Studio711 - Ben Martens

Fantasy Football – Week 9

bwmartens — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 07:30:00 GMT

Dad and Jim continue to duke it out at the top of the standings. In the Red Robin bet, Tim is now beating me by a game.

I’m now a combined 1-7 in the last four weeks over my two leagues after starting 8-2.
Top Team: Tim had top score for the second week in a row with 165.49
Individual Player Score: Kurt Warner had 40.74 on Andy’s bench. Luckily he didn’t need the points to win.
Squeaker: It’s hard to call it a squeaker, but the closest game was Dad’s 30 point victory over me.
Blowout: Tim beat up on his older brother and beat him by 76.65.
Deadbeat: No deadbeats.
Crystal Ball Award: I started my optimal lineup and still got annihilated.
Kansas City does not have a rushing touchdown this season.
Undrafted Miles Austin has 531 yards and six touchdowns receiving in his first four starts; that is a rate of 2,124 yards and 24 touchdowns for a full season.
The New Orleans defense has more touchdowns (7) than the Cleveland offense (5).
Steelers coach Mike Tomlin is 5-0 on "Monday Night Football."

[Stats/Trivia via TMQ]

Breakdown of Online Reviewers

bwmartens — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 07:30:00 GMT

You can find online reviews for everything these days. People have written about everything from cameras to books to apartments to toilet repairmen. There are a variety of review sites, some more reputable than others, but I think most reviews fall into these four categories:

1. I’ve never bought one of these before but I’m glad I bought this one. Gee thanks for the help. I’m trying to educate myself about this purchase and your review barely helps.

2. I’m getting paid to post this review and I think it’s good/bad. This category ruins the the whole experience. There are companies out there that will post good or bad reviews for money. If you see an overzealous review (either positive or negative) you should be suspicious.

3. I only write reviews when I’m angry. It’s human nature to scream and yell when you think you’ve been treated unfairly, but how often do you go back to write a review of a mediocre or even stellar product? Expect to see way more negative reviews than positive reviews.

4. I’m an actually knowledgeable, honest reviewer but you’ll never find my review amongst 1, 2, 3. Sniffle.

Does this mean that online reviews are worthless? Not quite. Go in with an extremely suspicious stance. Public semi-anonymous reviews should account for maybe 5% of your overall perception of the product. Try to stick with professional reviewers when possible. For electronics gear, I always go to cnet.com, and Consumer Reports have always been at the top of the game.

Penny Portions for the Poor

bwmartens — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 07:30:00 GMT

Good news, we’re still at lower gas prices than we were two years ago! But that’s not why I’m writing. As I filled up today, I wondered why we are still stuck with the nine tenths of a cent on the end of the price. I think by now everyone is on to the price scam. We get it. You’re so sneaky. Is using up the extra sign space and complicating you’re accounting really worth the psychological effect of a tenth of a penny? Maybe that made sense when gas was $0.24, but stations regularly differ by five or ten cents now.

I’d love to see a gas station step forward with a national ad campaign saying that they are rounding up their prices. But the catch is that they are going to donate that extra tenth of a penny to charity! A quick web search says that we use about 140 billion gallons of gas per year. Let’s say Gas Company X sells just 10% of that. That means they would generate $140 million for charity!

Insano Burger

bwmartens — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 07:30:00 GMT

The questionably named “Insano Burger” recently arrived at the cafeteria at work. DaveM said we should try it out, so that’s just what we did on Wednesday.

The Insano Burger is listed as 3 1/4lb Angus beef patties with 6 slices of cheese (3 American, 3 Pepperjack), and two onion rings on a bun with a side of fries. When we ordered ours, they were out of onion rings so he gave us 4 beef patties with 8 slices of cheese. Gee thanks. If you finish, they take your picture and put it on a sign. The first picture below shows our 8 patties on the grill (there’s one patty for another customer on the side).

We both finished the burgers without too much difficulty. The fries were a bit tougher for me, but eventually we both cleaned our plates. As far as food challenges go, this was one of the easier ones. We were too ashamed to get our pictures taken (but not too ashamed to blog it I guess.) All I had for dinner that night was part of an apple.

Follow My Blog On Twitter

bwmartens — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:54:47 GMT

Want to get notified whenever I have a new post? You can still do that by pointing your RSS reader to http://feeds.feedburner.com/studio711, but now you can also get notified via Twitter. Just follow @studio711 and you’re good to go!

PS. And don’t forget that you can follow my regular Twitter feed @benmartens.

Net Neutrality And You

bwmartens — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 07:30:00 GMT

Look out: it’s a political post. I avoid these so much that I don’t even have a post category for it. But I’m writing because this is one of the most important bills (in my mind) that has gone through congress in a while, and it’s also one that I think can be very confusing. Allow me to lend my technical advice/perspective, and if you agree with me, there is a link to join the cause at the bottom.

The internet is built on the fundamental concept that I can send information from my machine to any other machine on the internet. Once the data is out on the internet, it’s just a data package traveling through the system among the trillions of others.

Unfortunately the term “Net Neutrality” has been co-opted by both sides of the battle. You also hear terms like “Internet Freedom Act.” How could you be against either term?

The bottom line is that Comcast, Verizon and the other internet service providers want to be able to choose which programs and websites you can use, or at least give some priority over others. Their side of the argument is that government should not have any regulation of the internet. On the surface, that seems like something I’d normally support. But not this time.

There have already been cases in the US and other countries were ISPs filter out products they don’t like. A big one is Skype which many people use for cheap/free phone calls. This is a direct competitor to Verizon, AT&T, and Comcast’s own voice offerings. If they are free to block any program they want, why wouldn’t they block Skype and make you pay to use their service? Or what about internet video? More an more people are watching TV shows on Hulu or video clips on YouTube. That takes a lot of bandwidth and reduces the amount of time you watch Comcast’s TV service. So why wouldn’t they block that too? There’s a great illustration (which I’ve used for this post) that shows what your ISP offerings might look like if the ISPs get their way: $10 for the video package with Hulu, YouTube and Netflix; $10 for music sites like Pandora; $5 for internet shopping on Amazon; etc. Does that really seem like a big leap from where we are now?

The worst part about all this in my mind is that allowing the telcos to pick and choose which bits they like will deal a strong blow to ingenuity and invention on the Internet. The most amazing thing about the Internet is how quickly a new idea can take flight and reach millions of people. If there are rules about how you can use your data packets and which sites different people can see, how will new products that we haven’t thought of yet get exposure?

After reading all the arguments, I was a bit taken aback when I learned what each side of the aisle was supporting. It’s no secret that I tend to vote conservative (understatement), but this time, I think the Republicans are on the wrong side of the issue. Their Internet Freedom Act washes government’s hands of the whole situation and lets the ISPs do whatever they want. While “no government regulation” sounds like a good idea on the surface, I’ve just explained where it can lead (and has led already in other countries. Comcast has tried to do some of that in this country but has been overturned by the court so far.) But still, if my conservative brethren think this is a bad idea, it’s worth another look. The argument on their side that really gets me is “the companies paid to lay the cable, they should get to control it.” I’m not quite sure how to respond to that one except that we don’t really have competition in the ISP market. With many Americans having only one or two ISP choices, and a handful of companies controlling most internet access, capitalistic competition doesn’t seem possible. But maybe if it really got horrible enough, we’d somehow work around the existing ISPs.

I have signed the “Two Million Strong for Net Neutrality” petition at SaveTheInternet.com. (Click Act Now in the upper left.) This petition is for the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009 (H.R. 3458) and the website will automatically email your representatives. HR3458 simply says that no one (either government or ISPs) can prioritize or restrict data on the Internet. It’s not big government regulation so much as it is regulation against regulation. Please contact your representative and let them know how you feel (no matter what side of this you’re on.)

Fantasy Football – Week 8

bwmartens — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 07:30:00 GMT

Three of the top four teams in the league lost this week which leaves us with a three way tie for first between Dad, Jim, and Luke.

Did you hear Favre’s return to Lambeau? The state where every family thought of him as their extra child? Kudos to the Packer fans who rained down the boos on Favre. I asked Tim if there has ever been another player who has gone from being so loved to being so hated and he said ARod. Agree? Any others?
Top Team: Nobody could beat Tim’s 154.8 points.
Individual Player Score: Aaron Rodgers put up 34.68 for Luke.
Squeaker: Kyle beat Dad by 24.19.
Blowout: Luke beat Andy by 42.67.
Deadbeat: Andy started Westbrook who didn’t play because of injury. I’m not sure when that call was made though so I’ll give him a pass.
Crystal Ball Award: Ryan was only a few points away from starting the perfect roster for the second week in a row.
Detroit and St. Louis, which met Sunday, are on a combined 3-46 stretch.
Jim Caldwell and Josh McDaniels, both in their first years as NFL head coaches, are a combined 13-1.
If every pass a quarterback attempts falls to the ground incomplete, his QB rating is 39.6. Derek Anderson's quarterback rating is 36.2.
(Bonus college stat) Houston and Southern Mississippi combined for 1,358 yards of offense and 67 first downs when they faced each other Saturday.
The Texans are two games above .500 for the first time in franchise history.

[stats/triva via TMQ]

Talladega

bwmartens — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 07:30:00 GMT

Did you watch the NASCAR race at Talladega? Did you see Dale Earnhardt’s #88 Amp Energy Chevy? My name was on that car. No joke! Too bad HD isn’t quite good enough to show that, but my name was on the left hand side of the car towards the back in the Mtn Dew part of the logo. The image below shows my name on the car. AmpEnergy.com had a promotion a month or two ago where you could enter your name for a chance to get it displayed on the car. It looks like there were thousands of names on the car, but it’s still pretty cool to see that I made it.

Samsung BD-P1600 Review

bwmartens — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 07:30:00 GMT

My shiny new BluRay player arrived last week, and I thought I’d give you a review. I jumped on the HDDVD bandwagon as soon as the drive was launched for the Xbox360. That is now sitting in a pile of stuff that will probably get thrown away. I was hesitant to get into the HD disc field again, but with the purchase of the new TV, this was the time to do it.

Setup on the Samsung BD-P1600 was pretty simple. For the first time, I’m using HDMI to carry both my audio and video signals. One HDMI cable runs from the player to my receiver, and then another HDMI cable runs from my receiver to the TV. Obviously you need an HDMI capable receiver to set this up. An onscreen menu guides you through the various options for whether you want the audio decoding to be done on the BluRay player or on the receiver (choose the receiver your receiver can handle it.)

The first movie I popped in was the latest XMen movie. I made sure I upgraded my NetFlix service to BluRay (extra $2/month) and had a disc waiting at the house when the player arrived. Picture quality is mind-boggling gorgeous and the sound is wonderful too. I need to buy at least one BluRay disc because this will be my new method of demo’ing the TV and sound system. It’s astonishing.

Aside from playing BluRay discs, the unit also has a USB port and ethernet jack. You can plug in a USB key full of videos or pictures and play them on the TV (a feature I won’t use because I have Media Center.) With the Ethernet jack, you get access to Netflix (now I can do that on the Tivo, Xbox360, or BluRay player) and Pandora. The Pandora app is probably the most interesting extra feature to me.

Now to the not-so-good part. Part of the BluRay spec includes a system for updates. Minor changes can be made to the spec which means newer discs might not player in your older devices. This is one of the reasons I voted for HDDVD early on. The first BluRay players had no way to update the firmware. Thankfully, most players now have either a USB port, ethernet jack, or both so that you can download firmware updates. This still seems extremely complicate for your average consumer who is coming from a flashing clock on VHS player. Nevertheless, I decided to update my firmware to make sure I was compatible with all the discs. My first attempt was via the USB key. This seemed more reliable than doing it over the network because I could ensure that the download was complete and that nothing would interrupt the firmware update process. I prepped the USB key, popped it into the player, followed the onscreen menus, and waited. And waited. And waited. It’s only supposed to take a few minutes, but after 15 minutes, I went to bed and let it run overnight. When I came out in the morning, it still said it was updating. Pulling the plug on a firmware upgrade is a big no-no and leaves your device in a probably broken state so I called their technical support line. She said the only thing to try at this point was unplugging it and running the update again. She thought that I would still be able to plug in the key and start the firmware update even if it was in some interim state. I did pull the key and the plug, and thankfully when I started it back up, everything worked fine. I was back to my original state. I decided to proceed with another firmware attempt, but this time I did it over the network. The second time went well and after a few minutes, I had the latest firmware.

The bottom line is that I think the industry is making HD video too complicated for consumers and this is just another example of it. We have 1080p, 1080i, 720p, 60Hz, 120Hz, 240Hz, various interpolation algorithms, CCFL vs LED backlights, edge lit vs local dimming LEDs, HDMI 1.3 vs HDMI1.3b vs HDMI 1.4, BluRay players that require firmware updates to watch all your movies, and the list goes on and on. I love geeking out on this stuff, but I feel like the technology is leaving a large portion of consumers in the dark.

WRC in HD

bwmartens — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 07:30:00 GMT

The World Rally Championships are now in HD on Discovery HD Theater. The televised episodes are about 6 months behind the live events, but it’s still some good looking TV. For those unfamiliar with the sport, it takes racing to an insane level. Drivers race along mostly dirt (sometimes paved or snowy) roads that are usually only a single lane wide. A co-driver reads out notes explaining the upcoming turns. “Right, easy left, tight right, over crest” etc. Racing like this obviously leads to some incredible crashes, and in the latest episode on Discovery, they showed an incredible crash by Latvala in Portugal. He braked a bit too late, and as you can see in the results below, the result was disastrous. While his Ford Focus was a complete mess, both drivers walked away without injuries.

Proposal Pictures

bwmartens — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 07:30:00 GMT

I’ve combined photos from three cameras (thanks Chelsea and Tyla!) and put some new pictures in the photo gallery from our trip to Whistler. Some of the coolest shots were the ones Chelsea took from their viewing point when I actually popped the question. Sure, they’re a bit fuzzy because it’s a long distance, but it captures the moment! All the photos can be found in the Whistler part of the gallery. The new photos are everything up to the one labeled “Tim and Chelsea” (40 total photos.) Enjoy!

Fantasy Football – Week 7

bwmartens — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 07:30:00 GMT

[UPDATE] This post when up before I had filled in the rest of it. The original first paragraph was a copy from last week. Here’s the real, updated post:

I’ve fallen from the three way tie for first. Dad and Jim are now duking it out. Thankfully I’m still one game ahead of Tim in the Red Robin bet.

Top Team: Dad put up a whopping 164.76.
Individual Player Score: Tony Romo had 33.54 points on Tim’s bench.
Squeaker: Kyle beat Tim by 14.4.
Blowout: Dad beat Ryan by 36.39.
Deadbeat: Another clean week!
Crystal Ball Award: Ryan started the perfect roster!
Indianapolis has 15 straight regular-season wins; St. Louis has 17 straight regular-season losses.
Jake Delhomme has 21 turnovers in his past seven games. JaMarcus Russell, the No. 1 pick in the 2007 NFL draft, has two touchdown passes versus 10 turnovers this season.
St. Louis has score one second-half touchdown this season.
(Bonus college stat) Navy and Wake Forest combined for 99 rushes and 25 passes on Saturday. Passes by Navy: 0.
So far this season, Michael Vick has six pass attempts for a net gain of 6 yards.

[stats/triva via TMQ]

AXE Hair Products

bwmartens — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 16:10:00 GMT

Guys. Look at your hair. It needs help. 74% of girls say that hair is one of the first things they notice about a guy, and 90% of them say that the guy at least has a chance if he has good hair. And yet, only 29% of you guys think your hair is an important way to attract females.

AXE to the rescue! They have update their line of hair care products to include AXE Itch Relief 2 in 1 Cooling Anti-Dandruff Shampoo + Conditioner and AXE Smooth & Sophisticated Look Shine Pomade. They sent me both products to try out and I’m looking sexier than ever (or at least Tyla hasn’t given the ring back yet.)

You can find their products at just about any food or drug store in the $4.99-5.99 price range. It’s a small price to pay to improve the lives of everyone who glances in your direction.

Community Involvement

bwmartens — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 07:30:00 GMT

There’s a debate going on in my city right now about whether some blocked off roads should be unblocked for better traffic flow at the expense of some nice neighborhoods getting more traffic. They sent around a PowerPoint deck for an upcoming open house. This looks like a typical brainstorming activity where all ideas are written down and then attendees vote with the colored dots. It’s good to know the sheep are being cared for. I didn’t even know Sammamish had sheep. Maybe my taxes will start paying for special sheep walkways now.

I don’t think my blood pressure can handle one of these meetings unless I buy about 200 of those dot stickers before I show up.

Skiing Robot

bwmartens — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 07:30:00 GMT

Thanks to JimM and BenH for sending this one in. Make Magazine has an article about a skiing robot, and IEEE has a longer write up with more videos. It’s an brilliant combination of gyros, force sensors, and a video camera to plot out a course through colored slalom gates. It’s not going to break any records yet, but it’s another interesting advancement in robot technology.