Sideswipe: October 19: Incognito signage

Incognito signage: New sign erected on Wednesday morning at the entrance to Salisbury Reserve. Photo / Supplied

Knowledge gap

1. A friend thought the snowflake button on her car's climate control was "winter mode" for driving and also she didn't think her car had air conditioning. She had owned it for years.
2. "On a map, is the blue part the water or the sky"?
3. I knew someone who insisted that, when parallel parking, "you're supposed to tap the car in front of you to make sure it's there."
4. Was watching The Martian with some friends. One of them turns to me and asks: "Did they film this ON Mars?"
5. Back in high school, a friend called me because he had a flat tyre. I asked if he needed me to come help change it and he said "well, it's only flat on one side ... "
6. Had a lady complain, "I've had soup du jour before and this is NOT soup du jour!"
(Via: Ask Reddit)

Not dystopian at all ...

New Panasonic high-tech blinkers that block out your peripheral vision. Photo / Supplied

Panasonic has designed a pair of high-tech blinkers that block out your peripheral vision to help you concentrate on the job at hand. Much like the blinders worn by race horses and the bonnets worn in TVs

The Handmaid's Tal

e, the Wear Space headgear is a wraparound fabric screen which cuts your peripheral view by 60 per cent, focusing you on your screen. It includes built-in Bluetooth headphones with a noise-cancelling feature that can pipe in music to further keep you from your distracting human colleagues and their birthday morning teas and lame jokes — all of which make you a less productive unit. (Via: The Verge)

Inconvenience store

A reader writes: "On a recent trip through the Manawatu we stopped at a small cafe for a coffee and a bite to eat. When I asked where the 'facilities' were she reluctantly pointed behind the counter and then completely floored me by explaining that this was her own private toilet and then told me I could only use it if I was going for a pee ... she wasn't joking either."