Sideswipe: December 5: The definition of a perfect marriage

The definition of a perfect marriage.

Honesty in advertising

A reader from Hamilton got this response to an enquiry about a property on the coast. "Yes it is in a high tide zone and in the last three years when a king tide and storm occurred the water came up underneath the house. So since then the owners have concreted the basement and lifted the wiring to shoulder height to accommodate this. We expect this will happen again so to buy this property you have to embrace that you are very close to the water and this may happen. But what a great spot!"

Shooting triggers

The stereotype of a mass shooter is a white male with a history of mental illness or domestic violence. That may be anecdotally true, the largest single study of mass shooters funded by the US government has found that nearly all mass shooters have four specific things in common. A new Department of Justice-funded study of all mass shootings — killings of four or more people in a public place — since 1966 found that the shooters typically have had childhood trauma, a personal crisis or specific grievance, and a "script" or examples that validate their feelings or provide a roadmap. And then there's the fourth thing: access to a firearm. (Via Vice magazine)

Yeah, nah

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Those gosh darn wireless AirPods are expensive and and they're very easy to lose ... Fortunately, help is at hand! 'I'm sold," quipped a user. "But only if they created a string like this that also connects to a 3.5mm jack so I could handily keep them attached to my electronic products that I connect my AirPods to."

A joke for engineers ...

One day a young man was walking down a road when a frog called to him: "Boy, if you kiss me, I will turn into a beautiful princess." The young man picked up the frog, smiled at it and put it in his pocket. A short while later, the frog said, "Boy, if you kiss me and turn me back into a beautiful princess, I'll be yours." The young man took the frog from his pocket, smiled at it and put it back. Now the frog was upset. "Boy, what is the matter?" the frog cried. "I have told you that I am a beautiful princess, and if you kiss me, I'll be yours!" The young man took the frog from his pocket, looked at it and said: "Look, I'm an engineer. I have no time for a girlfriend, but a talking frog is cool!" (Source: Practically Speaking: A Dictionary of Quotations on Engineering, Technology and Architecture, 1999.)