When your pub quiz round goes awry because people – allegedly intelligent, educated people – don’t know what an anagram is.
Honestly, I have no words.
And if I did, they would be all jumbled up.
.
If you’re going to struggle you’re supposed to struggle on getting the answers correct. Not not knowing what a fairly straightforward word in the question means.
How can you not know what an anagram is?
and…?
And I’m pretty impressed. They’ve entered into the fray in SA with a mountain to climb in terms of getting market share in online shopping delivered to your door, given that Takealot have been around for a long while here with virtually no opposition.
But Amazon have started small and sensible: a limited product range, but each one with the guarantee that it will get to you cheaply and quickly. And it works. I ordered a soundbar and paid a whole R2 (less than a penny) to get it delivered that evening. I ordered a mousemat (because my mouse doesn’t like how shiny my new desk is) and it cost nothing to get it delivered the following day.
Compare this with Takealot, whose confusing price structure for deliveries actually makes it difficult to compare, but a next day delivery would likely be R50 or R75. Or you could pick it up at one of their depots for R35.
Same day? Virtually unheard of, but almost always in three figures. (Yes, unless you have their monthly subscription service, but I’m doing apples and apples here.)
And it’s sad to say that Takealot have been lounging on their monopoly. Their prices – always allegedly discounted – only ever match with the normal prices everywhere else. I’ll certainly be using Amazon whenever possible for those online purchases. And yes, using local businesses for stuff too, but only if they are willing and able to offer decent prices and service.
You do wonder though – how quick could an Amazon delivery actually be? Like, if you needed something small, but really – really – urgently?
Mere seconds, it turns out (this service is not available in SA) (yet).
Such a good video, if you have the time to watch. Some delicious, subtle, dry humour, some incredible engineering and some amazing attention to detail and high quality workmanship.
It’s the future. Now.
It’s not rocket science. Well, I suppose some of it is. The bits with rockets, most specifically.
But generally, science works by using the Scientific Method: a tried and tested method which has been around for millennia and which has stood us in (very) good stead during that time.
Ask a question, answer that question in your head by forming a hypothesis, test the hypothesis with experimentation, draw a conclusion, report, rinse, repeat.
It’s not difficult. It’s methodical, and it means that you can get meaningful results, whether or not your hypothesis was correct.
What you can’t do is mix up the pretty coloured boxes. That’s not how it works. You don’t make huge, influential, wide-ranging and dramatic statements and decisions based on your hypothesis and then “make the proof” through studies.
Celia has got it right: you don’t “make” the proof at all. Unless you’ve maybe already huge, influential, wide-ranging and dramatic statements and decisions based on your hypothesis, and now you’re scrambling to try and find some sort of escape route.
Surely not, though. Right?
I mean, whatever next?
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Thursday reasserted the unproven link between the pain reliever Tylenol and autism, and suggested people who opposed the theory were motivated by hatred for President Donald Trump. During a meeting with Trump and the Cabinet, Kennedy reiterated the connection, even while noting there was no medical proof to substantiate the claim. He also mistakenly described a pregnant woman’s anatomy and linked autism to circumcision.
Thankfully, no-one will believe him, though.
Look, we could all* maybe do with losing a couple of kilos. And eating healthier isn’t always financially viable, or very pleasant. And so we can cheat a bit with drugs or Professor Cookbook’s fad diets.
Or this new diet drink.
“Blasts fat and food” it says. And those are the two major causes of extra weight. So this sounds perfect for getting rid of that pesky extra weight quickly and painlessly.
Fresh orange flavour by the look of it, too. Delicious.
.
It occurs to me that I should probably say “don’t actually do this”. I really shouldn’t have to, but have you seen some of the nutcases out there these days?
* OK, not you.
That’s a full century of consecutive weeks of achieving my Health Insurance exercise goal.
See?
I’ve been doing some rudimentary calculations, and I think that takes us back to November 2023. I would have had more weeks, but I’d just had Covid (again). Which rather ruined a birthday trip away.
But since then, I’ve attacked the gym on a regular basis, added a bit of running and the odd game of football, and while it certainly doesn’t get any easier, I’m actually feeling ok. The next goal will be in a few weeks time when I will make it 104 weeks or 2 years. I might celebrate that, I might not. I’m just happy to still be able to do stuff.
I’m sure there are a lot of people with much more impressive records than this – and well done to them – but they’re not me and so I don’t have to write a blog post about them.
And next week, I’ll have a more impressive record too.