Studio711.com – Ben Martens

Best Of YouTube

The coolest uncle in the world is back with an incredible project: a giant glow wall. I want to do this! This would make for an epic show-and-tell day at Elijah’s school or a great way for the neighborhood kids to kill a rainy Saturday afternoon.

Bacon. Cupcakes. I’m sold.

And third on the list is not actually a video and it’s not even on YouTube because I’m crazy like that. Go listen to the fish fraud episode of Stuff You Should Know. Did you know that if you’ve ordered fish in a restaurant, there’s a VERY good chance that you were served something other than what you ordered? I’ve listened to hundreds of those episodes and usually I have at least a small idea of what they’re going to say, but in this case, I didn’t even know fish fraud existed. Super interesting!

benmartens November 28, 2016 Links

Android App List

androidapplistI’ve written plenty about the pros and cons of Android vs Windows Phone, but one undeniable pro is that there are a lot more app choices available on Android. (I guess it can also be a con because there are a thousand apps to do every task, but at least I have a choice.) Logan just picked up a Galaxy S7 too and was asking what apps I liked. I figured it would make a good post. Obviously this won’t be a full list of every app on my phone, but it’s some of the ones I think are a little bit interesting or the ones for which there are many available options. If you think you have a better app for a category, I’d love to hear about it.

That’s probably a good list of the apps that had lots of choices. And then of course I have various TV channel apps, smart home apps, game apps, app-kabobs, app creole, app gumbo. Pan fried, deep fried, stir-fried. There’s pineapple app, lemon app, coconut app, pepper app, app soup, app stew, app salad, app and potatoes, app burger, app sandwich. That- that’s about it.

benmartens November 25, 2016 Gadgets

Average Lifespan

happyoldpersonI wanted to do a post about how rapidly the average lifespan is increasing but it turns out it’s really difficult to find datasets that agree. There are also a lot of complexities around measuring this. Are you measuring life expectancy at birth or only after people reach 21? Do you live in a developing country? How wealthy is your family? Over time there have been different factors that increased or decreased death rates in different age groups so you probably really want to trend the probabilities of death by age X over time.

I’m too lazy (and probably unqualified) to do a bunch of research into all these studies to combined their findings, but here are some hand-wavy data points:

  • If you were born in 1900, you were probably going to die before you reached 50. Kids born today will exceed 80 years old on average. That’s a 30 year increase in average life expectancy in just one century. Compare that to the incredibly slow increase in the previous millennia.
  • For the first time in history, there are as many 65+ year olds alive as there are kids under 5.
  • 25-30% of people over 85 have dementia.
  • Average life expectacny is currently increasing by about 6 weeks per year. My son was born when I was 33 so that means his life expectancy his roughly 4 years longer than mine.
  • Average life expectancy is growing exponentially. Not only are babies expected to live longer with every year that passes, that rate of change is increasing.
  • More than 15% of the people alive today are expected to live past 100.
  • The number of people over 100 years old is expected to increase tenfold between 2010 and 2050.

There are even some really wild predictions out there saying things like the first person to live to 200 is already alive today, but I’ll avoid those for now.

It’s really interesting to think about how this dramatic increase is affecting many social norms and programs. For example, the average retirement age is going to have to increase and how will social security and medicare ever keep up with that many elderly people? What will the world be like when the average life expectancy is 100? We aren’t very far away from that…

If you want to pick one single resource to peruse, the best one that I found is from the US Department of Health and Human Services: https://www.nia.nih.gov/sites/default/files/global_health_and_aging.pdf

benmartens November 24, 2016 Commentary

Fantasy Football – Week 11

2016_week11_tombradyIt seems like there have been a lot of very tense Seahawk games this year, but this one was more of a comfortable win. They played pretty well and chugged along to get the win. There are some concerning injuries coming out of the game though. Procise is probably out for the season and Pope is going to miss a game or two. Thankfully Rawls is back but he got banged up in the game too. Thomas and Sead have hamstring strains at might miss a week. One bright spot is that Bennett is probably going to suit up for the next game after missing the last 4. The Seahawks have survived some pretty major injuries so far this season. We’ll see if they can continue that. They will definitely be a favorite over the Buccaneers but these injuries will add to the drama.

In our league, Andy’s #1 team scored the second lowest points but was playing against the lowest score in the league so he keeps his streak alive. (Andy’s total was hurt with the major injury to A.J. Green.) Logan ended his 4 game skid by stopping my 4 game winning streak. We haven’t had a winning or losing streak more than 4 games long this year.

Nobody has clinched a playoff spot yet and the league is still really tight. It’s going to be a stretch for Dad and Jim to make it, but everyone else has an excellent chance to make it in. Currently, the third through fifth teams all have the same record and the most points in the league, but they are separated by only 24 points. Thank you to everyone for continuing to start full rosters even as some people drop out of the playoff picture!

There’s no change in the power rankings this week. They still differ wildly from the actual standings so we’ll see how that shakes out.

1. Ben
2. Austin
3. Logan
4. Andy

  This Week Season All-Time
Highest Team Score Logan had 127.17 Logan had 170.69 (Week 5) Tim 200.51 (2015)
Lowest Team Score Luke had 83.60 Tim had 67.79 (Week 8) Andy had 41.29 (2015)
Biggest Blowout Tim beat Dad by 26.88 Logan beat Tim by 79.46 (Week 5) Luke beat Andy by 113.02 (2010)
Closest Win Andy beat Luke by 4.24 Luke beat Logan by 0.11 (Week 9) Luke beat Logan by 0.11 (2016)
Highest Scoring Player Tom Brady had 36.40 for Logan Ben Roethlisberger had 43.90 for Andy (Week 4) Drew Brees had 60.54 on Tim’s bench (2015)
Longest Active Winning Streak Andy has a 4 game winning streak Andy, Ben, Logan and Tim and had 4 game winning streaks Micah (2011) and Ben (2015) had an 8 game winning streak
Longest Active Losing Streak Dad has a 4 game losing streak. Dad, Logan and Jim had 4 game losing streaks Kyle had a 14 game losing streak (2011)
benmartens November 23, 2016 Fantasy Sports

Android Pay

androidpayOur new Galaxy S7 phones support Android Pay. It’s one of a few competing standards out there, but thankfully it’s one of the big ones so it’s supported at a lot of stores. The concept is simple: you add your credit card info into the app and when you approach the credit card machine, you just tap your phone on it. Your phone will then ask you to authenticate the purchase and in our case, that’s just a thumbprint verification. It’s very convenient. The app can also be used to keep store loyalty cards. To use those, you just display the barcode in the app and have the cashier scan it.

Usually added convenience includes added risk, but in this case, it’s safer. The store gets a one time code that is linked to your account so if the store gets hacked, the number that the hackers get is useless.

It is true that your number is now in your phone but to use it, the hackers would have to figure out how to spoof your disk encryption and/or your thumbprint. And they’d have to do all that before you realized your phone was gone and wiped it remotely. I put that risk about equal or less than me losing my wallet and someone else finding my credit cards so I’m not too worried about it.

benmartens November 22, 2016 Gadgets

Chicken Pot Pie Stew

chickenpotpiestewChicken pot chicken pot chicken pot pie!

Last week I made an effort to cook only recipes that I’ve never cooked before. Sunday was crock pot day and I somewhat randomly picked this recipe. It ended up being delicious! Our crock pot finished it perfectly right at the 5 hour mark. It’s important to keep your chicken and potato pieces big so that they don’t melt away.

Ingredients
• 2 large skinless, boneless chicken breast halves, cut into cubes
• 5 medium red potatoes, quartered
• 1/2 (8 ounce) package baby carrots
• 1/2 cup chopped celery
• 1 (26 ounce) can condensed cream of chicken soup
• 3 cubes chicken bouillon
• 1 teaspoon garlic salt
• 1/2 teaspoon celery salt
• 1-1/2 teaspoons ground black pepper
• 1/2 (16 ounce) bag frozen mixed vegetables
• 1 roll of buttermilk biscuits

Directions
1. Combine the chicken, potatoes, carrots, celery, chicken soup, chicken bouillon, garlic salt, celery salt, and black pepper in a slow cooker; cook on High for 5 hours.
2. Stir the frozen mixed vegetables into the slow cooker, and cook 1 hour more.
3, Make biscuits!

benmartens November 21, 2016 Food

Praying For Adversity

calmonbenchThere was a quote at church a few weeks back that keeps popping up in my thoughts. I’m probably butchering its original eloquence but it was something to the effect of “If you knew what God knows, you would have requested the all the adversity in your life.”

The Bible is full of verses explaining that God is omniscient, has a perfect plan for each of us and everything he does is what is best for us.

  • Romans 8:28: “We know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love, who have been called according to his purpose.”
  • Romans 5:3-4: “Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.
  • James 1:2-3 “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.”

The list goes on and on, but it follows that if we had all that same knowledge as God, the logical best course of action would be whatever “terrible” thing that is bothering us right now. Of course we don’t have that omniscience so we can’t see the logic and intention behind it, but we trust that it’s there.

As Christians, we know all that, but I love how easily it is summed up as: “If you knew what God knows, you’d be praying for this.”

benmartens November 18, 2016 Commentary

Election Debrief

election2016I picked a great year to avoid the election as much as possible. I unfollowed people on Facebook, avoided news stories and stayed away from political conversations Even with that, I obviously still got a deluge.

The Gore/Bush voting argument was a pretty big deal, but this election felt even more dramatic and it was dragged out for a longer time. I’m not going to rehash the whole thing over even pick a side, but here are some of my thoughts in my favorite formatting style: bullets!

  • Why were people so wildly upset by this? I know people who called in sick, people were crying on TV, and the moms in Tyla’s various social groups were totally distraught. One possible thought is that it has been 12 years since liberals/Democrats lost a presidential election. There’s a whole new group of people in their 20s and 30s who are experiencing this for the first time (assuming they didn’t follow it very closely in high school.) I imagine the first time is the hardest and after that it gets slightly easier… unless you’re on TV paid to overreact to everything.
  • I saw one picture that said something to the effect of: “One candidate is what’s wrong with society and the other is what’s wrong with government.” It’s probably not too far off. Can we please break up the shadowy cabal that owns the debate system and get some other candidates in the mix? Even if they don’t win, it would be nice to inject their opinions into the conversation.
  • Bing has really great data and maps about how every county voted. It’s eye opening to look at those maps and realize how many people around you disagree with you. Even in a very one-sided county, it’s still probably that only 1 in every 4 people didn’t vote with the majority.
  • Name three ways this campaign season different from American Idol… feel free to try for a while, but you can continue reading even if you give up.
  • The whole campaign season focuses on the differences between the candidates (and for good reason), but really the candidates are alike in many ways. They both want what they think is best for the country. Obviously they differ in many ways on what they think is the best, but these aren’t evil people out to blow up the moon while stroking a cat.
  • Along those same lines, I think it would be healthy for everyone to figure out three viewpoints they agree with from the opposing candidates. Whenever I take the “which candidate do you agree with” quizzes, I never get 0%. There’s always some stuff that overlaps. I think that can be a healthy first step to realizing that the other side is full of logical humans too. They arrive at different logical conclusions than you because they have different life experiences and different priorities.
  • We’re realizing that the media’s Hillary blinders obscured their view of what was really happening in the voting community. Can we also realize that their characterization of Trump supporters is incorrect? I’m sure there are xenophobic hate mongers somewhere in his supporter base, but they’re the vast minority. Extremists will always exist on both sides and it doesn’t do any good to stereotype the entire voting community based on those two extremes.
  • Whether your side won or lost the presidential election, don’t worry and don’t gloat. If there’s one common thread through almost every presidency, it is that fewer people approve of presidents when they finish than when they start. (Clinton is the notable exception which is really intriguing given all the impeachment talk.) Eventually people realize that the president really doesn’t have the power to do most of the things they promised in their campaign. This president will get to nominate a supreme court justice but otherwise, he’s pretty limited. The president is the head of the executive branch which means they get to direct the FDA, the EPA and a bunch of other federal agencies. They aren’t some all-powerful dictator that can enact laws on a whim. We attribute way more power, responsibility and importance to them than they deserve.
  • Take a minute to be thankful that we live in a country that has a voting system and a process for the orderly transition of power. We are blessed.

Hopefully we can all rub our ear lobes and let out a collective “woosahhhhhhhhh.” And next election, how about funneling even a fraction of that energy into local politics?

benmartens November 17, 2016 Commentary

Fantasy Football – Week 10

2016_week10_elliottEach week I usually check the Bing NFL predictions to see what they think about the Seahawks game. It has been a long time since the Seahawks were not favored to win but that was the case against the Patriots. It was a great game and it was very refreshing to see the offensive line giving Wilson pretty good protection and a good run game. And the ending was very sweet: the Patriots had first and goal from the 1 and they failed with four chances. It was good payback for the Super Bowl (but obviously not at the same scale.)

Every week there are a few stat corrections and Yahoo takes those and updates all of our scores. They generally don’t matter too much, but last week there was a stat correction in the game between Luke and Logan. It was already incredibly close and the stat correction made it even closer. Luke’s score dropped just a little bit and almost changed the winner of the game. (Seems appropriate during election time, right? Maybe there were some hanging chads.) The net result is that last week’s game between Luke and Logan broke our all-time record for closest win ever.

In our league, Andy held on to his first place position, but it’s a firmly packed mess behind him. There are 5 teams separated by a single game. Nobody has clinched a playoff spot yet and there are only 4 games left in our regular season. It almost always comes down to a tie breaker somewhere in the league so every point counts!

No big change in our power rankings this week except that our top place team, Andy, reappears on the list.

1. Ben
2. Austin
3. Logan
4. Andy (+3)

  This Week Season All-Time
Highest Team Score Ben had 146.87 Logan had 170.69 (Week 5) Tim 200.51 (2015)
Lowest Team Score Jim had 74.78 Tim had 67.79 (Week 8) Andy had 41.29 (2015)
Biggest Blowout Ben beat Dad by 40.00 Logan beat Tim by 79.46 (Week 5) Luke beat Andy by 113.02 (2010)
Closest Win Austin beat Tim by 10.47 Luke beat Logan by 0.11 (Week 9) Was: Jim beat Ben by 0.12 (2012)
Highest Scoring Player Ezekiel Elliott had 39.90 for Ben Ben Roethlisberger had 43.90 for Andy (Week 4) Drew Brees had 60.54 on Tim’s bench (2015)
Longest Active Winning Streak Ben has 4 wins in a row. Was: Tim and Logan had 4 game winning streaks Micah (2011) and Ben (2015) had an 8 game winning streak
Longest Active Losing Streak Logan has a 4 game losing streak Was: Jim and Dad had 4 game losing streaks Kyle had a 14 game losing streak (2011)
benmartens November 16, 2016 Fantasy Sports

The Grand Tour

the-grand-tour-33I don’t watch a lot of British television, but Top Gear is one of my favorite TV shows of all time. If you’ve never seen it before, pick out any of the reboot episodes (2002-2015) which corresponds to series 1 through 22. Some of my favorites are the Top Gear Polar Special, or Season 8 Episode 6 where they go camping in RV trailers. But basically anything that includes James May, Richard Hammond and Jeremy Clarkson is great.

Last year there was a big hubub and the BBC dropped them and replaced them with other hosts starting with series 23. I haven’t seen those new hosts and frankly I don’t really care to. The show was about the 3 people, not the cars or the channel it was on.

Amazon was smart enough to realize that and picked up those same three hosts for a “new” show on Amazon Prime called The Grand Tour. It promises to be everything we loved about Top Gear but without the constraints of the BBC execs. I have very high hopes for this and I won’t have to wait much longer because it comes out on Friday!

benmartens November 15, 2016 Commentary