If you're reading this, chances are you've heard one or two scary-sounding stories about sweet drinks and brain health.

Either you heard that artificially-sweetened diet drinks cause dementia or that conventionally-sweetened ones shrink your brain. It all comes down to two studies published in two different reputable health journals.

Sounds pretty terrifying, right? Only there's a small problem. It's still too early to say whether drinking any sweet drink — whether it's artificially sweetened diet soda or plain old sugary grape juice — actually causes the brain issues that the researchers observed.

Before you raid the fridge, there are some things you should know about how the studies were done and what the researchers who did them actually found.

First, both studies were done by some of the same researchers, including the lead scientist, Boston University neurologist Matthew Pase. For the first study, published in the beginning of March in a well-regarded Alzheimer’s journal, Pase and his team concluded that sugary drinks were linked with brain shrinkage. For the second, published at the end of April in a different well-regarded heart journal, the team found a link between diet drinks and dementia.

At this point, you might be ready to throw up your hands and decide that all you can safely drink is water. Not so fast.

The problem with observing

If you've ever watched the show "Fringe," you're familiar with a group of characters called The Observers. (If you haven't seen the show, no worries. This will all make sense soon.) The Observers know what's going to happen in the future and what's happened in the past. So, even if they are watching something tragic unfold in real time — like a child dying, for example — they are powerless to change it. They can only watch and observe.

Both of the studies on sweet drinks and brain health fall into a category of research known as observational studies. Observational studies can tell us if there's a connection between two things — such as smoking marijuana and having anxiety — but they can't tell us if one thing necessarily causes the other.

In many cases, a link that researchers observe between two things is later found to be caused by an external thing that no one was accounting for. In the marijuana example, some researchers have suggested that people who deal with anxiety may simply be more likely to use cannabis than people who don't. So instead of cannabis causing anxiety, what's really going on is that people with anxiety are using more cannabis than people without it. (The science is still out on this one, in case you were wondering.)

For the sweet drinks and brain health research, the scientists drew from a large set of observational data taken from thousands of people from the town of Framingham, Massachusetts who were initially recruited beginning back in the 1940s as part of a study designed to learn more about heart disease called the Framingham Heart Study. Over the past few decades and through multiple generations of people, the researchers have kept tabs on the health of these individuals.

So, for that first study on sugary drinks, the scientists zeroed in on the Framingham community's penchant for soda and juice. They found that on average, the more sweet beverages people drank, the lower their total brain volume and the lower their scores on memory tests. Importantly, brain shrinkage has been tied to an increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease.

For the second study, the researchers looked at the same data again, but this time focused on diet drinks instead. They found a worrisome link here too: People who regularly drank artificially-sweetened sodas (we're talking about 1-2 diet sodas per day) had a higher risk of stroke and dementia than people who didn't.

Neither of these findings are good. And the fact that the research is based on large groups of people lends some additional oomph to their conclusions. But the most important takeaway here is that there is simply no definitive research that tells us that sugary drinks cause brain shrinkage or that diet drinks cause dementia. Plus, out of all the people in the study, the percentage of those who did go on to develop stroke or dementia was small— about 3% for stroke and about 5% for dementia.

So the next time you're at a restaurant and are faced with the question, "Diet or regular?", what should you choose?

Diet or regular?

One thing the two current studies on sweet drinks simply can't tell us is which one is better for your brain.

Pase, the lead author on both papers, says holding out on both is the safest option. "We recommend that people drink water on a regular basis instead of sugary or artificially sweetened beverages," he says in a press release.

That said, there is plenty of research linking plain old sugary drinks like sodaand juice to weight gain, obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.

A large review of 50 years of studies published in the American Society for Clinical Nutrition found a link between the amount of sugar-sweetened beverages people consumed and weight gain and obesity.

Specifically, the researchers found "strong evidence for the independent role of the intake of sugar-sweetened beverages, particularly soda, in the promotion of weight gain and obesity in children and adolescents," they write.

Another recent paper written by seven experts in public health, nutrition, and economics makes the links between sugary drinks and America's obesity problem explicit:

"The science base linking the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages to the risk of chronic diseases is clear," the authors write.

Above all else, everything is best in moderation. If you're going to drink either plain old sweet tea or soda, limit yourself to an 8-oz glass every few days, and have it as a snack rather than an accompaniment to one. Similarly, if you're going to drink diet soda, try and have it once a week rather than every day.

SEE ALSO: Juice is the biggest con of your life, whether it's squeezed by hand or a $400 machine

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Kohl's partnership with Under Armour seems not to be working out the way it was intended.

When Kohl's announced that Under Armour products were coming to its more than 1,100 stores nationwide on March 1, it seemed like the perfect fusion of two brands coming together to provide what the other was lacking.

Though Kohl's already sells products by Nike and Adidas, it was looking for more activewear brands to sell. The category is a bright spot for the retailer, who found that consumers are willing to pay a little more for it.

Under Armour, on the other hand, was looking for more shelf space in stores where women shopped — and more shelf space in general following the liquidation of Sports Authority.

Kohl's is particularly popular with middle-class suburban mothers. The match looked to be in the stars.

"Kohl's is a great evolution for us — we think that the female consumer [is] there, she's shopping, and she's buying," Plank said in an earnings call last year. "We believe that there's a massive opportunity with the consumer that's walking into those stores and looking for the Under Armour brand and, frankly, they haven't been able to find it."

But matches that look good on paper don't always turn out well in practice. Kohl's is known for another thing: constant, deep discounting. According to a new UBS research note on the stock, there are "signs that the Kohl’s launch caused increased markdowns across the channel" for Under Armour — not exactly the intended outcome of the partnership. Markdowns can spell doom for a company's bottom line.

That's especially true if it's not immediately clear to consumers why the brand is more expensive at one store versus another. Susquehanna Financial analyst Sam Poser forecasted these concerns in March.

"Kohl's Under Armour assortment is presented well but may not be appropriately segmented," Poser wrote. "Within men's and women's apparel, 50 percent (maybe a bit more) of the styles are also available at Dick's [Sporting Goods]."

Poser is worried that Dick's buyers will see the steep discounting at Kohl's and stop stocking Under Armour altogether.

Under Armour doesn't sell its entire line at Kohl's, reserving its most expensive items for its own retail stores. Instead, it brought back some of its older shoe models and its basic sportswear in new and exclusive colors to sell at the department store, according to Citi Research analyst Kate McShane.

McShane says that Under Armour is attempting to copy Nike's strategy of segmented offerings from outlet to premium, but that "will require an expanded assortment and increased emphasis on price point planning than UA has historically offered."

Poser also notes that selling in a store loved by middle-class suburban mothers isn't going to help make Under Armour cool again.

"Selling Kohl's does little to enhance the Under Armour brand, especially when there's the need to build a lifestyle business," Poser wrote.

This is bad news for Under Armour, which, after posting disappointing quarterly results last quarter, is expecting to post its first operating loss ever this quarter.

SEE ALSO: Under Armour made a costly mistake that will take 'years' to fix

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The 25 most expensive ZIP codes in the US are unsurprisingly concentrated on the coasts.

Real estate listings site Property Shark recently used data from all residential transactions closed in 2016 to determine which ZIP codes across the US were most expensive for buyers.

California dominated the list with 17 cities represented, including well-known places like Beverly Hills and its famous 90210 ZIP code.

New York also claimed six spots, with pricey Hamptons favorite Sagaponack coming in at No. 1.

Only ZIP codes containing more than five sold properties were considered for the list. Property Shark helped us find listings that were close to each of the ZIP codes' median sales price. Check out the full list below:

SEE ALSO: Here's how much you need to earn to be in the top 1% for the 15 largest cities in the US

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25. 95030: Los Gatos, California

Median sale price: $2,180,000

This two-bedroom, two-bathroom Los Gatos home will run you around $2.3 million, but it comes complete with hardwood floors, a detached guest house, and four private acres of wooded land. 

24. 94123: San Francisco

Median sale price: $2,210,000

In San Francisco, $2.27 million will get you a home like this one, which packs three bedrooms, two and a half bathrooms, a wood burning fireplace, stainless steel appliances, and a formal dining room into 1,900 square feet. 

23. 94306: Palo Alto, California

Median sale price: $2,227,500

This three-level home in Palo Alto, on the market for $2.25 million, features quartz countertops, abundant natural light, and a fenced-in patio. 

Amazon's newest version of its Echo smart-home device, the Look, boasts a built-in video camera that can capture your outfits and provide fashion recommendations.

That's a big step toward a lifestyle of the future.

But it also creates some important privacy issues that are worth keeping in mind if you're considering buying the $199 Echo Look.

As with any connected device — and particularly an internet-connected camera — there are valid concerns about privacy: Is the device always listening? Who can see the photos and videos it takes?

The most important thing to know is that the Echo Look has an on/off switch. If you don't want the device watching or listening to you, you can turn the camera and microphone off by pressing a button on the side of the device.

That's nice. But hackers have a long history of using malicious tools to hijack PC webcams, allowing them to spy on people. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg covers his laptop's camera with tape, as does FBI Director James Comey.

And when it comes to internet-connected devices like webcams, it can be tricky to secure them properly, if at all.

The Echo is different, Amazon says, because it uses the retailer's time-tested security systems to protect your privacy. That means it's backed by the same security Amazon uses to protect its services, which ideally protects it against the vast majority of hackers.

Of course, nothing is bulletproof.

Turn on the blue light

When the Echo Look is turned on, it can detect only a special "wake" word, Amazon says, which means it's not always listening to you. When the device hears the word, a light ring on the Echo Look will turn blue so you know it's saving audio to the Amazon Web Services cloud, an Amazon spokeswoman told Business Insider.

That brings us to the photos, videos, and audio the Echo Look is capturing when it's on — this is a bit more complicated than an on/off switch.

The Echo Look has an accompanying app that saves all your outfit photos locally rather than clogging up your camera roll. But be advised that the photos are also stored in the AWS cloud until you manually delete them, an Amazon representative told Motherboard. This means that every time you say, "Alexa, take a photo," that image is immediately saved to Amazon's cloud until you go in and delete it yourself.

It's worth noting that storing images in the cloud is something that services like Google, Dropbox, and Apple's iCloud already do. By uploading your images to Google Photos, for example, you're allowing Google to use machine learning to create customized albums and GIFs of your content.

Just remember that the photos and video that get captured while you're in your bedroom could contain more private information, whether in the foreground or background, than the photos you take with your phone while you're out and about.

Amazon did not comment on whether it had any plans to use the photos and videos you capture with the Echo Look for its other platforms, such as for tailoring shopping suggestions on Amazon.com. But since Amazon is making a commitment to growing its fashion business, it's not hard to speculate how the Echo Look could be used to expand its current offerings.

SEE ALSO: Amazon's new Echo device is a hands-free camera that helps you decide what to wear

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In the final quarter of 2016, home prices in the US climbed past expectations as the housing supply reached record lows, according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR).

On average, 87% of the 150 housing markets tracked by NAR experienced rising home prices in 2016, up from an average of 75% in 2014. More than half of the markets (52%) now have a median sale price either at or above their previous record high.

"Buyer interest stayed elevated in most areas thanks to mortgage rates under 4% for most of the year and the creation of 1.7 million new jobs edging the job market closer to full employment," said Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist. "At the same time, the inability for supply to catch up with this demand drove prices higher and continued to put a tight affordability squeeze on those trying to reach the market."

The group reports that while the national median family income rose to $70,831, increasing mortgage rates and home prices will affect Americans' ability to buy a home, specifically in the country's most expensive housing markets.

Using NAR's data on housing affordability, we gathered a list of the US metro areas where the minimum salary required to qualify for a mortgage, with 20% down, is the highest. NAR assumes a mortgage rate of 3.9% for all areas, with the monthly principle and interest payment limited to 25% of income.

For the US as a whole, the average qualifying income is $42,962 and the median home price is $232,200.

Notably, the salary needed to qualify in the top-five metro areas — four of which are located in California — exceeds $100,000.

Below, check out how much you need to earn to buy a home in the most expensive housing markets, and what the median home will cost you.

The following markets are based on metropolitan statistical areas, with the exception of Anaheim-Santa Ana-Irvine and Los Angeles-Long Beach-Glendale, which are metropolitan divisions.

SEE ALSO: The 25 best places to live where the average home costs less than $250,000

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23. Salt Lake City, Utah

Population: 1,170,266

Median home cost: $282,100

Salary needed to buy: $51,572

22. Austin-Round Rock, Texas

Population: 2,000,860

Median home cost: $287,600

Salary needed to buy: $52,578

21. Burlington-South Burlington, Vermont

Population: 214,363

Median home cost: $291,300

Salary needed to buy: $53,254

Washington DC's housing market is jolted whenever a new president takes office and new members of the administration shop for homes. 

But the impact was aggravated this time, with the wealthiest president in US history appointing other super-rich people to help run the country.

According to the real-estate company Redfin, President Donald Trump's administration contributed to a 32.6% year-over-year jump in luxury home prices in the area, reversing the trend of falling prices in that segment. The price jump outpaced other major housing markets tracked by Redfin.

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, a former hedge fund manager, bought a $12.6 million home in Massachusetts Heights. The neighborhood is popular with the uber-rich and is a quick drive to the White House ,according to the Washington Post. Mnuchin's 16,000 square-foot home has nine bedrooms and was sold on Valentine's Day, according to the Washington Business Journal. 

And then, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, a former banker, snagged a $10.75 million mansion not too far from Mnuchin's home, according to Redfin. The Beaux Arts estate includes seven bedrooms, a library, and a theater, according to Curbed. 

The average sale price of a luxury home in DC in the first quarter was $2.7 million, according to Redfin. 

"We don’t typically see many home sales over $10 million in a year," said Michael Alderfer, a Redfin agent in DC, in a report published on Thursday. "To have two back-to-back is significant. We may see some additional eye-popping purchases from Trump administration officials in the coming months."

Rex Tillerson, the Secretary of State who was CEO of Exxon Mobil, reportedly bought a $5.5 million home in Kalorama. President Barack Obama and Ivanka Trump rent in the neighborhood. 

Even outside of DC, luxury-home buyers enjoy more options compared to affordable starter homes where there is an inventory crunch. The glut in luxury housing is encouraging landlords to offer greater concessions and discounts to attract more buyers.  

SEE ALSO: A key part of Trump's tax plan is unlikely to benefit most Americans

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Relationships are personal.

You can read 100 books about love and marriage and still be surprised to learn that your spouse never makes the bed, but has a weird thing about organizing the dishwasher.

That said, if you're planning or hoping to get hitched, you should probably be open to all the relationship advice you can get.

Business Insider has rounded up eight books that will help prepare you to tie the knot — books whose authors include a wedding reporter, a researcher who studies shame and vulnerability, and a Harvard negotiation professor.

Even if you pick up one or two, you'll be better equipped to weather the inevitable ups and downs of marriage.

SEE ALSO: 9 books that will give you something to talk about at any party you attend

'Happier at Home' by Gretchen Rubin

This bestselling book, published in 2012, is a follow-up to Rubin's first bestseller, "The Happiness Project."

Where "The Happiness Project" details Rubin's efforts to become generally happier, "Happier at Home" zeroes in on Rubin's attempts to create more fulfilling relationships with her family.

Each month for a year, Rubin took on a different "theme," such as marriage or parenthood, and worked on improving it. She combines scientific research with personal anecdotes about her husband and two daughters.

Some of the changes Rubin made include thanking her husband for doing chores and practicing "warm greetings and farewells" with both her husband and her daughters. It's all stuff you can easily replicate in your own relationships.

Find it here »

'Drop the Ball' by Tiffany Dufu

Tiffany Dufu spent her whole life getting straight As: at school, at home, and at work.

But when she went back to work after the birth of her first child — she was a launch team member to Lean In and is chief leadership officer to professional network Levo — she realized she wasn't going to keep getting top marks across the board without help.

"Drop the Ball" is the story of how Dufu and her husband reshaped the way they tackled the myriad tasks that go with caring for a family and household, starting with conversations and Excel spreadsheets and ending up with a stronger, happier relationship.

Stick around for the story about dry cleaning — it will make you think differently about how you get things done.

Find it here »

'Negotiating the Nonnegotiable' by Daniel Shapiro

Shapiro is the founder and director of the Harvard International Negotiation Program; he's led conflict-management initiatives in the Middle East and worked with leaders in government and business.

The thrust of "Negotiating the Nonnegotiable," published in 2016, is that appealing to rationality isn't always the best way to mend a rift. Instead, both parties in a negotiation have to be willing to get in touch with the conflict's more emotional underpinnings.

That's especially true when you're dealing with conflict in close personal relationships. One strategy Shapiro recommends in the book is using a metaphor to describe the relationship. That way, it's easier to talk about — and come up with solutions to — a tricky situation. 

Find it here »

21 everyday phrases that come straight from Shakespeare's plays.

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Finding a great job that comes with a significant salary boost is one of the top reasons to move to a new city.

In its updated 2017 ranking of the best places to live in America, U.S. News & World Report gathered data on the 100 most populous US cities. Among the factors it considered were affordable housing, a low cost of living, good schools, quality healthcare, and access to well-paying jobs. You can read U.S. News' full methodology here.

Business Insider reranked these cities based on average annual salary to find the cities where residents earned more than $50,000 a year — on par with the national average. They don't all rank highly on U.S. News' overall list, given higher costs of living and other factors, so we've included each city's overall ranking for comparison's sake. For instance, Chicago ranks at No. 19 in terms of salary, but it came in only at No. 83 on the list of 100.

Of the 100 best places to live in the US, here are 22 where you can land the highest-paying jobs:

SEE ALSO: The 50 best places to live in America

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22. Santa Rosa, California

Population: 495,078

Average annual salary: $50,540

Overall rank on best places to live list: 52

Just 55 miles north of San Francisco sits Santa Rosa, one of Sonoma County's premier wine-country towns. According to US News' local expert, Santa Rosa is an originator of the farm-to-table movement and "a haven for bicyclists, who train on its rural western roads and visit en masse for two major cycling events: the Amgen Tour of California and the Levi's GranFondo."

The job market in Santa Rosa is powered by tourism: 9% of residents work in the industry, mainly at local farms, wineries, and brewpubs.

21. Albany, New York

Population: 877,846

Average annual salary: $50,880

Overall rank on best places to live list: 30

Despite the snowy winters, living in Albany comes with several advantages. Albany offers a cost of living lower than the national average and the cost of housing sits well below the rest of the US as a whole. In terms of jobs, the city's tech and healthcare industries are on the rise.

Albany's downtown is lined with art galleries, wine shops, and churches for visitors to peruse. In keeping with the city's cold climate, hockey is the sport of choice for residents. 

20. Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina

Population: 1,750,865

Average annual salary: $51,150

Overall rank on best places to live list: 7

Raleigh-Durham and Chapel Hill are collectively known as the Triangle, an area anchored by its foundation in research and tech. The Triangle employs nearly 40,000 residents at companies like IBM, SAS Institute Inc., and Cisco Systems as well as surrounding colleges Duke, North Carolina State, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A strong job market coupled with a burgeoning microbrewery and dining scene draws 80 new residents every day, said a local expert.

One of the best ways for foodies to truly experience the world's best restaurants is by ordering a multi-course tasting menu.

But it's not for everyone — these carefully crafted and elaborate meals can sometimes cost as much as $1,000 a head.

From the experimental Sublimotion restaurant in Spain to Heston Blumenthal's quirky dishes in London, here are 33 restaurants with the priciest tasting menus in the world.

NOTE: We calculated the cost of a meal for two people, and included the price of a wine pairing where applicable. Unless otherwise indicated, the listed cost does not include gratuity or tax. Foreign prices were converted at today's conversion rates.

Talia Avakian contributed reporting to an earlier version of this article. 

SEE ALSO: The team behind the best restaurant in the world is opening a new fast-casual concept in New York City

33. Osteria Francescana, Modena, Italy

$478 for two; nine courses (wine pairing $142 per person)

Voted the world's second-best restaurant and featured in an episode Netflix's "Chef's Table," Osteria Francescana is one of the most exciting places to eat right now. 

Chef Massimo Bottura puts his own unique twist on classic Italian food. One of his most famous dishes, the "Five ages of Parmigiano Reggiano" is served in different textures and temperatures.

31 (TIE). Quay, Sydney, Australia

$490 for two people; nine courses (wine pairing additional $105 per person)

Australian chef Peter Gilmore's Quay serves a tasting menu that combines classic dishes with new seasonal additions. The meal flows flawlessly from the delicious starters to the guava snow egg — one of Gilmore's signature desserts.

The intimate dining room has crisp white linens that only add to the ambiance of this serene meal.

31 (TIE). O Ya, Boston, Massachusetts

$490 for two; 24 courses 

Run by Chef Tim Cushman and his wife, Nancy, O Ya offers imaginative sushi and Japanese small plates, like pork ribs soaked in a smoky-flavored lapsang souchong tea for over 24 hours. The dish is served with sesame seeds and Japanese leeks. 

The small and welcoming space of its original Boston location is a comfortable setting for enjoying the various plates of seafood delicacies.

Business Insider deputy editor Dave Smith proposed to his girlfriend of two years in December. She said yes! Below, Smith walks us through a traditional, but anguishing, part of the process: buying an engagement ring.

As told to Libby Kane.

I knew I wanted to get engaged about a year ago.

We were in Toronto visiting friends for New Year's Eve. We were at a party earlier, but we left the party so we could just be together as the ball dropped. We were talking and I just felt like I was so connected to her. In that moment, I thought, "This time next year I want us be to engaged. I'm ready for that, I think she's ready for that, we're at that point."

I started thinking about a ring around September, and did some basic research on Yelp and Google about where to go: just "best places to buy an engagement ring New York City."

I found one store that was family-owned. It had been around for 40 years, which I really did like, and it didn't seem like a franchise or a chain. It's one store that's been in New York City, handed down from generation to generation, and has a master jeweler on site. As a non-jewelry person, that made me feel more comfortable. It's called Greenwich St. Jewelers. I checked out their website and saw they could do custom stuff, and I was thinking I would go down that route. I could have gotten a really nice traditional ring, but she doesn't really like traditional styles.

My girlfriend — fiancée! — has a Pinterest page and one of her boards is jewelry, and a lot of it is rings. I saved a lot of those images to my phone, just to give the jewelers an idea.

Throughout the entire relationship, we've done everything together: saying I love you, moving in together, all those decisions we made together. This part was something I had to do myself. I did see some people shopping for rings together, but it's not what I wanted to do. I wanted the element of surprise. I didn't even want to ask, "So what's your ring size?" and I didn't know what ring to even take from her if I were to take one, so I didn't. This jeweler, and I think most jewelers, was like, 'If it doesn't fit, you can come back. We'll do it right on site, it takes no time.'

I have no experience jewelry shopping at all. I've never bought myself jewelry, even. As a teenager I got a Fossil watch as like a Bar Mitzvah gift or something. I had no taste in jewelry. No idea what to do.

I worked with this one woman, Amanda, who was really great. She knew everything about jewelry. I explained to her, "I'm a noob at this, I don't know anything — here are some pictures I got for us to work with." The shape that we settled on is different from most other rings. It's called a Marquise diamond.

Since it was custom, there was stuff like getting the right diamond itself. Some are shaped a little differently, some are a little wider, some a little narrower, some have different clarity and qualities I needed to go through. We had to figure out the color, the band, the shape. When you're looking at diamonds on a tweezer, and you don't know much about clarity and stuff like that, you're just trying to go for something that looks good. If you're paying thousands of dollars for it, which you are, you want something that doesn't feel cheap, but it's so hard to tell.

You want the ring to match her. Do you think she would be really pissed if you spent this much money? Do you think she'd be happy with this ring color or size or whatever? Is she the kind that would care a lot about the authenticity of the ring? Would she need the certificates? Because you can go cheaper if you get some elements that aren't certified. You can go for more unique styles or go for a slightly more expensive diamond, which is what I did in this case.

I went back about five or six times over a couple of months. It took a lot longer than I thought. That was the one thing I was surprised with. My fiancée was taking French classes on Wednesday nights, so every Wednesday I would tell her, "Oh I'm playing video games." But I was at the jeweler.

I went above and beyond my budget. I'd asked Amanda, the jeweler who helped me throughout this process: "What's normal here? I'd heard something like a few months' salary? A few paychecks? Do you have any advice with that?" I just didn't know, and I didn't want to seem cheap, but I also wanted to give her something that she deserved because I really do love her.

Amanda said that whole few months' salary thing is total bull. It's whatever you feel comfortable with. That's the bottom line. I had some savings. We've both watched movies and TV shows where people get married and you see the ring, and how much the guy is spending, and my fiancée had said to me on so many occasions, "If you spent that much money I would kill you." Because in the future it's going to be our money. So I do want to spend because she's worth it, but I don't want to piss her off.

I was just going with what I felt comfortable with. I felt comfortable at the store, I felt comfortable with this jeweler. I felt like she was leading me in the right direction, not like I was being taken advantage of. So if it ended up costing an extra few thousand dollars, it's just money. We all live once.

As a guy, you can be as macho as you want, but it's freaky to go shopping for a ring. It really is. It's symbolizing the end of your single life and the beginning of your life with this person. You don't want to f--k it up. It's scary.

You pay for half of it when you fully design the ring and put in the order, then you pay for the other half when it's ready and you come pick it up. I guess this would have showed up in two different bank statements. I only show her the statements when we're going through bills for the month and I tell her what she owes, because I get the bills for rent and utilities and everything like that, and she just Venmos me. But how would you hide it? I don't know.

If I didn't trust Amanda, I would have just gone somewhere else. There are a million bajillion jewelry stores. Even though it's not totally comfortable taking out your wallet and paying for these things, you can be more comfortable if you feel like you did everything you can to make sure it's the ring you wanted.

I wanted to make sure I felt comfortable, because if I felt like I was off the rails here, even though it's for her, I would have felt weird about giving it to her. I would have felt weird about doing the whole engagement. You want to start it off on the right foot. Being engaged — as my brother, my parents, and everyone says — is a party, but for you. You want everything to be as right as possible.

The jeweler told me to come back after the proposal and we'd have champagne, and then do the insurance stuff, which covers a lifetime in case any of the diamonds fall off or anything. I don't wear anything that costs thousands of dollars, so it's very scary prospect.

They called me in early December to pick it up. I ran home and was trying to find a hiding place. The surprise is really hard, because you know she could go anywhere in the apartment. I hid it in the very back of my sock drawer inside of a hat. When she wasn't there, I practiced putting the ring box in and out of my jacket.

I put a lot of thought into the actual surprise of it. She was totally surprised, and it was totally worth it, just watching her gears work as I stopped her in the street right in front of the place where we met. Just watching that reaction was totally worth the surprise, and the angst and everything that I had been through by myself, keeping the secret from her, doing all this planning to get the ring, to find the right one, to buy it, to hide it from her, to plan the restaurant visit and then walk past the place where we met.

She's ecstatic about it. She loves the ring.

Have you purchased an engagement ring? We want to hear your story. Email yourmoney@businessinsider.com. Anonymity can be considered.

SEE ALSO: 8 money conversations every couple should have before getting engaged

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Thomas Demetrio, the attorney for the passenger who was dragged off a United flight, is singing the airline's praises now that a settlement has been reached. Both parties have agreed not to disclose the amount of the settlement.

United experienced public backlash after a video went viral showing passenger David Dao, 69, being forcibly removed from a full flight to make room for crew members. CEO Oscar Munoz publicly apologized for the incident after first releasing two poorly received statements.

During a press conference earlier in April, Demetrio said the lawsuit was meant to "stand up for passengers going forward." At the time, Demetrio said Munoz's apology was "staged."

Demetrio, though, praised Munoz's handling of the fiasco in the settlement, which was announced Thursday.

"Mr. Munoz said he was going to do the right thing, and he has," Munoz said. "In addition, United has taken full responsibility for what happened on Flight 3411, without attempting to blame others, including the City of Chicago. For this acceptance of corporate accountability, United is to be applauded."

SEE ALSO: United Airlines has reached a settlement with the passenger who was dragged off a plane

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NOW WATCH: UNITED PASSENGER ATTORNEY: Dao has a concussion, broken nose, and lost two front teeth

The upcoming iPhone 8 is arguably Apple's most hotly anticipated device for several years — and one of the biggest unknowns about the device is how long the battery life will last.

While we won't know for sure until Apple releases the flagship device, the rumour mill is already in overdrive, with people keen to know whether the iPhone 8 battery will outlive the battery in the iPhone 7 and the new Samsung Galaxy S8.

Rumours suggest that Apple will put a 2,700 mAH battery in the iPhone 8, which would almost put it on a par with the 2,900 mAH battery in the 5.5-inch iPhone 7 Plus. The question analysts are asking is how will Apple put such a large battery into a smaller phone.

Flagship phones and how long their batteries last (via review website phoneArena): 

• iPhone 7 Plus: 9 hours and 15 minutes
• Samsung Galaxy S8+: 8 hrs exactly
• iPhone 7: 7 hrs 46 mins
• Huawei PT: 7 hrs 42 mins
• Google Pixel XL: 7 hrs 19 mins
• Galaxy S7 Edge: 7 hrs 18 mins
• OnePlus 3T: 5 hrs 41 mins

Several reports have suggested that Apple plans to shrink many of the components inside the chassis of iPhone 8 to make room for a larger battery.

KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo — an analyst renowned for his Apple predictions — believes Apple has conceived a clever plan to get a bigger battery into its upcoming flagship handset.

The plan involves using a "stacked" logic board that has a smaller overall footprint inside the iPhone. Shrinking the logic board, which holds and allows communication between the iPhone's other components, will also reportedly improve energy efficiencies in the iPhone 8. As a result, Kuo expects that the iPhone 8 battery could be even better than the battery life on the iPhone 7 Plus.

Elsewhere, Cowen and Company analyst Timothy Arcuri, who has a mixed track record when it comes to iPhone rumours, predicts that the largest of Apple's new iPhones could come with two batteries, resulting in an extended battery life.

Kuo also seems to believe that Apple will adopt a "two-cell design" approach, with Apple Insider reporting that he thinks the two batteries will form an L-shape within the iPhone 8. Kuo reportedly thinks that the new battery design will enable quicker charging speeds.

In addition to wired charging via a Lightning cable, it's possible that future iPhone 8 owners will also be able to charge the battery on their new device wirelessly, with leaked photos suggesting that the iPhone 8 will support contact-based wireless charging. This would allow iPhone 8 owners to charge their phone simply by placing it onto a compatible charging pad.

Other iPhone 8 rumours can be read here. 

SEE ALSO: Apple's new iPhone 8 'could well be a bigger draw for consumers' than the Samsung Galaxy S8

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This summer will be one small step for Lego fans, and one giant leap for nerd-kind.

Lego Ideas is launching a NASA Apollo Saturn V rocket set on June 1, 2017, to help space fans everywhere pull off historic moon missions from the comfort of their own homes.

Like NASA's storied space program, this kit will come with three separable Saturn V rocket stages, a lunar orbiter, lunar module, crew of three astronauts, and even an American flag for the microfigurines to plant on the moon.

But Lego's version won't cost billions upon billions of dollars, gobble up nearly 4.5% of the national budget, or need to be fueled with hundreds of thousands of gallons of highly flammable kerosene and liquid oxygen. Instead, each set of plastic parts will be scaled down 110 times, stand an impressive one-meter (3.28 feet) tall when fully assembled, and sell for $119.

Inside the box: exactly 1,969 pieces — a clever nod to the year of the first moon landing, by the crew of Apollo 11, in July 1969.

Lego rated the set for ages 14 and older. This should give parents a good excuse to steal it from their children, lock themselves in a bedroom, and gleefully assemble the space program of their dreams on a carpet.

The concept for this set got its start in August 2014, when users "whatsuptoday" and "saabfan" posted their Saturn V concept to the Lego Ideas community, which lets members create, submit, and vote on new set plans.

Within a year, their project received 10,000 votes from fellow fans of plastic bricks. This triggered an automatic review by a board of Lego set designers, and in June 2016, Lego announced that it would manufacture and sell the set. The company on Friday officially released the product. (As a reward, the two users will get 1% of the product sales and licensing revenue, minus Danish taxes.)

We can't wait to get our hands on this bad boy, but these photos will have to do until then.

SEE ALSO: 25 amazing images that prove you're a stowaway on a tiny, fragile spaceship

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On April 16, 1977, crowds of hip revelers cheered as nightclub Studio 54 first opened its doors at a building on 54th Street in New York City. 

It would only be open in its original form for 33 months, but it soon became known as one of the hottest and most exclusive clubs in town, making a whopping $7 million in its first year alone.

The space would later be adapted into a theater, but Studio 54's party scene in the '70s and early '80s will forever be remembered for its wild nights, high-profile guests, and massive crowds. 

We've put together a collection of photos that will take you back 40 years into the club. 

Talia Avakian contributed reporting to an earlier version of this article.

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Studio 54 officially opened its doors on April 16, 1977, in a building that previously housed a theater. The club quickly became popular, with regular crowds lingering outside in the hopes of getting in.

Steve Rubell (pictured in the short satin jacket in the center) was the co-owner of Studio 54 and often the one to determine who was cool enough to enter. The club became notorious for its exclusivity thanks in part to Rubell's motto: "The key to a good party is filling a room with guests more interesting than you."

Still, the dance floor was consistently packed with people dancing to disco beats. Among the guests were an array of high-profile influencers and celebrities.

I'm not going to get into the long and illustrious history of the Chevrolet Corvette, in continuous production since the 1950s and now into its seventh generation. You can look it up.

Suffice it to say that we really, really like Vettes. The C7 Stingray was our 2014 Business Insider Car of the Year. It set a whole new standard for this most American of vehicles (still bolted together with patriotic care in beautiful Bowling Green, Kentucky).

Since we got behind the wheel of the glorious Stingray with a seven-speed manual transmission, we've sampled the same car in a convertible version with an automatic — and outfitted with Apple CarPlay — and taken a rocket-ship ride on the supercar-defying Zo6, a 650-horsepower monster of a machine.

We thought we'd seen it all, Vette-wise. And then an Arctic White 2017 Corvette Grand Sport Convertible paid us a brief visit. Too brief — we had it for only about a day and a half. But we lucked out on the weather in the Northeast before some harsh winter conditions set in, as you can see from our sunsplashed photos.

Few cars available right now are this good. And no others are this good for a base price of about $70,000. Ours stickered at $85,910, and it was nicely appointed (the "Black Suede Design Package" alone added four grand).

Here's what we thought:

SEE ALSO: Corvette might be on the verge of the biggest change in its history

For starters, this thing looks great in white.

The seventh generation of Corvettes was inaugurated by the exquisite Stingray and its 460-horsepower V8.

Read the review here, as well as our 2014 Car of the Year commendation.

We later sampled the convertible version and got a taste of how happy the Vette's engine is when paired with an automatic transmission. It's actually FASTER than with the manual.

We tested out Apple CarPlay on this Vette.

The fruits and vegetables we know and love did not always look the way they do now. Before humans started breeding them, they looked very different. Eggplants of the past grew in strange colors, from blue to yellow. Eggplants were also more round than oblong. Because of selective breeding, the spines have disappeared making way for the eggplants you can find in today's grocery stores. Carrots were incredibly tough and a super strong flavor. Corn was as dry as a raw potato. Here's a look at their ancestors. 

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Baristas who hated the Unicorn Frappuccino are about to enter a new stressful cycle as Starbucks prepares to launch its annual Frappuccino Happy Hour promotion. 

On Thursday, Starbucks announced that it plans to launch its Frappuccino Happy Hour next week and locations are reporting that the deal will last from May 5 to 14. During the promotion, the coffee chain will sell half-priced Frappuccinos from 3-6 p.m., encouraging customers to purchase the icy blended drinks as the weather warms up. 

"Frappuccino Happy Hour is going to be a huge home run this year," Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson said in a call with investors on Thursday. "We're going to bring at least one entirely new drink into Happy Hour this year that is going to be as good as Unicorn or better. And we've extended our hours this year on some other tactical things to really make sure that Happy Hour is set up for success."

One new flavor appears to the be Midnight Mint Mocha. The S'more Frappuccino also seems slated to return.

While Frappuccino lovers will rejoice at the news, many Starbucks' baristas will likely be less than thrilled by the extended hours, new drink, and renewed emphasis on the time-intensive Frappuccino.  

If you're a Starbucks employee with a story to tell, email ktaylor@businessinsider.com. 

Last year, the Starbucks blog Barista Life published an article titled, "A Baristas Worst Nightmare: Frappuccino Happy Hour." 

"You can begin to see the horror in their eyes," Haley Hinds writes, recalling her coworkers' faces in the moments before Frappy Hour starts. "Although they try to make it look like it’s easy, I think deep down, no matter how many times you have been through this, you are truly never prepared for what is coming."

Starbucks baristas are already taking to social media to emotionally prepare themselves for the hectic promotion. 

The success of the Unicorn Frappucino and more new drinks on the menu could lead to more customers than in past years. While that's great news for Starbucks' sales, it means baristas will be cranking out even more messy and difficult-to-make beverages. 

One barista has a solution that would encourage Starbucks to keep baristas happy while increasing Frappuccino sales. 

"New idea, with every Frappuccino promotion Starbucks ... partners get payed time & half for it. How about it?" posted Twitter user @SeagullDan_.

Starbucks has long pledged to work to better employees' lives, with benefits such as free college tuition and an emphasis on baristas being a part of "something bigger." With baristas' angst in the era of the Unicorn Frappuccino, perhaps it is time for those perks to include a Frappy Hour bonus. 

SEE ALSO: The Unicorn Frappuccino infuriated baristas — but it was one of Starbucks' best decisions in a long time

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Kellyanne Conway's climb — from the strategist behind Donald Trump's rise to his campaign manager to his White House counselor — has been closely watched by the media.

When Conway joined the Trump administration, she and her husband, George Conway, a lawyer in New York City, disclosed assets worth up to $39.3 million. Much of that wealth comes from Kellyanne's political-polling business, which she started at 28 in 1995.

Here's how she has amassed her fortune — and spent it — since graduating law school.

SEE ALSO: Report: 'Trump whisperer' Kellyanne Conway just bought an $8 million DC mansion

After graduating from law school at George Washington University, Conway worked as an assistant at a firm headed by Richard Wirthlin, who was President Ronald Reagan's pollster and strategist. She later worked with Newt Gingrich in the 1990s.

Source: The New Yorker

In 1995, at 28, Conway founded The Polling Company. New York magazine reported that Conway quickly recognized "there was money to be made" in advising private corporations and politicians on how women vote.

Source: New York magazine

During the '90s, Conway began making regular TV appearances along with other political commentators like Ann Coulter.