Hope you all enjoyed reading The Man in the High Castle! We’re sticking with sci-fi (and war, for that matter!) again, this time with Orson Scott Card’s classic Ender’s Game. Technically this is a young adult novel, but the themes, violence, and metaphors mean you get a very different experience reading it as an adult.
Have you heard of the Stonewall Riots? Here’s a quick refresher: on June 28th, 1969, the police raided a gay bar called the Stonewall Inn in New York City. The patrons fought back, and this sparked the modern gay rights movement. Now there’s a movie coming, but along with the trailer came a well-justified backlash from within the LGBT community.
HTC is not doing well. Their stock is trading badly right now, and their reputation as a top-tier smartphone company is under a great deal of pressure. The HTC One M9 landed with a whimper rather than a bang, and they had to delay their Grip fitness band. So does HTC have a future?
We hope you all enjoyed reading The Man in the High Castle as much as we did. Here are a few takes on our thoughts, and please add yours to the discussion below!
Once, I debated the future of Microsoft with my father. He pointed out they had a lot of great ideas, but they were so big any changes were like turning around a battleship in a bathtub. I can’t help but think that was on Google’s mind when they announced their new restructuring, though nothing explains why they renamed themselves “Alphabet”.
Everyone wants a piece of the quantified fitness universe. Fitbit may be the leader, but there’s room for several companies in the space looking to help you track your data, from how often you move to how much you eat and sleep. Runtastic has built up quite the portfolio of apps and devices, and now they belong to Adidas!
I remember the one and only time I had a running store fit me for shoes. The clerk had me run on a treadmill barefoot,visibly recoiled at how flat my feet were, and told me I needed hardcore stability-style running shoes. I believed him, until I ran a few miles and my knee screamed in pain.
I confess, I have a soft spot for Angry Birds. It’s an easy game to play, and I find it works well as a “time killer” type app. Usually at any given time I have one or two variations on my phone or tablet for casual play. So I do genuinely like the games, and I hate Angry Birds 2.
We try not to let my son have an excess amount of television or tablet time, but as he has become a toddler it has become harder to ban them outright. He knows our phones and tablets have games and videos, so we’ve slowly started adding more toddler-friendly educational games. His favorite and mine is SUPER WHY!, based on the show!
We’ve hit a point in technology where everything needs to be charged. When I go to bed I do a rundown of my needs — phone plugged in, iPad plugged in, Kindle Fire (son’s “games and videos tablet”) plugged in, etc. Heck, I even have a hat that needs to be charged sometimes! The madness never ends, and the other night I forgot to charge my Pebble when it was down to 20%.
Running shoes can be a controversial subject. Ask ten runners, and you’re likely to get twenty opinions on what constitutes a good shoe. I’ve gravitated towards very minimal shoes the last few years, so I was unsure how running in the Brooks Glycerin 13 shoes would feel by comparison. Surprisingly, the shoe itself proved less controversial than the colors!
Motorola has been having a busy morning. They’re updating their flagship Moto X with not one but two new devices, plus their budget Moto G is getting a boost as well! All three phones are going to be available via Moto Maker, so your phone will be uniquely yours. The question is, which one to buy?
Who doesn’t love The Muppets? There’s something timeless and endearing about the whole gang, from Kermit and Miss Piggy to Gonzo and Fozzie Bear. ABC is launching an adult-aimed sitcom starring The Muppets this fall; it looks like a send-up of “The Office”, with maybe a shade of 30 Rock for good measure, and it looks AMAZING.
Jet.com wants very badly to beat Amazon. That’s been the bulk of their marketing push heading up to today’s launch, and when you shop around on the site, they consistently try to show you Amazon’s price versus theirs. After cross-shopping for a few minutes though, I was deeply unimpressed — both on price and ease of use.
I can’t say I love cleaning, but I do love the end result. It’s nice to have a space that doesn’t feel gross and dirty. We recently had the chance to review the “Grout Gator”, a tool designed to get tiled surfaces clean while being more efficient than traditional methods. But does it work, and is it worth the cost?
Polar is well-known for being the gold standard in athletic heart rate monitors, and in the last few years they’ve expanded into activity trackers as well. Their first pure activity tracker, the Polar Loop, was well received, and now they’re building on that with the Polar Loop 2, adding new colors and smart notifications to the mix.
Misfit is an interesting tracker company. They started as an IndieGoGo project with the Misfit Shine, then they rolled out a cheaper version, the Misfit Flash, along with a smart home bulb called The Bolt. Now they’re bringing more smart home and automation features to their lineup, with new tricks for the Flash and a cheaper sibling, Flash Link!
I tell every athlete I know to buy a RoadID. It’s a cheap, durable tag that could save your life. EMTs are trained NOT to go through your pockets and personal effects, but they are trained to look for jewelry with medical information. RoadID lets you wear your important details easily, and now you can piggyback it on your Fitbit!
Around here, we love books. And we love discussing books. So we thought it would be fun to set up a virtual book club! If you’re interested, read on for more details, and don’t worry-we’re thinking this is a once a month or so deal, so you’ll have plenty of time to read the book before the discussion starts.
Heroes was a really good show, at first. It followed pretty familiar comic/sci-fi territory of people developing superhuman abilities, and the various conspiracies designed to stop and control them. Plus bad guys, pretty people, and of course, some mind-bending twists. We won’t discuss how quickly later seasons managed to squander the goodwill of that first magical season.
Great news for fans of the Pebble smartwatch who are Android users-Misfit, one of the big fitness tracking apps available for the Pebble, now syncs with their companion app! This means you can easily export and sync your data to MyFitnessPal, and enjoy all the social features of sharing your activity with other Misfit users.