"Yeah, well, what did you expect?" (Or, Douchebag Apologists)
There’s a story that’s been running through my mind all week. It’s about a woman who posted a photo of her beaten face on Reddit after she was sexually assaulted, and the community responded by...
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Facebooking in Class–Symptom, not Disease
FINALLY I get to use this meme in a serious context. I think I’m going to have a series of posts criticizing GOOD’s pathetic education section, which is currently failing even harder than my insomniac...
View ArticleDon't Blame it on the Tech
[Snark Warning] A modified version of this piece also appeared as my column in the Daily Northwestern. Technology gets a bad rap. You wouldn’t think so–obviously, we all love it–but in a way it does....
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Yahoo's New Female CEO Isn't a Feminist: Does it Matter?
Marissa Mayer is unquestionably a badass. But she’s wrong about feminism. (Photo credit: Giorgio Montersino) This piece was also published on In Our Words. Yahoo! has a new CEO. Her name is Marissa...
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There Is No Universal Definition Of “Cheating”
A very disturbing thing I found here. Every time I read a women’s website or magazine these days, I come upon a headline that demands to know, “IS THIS CHEATING?!?!” Is sending flirty Facebook messages...
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Come to Skeptech on April 5-7!
As I’ve mentioned previously, I’m going to a new student conference in at the University of Minnesota this April. It’s called Skeptech and it’s being organized by Campus Atheists, Humanists, and...
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SkepTech Impressions
This weekend I was at SkepTech, from which I’m just now recovering (very little sleep or good nutrition happened this weekend). I had a fantastic time. As a disclaimer, most of the SkepTech organizers...
View ArticleGuy Leaves Internet For A Year, Finds That That Doesn’t Solve All His Problems
A writer named Paul Miller has done what most people could probably only dream of–he completely unplugged from the Internet for an entire year, hoping to find out “what else there was to life.” A year...
View ArticleThere’s Nothing “Sad” About Online Sex
Many pearls have been clutched over the actions or inactions of the various women involved in Anthony Weiner’s latest fall from grace (pearls that could’ve really been spared for Weiner himself). Susan...
View ArticleIn Defense of Having Big/Serious/Difficult Conversations in Writing
This post grew out of a conversation I had with Chana Messinger and was also influenced by this great old Wired piece that has resurfaced on my social networks lately. You may not think that, in this...
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I Finally Saw the Movie “Her” and I Loved It and Had Feelings
[Warning: ALL of the spoilers ahead] Last night I saw the movie Her, which, if you haven’t watched or heard of it, is about a man who falls in love and starts a relationship with his artificially...
View ArticleI Check My Phone While Out With People and If You Don’t Like That Please...
I recently made a Facebook status/Tumblr post that read as follows: Since APPARENTLY this has become a huge contentious debate all over Facebook, let me make my position on it clear: 1. If we’re...
View ArticleHate Crimes, Google Glasses, and Victim Blaming
I have a piece up at the Daily Dot about a woman in San Francisco who was attacked because she wore Google Glass to a bar, and referred to it as a “hate crime.” So many issues to pull apart! Here’s an...
View ArticleOn Shaming People Online “For Their Own Good”
[Content note: online harassment and bullying] Online vigilantism in general is nothing new, but lately I’ve been noticing a disturbing trend of people trying to teach others that they “should’ve known...
View ArticleIt’s Okay to Lean Out of Silicon Valley
I have another Daily Dot article. This one’s about the the guy who wrote an article saying he doesn’t want his daughter to work in Silicon Valley. I talked about why he’s probably taking it too far but...
View ArticleCorrelation is Not Causation: STI Edition
I wrote a piece for the Daily Dot about a new study on STI rates among men who hook up with men using smartphone apps, and how easy it is to misinterpret the results. A new study by the L.A. Gay &...
View ArticleWhy Tech Companies Don’t Understand Online Abuse
[Content note: online harassment and threats] I’ve been hearing from several people, such as @thetrudz and Oolon, that Twitter is now making tweets with links to other tweets show up in the mentions of...
View ArticleThe Perils of Facebook as a Hiring Tool
My new post at the Daily Dot is about Five Labs, an app that analyzes your personality based on your Facebook profile. Some employers already try to use Big Five personality tests to assess prospective...
View ArticleAre Anti-Rape Devices the Best We Can Do?
[Content note: sexual assault] Four students at North Carolina State University have developed a nail polish that can detect the presence of certain drugs used to facilitate sexual assault and change...
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#AlterConf Sessions Are Awesome and You Should Go
This weekend I attended something called AlterConf, which I hadn’t even heard about until a friend mentioned it, but was very glad I did. AlterConf is basically a series of local events that feature...
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