Studio711.com – Ben Martens

COVID-19: Day 710

We’re coming up on two years since the pandemic started for our family. Washington is one of the last states with a mask mandate, but that is now scheduled to end in a month in most situations and work is fully reopening campus in March. So let’s take a walk through some stats and see what’s going on.

The official mortality data for the United States is available for 2020 now. The number of deaths each year grows with the population, but last year was one of the biggest jumps we’ve ever seen. Life expectancy decreased 1.8 years from 2019 to 2020 (from 78.8 years to 77.0 years) which is the largest single year decrease in more than 75 years. COVID was the 3rd most common cause of death. (If you really want to dive into this data, check out the CDC WONDER tool and get lost in the flood.) Globally those numbers are even worse and continue to be bad in places without the healthcare system that we have in place.

And here are similar stats but with raw numbers:

Heart disease: 696,962
Cancer: 602,350
COVID-19: 350,831
Accidents (unintentional injuries): 200,955
Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 160,264
Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 152,657
Alzheimer’s disease: 134,242
Diabetes: 102,188
Influenza and Pneumonia: 53,544
Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 52,547

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm

There are currently about 2000 people/day dying of COVID. If we leveled out here, that would be 730,000 deaths per year which would have COVID at the top of the list with 2020’s numbers. But we should be able to do better than that since the numbers are still falling. If we can bottom out at our lowest death rate and stay there, that would be 90,000 deaths per year, but we’ve already lost around that many people this year to Omicron so 2022 will be pretty high up on that list even in the best case. As a society we are in the middle of deciding how high up that list we’re willing to go. The catch is that this line item is arguably the one that we could control the easiest.

We’re getting to the point with Omicron where we’ll start to be able to assess how much immunity it provides. The health community defines a reinfection as occurring within 90 days, and we’re about 90 days out from when Omicron hit. That data will provide a good idea of how well the new policy changes will work, at least until the next variant hits.

The general feeling is that we’re switching from a pandemic to an endemic. That feels a bit premature, but if we can loosen the restrictions for a while, maybe that’s healthy for the nation. But we need to be ready to put them all back in place if/when the next wave hits. Thankfully, vaccination rates are still climbing, but there are also people who aren’t getting boosted on time. My prayer continues to be that we can educate people so we don’t have to force behavior on them. There’s so much data available now to show how effective the vaccines are. In our county (the 12th largest in the country), you are 33x more likely to die from COVID in the last 30 days if you’re unvaccinated than if you’re vaccinated.

So we’re able to stop requiring masks to entire public places or vaccines to enter restaurants, but let’s watch the data and be ready to pull those tools back out when it’s time. Encourage everyone you know to get vaccinated and stay up to date with their booster shots. We’re probably going to be living with COVID forever, so vaccines will play a key role in us finding a new normal that doesn’t involve mandates.

As this drags on and everyone is seemingly at each others throats about what to do next, the future can seem hopeless and dim. A recent devotion reminded me to be “fiercely dependent” on God. He’s the only true source of comfort and peace. Everything else will fail but his love never will. He’s given us tools to fight the pandemic. So let’s use them and get on with the business of sharing the saving message of Jesus with the world. Imagine if we were as focused on spreading the gospel as we were with convincing people that we were right about politics…

benmartens February 21, 2022 Commentary

Prusa Mini+

I enjoy making things with traditional tools, but it’s fun to mix in digital fabrication too. At work I have access to laser cutters and at home I have a Cricut and a CNC. All of those open up some interesting opportunities, but I’ve also had my eye on a 3D printer. We do have those in the maker space at work and we can use all the filament we want for free. I even got trained on how to use them, but have I ever printed anything? Nope. But I figured that if I got one to use at home, I would be more inclined to learn it.

I didn’t want to buy a printer and not have any projects, so last year I wrote down any situations where I would have used the printer. Once the list got long enough, I felt confident that I would put the printer to good use.

Picking a 3D printer could last forever. There are endless variations on multiple designs in all price ranges. So instead of evaluating all of them, I picked an entry level model from one of the top companies: the Original Prusa Mini+ from Prusa Research. It took a few weeks for them to make it and then another week or two to make its way here from Europe, but when it arrived, it only took me a couple hours to finish assembly. I was glad that I paid for the version that was mostly assembled already. It printed wonderfully right away, and the only real calibrating that needed to happen was me understanding what good and bad prints look like.

So far, most of my prints have come from pre-made models shared on sites like prusaprinters and thingiverse, but some of those have been pretty useful. For example, Elijah has been learning how to program using a PyBadge. It became even more fun for him when I printed out a case for the device.

I’ve dipped my toe into the modeling waters using Fusion 360. I’ve gone through the Fusion 360 for Makers class from I Like To Make Stuff twice. I have a lot more to learn but I was able to design a print a small bracket without too much trouble.

Going forward, some of the prints I have in mind are:

  • Pads for the bottom of our cots to avoid scratching holes in the bottom of our tent
  • Workholding clamps for the CNC
  • Various connections for my shop vac hose to fit different tools
  • Wall mount for the Tesla mobile charger

I also want to make a better enclosure for the printer to keep the cats away from it and a dry box for the filament so it doesn’t absorb moisture. Currently I unload it every time and put it back in a ziploc bag with desiccant packs.

The small prints I’ve been doing only take about an hour (that PyBadge case was in that range) and usually consume less than $0.50 worth of filament. It makes the trial and error process pretty painless.

I’m glad I went with the Prusa. It was a little more expensive than some super low end models, but since this is my first time, I wanted to get a good machine and focus on learning how to use it, not how to debug it. It’s also nice to know that if I have any problems, there’s an actual support team there to help me as well.

benmartens February 18, 2022 Maker

Large Wood Wall Clock

The idea of making a large wall clock has been floating around in my mind for a while. My CNC often gets used for small cuts so the idea of doing something that uses all the real estate was appealing.

I started by gluing up a panel of 1×8″ pine boards to make a blank big enough for the clock. It’s always tricky to get a nice flat panel, especially when using cheap boards from the home center, but it came out reasonably flat and I kept it clamped down to the surface of my CNC machine when I wasn’t out there working on it.

The next task was cutting the face of the clock out of 1/4″ MDF. Instead of starting from scratch, I purchased a vector art design from Etsy, but with all the modifications I had to make to it, I might have been better starting from scratch (or at least from a different store.) I eventually got it all programmed and even though it would take a lot longer, I decided to run the whole pattern with a 1/8″ bit instead of a 1/4″ bit. That would give me more definition in any sharp corners. The whole cut ended up taking around 3 hours with some stopping in the middle to make adjustments.

After a lot of sanding, I finished the back with some stain and used an off-white spray paint for the face. I usually got for pure white but decided to try off-white this time. I wasn’t sold on the idea until I got to the very end of the project.

For the clock parts, I used clockparts.com. I had used them once before and was happy with their stuff. This time I purchased their high torque clock movement to support moving those giant hands. When the parts arrived, I sprayed the white hands to be the same off-white color as the face.

I cut the blank into a giant circle on the CNC and I was careful to hole right at the center which came in handy for finding the same center again later and for mounting the movement. With the blank flipped over, I pocketed in a whole for the movement and I also added some keyhole slots for mounting it on the wall.

We hung it above the fireplace in the front room and while it’s a fun piece of art, it’s a little tricky to read the time from it. The counterweight on the minute hand and the rings that encapsulate the Roman numerals are all distracting. I don’t know that I’d change the design at all though.

I see these on Etsy and Instagram and feel “meh” about them in general, but I’m super happy with how this project came out. It wasn’t a huge project but it had enough small new things in it to really entertain me.

Follow my woodworking on Instagram @martenswoodworks

benmartens February 4, 2022 Woodworking

Tesla Stock and Charging Network

Welcome to Tesla Tuesday!

Tesla stock is a wild ride. My second post in this series was about buying one share of Tesla stock right before the biggest market cap growth in the history of capitalism. It was fun to watch my little share bounce around on the wild seas of Wall Street, but I set a sell order for $0.25 more than my purchase price. My little experiment was just for fun and I didn’t actually want to lose any money. I guess I should have sold when it was up $300-400 because my sell order triggered last week. In fairness, the total market index fund that I prefer was also back down to around the same point as when I bought the Tesla share, but I’d rather have my money there long term anyway. So with that, I’m out of the Tesla stock game. That means no more disclaimer on my posts going forward.

In other news, it has been interesting to watch other car makers wake up to the EV market since we ordered our Tesla last fall. Ford appears to be leading the domestic pack and VW has been doing well in Europe for a couple years. Tesla has a big head start though and one of their key advantages is their charging network. Most of the time we’ll be charging at home, but if we go on a road trip, I don’t want to be nervous about charging. A global engineering accounting firm did a test of EV charging networks and basically concluded that if you have a Tesla, they are hands down the winners, but since they aren’t open to all cars from all manufacturers, they lost out in total score to the Electrify America network. (source data) The compatibility part is interesting from a business perspective, but from an ownership perspective, this report makes me feel good about our decision. There are plenty of other comparisons showing the impressive reliability of the Tesla network and I mentioned this in my original post about why we chose Tesla. The market is going to look very different by the time we’re ready to by another vehicle so who knows what we will choose at that point.

benmartens February 1, 2022 Electric Vehicles

Building Habits

I recently read (but can’t remember where) an article about willpower vs habits. Willpower is like a battery that gets used up and recharged each night. You have to be careful how and where you apply your willpower because you probably won’t have enough to get you through the day. Habits happen mindlessly or with much less effort. So if you’re looking to make a change, you need to intentionally apply your willpower to get an activity to the point of being a habit.

Apps are frequently built to get you into a habit quickly. Games on my phone are always encouraging me to play just one more round or telling me to log in every x hours to get the next reward. But apps can use this type of incentive for good too. I started learning Duo Lingo about 16 months ago and in the beginning, I frequently relied on the app’s notifications to remind me that I hadn’t done my lesson for the day yet. It keeps track of the number of consecutive days you’ve practice, the number of lessons you’ve done compared to other people, the number of hours you spent practicing in a week, etc. So not only is that app encouraging me to keep my daily streak alive, but it’s also measuring my progress. For me, that measurement piece is a big key to building a habit.

So all that got me to thinking about some things I wanted to change in my life and how I could use my willpower battery and statistics to build a habit. I decided to use my sore back as a test case. I have spent a lot of time in physical therapy to help with my back, but I only keep up with my exercises after I’ve hurt my back. I should be doing them all the time and avoid losing a week here and there to back pain. There are a thousand different habit tracker apps out there, but the first one I downloaded was called Loop Habit Tracker. It gives me the satisfaction of making a checkmark for each day that I do my back stretches, giving me stats about how many days I’ve done it, and reminding me if I haven’t done it yet. I’m over a week in and already I can feel those exercises using up less of my willpower each day.

One of my favorite quotes is from a French mountain climber named Gaston Rebuffat who said, “A goal without a plan is just a wish.” I’ve had a goal of getting better about doing those basic exercises, but I never had a plan to build the habit. Hopefully as I get the habit formed, I’ll be able to keep it going easily and then work on using my willpower to improve other areas.

benmartens January 21, 2022 Commentary

Tesla Road

This edition of Tesla Tuesday will be a short one, but as I perused the various Tesla news sources, this post from teslerati.com about the road leading to Tesla’s new Texas factory caught my eye:

Changing the name to Tesla Road makes sense, but did you see the old name for the road? Harold Green Road! I’ve been working my way slowly through the entire Red Green catalog, so I immediately wondered if the road was actually named for Red’s nephew on the show. Nope. There was a local dairy farmer with the same name. But we can dream right?

Disclaimer: I own Tesla stock

benmartens January 18, 2022 Electric Vehicles

Love One Another

I don’t know that I’ve ever posted about Martin Luther King Jr. Day before because I feel that I’m better off listening. Spend a little time doing that and you’ll hear endless examples of how racism is still prevalent at both micro and macro levels, and even if we magically removed it today, the effects would carry on for generations.

Dr. King’s taught that we should treat everyone equally. I know that many of you, like me, are Christians, so this shouldn’t be a new message to us:

  • “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” – John 13:34
  • “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” – Matthew 5:44
  • “Love your neighbor as yourself.” – Matthew 22:39
  • Fifth commandment: You shall not murder. What does this mean? We are to fear and love God, so that we neither endanger nor harm the lives of our neighbors, but instead help and support them in all of life’s needs.

Loving everyone equally isn’t a new message, but looking around the world today, it’s clear that we all need to be reminded of this frequently. It extends far beyond racism. Compare two minutes of any news channel with Ephesians 4:

Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. 30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 31 Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. 32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.

It’s so easy for us to slip into using divisive phrases that group people into “us” and “them” and then it’s easy to start degrading “them”. Whether your side likes words like birther, Trumpster, and misogynist, or if your side uses commie, libtard, and “Let’s go Brandon”, none of that comes close to “building others up according to their needs.” Check out Martin Luther’s explanation of the 8th commandment:

We should fear and love God so that we do not tell lies about our neighbor, betray him, slander him, or hurt his reputation, but defend him, speak well of him, and explain everything in the kindest way.

I don’t want to detract from the reason that we remember MLK’s work today and the work that still remains, but in addition, it’s a good time to think about how I can do a better job of treating everyone the same: we’re all sinners in need of a savior. I need to reflect God’s love back into the world, and if I can focus on that, I’ll not only do a better job fulfilling MLK’s dream, but I’ll help point a lot more people to Jesus.

benmartens January 17, 2022 Commentary

Autonomous Tractors

Twenty years ago, I was going through two summer internships at John Deere headquarters in Moline, IL. The first year there, I worked with what became the Precision Ag group and the second summer I worked in the IT group for the seeding equipment factory line. Both projects were fun, but it has been really interesting to watch that Precision Ag group take off.

When I was there around the turn of the century (might as well just lean into feeling old, right?), Deere was putting their first GPS equipment into farm equipment. At that time, it could show you a screen to help you follow a straight line down your field, record positional yield information during harvesting, and automatically adjust seeding and spraying rates based on your position in the field. It was a lot of fun to work on a computer program and then go test it out in a field! At that time, I heard rumors about a totally autonomous farm that was in development, but their main problem was avoiding surprise obstacles like animals running out in front of the equipment.

This week at CES, Deere announced their autonomous tractor! The farmer drives to the field, tells the tractor what to do and then he can walk away. He can use the phone to check progress or decide what to do if something unexpected happens. I’m sure there will be kinks to work out, but this can be an incredible efficiency gain for farmers who often have to do enormous amounts of work in short amounts of time, especially during planting and harvesting season when they get the right weather. At the beginning, maybe it’s not good enough to let the tractor run all night by itself, but the farmer could at least catch a nap in his truck while waiting for the next intervention point.

If you talked to me senior year of college, I would have told you that I was going to be working for Deere when I graduated. I enjoyed the work and they liked me, but then 9/11 happened and the job market got turned upside down. Deere had a hiring freeze so I ended up scrambling to find a new job and Lockheed was still hiring so I went there instead. I have no regrets about the way things turned out, but I do think I would have had fun at Deere too.

benmartens January 14, 2022 Commentary

Tesla Megapacks

Welcome to another Tesla Tuesday!

One of Tesla’s strengths is their battery technology. Companies have tried to make EVs for decades, but batteries were always the sticking point. Now that we have crossed an inflection point with the batteries, the EV revolution has begun. But it turns out that there other great uses for that same battery technology too.

A recent video from Wendover Productions does a great job of explaining the complexities of the electrical grid, but a quick summary is that today even though we have more renewable energy in use, things like wind and solar rely on natural phenomenon and make it difficult to match demand. So we rely on fossil fuel “peaker plants” that fire up quickly when demand is high. A more ideal solution would be to store energy, but that’s a challenge. This is where Tesla comes in.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhxo2oXRiio

Tesla provides a solution called “Megapacks“. These are effectively giant installations of their batteries that act as buffer for the electrical grid. Some of their installations provide over 1 GWh which is enough to power all the homes in San Francisco for 6 hours. So these projects aren’t generally going to power an entire city by themselves, but used in conjunction with other types of power, it can be that extra buffer under heavy load or when a natural disaster hits.

It doesn’t stop with giant installations though. Every time the power flickers at my house, I wish I had a Tesla PowerWall. These batteries sit on the wall of your house and are generally used in conjunction with a solar installation on your roof. If you have a lot of people in your area with these batteries, you effectively have a distributed Megapack. So Tesla is getting into the business of providing virtual power plants. Each homeowner can feed small amounts of electricity from their batteries back into the grid and get paid for it.

Electric vehicle batteries last a very long time. One Tesla Model S owner is closing in on 1 million miles with only one battery replacement (covered under warranty). But those batteries do wear out eventually. While they might not be up to the task of charging and discharging every day to move a car around, they’re still great for electrical grid use. There was a recent story about someone taking a battery out of a wrecked Tesla and using it in his house for 4 years.

When I read these stories, it’s hard not to think back to battery powered toys of the 80s. Fresh batteries would go into a tiny little device and wear out seemingly immediately. Dad got good at wiring power adapter jacks into all of our battery powered toys to avoid endlessly buying new batteries and we got good at figuring out how to adjust the wall wart to produce the right voltage for whatever we were playing with at the time. Battery tech has come so far that we’re now able to power hundreds or thousands of homes with it for hours at a time. it opens up so many interesting opportunities!

benmartens January 11, 2022 Electric Vehicles

Book Quotes

It has apparently been six years since I did my last post of things that I’ve highlighted while reading books on my Kindle. I thought I’d do another batch but this just goes back through books I’ve read in the last two years. For a full list of all the books that I’ve read, you can follow me on goodreads. It’s mostly science fiction and fantasy with a few nonfiction thrown in every once in a while.

Before I get to that though, note that I chose Hail Mary by Andy Weir for the thumbnail but I didn’t include any quotes. I’m not giving you any spoilers, but I think this was my favorite book of the period. If you’re even a little bit sci-fi curious, check it out.

Under what circumstances is it moral for a group to do that which is not moral for a member of that group to do alone?” “Uh … that’s a trick question.” “It is the key question, dear Wyoming. A radical question that strikes to the root of the whole dilemma of government. Anyone who answers honestly and abides by all consequences knows where he stands—and what he will die for.

Robert Heinlein, The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress

“Relaxing isn’t relaxing,” he said. “Sit around too much, and you start sitting around even more.”

Brandon Sanderson, Rhythm of War

If your joy lives in a codependent relationship with anything on earth, then your joy is dependent on something undependable. You don’t want that. The wisest man in history doesn’t want that for you either. King Solomon warns, “Hopes placed in mortals die with them” (Proverbs 11:7).

Mike Novotny, 3 Words That Will Change Your Life

I always thought when I became a man, I’d feel more confident, but towering over this boy, I feel so very small.

Pierce Brown, Iron Gold

Anger is nothing more than justification for bad behavior. And I have no time for bad behavior.

C. Robert Cargill, Sea of Rust

He defined good company not by the conversation but by the lack of it. When there was no need to talk to feel comfortable, that was the right company.

Michael Connelly, The Black Echo

This time, when she’d pointed it at me, she’d flicked the safety on. If that wasn’t true love, I don’t know what was.

Brandon Sanderson, Firefight

When you’re young, you can assume that everyone older than you has life figured out. Once you get command yourself, you realize we’re all just the same kids wearing older bodies.

Brandon Sanderson, Starsight

The huge moments in life seemed like they should have more ceremony and effects. The important words—the life-changing ones—should echo a little. But they didn’t. They sounded just like everything else.

James S. A. Corey, Tiamat’s Wrath

And I have to give an honorable mention to Grace Abounds by Daniel Deutschlander. I clicked on that to look at the highlights and I made over 700 highlights in ONE BOOK.

benmartens January 7, 2022 Books