Studio711

Fantasy Football – Week 2

The Seahawks got their first win of the season. Barely. Against the 49ers. That’s hardly inspiring. They also got their first touchdown of the season but we’ll keep waiting for that first extra point. It was nice to see Russell Wilson happily scrambling around though. Jimmy Graham has a total of 4 catches for 9 yards this year. Hopefully they can get him back on track and/or he can get through whatever injury is slowing him down.

In our league, all four of the undefeated teams faced each other. Logan and I came out on top so we are now the only undefeated teams left. Logan is leading our league in roster moves already this year. He has 5 and the next highest is 2. I think his mid to late season roster moves were really what set him apart last year so maybe we can gang up on him this year by being better about picking people up off waivers.

This Week This Season All-Time
Highest Team Score Ben had 124.88 Ben had 117.17 (Week 1) Tim 200.51 (2015)
Lowest Team Score Tim had 70.74 Dad had 61.50 (Week 1) Andy had 41.29 (2015)
Biggest Blowout Logan beat Luke by 28.68 Luke beat Dad by 51.52 (Week 1) Luke beat Andy by 113.02 (2010)
Closest Win Dad beat Andy by 10.12 Andy beat Austin by 15.9 (Week 1) Jim beat Ben by 0.12 (2012)
Highest Scoring Player Tom Brady had 36.78 for Luke. Kareem Hunt had 43.10 on Logan’s bench (Week 1) Drew Brees had 60.54 on Tim’s bench (2015)
Longest Active Winning Streak Logan and Ben have 2 game winning streaks. Andy, Luke, Logan and Ben had 1 game winning streaks (Week 1) Micah (2011) and Ben (2015) had an 8 game winning streak
Longest Active Losing Streak Austin and Tim have 2 game losing streaks. Austin, Tim, Dad and Jim had 1 game losing streaks (week 1) Kyle had a 14 game losing streak (2011)
benmartens September 20, 2017 Fantasy Sports No Comments

Samsung Gear VR

My first experience with virtual reality was probably playing with a Nintendo Virtual Boy in a store in the 90s. It has progressed a wee bit since then and now the phone that you carry in your pocket can provide a pretty impressive virtual reality experience.

Thanks to Don and Megan for getting me a Samsung Gear VR for my birthday! I had a Google Cardboard set up from last year and that was enough to convince me that it could be really cool but not good enough to really scratch the itch. The Gear VR is a very nice experience.

Setup was pretty easy but required a lot of app installs on my phone. But once that was done, I plugged the phone into the goggles, adjusted the straps, and entered the world of virtual reality. I’m still learning my way around, but so far the coolest thing I’ve done is take a flight with the Blue Angels. 2D videos are great, but being able to move your head around while watching the video really takes it to another level. It’s an awesome experience!

I can’t see using this for long periods of time on a regular basis, but it’s really neat to see how far the technology has come. It makes me want to experience a full-blown setup with dedicated goggles driven by a beefy computer (but not nearly enough to pay for all that myself!) I feel like we’re getting closer and closer to my dream video game: Forza Motorsport VR Edition. It has to be coming some day. RIght? Pleeeeeeeeease?

benmartens September 19, 2017 Gadgets No Comments

Automatic OBDII Reader

I first learned about OBDII back in 2003. It’s the on board diagnostics system in your car that lets you get all kinds of live data while your car is running. I bought all the electronics to make my own reader and then… nothing. Eventually in 2008 I realized that I was never going to build it and bought a ScanGauge. I happily used that little device in my Subaru and later in my F150. It worked flawlessly, but now it’s sitting in the garage because I got an upgrade.

For my birthday, Tyla and Elijah gave me an Automatic. It’s an OBDII reader with a built in GPS and 3g modem. While you drive, it automatically records a bunch of you car data along with your current position and it uploads it all to their cloud service. You can also connect to the device via Bluetooth to get live data displayed on your phone. Setup was a breeze and so far it has worked flawlessly.

I think the target audience for the device is someone who drives for business and needs an easy way to track their business trips. You can easily flag a drive and it gets added to a report. Personally I’m more interested in downloading my data and doing my own analysis on it. There are some nifty apps that work right out of the box as well. For example, one app shows you your min, max and average commute times to and from work. Another builds a heat map of the places you have visited. Another one draws one of those maps where every county that you have visited is colored in.

Do I need this? Nope! But I love having gadgets that collect data about random stuff in my life so this fits right in. Time to crack open their API and see how to pull my data out of their cloud.

benmartens September 18, 2017 Gadgets No Comments

Cutting The Cord

We still have cable in our house, but it’s the most basic package and it only costs us $10/month. We’d probably ditch it entirely except that we can’t get good over the air reception in our location. To help figure out where to watch things, a bunch of great websites have popped up. (All of these tips have come form the excellent Cordkillers podcast.)

  • JustWatch.us – Create a list of the TV shows and movies that you want to watch, tell it what streaming services you subscribe to, and then the website will tell you which shows you can watch on those services. I’ve gotten in the habit of putting movies on my list and then eventually when they make it to the streaming services, I can watch them from the comfort of my own home.
  • WhereCanIWatchMy.team – This site only works for NFL and College Football right now, but it’s still a great idea. You tell it which teams you want to follow and it tells you which streaming service you should subscribe to so you can watch the most games.
  • Suppose.tv – What’s the cheapest way to watch all your favorite channels? This site will help you figure out. But here’s a tip: don’t select channels that you would be willing to subscribe to separately (like HBO). That will give you better search results.
benmartens September 15, 2017 Links No Comments

Indiana Trip

Our summer vacations were dedicated to family this year. At the end of July, we went to a family reunion in Fort Peck, MT and then a couple weeks ago we flew out to Indiana. We had originally planned to go earlier in the year, but we ended up moving the trip as it was the same week that Tyla’s mom passed away. Thankfully Southwest has an incredible flight change policy!

We were in Indiana for 8 nights, and, as usual, we had a great time. It was so relaxing to just hang out with very few responsibilities. Luke, Rachel and David came for the weekend so that added some extra fun. Grandpa and Lynnette came down for the day too so Grandpa and I could celebrate our birthday together. We didn’t do anything huge but we had a bunch of good day trips including a botanical center, lots of tractor rides, putt putt golf, go karts, the Studebaker Museum and a water ski show.

Thanks again to Dad and Mom for hosting us and spending so much time playing with Elijah!

benmartens September 14, 2017 Commentary, Family No Comments