#224 - Disney, Android Wear, and LoTR/MCU Actors

Motto: Two Kinds of Nerdy Will Battle in This Post

I realized the other day that the Disney company is killing it in terms of content - especially content in which I am personally interested. Disney owns:

ESPN
Marvel
Pixar
Lucasfilms
ABC
The Muppets
and let’s not forget their own movie production studio, which has been turning out classic movies like crazy for the past 60+ years

So basically, all of the MCU, Star Wars, all the kids movies that adults also like, all the shows on TV I actually watch, Kermit the Frog, and pretty much all of sports.

Disney is amazing. I never really realized it.

Thus ends my short little spiel about my new-found appreciation for Disney as a company.

first segway.

I’ve had my Moto 360 for 3 months now. I think that’s a long enough time to do a revisit review of Moto 360 and Android Wear. Here’s my one-word review:

‘salright.

It’s alright. It’s not great. It’s not bad. It’s just alright.

The Good:

It looks fantastic. It’s not “too big” at all. It’s sleek. It’s beautiful.
Notifications on the wrist are much nicer than you’d expect.
The ability to do a quick “text my wife I’m coming home from work” without pulling my phone from my pocket. This has been super nice to use on occasion. Also, quick fact-checking Google searches are handy.
Music control without picking up my phone. This is GREAT when working out, driving, or if your phone is in a bag or something.

The Meh:

The pedometer. I definitely don’t trust it step-for-step, but it generally reflects my relative level of activity.
The battery. It lasts a full day without fail… but definitely no longer. Not a big deal unless you forget to bring your charger on an overnight trip.

The Bad:

The heart rate monitor. The heart rate readings are spotty at best. Sometimes the readings are great, sometimes they are half or double what your heart rate actually is, but more often than not it just doesn’t find a reading at all. If you move at all or are sweaty in any way you will not get a reading… and that’s when you’d want one. So that’s dumb.
The heart rate monitor. It’s on here twice because this is an entirely separate issue. If I want access to my heart rate data I have to tell the thing to take readings manually. So it’s not useful as a quantified-self tool. It DOES take your pulse every 5 minutes on its own thanks to some Motorola Software… but they have elected NOT TO GIVE US ACCESS TO THAT DATA. That makes me so angry. It’s there. They have it. They won’t give it up. They are taking the readings then hiding the results behind terrible and obscure presentation methods. It’s just a huge wasted opportunity.
There are certain times when having duplicated notification buzzes gets overwhelming. If you’re concentrating on something and both your phone and wrist start lighting up like crazy… it’s distracting. If you want to let a call ring through and go to voicemail, you have to silence both your wrist and your phone separately (or live with the ringing & buzzing simultaneously).

second segway.

I just watched The Hobbit: The Battle of The Five Armies. I will write a long, ranty review of it for my next post (where I will re-visit my hatred for “part” movies). Directly after the movie, though, I found out the guy who plays the leader of the elves is also in Guardians of the Galaxy… and I was inspired to do this Top 5.

Top 5: Actors in Both Marvel Movies and J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth

5. Lee Pace as Ronan The Accuser and Thranduil