Fitness Tracker Reviewing

In an effort to get motivated about fitness again I have been looking into fitness trackers. My phone does a decent job when I have my phone on me. 

I started with the Leaf. It looked cute and can be worn as a clip, a bracelet, or a necklace. Sounds great in theory. The clip was huge and awkward to wear. It only looked good clipped onto clothing. It also had trouble actually working. It wouldn't sync half the time. When it did it was very inaccurate. I returned it. (The company made it very difficult despite their claim that it was easy to return within 30 days). 

I started looking into other options. There are far too many. A lot of them are starting to have heart rate monitors. When I was running more, this was something I was interested in getting. I've read that target heart rates are helpful for fitness goals. It seems most of them are designed to do a passive heart rate, not to display it in a useful manner during exercise. I found one that was more targeted to exercising, but it was so bulky and ugly I would probably only wear it during exercise making it mostly useless for what I actually want it for. 

I'm now trying out two (both returnable to Amazon). The smaller one is an older version of the Jawbone, UP2. The newer ones are slightly bigger and do the passive heart rate, the newest one somehow lets you use your Amex card at tap and pay places. This one tracks sleep and steps, and not much else. 

The larger one is the Fitbit HR.  It tracks sleep, steps, floors you've walked up, distance, call alerts, and also tells the time. 

Putting them next to each other the Fitbit looks huge. I think it is uncomfortable to wear as it is a little bulky. This might have been fixable by buying the smaller size? The part of the band that is not flexible is a larger than is comfortable. Also you are supposed to wear it above your wrist bone to get the best accuracy. I find this to be an awkward spot. Steven however does not. Before I finished writing this the Fitbit became his, so I guess I don't have to return it. 

The Up2 is very comfortable. The clasp is one that you adjust once and it is very easy to get on and off. It is so much smaller and basically non obtrusive. It doesn't look or feel much different than the hair ties that usually end up there. 

Feature wise the Fitbit has a lot more. The heart rate sensor works well enough. I think it is a little slow to update. My biggest complaint about it by far is that you can't keep the screen on. So if I wanted to use it for exercising I would need to keep tapping it. The caller ID is a total failure. It technically works, but by the time it told me my phone was ringing I couldn't get to the call in time to actually answer it. The distance is a nice feature, I don't know how accurate it would be as it isn't GPS based. 

What I really wanted was something to wear all the time to track movement. I think the Fitbit is trying to appeal more to the exercising group, but I don't think they made it useful enough to justify the added bulk. 

Pencil Hat

I received a free mini book of school themed knits in my e-mail a few weeks ago. I happened to have all the colors for the pencil hat in my leftover yarn stash. It was a very simple knit, perfect for vacation knitting. The original design called for a rolled brim. I think that looked unfinished, so I added a simple ribbing. Also, I added 6 purl rows to make it look a little more like a six sided pencil.

Book Review - The Chili Cookbook

I was excited about this book since there the cold weather is coming. This is a nice looking cookbook, lots of big pictures.

I really like how this cookbook has lots of background information about chili. I've made chili before, but I've just bought the chili powder in the store and haven't paid much attention to anything else. I'm looking forward to trying out the different varieties.

My main complaint about this book is how it is organized. It is divided into 4 parts. With some background information in each one and then mixed into that are the recipes. It makes it slightly more difficult to just flip through to pick what you want to make.

The Martian

I read the book The Martian awhile ago on a friend's recommendation. I absolutely loved the book. I cannot say enough good things about it. It was funny and serious at the same time. It had accurate science, but not enough to overwhelm those of us who are not astronauts. I read the almost the entire book in one sitting, ignoring everything else I had to do that day. I've recommended it to almost everyone I talk to about books.

The thing I remember most about the book, was that almost every other chapter was the main character, Mark, saying "**** I'm going to die." There was an overwhelming sense of doom. It gave the impression that it was a very serious situation filled with an overwhelming amount of problems. He inventively came up with a brilliant sciency solution.

When I finished the book it had that satisfying feeling of that being the great book. One of the best I've read in a long time.

Today the movie was released. (Technically anyway, it seemed to be playing yesterday evening well before midnight.) I have been looking forward to it since it was announced. I enjoyed the movie, but it did not give me that feeling of having just seen something awesome. The movie was mostly true to the book. They didn't change too much. One semi-major thing, but overall not huge amount.

What the did do was leave out a bunch of things. Maybe it was for keeping down the special effects cost? Maybe for time? The effect of this was removing the impending doom. Not something one usually expects from Hollywood, usually they add this for no reason. It also removed a lot of the cussing. The two main things I remember from the book...

The movie wasn't disappointing, but I can't say I loved it.

Book Review

I was hoping this book would be helpful for learning how to draw people. I don't think it will be very useful for me. This book seems to be an anatomy textbook for artists. I wouldn't be surprised if this ended up being an actual textbook in a class. Almost every page has pictures of muscles and joints. For someone not really interested in textbook level information, it is a bit of an overload. 

My favorite thing is the comparison of joints to everyday objects. For the elbow joint they show a picture of a crescent wrench and a spool. I think it's a good way to get a clear sense of how the joints work. 

Despite not being overly useful to me, I think this is a great book.