Sideswipe: Feb 09: Power up on public transport

Life hack: If you're on an Auckland train and your phone battery is about to die, you can find salvation!

Just not cricket

A reader writes: "I live just a five-minute walk from Eden Park and love watching cricket live, but I increasingly find myself watching games at home because of the poor live experience created by the attitude and policies of Eden Park management. Regarding the ridiculous dress code at the stadium: My gorgeously dressed partner was denied entry and told she should go to The Warehouse and buy some Crocs to replace her Havaianas. We declined to carry through with this innovative suggestion and

Going bananas

Or there could be a less imaginative explanation.

Photographs like this have been passed around online for several years, apparently. The claims associated with the picture began as speculation and morphed into assertions that human blood was injected into the banana to spread HIV. The internet said so so it must be true, but snopes.com reckons it's more likely that these bananas are experiencing some form of fungal rot, such as a type cited in a 2011 New Yorker article about a disease destroying millions of bananas. The fungus was described as a "putrefying mixture of brown, black and blood-red".

Nice one Paul.

Face off

Why are some people's resting faces expressionless while those of others are considered angry and judgmental? A study has looked into what's known as Bitchy Resting Face - or, as some people put it, a "face combining disgust, better-than-you snobbery and boredom". Researchers have concluded that something in the person's face is relaying greater-than-trace amounts of contempt, even though they don't necessarily intend to convey that. That includes signals such as one side of the lip being pulled back slightly and the eyes squinting a little. The researchers also found that the condition afflicts men and women equally. Despite this, it is classified as a female phenomenon because society expects women to be warm and smiling at all times.

Not stumped

Mike writes regarding yesterday's Sideswipe on buying beer at the cricket: He didn't need to walk 50 metres to get his second two drinks, all he needed to do was re-join the queue, have someone hold his other two beers and he'd be served.

Early laptop?

Picture this: This is an ancient Greek sculpture of what appears to be a woman using a laptop. She looks like she's about to send a tweet she'll regret. The piece, "Grave Naiskos of an Enthroned Woman with an Attendant," is a marble carving created in 100 B.C. and features a woman lounging on a chair while reaching toward "the lid of a shallow chest held by a servant girl," the piece's description on the Getty website explains. More here...

Good read: Wife crashes her own funeral, horrifying her husband, who had paid to have her killed...

Picture this: Meninism (because somebody has to fight for men's rights)is a wonderful tumblr which takes pro-men status updates and creates portraits of the downtrodden, marginalised souls...??

Quick clip: Fish slap remix...

Food pretension: This woman has a diet full of stuff we've never even heard of...

Video: Face swapping goodness...

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Got a Sideswipe? Send your pictures, links and anecdotes to Ana at ana.samways@nzherald.co.nz