Sideswipe: December 27: Wet floor warning at Toronto's aquarium

Wet floor warning at Toronto's aquarium.

Before technology ...

A reader writes: "Long road trips could be boring for children who didn't have movies and video games in the car with them. That's why we developed car games. A favourite in my family was counting cows, but only on your side of the car. A white horse would double your count, a cemetery would kill all your cows. You had to keep an eye on the other side, too, just in case your sibling 'missed' a cemetery or lied about a white horse. The interstate highway system killed off some observational car games, because the child sitting on the left side of the car couldn't see much of the countryside across all those lanes and a median. But even now as the kids play video games, these road trip games are still useful for keeping a driver awake and alert, and can be quite fun for adults."

Just what the doctor ordered ... eventually

More good news stories from 2019

1. Electricity generation from coal power stations fell around 3 per cent this year, the largest drop on record, and 42 per cent of the world's coal fleet is now losing money.

2. New Zealand passed a bill to reach zero carbon by 2050, committed to planting a billion trees in the next decade, and said it would run its grid entirely from clean energy by 2035.

3. The world's second largest economy, the United States, generated more electricity from wind, sun and water in April than from coal for the first time.

4. Car makers finally put money on the table, collectively committing $225 billion for electric vehicles in the next five years in an electric offensive.

5. In March, the European Union announced that plastic cutlery, plates, straws, cotton buds, balloons, food containers and polystyrene cups would no longer be allowed by 2021. (Via Future Crunch)