6 Reasons to Get Your Kid a Smartphone
A few years ago I would have written a post arguing that no child needs a cell phone, let alone the mini-computing marvel of the contemporary smartphone. But now? I’m a believer. I got my son a...
View ArticleSunny Summer Solstice Activities
Despite the fact that today is Summer solstice and marks the gradual decrease of daylight in the northern hemisphere, the official start to summer is still reason enough to celebrate. Just don’t forget...
View ArticleHow to Use PowerPoint to Strip GPS Location Data From Photos
Using your cell phone to snap photos on the fly is incredibly convenient. But you may not realize that your phone is capturing more than your kid’s adorable smile. It’s also recording your precise...
View ArticleAre Boys Who Babysit Geeky?
My son just had his first babysitting job. He’s barely 13, so this really meant that he watched a 4 year-old at home, with me supervising. He negotiated a rate of $3 an hour, searched online for tips...
View ArticleThe National Book Festival Just Got Even Better: Two Days of Programs Plus...
With banned book week and the arrival of library books on the Kindle, it seems like this just couldn’t be a better week for Book Geeks. Wrong! The National Book Festival will be held in Washington, DC,...
View ArticleKitchen Hack #172: Press, Drain, and Freeze Your Tofu
You might be a veteran veg-head who just hasn’t been able to embrace tofu or you might be trying to reduce the calories in your meals without sacrificing protein. Alternatively, in the grand tradition...
View ArticleSurvivable Holidays: Eight Ways the Single Geek Mom Can Survive Christmas...
Single parenting is hard. Christmas is stressful. Single parenting at Christmas time? Potentially devastating. Even when your co-parent is collaborative, friendly to you and committed to the kids,...
View ArticleMay Visions of Sugary Sci-Fi Dance in Your Heads
What do you expect to happen when you take teens to a cookie decorating party and hand them a gingerbread kit? A Tardis, of course. And an ensemble cast of confectionary characters. Purists will note...
View Article5 Geeky Ways to Celebrate Winter Solstice
The 2011 Winter Solstice straddles December 21st and 22nd, depending on where you are and whether you want to celebrate sunset or sunrise. For everyone in the Northern Hemisphere, though, Solstice...
View ArticleCaptain Picard on Domestic Violence Services Funding:Make it So
Patrick Stewart, who has written about his experiences growing up in a household with an abusive father, is now urging better funding for domestic violence services in the United Kingdom. As if there...
View ArticleThe Strange Story of Sally-Anne Lambert’s Hlinget Word Encyclopedia
Let me save you a quick “let me google that” trip. Hlinget is not a variant dialect of Klingon, or Elvish, or any other fictional language. Even if you do a quick search, you’ll still have to dig a...
View ArticleHow to Write a Successful Online Dating Profile as a Single Geek Parent
I don’t know anyone who loves dating. None of my friends cherish those awkward moments when first getting to know someone, finding a polite, but firm way to say, “sorry, not interested,” or recovering...
View ArticleWhen Art Forms Meet, Fall in Love, and Make a Strange Baby: The Ed Hardy...
While I am not really an Ed Hardy fan – the idea that “love kills slowly” sounds to me like glorifying unhealthy relationships – I could not resist picking up a copy of the Love Kills Slowly...
View ArticleOK, TSA, This Breast Pump Thing is Just Too Much
TSA, I’ve had it with you. Really and truly. I know we never really got along in the first place because I wasn’t impressed with your security theater and your poor treatment of passengers and general...
View ArticleFear-Based Parenting and the Loss of Simple Joys With Our Children
The annual community Easter egg hunt in Colorado Springs, Colorado has been cancelled. It wasn’t about lack of funding, or interest, or a shortage of dyes; it was about the poor behavior of the...
View ArticleShould You Lie to a Child About Surgery?
A friend of mine recently faced a dilemma: Her six-year-old son needed to have his tonsils out, but the doctor recommended lying to the child about the surgery. Specifically, the doctor suggested...
View ArticleHow to Make a Super Easy Zombie Cake
What’s better than birthday cake? Zombie birthday cake, obviously. I have few domestic talents, but this is a cake that even the most clueless chef can tackle with ease. Mistakes? No such thing. This...
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He Killed Uncle Ben! An Interview with Amazing Spider-Man’s Leif Gantvoort
For a math whiz who spent high school avoiding farm chores by participating in school theater productions, the chance to play any role in a major comic book film is pretty cool. But for Leif Gantvoort,...
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Making Sense of the Sandy Hook School Shootings as a Criminologist
The message of Sandy Hook Elementary is not that we are all in peril, but that such events are rare. They are as unlikely as they are unavoidable. We will feel better when we remember this fact rather...
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Thoughts After Sandy Hook: We Are the Safest We’ve Been in 40 Years
We are actually safer today than any time in the last 40 years, according to statistics.
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