Commentary

Instagram

I joined Instagram quite a while ago mainly because it was an easy way to post both to my website and to Facebook, but the more I use it, the more I love it. You can only post pictures and videos so the content is very engaging. And I also find that the userbase is a lot more interactive than on Facebook or Twitter. When I tag posts with various hashtags, it’s very common to get some random person liking the picture or even following me if I post a few in a row that they like. I’ve been on Twitter for years and that almost never happens there. I’ve even started posting some stuff just to Instagram instead of posting to Facebook at the sametime.

I know Instagram is a very popular service, but if you haven’t signed up, give it a shot. You can see the full list of people I’m following, but to wrap this up, I’ll share a couple of my favorites:

spacex
calvarylutheranwa
cascadeloop
northwesthiker
mattcremona
smartereveryday
steveinmarin
iliketomakestuff
jaybates86
crystalmountain

benmartens March 30, 2016 Commentary

Toll-Free Times On 405

Last week, WSDOT changed the tolling procedure on 405. The HOT lanes are now open to everyone between 7pm and 5am and on weekends. You don’t need a pass, you don’t need multiple passengers, and you don’t have to pay money. I love this change, but I’m surprised they did it.

If you read the notes from the meeting where they decided this, it’s clear that they have a lot of data available. Some of those charts are incredibly interesting. If you’re a data nerd who travels 405, you’ll love it. But the main problem I have, as I’ve stated before, is that they aren’t optimizing just for maximum throughput on the road. You can see it in their notes. They always talk about how much money each of the options will cost them in lost revenue. The system is in place to generate money and give rich people a fast lane. I’m fundamentally opposed to that. The highway is a shared resource. Let’s maximize throughput. End of story.

So why am I surprised that they created a toll-free time? Because people are going to start realizing that the toll isn’t the part of the system that is important. The important part is having separate lanes with limited entry and exit points, just like a standard express lane setup. There are already calls for WSDOT to experiment with no-toll times during the day instead of just at night, but I can’t imagine them doing that. They’d be giving up a lot of money and that’s a higher priority for them than just improving throughput. Making it free at night and on weekends costs them 3% of their total revenue and removes traffic jams that the HOT system added on the weekends so it’s a nice PR win and actually does improve traffic. Changing the daytime rates would be a much bigger hit to their bottom line.

benmartens March 28, 2016 Commentary

Movies At Home

Online streaming has gotten a lot better and movies are available in just a few months after they are released in theaters. But wouldn’t it be cool to watch movies at home as soon as they show up in the theater? There have been some VERY expensive devices (tens of thousands of dollars) that allow rich people to do this, but Sean Parker (of Napster fame) is trying to change that.

He has a new product and service called “Screening Room.” You pay $150 for a set top device and then you can watch movies for $50 each. Sure, it’s a lot more expensive than waiting until it’s available for rental later (or even later when it’s on Netflix and Amazon), but if you want to watch a current movie, you’re easily going to spend $50 at the theater with two or three people.

This could easily be a cost savings if you see a lot of movies with your friends or family. While I’m interested in that part, I love the idea that I can finally watch current movies without the hassle of trying to find time to go see it with a toddler in the mix.

It seems too good to be true which means that it probably won’t ever happen. I don’t love going to theaters so if this actually happens, it could be something that I would pick up.

benmartens March 25, 2016 Commentary

Holy Week

Continuing in the “What do all those church holidays mean?” series, we’re now in Holy Week. It’s a big week for Christians. It started last Sunday with Palm Sunday. This is the day when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey and was greeted by lots of people waving palm branches to celebrate his arrival. He knew full well what was going to happen to him later in the week, but he came anyway. The people were celebrating him as their king and Jesus cried because they still didn’t get it. He wasn’t their eathly king. He was there to save them from their sins for eternity! Some of those same people would be in the crowd later in the week shouting for him to be crucified.

Four days later, we celebrate Maundy Thursday. On this day, Jesus ate the “Last Supper” with his disciples. You’ve probably seen the famous painting depicting this scene. At this meal, Jesus gave us the sacrament of communion. We still partake in communion regularly throughout the church year. We receive his body and blood along with the bread and the wine to give us forgiveness and strengthen our faith.

The next day is Good Friday. This church service is usually very somber. This is the day we remember Jesus’s death on the cross. He was abandoned by his disciples and the crowds that he had preached to were now shouting “Crucify him!” He was executed in one of the most gruesome manners that humankind has ever developed, and it all happened because you and I sinned. The Bible says that the wages of sin is death, so God sent his only Son to die in our place to pay for our sins.

Thankfully, that’s not the end of the story. On Easter Sunday, various people went to the tomb and found that he was not there. He had risen! His death marks his victory over death and the devil. Because He died and rose again, we can live with Him forever in heaven.

It’s an incredible roller coaster of emotions for the Christian, but it’s a fantastic annual reminder about how seriously God takes sin. God demands perfection and even one single sin is enough to send someone to hell for eternity. We’re all hopeless, but Jesus took our place, bore the weight of the entire world’s sin and died for us. But because he was not only true God but also true man, he had the power to rise from the dead. God demands perfection but he also showed us mercy by sending Jesus to pay for our sins. Nothing we can do can ever pay that price, but if we believe that Jesus died for us, we will spend eternity with Him in heaven.

benmartens March 24, 2016 Commentary

Justified Theme

I finished all six seasons of the Justified TV show.The whole series (except for parts of season 4) are excellent, but wow, the ending is a doozy.

The show is set in Harlan, Kentucky. It’s a little blip on Highway 421 which, coincidentally, is the same highway I used up in Indiana to get between college and home. They play a lot of the song “You’ll Never Leave Harlan Alive”. It got me to wondering if the song written for the show or if the song came first.

It turns out the song was released in 2001 by Darrell Scott. The show, which came in 2010, featured three covers of the song from Brad Paisley, Dave Alvin, and Ruby Friedman.

Harlan shows up in a few other songs from big name singers including the Steve Earle song “Harlan Man” and the Anna McGarrigle song “Goin’ Back to Harlan” (covered by Emmylou Harris).

I’ve never been to Harlan (you can tell because I’m not there now and I’m still alive), but I don’t think it looks much like the scenery in the TV show. That bugged me. The show is filmed in California and it’s pretty obvious from the terrain and the foliage.

But aside from that minor stumble, this is still a great show. Thank you to Ken and Logan for reocmmending it to me over and over until I finally watched it. All six seasons are free on Amazon Prime so it’s easy/free to get into it.

benmartens March 23, 2016 Commentary

Seattle’s Big Dig

Seattle is in the middle of an enormous construction project. I haven’t kept up with the details, but my general impression was that it was a financial disaster. I spent a little time doing some research into the current state of the project and how far it has come:

The double decker highway, SR 99, going right along the waterfront is in severe need of replacement. The 2001 earthquake damaged it and it is a disaster waiting to happen. It’s also a terrible spot for an elevated highway. It runs like a big scar right along the beautiful waterfront creating a dark, gloomy, wet area that you have to walk through to get to the waterfront. The plan was to bore underneath it. You know, right next to the ocean. What could go wrong?
It is the widest bored tunnel ever attempted.
The initial budet was $3.1 billion and started in 2011. It was scheduled to be done in 2015. The tunnel boring part was expected to take 14 months.
At the point when the tunnel was 10% complete, the state had spent 70% of it’s money.
The drilling machine, Big Bertha, has moved 1437 feet. That’s about 15% of the total distance.
Problems so far have included the machine getting stuck, the machine breaking and needing major repairs, and the ground caving in.
When the machine broke, it was down for two years. There’s no way to back it out so they had to dig a huge hole to get down and repair it in place.
Even parts of the project that don’t involve tunneling are over-budget. Replacing the seawall along Alaskan Way was a $331 million dollar project which is already about $100 million over budget.
The most recent estimate I could find for completion was March 2018. Complete rebuilding of the waterfront will stretch into 2019.
I couldn’t find anything that gives a recent estimate of the actual cost of the project. It seems like most people just shrug, laugh and cry.

I get why people thought this was a good idea. It would be beautiful to hide all that traffic and really beautify the area, but the discussions now are not around what would be beautiful, but rather, when should they cut bait and run. And of course, if they do decide to stop, they still have the original problem of the decrepit double decker SR 99 to deal with. It’s anybody’s guess how (and when) this one will turn out.

benmartens March 18, 2016 Commentary

Five Whys

When we’re trying to get to the root of a problem at work, we like to employ the “Five Whys“. Somebody just keeps asking why about five times and it’s amazing what you can discover. You get past the obvious problem and blow through the excuse to find something that might actually be addressable to prevent it in the future.

If you have a two year old, you probably wish it stopped at five. Elijah is a master of the five (or 500) whys. I know I did the same thing when I was young and I try really hard to answer him legitimately. I want to cultivate his curious mind, but wow, it can be a trying ordeal to hear why over and over and over again. On the flip side, it leads to some intersting, albeit one-sided, discussions.

benmartens March 15, 2016 Commentary

Top Gun 2

Sequels of childhood classics are almost always embarrassing failures. So when I heard that Top Gun 2 might actually happen, I cringed a little. The first movie is so good that I almost want it to stand alone. Could they possibly make anothe one that isn’t terrible?

Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer are signed up again. The screenwriters have movies like The Hunger Games and Jungle Book to their credit. So it’s possible that it could be good if it actually does come to fruition. The plot is supposed to center around the transition from manned jets to drones. I can only guess that Maverick and Ice Man will have to save the day by flying manually when the drones fail spectactularly.

It’s been 30 years since Top Gun took flight. It’s still a great movie after all these years. Let’s hope that the sequel either doesn’t happen or is actually watchable. I wouldn’t bet heavily on either option though.

benmartens March 8, 2016 Commentary

Kirkland Plastic Bag Ban

As of March 1, you won’t be receiving plastic bags at checkout in Kirkland anymore. We live in Woodinville, but we’re right on the border with Kirkland and the Safeway we use most often is in Kirkland. Seattle and Issaquah made this change a while back but I guess I missed the fact that Kirkland was going to do this because it caught me by surprise. Now you either need to bring your own bags or pay $0.05 for a paper bag.

The council passed this last year and at that time, there were some surveys showing that over 60% of people were against this idea. I wasn’t included in that survey, but I agree. I’ve been doing a lot of whining this week about government actions, but this one frustrates me too.

The argument is that plastic bags are bad for landfills. I’m not going to disagree with that, but I disagree that this new law is the logical best course. Why couldn’t we ask/force stores to have a bin for recycling plastic bags? If you want to ban plastic bags, why are you making it a law that stores HAVE to charge $0.05 for a paper bag? Paper bags used to be free but now they cost money? Shouldn’t we be encouraging people to use paper because they are easier to recycle or even reuse without recycling.

I’ll just pay the nickel fee per bag, but I’m tempted to buy a stack of plastic bags and bring them with me. Techncally I think that complies with the law.

The good news is that these local laws are easier to complain about than state or federal laws. It’s probably too late to make any changes to this current situation, but I with such a small voting base, it’s not a stretch to remove these people from office in the next election. Councilmember Councilmember Toby Nixon was lone dissenting vote.

benmartens March 4, 2016 Commentary

Apple vs DOJ

This Apple situation is messy. The FBI chose a good battle ground. They know they probably don’t actually need anything on that specific phone. The shooter destroyed some other phones but left this one alone which indicates that he knew what type of data might be incriminating and this phone didn’t contain any. This phone was his business phone which means it belonged to his employer and he was employed by the local government. So a lot of the typical privacy arguments don’t apply here. He had signed a paper saying that his employer had a right to everything on that phone. So the government should have a right to get into the phone, right? Not quite…

All Apple phones (and lots of other brands too) are fully encrypted. If you don’t have the passcode, then not even Apple can break the encryption. Depending on the strength of your password, you potentially need more computing power than the world possesses right now to break the encryption. That’s a great thing, but there’s a loophole that the FBI is trying to exploit. They want Apple to create a custom version of the operating system that will allow them to guess the password to unlock the phone. Normally the operating system enforces a five second delay between guesses to make brute force guessing impractical. There’s also a limit on how many times you can guess incorrectly before the phone is completely locked forever. Those limits in the operating system can’t be easily removed. The phone is built so that it will only run an operating system that is digitally signed by Apple. This protects you against a lot of malware because there’s no way for an attacker to fake the digital signature. The government is trying to force Apple to create a one-off version of the operating system and sign it with their digital key. This would give the FBI the ability to try to guess the short password to unlock the phone. Once it’s unlocked then all the data is unencrypted and voila!

This sets a very scary precedent which basically says that no matter what great security and encryption measures a company puts in place, the government can force the company to break them. It’s a bad situation to be in because it doesn’t actually stop anyone from taking their security into their own hands and really keeping it safe. Additionally, this hurts American businesses because what other government is going to trust our products if they see a precedent like this get set?

This is a win-win for the FBI. If their request is granted, they have legally set an enormous precedent which gives them a huge amount of power. And if they lose, public outcry from less technical citizens will be for lawmakers to jump in and create some kind of “backdoor” loophole law for the future so that this kind of thing doesn’t happen again. This is probably an even worse situation than the legal precedent I just described in the last paragraph. If you create a back door or magic key to break security and encryption, you have effectively negated the benefits of that security system. The back door WILL be found by the bad guys and even worse, you won’t know when they find it or when they are using it. It’s impossible to create a perfectly secure back door.

The bottom line is what we should already know: if you have data that you need to protect, you need to be responsible for protecting your data. It is possible for you to encrypt and protect your data so that nobody else on the planet can break into it today. You’ll have to do your homework and keep up with the changes to keep improving and strengthening your process. Every year, computing power increases and we’re able to crack older security schemes.

Any issue like this is bound to get flamed into flames by the presidential election, but it’s good that people are talking about these topics. We need the courts to decide if it is our right to have data that is private or not. This case will go a long way toward deciding that. Hopefully, along the way, we’ll educate the general public about the pros and cons of the various outcomes instead of just inhaling the rhetoric from their side of the aisle. There’s no perfect answer but there are a lot of really bad ones that we need to avoid.

benmartens March 2, 2016 Commentary

Studio711.com – Ben Martens

Just trying to get through life without looking stupid, so far it's not going very well.