(1) ZENO’S MARTIAN THEOREM. You can’t get to Mars before you…“The first trip to Mars will come with the longest layover ever”
Nobody likes layovers, but the first astronauts heading to Mars will get to experience one of the longest such experiences of their lives. They’ll have to spend one year going around the moon, which will probably be a very annoying wait for the first people heading to the red planet. It’s not all bad news, however, as they won’t just wait for time to pass by. NASA actually wants to make sure that the round trip to Mars, a 1,000-day endeavor, is carefully planned during the time.
NASA’s Greg Williams, revealed that the agency’s Phase 2 of its plan to send humans to Mars includes a one-year layover in orbit around the moon in the late 2020s, Space reports..
Williams, NASA’s deputy associate administrator for policy and plans at the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate, revealed that NASA wants to build a “deep-space gateway” around the moon that would serve as the testing ground for the first Mars missions.
(2) ZUBRIN’S MARTIAN KERFUFFLE. Joel Achenbach’s article for the Washington Post, “Mars Society founder blasts NASA for ‘worst plan yet’”, reports on a space exploration conference sponsored by The Atlantic in which Robert Zubrin said NASA’s plan to build a space station orbiting the moon is a giant waste of money because no one before this suggested Mars expeditions needed to have a midway stop before.
Until recently, NASA branded virtually everything it was doing as part of a “Journey to Mars,”and Mars remains the horizon goal. The destination was even mandated in a recent congressional authorization act for NASA that was signed by President Trump.
In the meantime, NASA has more modest plans — and these plans don’t please Zubrin, for one.
NASA wants to put a “spaceport”in orbit around the moon. It would be a habitat for astronauts on long-duration missions. You could call it a “space station”if you wanted, though it wouldn’t be nearly as big as the one that’s circling the Earth right now. NASA refers to it as the Deep Space Gateway and describes it as “a crew tended spaceport in lunar orbit.“
…After the presentations, Zubrin gave The Post some additional thoughts on what he perceives as NASA’s failure to come up with a bold and coherent plan. He said that in the long history of NASA studies on the future of human spaceflight — and there is a long list of these lengthy reports — no one ever suggested that an orbital lunar outpost was a necessary part of an exploration program. Part of the problem, as he sees it, is the agency’s recent announcement that the first, uncrewed flight of the Space Launch System rocket will be delayed again, to 2019: “The tragedy of SLS is not that it is being delayed. The tragedy is that it doesn’t matter that it’s being delayed, because there’s nothing for it to launch anyway.”
(3) BACK IN ACTION. After an 8-year break, Elizabeth Moon relaunched her Vatta’s War series in April with Cold Welcome.
(4) EMERGENCY BACKUP. “Justice League director Zack Snyder steps down due to family tragedy”. Joss Whedon comes off the bench to finish the picture.
Zack Snyder, who has acted as DC Comics’ directorial visionary on a number of its most ambitious film projects, is stepping down from Justice League due to a family tragedy. The news, announced in an interview published today by The Hollywood Reporter, means Snyder will be handing the reins over to Avengers director and writer Joss Whedon, who will ferry the project through its remaining post-production stage before its November 17th release later this year.
‘Justice League’ is now in Joss Whedon’s hands
Snyder, whose daughter committed suicide in March at the age of 20, admits that he originally misjudged how the loss would affect his work. “In my mind, I thought it was a cathartic thing to go back to work, to just bury myself and see if that was way through it,”Snyder told The Hollywood Reporter. “The demands of this job are pretty intense. It is all consuming. And in the last two months I’ve come to the realization…I’ve decided to take a step back from the movie to be with my family, be with my kids, who really need me. They are all having a hard time. I’m having a hard time.”
(5) DANCING IN THE SAND. A ballet adaptation of Dune will be performed August 4-6 by the Vaught Contemporary Ballet at the Baltimore Theater Project (45 West Preston Street, Baltimore, MD 21201):
Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel, Dune, is widely recognized as the best selling science fiction novel of all time. It’s exploration of politics, religion, sexism and ecology set against an interstellar backdrop allows the reader a reflection on the human condition in the modern era. Herbert’s Fremen of Arrakis provide a counterpoint to a culture consumed by avarice — the desire for melange.
Join us as we depict Herbert’s illustrative words through the art of ballet. Movement will be on full display in its varied definitions as we follow Paul Atreides in his rise to power as both royalty and the prophet of the Fremen.
Keep track of the event on Facebook.
(6) GO GO GO. I don’t pronounce it, I just report it. “Google’s AlphaGo AI defeats world Go number one Ke Jie” — The Verge has the story.
Google’s AI AlphaGo has done it again: it’s defeated Ke Jie, the world’s number one Go player, in the first game of a three-part match. AlphaGo shot to prominence a little over a year ago after beating Korean legend Lee Se-dol 4-1 in one of the most potent demonstrations of the power of artificial intelligence to date. And its defeat of Ke shows that it was only getting started.
“I think everyone recognizes that Ke Jie is the strongest human player,”9th-dan professional and commentator Michael Redmond said before the match. And despite defeat, Ke’s strategy suggested that the 19-year-old Chinese prodigy has actually learned from AlphaGo’s often unorthodox approach. “This is Master’s move,”said Redmond of one of Ke’s earliest plays, referring to the pseudonym that AlphaGo used for a recent series of online matches in which it racked up a 60-game winning streak.
(7) COMIC SECTION. A commenter seeing yesterday’s news item about someone in a T-rex costume scaring horses in Charleston aptly contrasted the episode with the comic “Menace” at Hyperbole and a Half.
(8) THE PHENOMENON. Carl Slaughter has an update about prolific YA author Bella Forrest:
When we last checked in on Bella Forrest, she had just launched her dystopian Gender Game series and was continuing her longrunning Shade of Vampire series. In June 2017, she will wrap her Gender Game series. In March 2017, she launched her magic academy Spellshadow Manor series. Shade of Vampire is at #45. With all 3 series, she cranks out a book per month. Meanwhile, the first Gender Game novel has received 1500 Amazon reviews, over 90% of them 4 and 5 star.
(9) PUSHME PULLYU. “Oh, your tractor beam is so itty bitty.” “Oh, your imagination is so itty bitty.” —“Physicists sketch plans for a matter-wave tractor beam”.
A team of physicists have outlined a means of making tractor beams to push and pull objects at a distance using “matter waves” those strange analogues of light waves that underlie quantum mechanics.
Tractor beams, staple tools of science fiction for remotely pulling in space shuttles and yanking away incoming space debris, have been edging into reality in recent years.
The first real-life tractor beams were made of photons. It is easy to imagine a stream of photons carrying a particle of matter along like a river picking up a leaf and carrying it downstream. What is astounding about tractor beams is that by skilfully manipulating the transfer of momentum from the beam, physicists do not have to rely only on pushing particles, but can make light pull particles of matter, like a tractor. Beams made of sound waves have also been demonstrated in the lab.
(10) LEST PAYDAY FAIL. At Tor.com, Jo Walton asks “Why is Genre Fiction Obsessed with Belisarius?”.
I once wrote jokingly here that there are only three plots, and they are Hamlet, Pride and Prejudice, and Belisarius, because those are the ones everyone keeps on reusing.
There is a conference in Uppsala in Sweden the weekend before the Helsinki Worldcon called “Reception Histories of the Future“which is about the use of Byzantium in science fiction. The moment I heard of it, I immediately started thinking about our obsessive reuse of the story of Belisarius. (I’m going. Lots of other writers are going. If you’re heading to Helsinki, it’s on your way, and you should come too!)
It’s strange that science fiction and fantasy are obsessed with retelling the story of Belisarius, when the mainstream world isn’t particularly interested. Robert Graves wrote a historical novel about him in 1938, Count Belisarius, and there’s Gillian Bradshaw’s The Bearkeeper’s Daughter (1987), but not much else. Whereas in genre, we’ve had the story of Belisarius retold by Guy Gavriel Kay, David Drake (twice) and Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, and used by L. Sprague de Camp, John M. Ford, Jerry Pournelle, Robert Silverberg, and Isaac Asimov. So what is it about this bit of history that makes everyone from Asimov to Yarbro use it? And how is it that the only place you’re likely to have come across it is SF?…
(11) ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST. Trae Dorn at Nerd & Tie says a Chicago convention is pivoting to serve a different market and adopting a new name — “Kollision Con Calling it Quits, Organizers Launching GEM Expo Chicago Gaming Con in Its Place”.
After six conventions, Chicago based anime convention Kollision Con€˜s organizers have decided to call it quits. They made the announcement on the con’s official Facebook page late last week, citing venue issues and an overcrowded Anime con scene as their primary reasons for ending the show.
The organizers aren’t giving up on running conventions though, as in that same post they announced the GEM Expo Chicago, a gaming convention that will occupy the dates originally reserved for Kollision Con 2017.
(12) FLYING OFF THE SHELVES. Last year toy sales received a boost and the reason is clear — “Year-round ‘Star Wars’ toy sales boost entertainment merchandise revenue” reports the LA Times.
Year-round “Star Wars” hype is giving a boost to Hollywood’s merchandising business.
Licensed goods based on movies and other entertainment properties generated $118 billion in global retail sales last year, up 5% from 2015, according to a new report.
Toys, apparel and other wares tied to movies such as “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” and “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” helped propel the increase, the Licensing Industry Merchandisers’ Assn. said Monday.
The year benefited from two “Star Wars” installments as bookends: “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” which was released in December 2015, and “Rogue One,” which came out a year later, said Marty Brochstein, senior vice president of the association.
“In 2016, you had a full year of sales of ‘Star Wars’ merchandise,” Brochstein said. “Obviously that helped on the entertainment side.”
(13) DON’T STIFF THE STAFF. Are you a bad tipper? You’re a science fiction fan, of course you’re a bad tipper. Okay, maybe not you personally. But ever been out to dinner with a group of fans? It can be excruciating! Here’s one commentator’s advice about “How to Tip in All Situations”.
Tipping has been known to divide families, ruin relationships, and even start wars. Not really. But tipping is an issue that brings out all sorts of passionate opinions.
Who should you tip? How much should you tip? When is it appropriate to leave a bad tip? And is the whole idea of tipping flawed in the first place?
If you’ve ever asked those questions, then we’re here to provide a little clarity on the all-important subject of tipping etiquette.
When in doubt about whether or not to leave a tip, always err on the side of generosity. Remember, your tip says more about you than the person you’re leaving a tip for.
So let’s take a look at some of the people you should tip. Then we’ll give you a general idea of how much to tip them.
(14) FEELINGS OF INSECURITY. Yahoo! News lists major cyber attacks over the past 10 years.
A huge range of organisations and companies around the world have been affected by the WannaCry ransomware cyberattack, described by the EU’s law enforcement agency as “unprecedented”.
From “cyberwar” to “hacktivism”, here are some of the major cyberattacks over the past 10 years: …
…In November 2014, Sony Pictures Entertainment became the target of the biggest cyberattack in US corporate history, linked to its North Korea satire “The Interview”.
The hackers — a group calling itself Guardians of Peace — released a trove of embarrassing emails, film scripts and other internal communications, including information about salaries and employee health records…
(15) STATE OF THE ART. Carrie Vaughn’s Amaryllis and Other Stories was named winner of the Colorado Book Award in the Genre Fiction category on May 21. [Via Locus Online.] (See, proper attribution can be done. It hardly hurts at all.)
(16) WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY. The latest explanation for bee colony collapse — “How beekeepers help deadly parasites thrive” in Cosmos.
Deadly mite infestations considered a leading cause of the continuing collapse of the global commercial honey-bee industry are being abetted by modern bee-keeping practices, new research suggests.
The research, published in the journal Environmental Entomology, points the finger at the practices of siting commercial hives too close to each other, and of thwarting the bees’ swarming behavior, for creating conditions ideal for the rapid growth and spread of the parasitic Varroa mite.
The mite (Varroa destructor) is a text-book example of zoonosis — a predatory or parasitic species that has “spilled over” from its traditional host into a new species which, not being adapted to it, suffers catastrophic consequences.
Varroa’s natural host in the Asian honey-bee (Apis cerana). Co-evolution has resulted in the two species being able to live in balance.
[Thanks to Cat Eldridge, Rob Thornton, John King Tarpinian, Kreiri, and Carl Slaughter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Andrew.]
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The state of Oregon banned the tip credit some years back, so servers are paid at least the minimum wage (currently $9.75/hour in the Portland metro area–which has a higher minimum wage than the rest of the state–and going up to $11.25 on July 1st) plus any tips they receive.
So that’s a sightly better situation for them (although minimum wage doesn’t really pay enough for housing in a high-cost city like Portland).
I always tip at least 15%, and usually around 20%. (And I am old enough to remember when the standard was 10%.)
@steve davidson–butter is frozen basically because of health department rules. Anyone who has ever worked in food industries has stories of HD rules that just make you shake your head. Sometimes I think they have a quota of downmarks they have to give out.
And whenever a new head of the department comes in, some of the rules change,
My favorite one–a place I worked had to buy plastic sleeves to cover the long flourescent lights. The ones that were recessed into the ceiling and behind covers screwed into the ceiling. And had been passed by the health department and building inspectors previously. Because they might shatter; even though the only time they shatter is if you dropped them because the sleeves made it hard to hang on to them.
Scroll and a Pixel – Two Fifths.
(And maybe it should have been Eight Files high and Scrolling Down.)
That’s someone having worse than just a bad hair day, isn’t it.
Owen Whiteoak: You make it sound like the band invented the term “T-Rex.” That’s where you should look for the problem…..
New Vatta’s War book? Coolness! I’m not generally a MilSF fan, but those were pretty entertaining. I’m not into stories which involve a lot of dick-waving, and for some reason–I’m not entirely sure what it is–women seem to be much better at writing MilSF that doesn’t involve a lot. Or, at the least, which doesn’t glorify the dick-waving.
Could it be because…? Nah, that couldn’t be it. Could it…? 😀
My old lps read “T. Rex”.
(Autocorrect changed lps to lips, which made for a really odd — and somewhat appealing — sentence.)
I definitely laughed at this. I am a good tipper (I have worked a lot of customer service, and my mother is a career front-line customer service employee; both those things tend to make you tip generously), and so are most of my fannish friends, but you know when the bill comes around that those calculators come out to make sure nobody pays a single sliver of copper more than the exact percentage they owe based on the food they ate. I mean, I get that impulse; I was desperately poor for most of my adult life, and I counted every thin dime. But my god, who cares if you tip $6 and your share was only $5? If that dollar is enough to break you, you probably shouldn’t have been there in the first place, and if you begrudge the server that extra buck, you’re just a dick anyway. Ugh. In a group like that I always throw in more than my share, just in case.
But yeah, I’m nearly 40 and definitely do not remember a time when tipping was less than 15% (which many folks still seem to think it is here in Canada, though my floor is 20%). It can be an awkward business, especially if you’re out with folks who don’t tip well. I wish tipping weren’t necessary, but so long as it is, I’m going to be as generous about it as I can.
@8: a book a month, eh? Not quite as bad as Hubbard doing a ~book in a week, but getting there; the pileup of 4- and 5-star reviews tends to confirm my doubts about Amazon review rather than making me want to try the books.
@Galloway: restaurant prices haven’t inflated nearly as much as costs, and AFAICT the legal minimum wage for waitrons has gone up even more slowly than the overall MW. (cf @Heather and NPR.) And I’d like to see real numbers before accepting your point #2.
@JJ: there is still Social Security; I have read about waitrons being charged income tax based on assumptions about tips, but don’t know whether they get charged&credited for SS (which would answer Hampus’s issue).
@Lchtulou: as well as tip out the hostess staff 1% and the barstaff 3%. That would run into trouble in Massachusetts, where a recent court decision concluded that similar behavior was unreasonable as managers weren’t entitled to tips (gross simplification).
@GSLamb: When credit cards became the norm, he would tip $1 on the card and the rest of the $20 in cash. Interesting — the first time I traveled with a credit card (1977), several register staff wanted me to put the tip on the bill despite my having left cash. I admit there have been places where I have dreamed of your step-father’s system — but usually with something like a USfootball downmarker (that could go both ways) and only when I felt service was ridiculously bad (e.g., opening a bottle of red wine, ordered at least half an hour before, when our steaks showed up — we just stopped going there); doing it as a habit is coarse, especially if he plays the kind of power games
It’s interesting reading the various current experiences in tipping and noting changes; an early-1960’s guidebook-to-Europe-for-USians goes into considerable detail about the fact that tipping goes on the bill, legally, rather than being an option. And there was a story (NPR? BBC?) about a year ago concerning a San Francisco restaurant that deliberately put up its prices enough to pay a decent wage and banned tips; the story said that the only customers who protested were well-off middle-aged men who had been playing power games (as snarked in @Soon Lee’s link). (This was definitely SF, not NYC, where Danny Meyer’s large-scale move has gotten lots of coverage — but I can’t find the story for SF.)
@Greg: I can see running a long test within rescue reach — maybe; I don’t think one such test will catch more than was caught in design and ground-based testing, but it might find something. It’s unclear to me that Moon and Mars bases would be similar enough that the first would be a learning experience for the second; e.g., AFAICT nobody is talking about using a robot to turn the Moon’s surface into fuel for the return trip as they are for the Martian surface+atmosphere.
@Harold Osler: no, frozen butter is a “we don’t want to take the trouble to do it right” reaction; MA is very strict (Boston has started posting letter grades), but most of the places I’ve been manage to serve flexible butter.
@me: s/power games/power games mentioned below/
On a similar note on the Nerd and Tie report, expect to see news about a big change with LepreCon going forward that, with CopperCon dormant, will leave TusCon as the only traditional SF/F con in Arizona.
@16: fascinating; it’s not quite the same as the dangers of monoculture farming, but in the neighborhood (especially when adding what high-intensity farming does to the viability of the land). I hope somebody sorts this before there’s a flat-out crash, which would hurt the economy and people’s eating habits.
Which boils down to: “Restaurants are being incentivized to keep their costs down, thus serving you ever-cheaper food, but you should pay more because they’re cheating the workers.”
It’s true that it’s not the workers’ fault. It’s also true that fairness spurs us to pay more.
But despite the fact that it’s the solution we can manage, it’s a terrible solution.
I’ve only once ever not tipped a waiter, and that was because I went to a restaurant for my birthday and everyone got their food but me. When they never came back to the table I eventually had to get up and go looking for them and he was playing a game on his cell phone in a corner. My food had been forgotten and had to be remade.
Still had a huge row with a friend who said I should tip regardless.
Matt, not only should you not have tipped, but the manager should have comped your meal.
I recommend to everyone CA Pinkam’s Off the Menu column now residing at Bitter Empire. It’s a compilation of true stories from restaurant employees. Here’s a link:
http://bitterempire.com/47835-2/
Tipping: The socialist solution to a capitalist problem
Edit: Its not so much a “solution” than a “workaround”…
Matt Y on May 24, 2017 at 12:53 pm said:
My sister and I went to a restaurant one day last summer, and they were so busy that we just got beverages and left – but she tipped them generously. (It was insane – they were trying to get the food out, and were running more than half an hour behind the orders. They aren’t usually that busy.)
Some notes on tipping for Worldcon 76: San Jose has a 9.35% food tax. So if you want a simple calculation for your tip, double the tax. Or you can do what I do and add 30% to the base cost.
If tipping is an outrage to you, or if you just want to save money, theyre are a McDonald’s, a Carl’s Junior, and a Subway within walking distance. Also about five blocks away is a Safeway with fruit, premade sandwiches and a deli. And alcohol. You can also get snacks, canned food, and fruit at the nearby Walgreen’s drugstore.
I’m thinking of doing a local’s guide for places to go and svoid in San Jose. Like the place that takes all afternoon to serve you, or the bar that thinks a Seagrams and Seven is a whiskey and ginger ale.
@World Weary: Thanks so much for the link on where Pinkham’s gone! I follow him from site to site but hadn’t made this leap. His slightly older ones are still on Thrillist (search for his name). Read those and you’ll overtip forever. Beverage warning for the batshit insane funny ones.
Yes, tip your pizza or Chinese food or other delivery person, they have to use their own vehicles.
GSLamb’s stepdad has undoubtedly consumed a great deal of other people’s DNA. Steve Davidson has gotten some. Matt Y should have been comped and the waiter fired.
I became financially mature enough to eat at places that needed tips in the 80’s, and it was 15% then. Mom was always having to pay the bill, else Dad was going to do 10%. I think fen in general are getting better about tips as we realize what a pain in the ass we are. At least the ones I hang with.
re: Hubbard churning out a book a week — they were formula, they were shorter than books are nowadays, and he was on speed most of his life.
The early Earth may have briefly been a doughnut.
THIS is why you tip generously.
http://bitterempire.com/worst-restaurant-customers-ever/
I’ve been slowly making my way through the Hugo packet and have been sampling the Best Related offerings. If you had asked me, I would have said that Le Guin was better than Gaiman as a writer, and so I’d probably rank that one higher. After sampling, I would now say that Gaiman is a better essayist than Le Guin, though Le Guin is still better than Gaiman at fiction that I want to read.
To add to the fast food recommendations at Worldcon 76, as someone who lives in Downtown SJ, I would add Pita Pit, which basically does pita wraps, but has much fresher ingredients (in my opinion) than Subway. And they’re basically right next to each other.
And as this is my first post – I better say “Hello” to you all, and “Goodbye” to lurker-dom. (And yes, I realize that you all will see this way after I post it due to moderation.)
Chip Hitchcock
True, but I think the first generation Mars base isn’t going to be doing that either. In situ resource extraction is going to require an established base just to do experiments with it. If they can manage it within the first year, I’d be amazed.
@lurkertype: Hubbard probably couldn’t get speed the one time he did that; it was before WWII. I doubt that Lionel Fanthorpe, who may have beaten Forrest, used drugs either; OTOH, his work is a type specimen for cheap writing.
@Greg: robot ~extraction (IIRC, ice + atmosphere yields methanol plus oxygen) was being pushed as feasible; I take it you disagree. OTOH, if the work needs to be onsite they still won’t learn anything from the Moon.
There appear to be El Pollo Locos in San Jose. I loved those when I lived in Orange County…
Local news reporting is so much fun:
https://www.dallasnews.com/arts/books/2017/05/23/william-ledbetter-nebula-award
“Science fiction writer from Prosper stands among giants with Nebula Award win”
-S, not, I repeat NOT, wasting the last 15 minutes of the work day surfing the internet.
Paul Weimer:
There are now no-tip restaurants that pay their servers a living wage in the US. There is some outcry against them from people who say they want to reward good servers (more likely people who want to withhold from any “bad” service) despite studies proving a lack of correlation between good service and good tips AND reports that no-tip restaurants have generally better and less stressed waitstaff. But a lot of them are doing well, and the prices don’t change that much.
In Canada, 15% is tipping standard still, so when we cross the border, we are often seen as poor tippers if we don’t adjust our standard.
@Chip Hitchcock
I want to be convinced they can operate a base for years without needing regular help from Earth. Also, we’ve barely explored the moon. Lunar polar ice was missed previously, and I’ll bet there are lots of other surprises if we’d take the time to check the place out thoroughly.
As for fuel on Mars, if a robot produces the fuel automatically, such that it’s there waiting for the astronauts, then the only thing they’re doing on Mars that the didn’t do on the moon is picking up the bottles. I don’t believe extraction will be anywhere near that easy, but if it is, then it makes it more reasonable to do a moon base first, not less so.
Given that resource extraction does need a lot of human involvement on Mars, the crews that do it will have to get the bugs worked on after they’re on Mars. But that should just about be the only thing they’re trying to do for the first time.
Currently #1 on my ballot. (Caveat: I’ve not seen “Arrival” yet.)
Hidden Figures and Arrival are the top two nominees, at least in my opinion.
Aaron: Hidden Figures and Arrival are the top two nominees, at least in my opinion.
Likewise for me, by a considerable margin. With Rogue One in 3rd place. The other three fall into “yeah, whatever” territory for me.
I know I have an odd way of looking at things, but for the Dune Ballet, did anyone else imagine a dramatic moment when dancers in tutus and tights drop to the stage to do the (sand) worm?
Regarding tipping, I always assume that I’m better off than the server, so I tip around 20% (and I’m Canadian). If in doubt, I err on the side of generosity, which can’t be a bad thing.
@Owen Whiteoak
I don’t want to be That Guy (tho’ I clearly am), but T-Rex was a British pop/glam-rock band (ya know, like the Beatles, the Byrds or the Monkees).
I don’t want to be That Guy (tho’ I clearly am), but the Byrds were not British, the Monkees were 3/4 not British, and none of the three were glam.
@Bill: Do you still count as That Guy when you’re completely correct, on several different things?
@EliBridge: Welcome! And do give us more recommendations closer to time; I’m not downtown much, and when I am, it’s either fancier eatin’ or whatever I can grab at the convention center/hotel. So something in-between is good.
as a non-American, i’ve always been intrigued how US society takes the least enjoyable parts of life—tipping, taxes and healthcare being the big ones—and expands them into issues of major stress and anger.
(as noted above, here in the UK “sit-down” food comes with a ~10-12% optional service charge that gets added to the bill after the subtotal, though that’s increasingly being included in the menu prices. you can still remove/reduce it if service was particularly bad, and likewise you can always round up or leave some extra cash at the end if service was particularly good. all of which means the only problems you have to deal with relate to splitting the bill ? )
@Greg: you’re sidestepping. The ~extraction I was pointing to requires atmosphere, which the Moon conspicuously lacks. (Mars doesn’t have much — I’ve read that the gale that starts The Martian is impossible due to low pressure — but it’s a lot more than none at all.) And I doubt people will waste their time looking for lifesigns on the Moon — so that’s two major differences. There’s also the different natures of dust on the two sites, dealing with the fact that dust does appear to get blown on Mars, ….
The most important tipping thing when traveling outside your own country, IMHO, is finding out the local customs (not just tipping, actually). That doesn’t mean I don’t over-tip in non-tipping countries (which really vary between tipping-light, tipping-only-in-certain-fields, and wildly-erratic-tipping rules). Sorry, enlightened countries – it’s a tough habit to break. Country customs (for tipping) aren’t described consistently by various sites and books, sigh. Maybe I’ll just ask here next time I go overseas. 😉
I’m still not sure I totally grok it, but thanks to @Heather Rose Jones and one or two others who explained why the unofficial tipping % in the U.S. seems to have gone up.
I’m not sure I buy any explanation for why “standard” tip percentage went from 15% (when I started paying for my own restaurant meals) to 20% (now), other than that those who receive tips have claimed it to be so for long enough that it just happened.
And I don’t blame them — I wish I could tell my boss over a period of time that my paycheck should grow by a third, and it happen.
And read https://www.reddit.com/r/TalesFromYourServer/ for insight in the lives of those who depend on tips (Hint: to a surprisingly large percentage of waitstaff, your value is based on how fast you turn a table and how much of a tip you leave — nothing else.)
Bill: to a surprisingly large percentage of waitstaff, your value is based on how fast you turn a table and how much of a tip you leave — nothing else.
I don’t see how we in the U.S. can expect anything different, given the fact that these people are being paid $2 an hour and have to pay taxes on an assumed amount of tips that the vast majority of waitstaff aren’t making — especially if they’re required to tipout a certain percentage of their sales (their sales, not their tips) to non-wait staff, which their tips may or may not cover.
The only waitstaff who make a decent living off tips are those who work at high-end establishments.
We’ve given waitstaff a really shitty deal in our culture. I don’t see why we should — or would — expect them to care about customers as anything other than a paycheck.
My wonderful sort-of-ex-wife, who waited tables for a long time, will sit with me at a table for quite a while and then tip big.
Booth rental, she calls it, and I don’t disagree, except that the rent goes to the worker and not the owner. Fine by me.
I’m under the impression that it’s because the baseline server’s salary has stayed static for years while inflation went up, but I may be wrong about that.
@Bill: I don’t need to read a Reddit group for “insight in the lives of those who depend on tips”, because a fair majority of my friends, family, acquaintances, etc. have worked such jobs in the past or do so now— in fact for a long period of time I was literally the only person my age I knew who had never done so (had too much difficulty talking and remembering things, so worked as a dishwasher instead).
I’m somewhat surprised that you don’t seem to know anyone in such a position, and therefore have to indulge in sarcastic speculation about how they probably have the power to simply cause their income to increase by fooling people into thinking it should. Classy.
/TipStalk
@JJ
I don’t see why we should — or would — expect them to care about customers as anything other than a paycheck.
One reason would be that I (and I would bet, many other customers), are more likely to tip generously when my server treats me like a real person rather than an ATM.
@jayn
I’m under the impression that it’s because the baseline server’s salary has stayed static for years while inflation went up, but I may be wrong about that.
Federal law says the employer has to make up any shortfall between the server’s wage + tips, and the minimum wage. So the server’s baseline wage is minimum wage. A good run of tips means the server can make more than that, but the employer is obligated to make sure they never make less than that.
And this graph
http://media.cleveland.com/nationworld_impact/photo/ohio-minimum-wage-vs-consumer-price-indexpng-d203110f7fc95ff3.png
from the Cleveland Plain Dealer suggests that the minimum wage and inflation do track each other over long periods of time — so the premise that the server’s wage is static while prices go up may not be correct.
[ another graph making the same point ]
@Eli
I don’t need to read a Reddit group. .
Then don’t. The link was for those who want to read it. It’s fascinating, and there are a lot of stories about entitled customers, tyrant bosses, mercenary co-workers. Some people are douchebags and some aren’t. It’s always interesting to read people bitching about other people.
I’m somewhat surprised that you don’t seem to know anyone in such a position,
I know, and have known, many people who worked for tips. I’ve worked for tips. I was a server myself for a while in college. Also was a car valet, parking them. I know about tips.
And the speculation wasn’t sarcastic. The “standard tip” went from 15% to 20% over a generation or so. Nobody was in charge of this — it just happened. Surely you would agree that the forces pushing it in that direction come from those receiving the tips, rather than those giving them. And like I thought I made clear, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with people who work for tips wanting more of them.
Bill: One reason would be that I (and I would bet, many other customers), are more likely to tip generously when my server treats me like a real person rather than an ATM.
There’s a difference between treating customers courteously and actually caring about them, don’t you think? You’re entitled to expect wait staff to treat you courteously (as long as you treat them courteously in return). You’re not entitled to demand that they actually care about you as anything other than a source of income.
Bill: The “standard tip” went from 15% to 20% over a generation or so.
Yes, and the cost of living today is 150% of what it was in 1998. But the minimum wage of wait staff certainly hasn’t increased to keep up with that, and the cost of restaurant meals has also not increased by that percentage, which means that tips have not kept up, either.
And you’re assuming that people actually end up making 20% tips on all their sales. I’m guessing that most wait staff at all but high-end establishments are lucky if they’re making 5-10% tips once it’s averaged out.
Bill: Federal law says the employer has to make up any shortfall between the server’s wage + tips, and the minimum wage.
Assuming that the employer actually does that (and I’m dubious about that — I suspect that employees who ask for the difference find themselves with their hours slashed), they’re still only making $7.25 an hour for doing a really difficult job — and they have to pay taxes on that. That’s not a living wage. 😐
@JJ
You’re not entitled to demand that they actually care about you as anything other than a source of income.
“Entitled” has nothing to do with it. I’m simply saying if a server wants me to give them my money, treating me as an ATM is not an effective way to get me to do it.
the cost of living today is 150% of what it was in 1998. But the minimum wage of wait staff certainly hasn’t increased to keep up with that,
Yes, the Consumer Price Index rose 150% in the last 20 years, and the minimum wage rose 141%. So the minimum wage has ~6% less purchasing power now than it did. Yet tip levels have grown by 33%. [And this ignores the fact that most people live in states which have increased the local minimum wage beyond the Federal minimum wage in the last 20 years — so much so, that in fact most minimum wage workers have more purchasing power now than they did 20 years ago.]
But this is somewhat an artifact of the dates picked. Slide your “generation” back 5 years, from May 1993 to May 2013. Minimum wage grew from 4.25 to 7.25 (71%), while CPI grew 62%. The “standard tip” did not drop during that period.
and the cost of restaurant meals has also not increased by that percentage, which means that tips have not kept up, either.
I’d be interested in the data behind that. This indicates restaurant prices have increased faster than inflation over the last 20 years — an increase of ~70% since 1998, while the CPI grew by 50%.
And you’re assuming that people actually end up making 20% tips on all their sales.
No. But I am assuming that the percentage grew over the last generation. They may not get a full 20% now, but they didn’t get a full 15% back then. I know I tip more than I used to, and I know that all the “guides” recommend more than they used to. It grew, and there is no rational basis (I use “rational” in the sense that it is not traceable to any economic statistics) for it having done so — it grew because of societal pressure. I tend to tip 20% because that is the expectation. I have no way of knowing how much the server needs to get out of my bill to make his or her wage get to some arbitrary value.
If I take my family to the local excellent Mexican restaurant, 20% of the bill comes out to about $8. If we go to the local excellent German restaurant, 20% comes out to be about $12. There’s no justification for that — the valued added by the servers is more or less the same. Why should Irmgard get half again as much as Luisa for serving us dinner?
Re: your last paragraph. Whether or not the employer follows Federal law is something I can do nothing about, and whether or not I tip 15% or 20% won’t change that. I certainly don’t feel obligated to tip more than what I would otherwise because the restaurant management may or may not be cheating the server. Outside the scope of most of this conversation. Likewise, whether or not minimum wage is “enough”. (but the news I hear, and even see on File770, is that when wages are raised arbitrarily, some workers may get more, but some may get fired — the REAL minimum wage is $0, and when the law forces wages up, $0 an hour is what some people get in return).
This discussion is a little distressing to me, because I can see that it comes across like I may think that servers get too much money. I don’t. Ever since my income got to the point that I’ve had enough money to eat out, I’ve tried to tip what’s expected and a little more. I just think the whole tipping system is screwy, and that the growth of tips from 15% to 20% is evidence of a screwy system much more than it is a product of some economic analysis or some compact between restaurant owners, servers, and diners. I see statements like “when you only tip 10%, you are literally STEALING from your server”, and that’s BS. They expect to get a tip, I expect to leave one, but there is no obligation to tip 20% so strong that not doing so is legally (or even morally) equivalent to theft. Screwy.
It’s difficult to make that case without looking like Scrooge, though.
@Bill: OK, I was too hasty to assume that you were speaking from a lack of experience. Can you understand why I might have assumed that, based on what you wrote? It seemed quite odd to me that someone who had done the job, or knew others who had, would say basically “check out the stories on this Reddit group – apparently those people don’t care about you, just your tips!” rather than referring to any more direct knowledge. It sounded very much like someone recommending an interesting article about a foreign culture that they find entertaining but also unpleasant.
“Surely you would agree that the forces pushing it in that direction come from those receiving the tips, rather than those giving them” – Why would I surely agree? Are you really unable to imagine a general social change in the direction of treating some group a bit better, without it being due to that group somehow manipulating everyone so subtly that no one caught on?
“Federal law says the employer has to make up any shortfall between the server’s wage + tips, and the minimum wage” – Yes, it does. And quite often they don’t, and enforcement is shoddy. Your newspaper graph is worthless considering that the “tipped minimum wage” has not been raised in more than twenty years.
Bill;
There are a few things I find confusing here. First, isn’t the minimum wage different in different states? Second, why count tip levels as a stand alone and not part of the whole salary? Third, do you expect everyone to pay the increased tip? Fourth, do you really think it is possible to live a decent life on US minimum wage?
Isn’t giving people a chance to live a decent life enough reason for a raise?
I do not think it is theft to tip less than 20%. But I do think it is abuse.
@Bill: You know what, don’t bother responding to me. Someone who can state with a straight face that minimum wage workers are doing better now than ever before, based entirely on economic statistics and not on any observation of actual human beings, is someone I can’t have a conversation with about anything important.