

Polytopia

Thanks to NickS for pointing me to The Battle of Polytopia. It’s a turn based strategy game similar to Civilization but MUCH simpler. It’s available for free for both iOS and Android, but there are optional in game purchases if you want to get more tribes and support the author.

You can either play to get the highest score in 30 turns or to conquer every other civilization on the map. After choosing your tribe, you’ll get one person in your tiny little village and then you set off exploring the land, gathering resources to expand your city and investing in technology. Along the way you’ll probably encounter other tribes to battle and conquer.

The game walks the perfect line of complex strategy and easy to understand game mechanics. The technology tree is pretty diverse but it’s simple enough that you can easily memorize it. It’s also the same for every civilization which helps dramatically. The differences between civilizations are their starting technologies and the type of terrain that they normally start on.

A multiplayer feature was recently added so you can play against your friends. It’s fun but it takes a lot longer than playing against the computer.

If you’re at all interested in strategy games, this one is worth a look! It has totally sucked me in. My high score in points mode is 63,730 and in domination mode, I’ve gotten 3 stars with 6 of the tribes so far. Can you beat those marks? (Judging by the high score tables, lots of people can.) If you want to join me in a multiplayer game, send me a note! So far I’ve gotten Logan hooked but the more the merrier.

benmartens February 22, 2018 Gaming

RetroPie

I’ve played around with classic gaming system emulators in the past. There was the time I bought an old Asteroids machine and stuffed a computer inside, and I also modified an original Xbox to run old Nintendo games. Classic games are still fun for me and I thought the simpler games might be a way to introduce Elijah to video games as a super rainy weekend special activity kind of thing. Or at least that was my excuse.

It’s a lot easier to get a system up and running now. Here’s a shopping list:

Things you might have already:

Now you’re ready to follow the instructions (Lifehacker has a good guide too) and get gaming!

That only took me a couple hours to put together. I wasn’t thrilled with all the cables and pieces laying around so I decided to build a nice box for it. I have done some bandsaw boxes but I don’t recall doing any nice small wooden boxes with a lid. This seemed like a good excuse. I started with some walnut scraps from the side table build.
 For the top, I found part of the wood with nice grain and tried a bookmatch. That just means that you use the bandsaw to cut down the middle of the board (the thin way) and lay it open like a book. The grain ends up as (almost) a mirror image. I was really happy with how it looked though in the final product I did goof it up a bit. I think I flipped one of the boards end for end.Because I was using scraps, I couldn’t quite get a continuous grain all the way around the box, but I did pay a little attention to it and some of the corners look pretty cool. I put in some small maple splines to reinforce the corners. The box walls were thin so the splines are pretty tiny. I finished it off with a couple coats of shellac.

I’m happy with it for a first attempt. Everything fits inside so that’s a win and the grain is pretty to look at. I want to try another box soon to use what i learned. Crosscut Hardwoods is selling small pieces of curly maple and I picked up some of that to try on the next box.

benmartens February 20, 2018 Geek, Woodworking

Tool Sharpening

I got a set of cheap chisels and a block plane from Home Depot a few years ago. There are times when they come in super handy, but how do I sharpen them? If you search online, there are a bazillion different options and each one is a bit of an investment. I wanted something that I couldn’t screw up and was quick to use without much cleanup. I ended up buying the Work Sharp WS3000.

The basic kit comes with two glass plates and four different abrasive levels. The abrasive sheets adhere to the glass so you can pick the right one and flip it to the correct side. My chisels were in rough shape but in less than half an hour, I had flatted the backs, and established both a bevel and a micro bevel. Brilliant! I’m so excited to finally start using my hand tools more.

Fear of sharpening was a major reason why I haven’t invested in a bigger plane yet. Maybe a jack plane will find it’s way into my shop.

benmartens February 15, 2018 Woodworking

Safeway Monopoly

Monopoly is back at Safeway (and related grocery stores.) I know it’s a ridiculous game and the odds of winning anything are astronomically low, but for some reason I still find it fun. And last year I did win a reasonable amount of small stuff so why not go for it again.

During the “off season”, I had spent a little time futzing around with a phone application that would read playing pieces and keep track of how you were doing along your futile journey to win prizes. I even thought you could get into a group with friends and digitally pool your playing pieces for a little better chance at winning something. I’m glad I didn’t spend too much time on that because they have improved the app that comes with the game. Not only can you scan the bar codes for the second chance prizes like last year, but now you can also scan a 2D barcode on the back of the playing pieces. It figures out what all four pieces are and keeps track of your progress in the app. You still need to keep the physical playing pieces to redeem your prize, but this automates away a lot of the time consuming part.

I’ll do another post in a couple months and let you know how it turned out this year. If you aren’t playing and want to fuel this silliness, feel free to pass your tokens along to me.

benmartens February 13, 2018 Commentary

Best of YouTube

I hope you got a chance to watch the Falcon Heavy test launch by SpaceX earlier this week either live or afterwards. If you didn’t, grab your popcorn and fire up this video. I watched it live at work and it was quite a thrill to watch the biggest rocket since the Saturn project lift off and then see the two boosters land simultaneously back on earth. Unfortunately the main booster didn’t land successfully back on the floating platform (not in the video), but two out of three isn’t bad. Since this was a simple test flight, Elon loaded his personal Tesla Roadster into the rocket for weight (generally companies just use heavy chunks of metal, etc) and there was a subsequent live stream of the car floating through the solar system.

I love the videos about the science behind games at the fair, but Mark Rober’s video was the first time I’d seen the same formula applied to an arcade. it taught me something about the rainbow circle game that will change my life forever.

And everyone’s favorite woodworking geek, Matthias Wandel, posted a video showing how you can use a free app on your phone or tablet to measure the RPM of your shop tools.

 

benmartens February 8, 2018 Links

Barbacoa Beef

I enjoy a Chipotle burrito every now and then, and I always get their barbacoa beef. For the Super Bowl party, I finally got around to attempting to make something like it myself. I picked up 6.5 pounds of chuck roast from the butcher and plopped it in the slow cooker for about 8 hours. It was so good! This one is going into our regular rotation. Below you’ll find the recipe that I used from Genius Kitchen, modified just a little bit:

Ingredients

  • 1⁄3 cup apple cider vinegar
  • 4 teaspoons minced garlic cloves
  • 4 teaspoons cumin
  • 2 teaspoons oregano
  • 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 3 tablespoons lime juice
  • 3 dried chipotle chiles
  • 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
  • 3⁄4 cup chicken broth
  • 3 bay leaves
  • 4 -5 lbs chuck roast

Directions

  1. To make the adobo sauce combine vinegar, lime juice, chipotles, garlic, cumin, oregano, black pepper and salt in a blender or processor on high speed until smooth.
  2. Remove most of the fat from the roast and then cut into large chunks.
  3. Pour oil into a frying pan and sear all sides of roast on medium-high heat until browned.
  4. Place meat into slow cooker and pour adobo sauce over meat.
  5. Pour in the chicken broth and add bay leaves.
  6. Cook on high heat 6 hours or on low all day.
  7. While still in the Crockpot, shred the meat with two forks and turn the heat to warm. Serve with hard or soft tortilla shells when ready.

 

 

benmartens February 5, 2018 Food

Telemarketing Experiment

For the past few months, I’ve been getting multiple telemarketing calls per day. Some are legit-ish (the police fundraising, NRA, etc) and others are just blatant violations of the do not call registry from randomized phone numbers. The Truecaller app does help, but it’s not perfect and it’s not as good as having them not call at all. It’s time to try something new.

Lifehacker published an article written by a telemarketer about how to get him to stop calling. Ignoring the calls or hanging up after you realize what it is won’t actually help. The best way to get off the call lists is to be polite and a complete dud of a sale. This article goes into more detail, but the summary is to say “No thank you” to every question and don’t engage in any conversation.

I’m going to give this a shot and see what happens. If it backfires and my phone rings all day, you can laugh when I make another post saying that I’m changing my phone number.

benmartens January 31, 2018 Commentary

Crystal Mountain Skiing

On Saturday I did something I haven’t done in almost two full years: I went skiing! Thank to Tyla for letting me take a Saturday to head down to Crystal. It had been snowing all week and a storm was predicted for Friday night so I thought I picked a good day. I did… but so did everyone else. I forgot what time I usually left so I decided to go for 6:30. That was a mistake. There was a ton of traffic and it took an extra 45 minutes to make the 1 hour and 45 minute drive. I changed my thinking from “find some good fresh snow” to “enjoy whatever turns you get because it’s going to be wildly crowded.”

It turns out that getting older and not skiing for two years makes it a little difficult to get going again. Go figure. The skiing itself came back pretty quickly but man, I tired out quickly! I toured all over the mountain, skiing through some of my favorites and then headed out around 1:30 or so.

It was so nice to be relaxing up in the mountains with a gorgeous view all around!

benmartens January 29, 2018 Skiing

Movies From My Youth

I married Tyla despite the fact that she had never seen Star Wars, Indiana Jones or Lord of the Rings. I know, right? She did eventually watch Lord of the Rings with me, and now that Indiana Jones is on Amazon Prime Video, we’ve started watching that trilogy. (Despite what you may have heard, there are only three videos in the series. The fourth one is a myth.) She liked the first one well enough that I think we’ll watch the next two which is good because The Last Crusade” is my favorite.

Watching Raiders of the Lost Ark got me thinking about a bunch of my favorite movies from the 80s. Here is a list of some favorites in no particular order:

  • Ernest Goes To Camp. This is my standard answer whenever someone asks for my favorite movie.
  • Short Circuit
  • Iron Eagle
  • Indiana Jones: The Last Crusade
  • The Princess Bride
  • The Three Amigos
  • Top Gun
  • Caddyshack
  • A Christmas Story
  • National Lampoons: Christmas Vacation
  • Back to the Future (all of them)
  • E.T.
  • Field of Dreams

What did I miss?

benmartens January 25, 2018 Commentary

Making Time

Bob Clagett is one of my favorite YouTubers and podcasters. Last December, he released his first book called “Making Time“. The book is a collection of thoughts about how he made the transition from 9-5 employee to full time maker while being a husband and dad. As the name implies, the book largely centers around making good use of time and fitting everything into his schedule. It’s a quick read and it has a lot of good insights about how to be a more efficient and effective human.

Along those same lines, I recently read a quote in a book that has really stuck with me: “How you spend your day is how you spend your life.” (It’s not a unique quote to that book but it’s the first time I think I’ve heard it.) This could be interpreted a few ways but it always pops into mind when I’m wasting time on my cell phone or sitting on the couch in the evening instead of creating something in the garage or on the computer. It’s easy to dream big for the future and have lots of great ideas, but if you’re not working on those dreams every day, you’re not going to get there.

On the Making It podcast, Bob said that this year he was going to try to stop wasting time. It’s so simple to say and so hard to do, but I bet we could all find an extra 15 minutes a day to spend in a more valuable way. Those little chunks of time can really add up to some impressive accomplishments!

benmartens January 23, 2018 Commentary