We try to fill this site with plenty of thoughtful longform content, including an ongoing series of conversations with kindie artists that I’m awfully proud of. But judging from the stats, all you people want is posts about The Avengers, and I am not a proud man, so HERE YOU GO, AVENGERS-SEEKING WEB TYRANTS: As seen at Gizmodo, a gallery of awesome photos of full-sized Avengers props made from LEGOs, courtesy of Flickr user buriedbybricks. Pretty amazing, no?
Holy crap. You see that smiling teenager up there? She just cured the freaking hiccups.
No, seriously, she really did — and she did it with lollipops. Okay, they’re vinegar-flavored lollipops, but still, this is all very impressive to me, especially when I think about the way I spent my time when I was her age.
It all started two years ago, when Mallory Kievman — then all of 11 years old — came down with an annoying case of the hiccups that wouldn’t go away.
She eventually took over her family’s kitchen, trying more than 100 folk remedies before coming to the conclusion that vinegar “triggers a set of nerves in your throat and mouth that are responsible for the hiccup reflex arc.”
So: vinegar lollipops. Voila. And like any good American, Kievman is turning her knowledge into a business model: She’s now the CEO of Hiccupops, a startup that boasts the involvement of multiple MBAs as well as a grant from the Startup America Partnership. She rang the bell at the NYSE back in January.
She is, in a word, amazing.
For the capper, read this interview Mallory did with Tech Cocktail, where she shares some of the lessons she’s learned as she brings Hiccupops to market. Her sagest advice — for teen girls as well as tired old entertainment writers — comes at the end: “If you know you want to do it, you know there’s a specific goal in mind, don’t take no for an answer.”
I can’t decide how I feel about this. Billed as “a fun and easy way for kids to plan and pack lunches with their parents” and something that “empowers your kids, teaches them to make smarter food choices and helps them learn about advance planning,” LaLa Lunchbox is a $1.99 app that adds a layer of gamification to the simple — yet occasionally quite aggravating — act of planning your kids’ lunches.
If your kids are anything like mine (and judging from the fact that LaLa Lunchbox is a thing, most of them probably are), getting them to eat their lunch (or breakfast, or…I need a drink) can be a complicated process that involves bribery, treachery, and pleading. There are a million excuses for not emptying one’s lunchbox, and you’ll hear them all. However, unless you’re some kind of meal dictator, I sort of doubt that “because you didn’t ask me what I wanted” is one you’re going to hear very often.
So yeah, I’m sort of ambivalent about this. Gamification tends to be helpful when you’re trying to con yourself into completing an unpopular task or fulfilling a long-term goal, but eating generally doesn’t fall into either of those categories, especially when you’re young enough to depend on a parent to make your meals. I’m sure it’ll make choosing meals more fun for kids, but will it make kids more likely to eat them? I have my doubts. My daughter’s favorite excuse is “I didn’t have enough time.” I don’t see how personalizing a virtual lunchbox with “fun monsters and colors” will change that.
On the other hand, what the hey, it’s $1.99. If you’re desperate to stuff some lunchtime calories in your little one and you have an iGadget at home, it might be worth a splurge. Give it a shot and let me know how it goes.