QA_ninja

what is the best LIVE plant you would recommend as a gift? I dislike cut flowers since they'll die, so I'd rather get a plant she can care for while at work. What do you suggest?

EDIT: I really don't get why folks would rather be someone they're not. It's 2 people in a relationship, TWO, each with their own views/opinions/beliefs. You're not going to get someone who has the exact same interests as you. There will be differences and how you work with those differences is what makes the two of you a couple and makes you better than your parts.

what machine in the factory will blow a consumer's mind that's used in the factory?

Like consumers know of the machines that cut fry shapes, the ones which slam a potato into a grate to make french fries, but what other machines are used in the process?

which company is the biggest threat to verizon?

Check out http://playdash.org/

Their puzzles are... ~medium difficulty. They have past puzzles for all their years. I would look through some of them so you have an idea of their thinking and try some after that. All the information you need is on the puzzle (minus things like semaphore flags, ASCII/binary/hex to letters, number of letters in the alphabet, etc.) Often their first puzzle will be the easiest, the 2nd a bit of a whammy, then it alternates hard to easy after that.

Since you're starting out, don't be afraid to give up to see the solution so you can understand how they think on those puzzles. But once you're use to it, don't be discouraged if you've been on it for an hour. (after an hour, see one of their hints as most of those are ~ 1 hour long)

Good luck!

do puzzles. Specifically logic puzzles where you have to be VERY open minded in getting the solution. I'd also work on pattern matching, it's a very great skill for solving puzzles.