Studio711.com – Ben Martens

A couple quotes that I heard recently have been floating around in my head.

“I think if you don’t have dreams about what might happen in your life, then how do you know what you want to do next? How do you choose whether I should do this or do that if you don’t really care where you end up? … I think it’s a wonderful gift to reflect within yourself and ask what do I actually hope will happen in my life if my life goes perfectly from now on? What do I dream will happen and what am I doing today and this weekend in order to change who I am deliberately?”

– Astronaut Chris Hadfield on the Mythfits podcast, April 27, 2026

I like this one because it encourages us to have a vision and work towards it. If you just float along letting life happen to you, it’s unlikely that your situation is going to improve.

The next one comes from the creator of a popular open-source project that recently decided not to allow AI generated code submissions. While this is about code, I think it applies to AI generated text even more.

It’s a common misconception that we can’t tell who is using LLM and who is not. I’m sure we didn’t catch 100% of LLM-assisted PRs over the past few months, but the kind of mistakes humans make are fundamentally different than LLM hallucinations, making them easy to spot. Furthermore, people who come from the world of agentic coding have a certain digital smell that is not obvious to them but is obvious to those who abstain. It’s like when a smoker walks into the room, everybody who doesn’t smoke instantly knows it.

I’m not telling you not to smoke, but I am telling you not to smoke in my house.

— Andrew Kelley

You can read more about their rationale for this move here. I’m not sure I totally agree with it because I think source code is becoming a generated artifact and specs are more important, I do think about this comparison to smoking every time I’m writing text and using AI to help me clean it up.

For the last ~6 years, I’ve watched gas prices mostly as a curiosity since my truck stayed parked in the driveway most days, but now that I’m driving back and forth to work, I feel the pain of those $100 fill-ups. But how bad is it compared to the past few years?

Since March of 2022, I have been running an app to record a half dozen gas stations close to me every day. I use this to carefully calculate how much money we are saving with the Tesla compared to a gas car. Here’s the chart:

So they are high but not quite as bad as when Russia invaded Ukraine. We live in a nice little pocket of reasonably priced gas, but there are currently some stations at $5.99 for gas and over $7.29 for diesel. Ouch.

I wonder what we’ll think when we look back at this post in 10 years.

Parenting is an interesting opportunity to think about important personality traits and life skills. Sometimes it feels like it’s hard to communicate anything so if I’m going to pick a few things to focus on, what should they be?

Lately, I’ve been thinking that one near the top of the list is the ability to be good at things you dislike. Too many people see a task they don’t like doing and they do the bare minimum required to get it off their list. But successful people are able to be excellent at things even if they dislike doing them. It doesn’t mean that they ever end up liking the task, but you’d never know it by the quality of their work. This advice shows up in the Bible too: “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” (1 Corinthians 10:31)

Often those things we don’t like doing are the hard things. We’d rather spend our time doing the fun things. Elijah gets tired of hearing me say “Work first, then play” but there are better versions of that quote:

• “Do what you have to do until you can do what you want to do.” – Oprah Winfrey
• “Do the hard jobs first. The easy jobs will take care of themselves.” – Dale Carnegie

It’s a straightforward lesson, but it’s one I need to remind myself of too.

This is a bit of a weird post (which is saying something on this site) but as I go through the grocery store each week, I’m always looking at the prices for the store brand versus the name brands. I will almost always default to the store brand unless the name brand happens to be on sale for cheaper, but there are some items that I will always buy the name brand regardless of price. That usually gets me wondering if others feel the same way about these specific items or if there are others I should be considering. Reflecting on this is harder than doing it in store, but here are some that immediately come to mind:

• Kleenex – Raw nose. Ouch. Enough said.
• Paper towels – I want the smaller sheets and I don’t want them to fall apart!
• Toilet paper – Raw… you get it. Ouch. The exception to this is Costco. Their generic brand of toilet paper works well and we had a plumber tell us that it’s one of the best ones for not clogging your pipes too.
• Trash bags – The cheapo ones fall apart too easily. This is another Costco exception. Their generic brand of bags is great.
• Bacon – Pay for the good bacon. It’s worth it. Locally I like to get Hempler’s center cut peppered bacon.
• Cream cheese – This is the newest addition. I have always bought the store brand and just assumed that when a recipe says “softened cream cheese” that was just impossible to do well. Then I bought the good stuff and learned that the consistency of good cream cheese is so much easier to work with!

What did I miss on this list?

I rarely mention “drinking beer” as one of my hobbies, but I thoroughly enjoy trying new beers. My Untappd app tells me I’ve had well over 1500 unique beers. The Pacific Northwest is one of the best places in the world for craft beer, but lately, I’ve felt like maybe the fervor is dying down a bit.

I thought maybe some of it was just that my favorite brewery, Good Brewing Co, has effectively closed. The Sultan location still exists, but as far as I know, it was sold to new owners and no longer brews any of its own beer. Bummer!

But it’s more than just Good Brewing. When I visit Total Wine, the enormous selection of craft beer packs and singles has been reduced to a glimmer of its former glory. At Safeway, the craft beer section has been mostly replaced by cider and even more beer from the big/national breweries.

Expanding the scope, the picture doesn’t get better. Craft beer declined in 5% after a 4% decline in 2024. More breweries closed (434) than opened (268).

Craft beer isn’t dead, but it’s not expanding like it was before. Get out there and support your local brewery!

More info: 2025 craft beer year in review

Every app seems to send some kind of stats page for your year. I picked out some of them to share here. If I spent this much time on these things, they probably get my default recommendation. After reading this, let me know what you think I missed out on.

Pocket Casts (podcasts)

• 18,051 minutes listened
• Top 5 podcasts by time listened
  • Stuff You Should Know
  • Making It
  • Cordkillers
  • No Dumb Questions
  • Wood Talk

Spotify

• 47,106 minutes listened
• Top artists: George Strait, Andrew Peterson, The Piano Guys, Third Day, Johnny Cash
• Top Albums:
  • George Strait: 50 Number Ones
  • Downhere: Downhere
  • FFH: I Want To Be Like You
  • Caedmon’s Call: 40 Acres
  • The Arcadian Wild: The Arcadian Wild

Duolingo

• 1995 Spanish lessons
• 3684 minutes of studying
• Current streak: 1911 days

Trakt (TV/movie tracking)

• Most watched:
  • Star Wars (including Clone Wars, Rebels, and all the movies)
  • Bob’s Burgers
  • Superstore
  • Chuck

Untappd

• 139 unique new beers
• All time total distinct beers: 1573
• Top 5 rated beers
  • Fort George – Pizza Pals
  • Icicle Brewing – Enhchantments Hazy IPA Series – Windy
  • Stemma Brewing – It’s Another Double IPA
  • WarPigs USA Brewing – Foggy Geezer
  • Icicle Brewing – Alpenhaze Hazy IPA

Goodreads

• 8670 pages read
• 22 books read
• Most popular book read: The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin

I didn’t include YouTube because the channels with the most watch time aren’t necessarily the ones I’d recommend for most people. I watch some homesteading and construction channels in the background when I’m doing other things. I’ll save a refreshed edition of my YouTube channel recommendations for another day.

LUKE 2

THE BIRTH OF JESUS

¹ In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. ² (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) ³ And everyone went to their own town to register.

⁴ So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. ⁵ He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. ⁶ While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, ⁷ and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.

⁸ And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. ⁹ An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. ¹⁰ But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. ¹¹ Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. ¹² This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

¹³ Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,

¹⁴ “Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”

¹⁵ When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”

¹⁶ So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. ¹⁷ When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, ¹⁸ and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. ¹⁹ But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. ²⁰ The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.

A few years ago, Elijah and I built a birdhouse. We looked up all the recommendations for the dimensions of a birdhouse that would work for birds in our area and then waited anxiously. Year after year no birds were using it. Initially we found that the inside was getting wet so we improved the design. Then we wondered if the location was not inviting so we attached it to the house under and overhang where no squirrel could ever reach. We even installed an extra security camera aimed at the box to see if maybe they were using it and we just couldn’t tell. Nothing.

Then finally this year we started seeing a couple chickadees making a lot of trips to/from the birdhouse! Later we heard lots of chirping from the babies. The parents made so many trips back and forth bringing them food. Then finally one day it was quiet.

I scanned the camera footage and I think I found video of all five(?) babies leaving the nest. The internet says 6-8 babies are more common so it’s possible that I missed a couple. I edited it down to about 5 minutes so if you want to check out the riveting footage, it’s there for you to enjoy:

It sounds like there is a small chance that a mating pair would attempt a second brood in one year so we’ll wait until later in the summer to clean out the birdhouse and see what we find.

Without turning this into a disgusting post about my dental history, I’ll just say that I got enough nudges to get some orthodontic work done that I finally investigated it. Once the orthodontist gave me a detailed overview of my mouth, I was grossed out enough that I couldn’t wait to get started. But this was still more preventative maintenance than anything else.

All I knew about Invisalign was that it was expensive and that it was hard to tell if people were wearing it. Both proved true. The details were interesting though. The process starts with a full 3D scan of my mouth. Based on that scan, the orthodontist designs a correction plan and ships it off to Invisalign. The company takes all the data and predicts how much my teeth should move each week. For each week they print a separate set of clear U-shaped “trays” that fit over the top and bottom teeth. I then had an appointment where the orthodontist’s office put anchors onto my teeth in specific places. They would get them into mostly the correct position and then a custom template (also printed by Invisalign) was held on my teeth while they used a UV light to cure what I assume was resin.

I’ll go back for another visit at the 11 week mark for a physical check up but otherwise, everything is handled through an app. Each week I use an adapter they provided for my phone to take pictures of my mouth with and without the trays in. Through some combination of automated scanning and human verification, they make sure that the trays are working as planned and then clear me to move on to the next set of trays.

I wondered why Invisalign was targeted more at older kids and adults than at younger kids. For example, Elijah has regular braces right now and Invisalign wasn’t even part of the conversation. I think it’s because the trays can be a lot more work. You have to take them out every single time you eat and anytime you drink anything except water. After you finish eating or drinking, you have to brush your teeth and then reinsert the trays. That’s not terrible, but the trick is that you’re supposed to have the trays in 20-22 hours per day. More is better. I’ve heard that some people really push the limits of how long they can leave them out, but I figure if I’m paying this much money, I want it to work so I almost always hit the 22-hour mark, if not 23.

The side effect here is that it’s an amazing weight loss program for three reasons:

1. It’s annoying to go through the hassle of cleaning my teeth just for a snack.
2. My teeth hurt some days and it’s painful to chew.
3. My teeth are moving around and some days they just don’t line up very well making it hard to chew.

Add all those things together and I’m dropping about two pounds per week. I’m currently hovering right around my “record” low point as an adult. I’m curious to see how far this will go. I feel like I generally still eat what I want but there is literally zero snacking at any point in the day. I’ve been good about cutting out extra food at various points in my life before, but I’m curious to see how much of this will stick around given that I’m forced to do it for so long.

The total process varies by patient but mine was estimated to last around 16 months. About halfway through, they’ll do another scan, assess the progress, and print another set of trays. I expect I’ll know more about the total estimated duration at that point. On the Invisalign website, I can track my progress and see a video of what will change over the first half of treatment and it’s incredible how much my teeth will move.

Once this is all done, I’ll get a retainer to wear (hopefully only at night) for the rest of my life. That is, of course, optional, but given that I really don’t want to go through this cost/effort again, I expect I’ll make good use of that.