Martin

Member since: Feb 13th, 2006

Martin's Latest Comments

Blog Activity

Blog	# of Comments
ParentDish	3 Comments
Download Squad	1 Comment
Engadget Mobile	9 Comments

Recent Comments:

Britney says baby Sean is "doing fine" after being dropped on his head (ParentDish)

Apr 13th 2006 2:39PM I can't believe I'm about to defend Britney Spears, but COME ON. If this is all the evidence against her (perhaps the authorities have more?) she's hardly a candidate for "worst parent in the world." (I used to be a night operator for my state's child protective services, so I can say with a bit of experience that there are people who do far far worse). No doubt, driving without the car seat was really stupid, but as far as the other stuff goes, it's all stuff that could happen to a 100% devoted parent. If looking absent is a crime, then every new parent is guilty. Who out there has really been 100% vigilant? Britney actually might have been acting responsibly by handing off the kid to a caregiver while she mentally checked out. Let's get real about getting dropped as well. A squirmy kid can launch themselves in a completely unexpected direction and yes, get hurt. Nearly every baby gets dropped or has a fall at least once. Unless the parent knows "secret super kung fu iron grip" -- and is awake enough to practice it. Cheers, mjb

Pur bébé: eco-friendly baby boutique (ParentDish)

Mar 16th 2006 11:08AM It's great you're more in tune with the environment! You don't need to beat yourself up so much about the diaper issue. The sad truth is both cloth AND disposable diapers are pretty resource intensive. Obviously disposable diapers produce more waste in the landfill, but washing and delivering cloth diapers uses more energy (which is probably produced unsustainably, contributing to climate change), which frankly might be worse. Here are the results of a fairly respectable analysis: http://www.ilea.org/downloads/ILEAdiapers.pdf . Unless you're brave enough to go diaper-less, there's no way out of this quandry.

In my (former) career as a biologist and my current career as a freelance writer, I've spent a lot of time thinking about the big disconnect between the environmental topics that people agonize over vs. the ones that really matter. People agonize over "paper vs. plastic" grocery bags but don't think twice about living in a 5200 square foot house or driving 17,000 miles a year. It's not that they don't have their hearts in the right places. I think it's just that really tangible things they can touch and feel (like diapers) are easier to comprehend than abstracts like how much energy your car uses.

The confusion gets worse as marketers come out with things that they advertise as environmentally positive -- such as cloth diapers. They may have an advantage in one sense but not in another. I know nothing about Pur Bebe products, but I do know that just because something looks and feels more natural doesn't mean it's really helping. Don't believe the hype!

Here is a list of 10 significant things you can do for the environment, from the ILEA web site http://ilea.org/ :

1. Purchase a more efficient automobile AND drive less
2. Increase energy-efficiency in your household
3. Purchase green electricity and/or generate your own
4. Include more vegetable protein in your diet
5. Teach children about the environment
6. Consider having a small family
7. Contribute money to an environmental organization
8. Give time to an organized environmental cause
9. Live in the city
10. Vote

Cheers, mjb

Day 28 of Engadget Mobile's 30 days of cellphone giveaways (Engadget Mobile)

Mar 13th 2006 2:25PM Gimmme gimmmee gimmee!

Sweet dreams: teaching babies to fall asleep on their own (ParentDish)

Mar 9th 2006 4:43PM You did say you're not a cry-it-out kind of person, so I'll just mention one thing about it before my main comment. For us, the baby whisperer method was a total nightmare of endless crying. Next we tried cry-it-out and it was much less painful for everybody. The entire training took three nights and since then 90% of the time our 10 month old boy goes to sleep on his own and sleeps for 8-10 hours, with wakeups only in emergencies (superfull diaper, etc). We followed the "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child" book.

There are some general messages in that book that are relevant to everyone, no matter what sleep training method they follow. The most important one is this:

Sleep is really REALLY important for happiness and for health, both for the baby and for you. If neither of you are getting enough sleep, you'll both be crabby. If "comforting" the kid is keeping them up, then that could be making them miserable during the day. It is worth going through the pain of sleep training -- whichever method you choose -- so you can both get the rest you need to have wonderful times together.

Day 11 of Engadget Mobile's 30 days of cellphone giveaways (Engadget Mobile)

Feb 23rd 2006 4:11PM it's all about me!

Access and Palm Source announce ACCESS Linux Platform (Download Squad)

Feb 21st 2006 2:40PM It looks like the whole project is much more Linux than Palm OS -- the Palm OS is just going to be an emulation layer that allows you to run legacy apps, which is great for fans of brilliant homegrown Palm apps like WWcalc (yes you can still find itand Wordsmith.

Those kind of apps probably won't be created for some of the so-called linux mobile devices out there, because in one way or another the software/hardware combo is too closed. Hopefully this new linux/palm set up will really be open so a good grassroots network of developers can start creating their own software and realizing the potential of today's more powerful pieces of hardware and communication services. There must be some incredibly cool convergence of GSM/Wifi + Linux that no corporation would ever think of.