#76: Operation Evacuation Planet Earth

Ever since I was in the 6th grade and my favorite substitute teacher was teaching one of my classes one day and told the class we might someday have to evacuate earth and move to the moon, I have wondered if such a thing could be possible. Could earth really deteriorate to the point where we can't live here anymore? Could we actually send people to the moon to live, repopulate, and save the human race? My dad always told me that substitute teacher was a nut, but scientists and environmentalists today don't necessarily say so. Many people these days believe the earth will be destroyed, contaminated, and/or struck by a foreign object. Some people even think it may someday be overtaken by foreign invaders. Who knows? No one knows the future. And since we can't possibly know what the future holds, should we prepare for the worst, just in case?

So I was watching this documentary yesterday, and you guessed it. It was about the earth becoming uninhabitable and humans having to be sent away to other planets in order to save the human race. It was called Evacuation Earth, and it was on National Geographic. I've thought about all kinds of ways we could do this, things that could go wrong, why it wouldn't work, why it would work, and what could be some possible outcomes if we had to evacuate the planet. So based on things I've thought of myself and things that I got from the film, I'm going to take you through, step by step, what we would have to do, some potential problems that could occur, some things that might be possible, and some things that would inevitably be impossible. And I'm mostly just going through what was said in the documentary, but I'm adding my input to it - my questions, my thoughts, my concerns that were not raised in the film. Maybe you guys have some input too. And just so you guys know, the documentary has a lot more specific information, is really intense and entertaining, has great graphics and images if you're confused about what things I'm trying to explain actually look like, and has really cool music. So you should check it out here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95n9BclgBUM.

I have explored tons of the ways the world could end in my note, "End of Ze World." There are all kinds of scenarios that could occur, but the one that the film writers used in the documentary was the impact of a neutron star, which is like a meteor. It's a star in another galaxy that died. When a star dies, it collapses in on itself, and debris from it is sent hurtling through space. This would be our first clue. We would get all kinds of crazy, unprecedented meteor showers that killed crazy numbers of people, so we'd look into it and be able to predict approximately where the neutron star has sent itself hurtling off to, and approximately how long it would take it hit earth if earth was in its path. And of course, in this example, earth is definitely in its path. So these scientists were able to predict that it would take 75 years for the neutron star to reach earth. So how would people react to this news? Plenty of people would not believe it, but I would say most people would end up realizing it was the truth after a period of times goes by. Supposedly, based on a theory I learned in one of my classes in college, when humans are faced with certain doom, they are more likely to band together for a common good than to fall apart, destroy each other, and lose hope. However, there's no way to know what would really happen, and with an earth is big and full of so many different kinds of people who come from different cultures and don't even speak the same languages, there are so many things that could and inevitably would go wrong here.

Now my substitute teacher in the 6th grade told me that we'd relocate to the moon if we had to leave earth. That is obviously not possible in this scenario, since the neutron star would wipe out the moon along with the earth. If the world ended some other way, like because of a pandemic, for instance, could we live on the moon? Maybe. I'm not really sure. I mean there's no oxygen up there, so we'd have to build a dome of oxygen. Would that be possible? Anyway, the moon would not be an option in the particular scenario of a neutron star impact. So where would we go? What would we do? I guess an earth evacuation plan would be our only hope. So since we've decided to go somewhere other than earth, how do we get there? We would have to build some rockets to send people up into space. How would we get the money? We'd have to forget the idea of money and just all work together to put this thing together for the common good. Would people be willing to do that? There are tons of greedy people out there who will want to keep their money, even if it means nothing anymore. So if we get some people to fund the mission, I guess NASA would be the ones who build the rockets and figure out how to ship them up into space. They would need scientists, architects, engineers, etc. to help create this. They'd have to create an anti-matter engine, so that we'd be able to travel close enough to the speed of light in order to get anywhere in an actual period of time. Is there even a way to do this? Now NASA would probably decide to create an enormous ship that would send an incredible number of people to where ever we decide to go. But this ship can't be a rocket. You can't shoot it out into space, because you can only shoot small objects into space, and they way ships are built, it just wouldn't be possible to shoot them off into space. So what would we need to do? We'd have to send some astronauts into space and shoot parts up to them, so that they could construct the ship while already in space. It's insane to think of that as a possibility, but it's been done before. These parts would need to be created and sent up into space from all kinds of different ports all over the world. It would take total world cooperation and communication.

In the mean time, what will happen on earth as people realize the impending doom? Some religious cults might try to stop the efforts to save the human race. (They may take the signs to mean that God is destroying the world, as promised, and that it would be against God to try to save the human race.) There would be total chaos. Rates of suicide would increase. Rates of homicide, muggings, burglaries, rapes, wars, etc. would increase, because people would stop caring and do whatever they wanted. What would you do if you knew you were going to die soon either way you slice it?

There are plenty of planets out there in the middle of space (in other galaxies, of course) that could potentially work for us, based on what we can know about them. They have oxygen, and some of them may even have water and plant life. So which one do we pick? Well, we'd have to do as much research on it as possible. What if we got there, and there were noxious gases in the atmosphere that we didn't know about? What if there was life on that planet, and that life didn't want us there? Anything could happen! And we really would not know until we got there. So we'd have to do as much research as humanly possible based on what can find out about these planets without actually being there and seeing for ourselves. In the film, scientists picked a planet that was about 80 years away, using an anti-matter engine that we were somehow able to create. How could it be possible to put people on a spaceship and send them somewhere that would take them 80 years to get there? We would literally have to create a little world inside that spaceship. Could we do that? Could we create growing grass, weather, homes, etc.? We would have to do it in order for people to be able to grow and live in this spaceship for 80 years. We could continue to reproduce up there, and then the adults who originally boarded the spaceship would never get to see the new planet we picked to make our new home, but their children and grandchildren would.

But what about gravity? There's no gravity in space. Without gravity, our bones deteriorate, and our health declines in many ways. If you have ever seen videos of astronauts who have been in space for a few months and then came back down to earth, they literally have to be carried off the ship, because they're so weak. They have to completely re-adjust themselves to being in an environment with gravity. Imagine spending a lifetime in zero gravity! And then there's reproduction. Can we reproduce in space? Our reproduction system relies on gravity in order to work. So we'd have to creating artificial gravity, which scientists believe they may be able to do by create a spinning cylinder to contain our spaceship. So NASA would have to figure out how to build that and get it right - the first time, since that's all we'd have.

So how many people can we support in this spaceship? Certainly not 7 billion. So we might be able to take maybe 250,000 people. Who do we choose? Who lives, and who dies? We'd have to have a genetically diverse group of people, or else everyone on the ship would be susceptible to disease. If a few people on a ship with people all contained in a small space together get sick, everyone does, and then everyone dies. That brings me to the next point. We would have to only allow people with perfect health and long life expectancies to board the ship, because we're talking about the survival of our race. So we couldn't allow people with many diseases in their family background to board the ship. I have lots of cancer in my family, so I probably wouldn't get to go. Old people couldn't go. Sick people (like schizophrenics, autistic people, diabetics, etc.) would not be able to go. We'd need people who are used to harsh conditions and have survival skills. We'd also need people with certain sets of skills to go - like doctors, pilots, astronauts, scientists, engineers, etc. And we'd need the best of the best. So who gets to choose? And how do we choose? The film suggested we send "Evacuation Eligibility Kits" to people's houses for them to test themselves and send back to NASA.

So during this choice of who lives and who dies, we'd have to allow people who worked on the spaceship project to go, along with their families. If certain countries backed out of the project and didn't want anything to do with it, should we allow people from their countries to go? How would we tell people who goes and who doesn't? You have to realize that more than 99% of people would not get to go. What would happen when people find out they can't go? Lots of people would try to stop the efforts. Lots of people would revolt. I mean, I don't think anyone would realize just how much chaos would break out. That movie Deep Impact, no matter how good it was, doesn't even make it look like much chaos would break loose during such an event, but that is a huge factor to take into consideration when thinking about whether these efforts would work or not.

As impact time gets closer, we'd have to have shelter. We would preferably need to hide somewhere underground, because the radiation that would come from this star would increase and be brutal and fatal. All kinds of not so natural disasters would occur as the star would begin a major global climate shift. There would be hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, major storms, extreme heat waves, extreme cold weather, volcanic eruptions, etc. of intensities that have never been seen by man before. And these would occur in places they've never occurred before - all over the world. So many people would die during this course of time.

What supplies would we need to send to the spaceship? We would need soil, hopefully some animals, bacteria, and all kinds of other supplies (to ensure that we will have oxygen, gravity, homes, weather, etc.) These people wouldn't be able to eat meat, because it takes way too many vegetables to sustain a cow, so we can kill it and eat it, so it'd be a better bet to just eat those vegetables. The food we'd have to grow would be veggies that could grow in such an environment as outer space. We'd be eating "Chlorella Crackers" and algae, according to the film. And remember, we'd have to take bacteria up there with us in order to keep our digestive systems working, etc.

So what about sending rockets of people up into space to be put onto the spaceship? What if those rockets blew up? I mean they have anti-matter engines, so they can't come into contact with any matter. That's extremely hard to do here on earth. What if our rockets hit some debris in space and exploded? There are so many things that could go wrong when you try to send a rocket up into space. Even if we can't, we've already sent some astronauts up there, so even if we couldn't get any civilians up there, at least we would have some astronauts who would survive and board the spaceship. The only thing is, with such a small group of people who have to procreate and repopulate our race, it's unlikely that our race would survive. So let's say we got some people up there, even if some of our rockets failed. These people would have some major mental health problems, I'm sure. They'd be super depressed, as they'd have to say goodbye to some of their family members, friends, places they grew up, etc. FOREVER.

And you better hope that the artificial gravity, oxygen tanks, and artificial weather work on that ship for 80 years. You better hope you don't run out of food or water. You better hope no mechanical errors arise while you're on that ship. You better hope you can properly dispose of waste, so as to not make everyone sick and disgusting while on board. And you better hope you don't have a pandemic on board, which would be easy with such a small group of people stuck so close together. You also better hope the engine doesn't blow. How do you make an engine that can run for 80 years anyway?

I can't even begin to imagine what life would be like on board the ship. But I know they'd be able to see the huge explosion as the star struck the earth. And they'd know that their loved ones were going through hell at that very moment. And think about it. What happens here on earth? Rape. Murder. War. Disease. What if someone tried to overtake the ship and stop the efforts? You would have to have a kind of small government and police force within the spaceship. You'd have to have rules and laws. You couldn't have a dictatorship, of course, but would we want democracy? Would that work with a group of people that is so small and contained? What would work, and what would we agree on? Once they reached the new planet, there would be all kinds of emotions. Most of the original people who boarded the ship would be dead. Their kids and grandkids would be the ones to touch down on this new planet, so this ship would be all they ever knew so far.

Like I said before, even if we are able to get there, and even if our landing is safe and we're able to touch down, there could be all kinds of things wrong with this new planet that could kill us. So would the human race survive?

Sending supplies and such to space.

Space food. Yum!

 Neutron star collapsing in on itself.

The earth during the neutron star collision.


 This gives you an idea of what the cylinder-shaped spaceship (in order to allow for artificial gravity) might look like, and in this picture, you can see the astronauts working on building it in space. I couldn't find a picture of the inside of the spaceship, so you should go check out the documentary! You really need to see it, because you can't exactly imagine what it looks like. It's literally like an earth within a spaceship.

#75: A Personal Declaration of Independence

So I was watching this tv show that was kind of like Doomsday Preppers, but I don't know what it was called. This family spent their entire life savings to buy a huge plot of land with a farm, animals, and lots of plants. They set up traps all over the place to protect themselves against invaders, and they collected a bunch of food to store away. And in case their farm is overtaken someday, they planted weapons and food in some areas nearby, so that they could have something to feed them and help them take back their farm. They have animals and plants to feed themselves, and they have no debt, no payments, and no money. But they don't need money. They are trained in protecting themselves, and they have everything they need to survive.

Why are they doing this? They're waiting for our economy to collapse. And honestly, it is something that could very possibly happen. Although the American economy is a huge one, and we have so many smaller economies (state economies) that work together to make our huge national economy that it would be so incredibly difficult to have an economic collapse, but you never know. With all the recessions we've had, who knows how bad it could get during this one or the next one? There is always potential for failure there, so I think this family has a great idea. It definitely took some guts for them to do it. They made themselves independent of the economy. They do not rely on money or the economy to survive. Of course you guys know I'm all for simple living and learning how to survive on your own without anyone's help. I also think living life the Native Americans used to is a great idea in order to keep from depending on anything or anyone else for your own survival. You can read about that in my note "A Beautiful Chaos," which is about anarchy. You can also read more about my ideas on simple living and how the Native Americans may have had it right by living the way they did in my note "Paint With All the Colors Of the Wind and Don't Be an American Idiot."

Now here are a few problems with what's going on with this particular family. They're not doing this with everyone else. If we all did it together and none of us relied on the economy, then we might be able to pull it off. But it could hurt them that they're the only ones doing it. If our economy does, indeed, collapse, they will be sitting ducks. Yes, they have traps and training. But they are only a few people against the rest of the world. But maybe if we all did this together, we'd have a chance! 

But how cool is it that someone is actually doing this? I mean, you might call them crazy. And maybe they are. But you have to commend them for having the guts to do such a thing, to work toward making themselves dependent on only themselves, for working so hard, and for being so incredibly brilliant. But what do you guys think? Will they be able to do this on their own? Will it even be necessary? Or will the economy never collapse? Should we all follow suit with them?

#74: Tip Cows, Not Servers

If you don't read anything in this entry, then AT LEAST watch this funny, short video that sums it all up in less time than my detailed explanation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_vivC7c_1k.

Ok, let me be clear. I don't really think it's ok to tip cows. I actually think that's awful, but I needed a cute name for this note, and that's all I could think of. Anyway, so in light of the past few months that I've been a server, I've finally been given the chance to see things from a server's point of view. It's really hard work, management can be brutal to us, we do all kinds of morning and night time work that we don't get paid for at all, and we have long stretches of 2 or 3 hours at a time with no tables to serve. (So we work several hours each day that we don't get paid for at all.) We only get paid 2.13$ an hour, but for most of our paychecks, every penny of that goes toward paying taxes. By the time most of my paychecks have gotten to me, they've been 0$, no joke. The highest paycheck I've gotten has been 40$ for 2 weeks (about 100 hours.) In a lot of restaurants, the servers have to tip out the hosts/hostesses, bussers, food runners, barbacks, etc. At lots of restaurants, if you make 10% or less on a table, you actually lose money on the table you just served, because you have to give all of that money or even more to the host/hostess. As for my restaurant, I'm lucky, because I only have to tip out the bartender. Sometimes by the time we tip out the bartender, we have made less than minimum wage for the day. Lots of days, even when we don't tip her out, we make less than minimum wage. The other week, 2 days in a row, I worked 10 hours and went home with a measly 50$. And since my restaurant, along with tons of other restaurants, does not pay its servers extra money if we don't make at least minimum wage, 50$ is seriously what I went home with those days. And being a server is very hard work. I've served up to 8 tables at one time. I got another table and literally could not take it, so I had to give it to someone else. We run around like crazy on our feet all day, we work 50-70 hours a week, and we work 10-14 hours shifts. (So we literally work all day every day. That's why I always talk about how I've sold my soul to my restaurant.) By the time we go home, we have aching feet and backs, because of all the running around, bending, and squatting we constantly do. We also carry extremely heavy trays, we sweat so badly that we learn to get used to the discomfort all day, we spill gross things all over us, we get wet all the time, and we get nasty stuff all over our hands. We clean up after children, get on our hands and knees on the floor, are at our customers' beckon calls, etc. And don't even get me started on the injuries we incur. A few days ago, I got second degree burns all over my stomach from one of the ovens in the kitchen. It was so scortching hot that it made my skin bubble, and it still hurts a week later. It's a huge spot too - probably the size of a whole lemon. I also have a scar from when the bartender dropped a beer bottle, and some glass shards bounced off the floor and into my thumb. And I've gotten deep cuts with very sharp knives while cutting lemons a few times. Now, some people tip 20%, which is today's expectation. Some people even go above and beyond. The other day, I went to Taco Mac and tipped my server almost 100%. But almost no one tips that well, since most people don't know how it is to be a server. Most people tip around 10-15%. Lots of people only tip 5-10%, and there are some people who never tip at all. Don't get me wrong. Sometimes the money is really good. I just worked 5 and a half hours tonight and went home with 71$, which is an average of just over 13$ an hour. But not every night is like tonight. In fact, this is the best I've ever done in one night since I started waiting tables. See, when you work at one of the cheapest restaurants in the city, you might make 1 or 2$ per table, which isn't anywhere near worth the work. And a lot of the time, that's 20%! So we can't really complain... But it's just a waste of a table! And not to mention the horrible attitudes some people have toward their servers. Lots of people act like their server is their slave. I've had so many people snap at me, simply because they were having a heated conversation with their spouse at the dinner table. I've had customers treat me like a tiny speck of dirt.

So why am I talking about all this? It's not simply to complain about my job, I assure you. For the most part, I like my job. Most of the people there are really cool. I've made a lot of friends working there, and I've met some truly amazing customers. I've had some really amazing tippers and some days where I've made bank waiting tables. I've had some customers make my day, offer me jobs, and offer me some other great opportunities. Not every day is bad. Here lately most days have yielded little money, but that happens around this time every year. So I guess I've gotten a little sick of it lately. But here's the thing. I was reading this article that talked about why tipping is a really bad form of payment for servers, bartenders, and delivery people. And it's true. So using that article, my personal experience as a server, some friends' experience as bartenders, and some friends' experience as pizza delivery guys, I've put together several reasons why restaurants should just raise their prices and pay their workers, rather than put their workers' wages in the hands of cheap customers.

1. First off, servers make different wages. I don't make as much as other servers, and other servers don't make as much as I do. For instance, there are lots of other restaurants whose servers make way more than the servers at my restaurant do, even though we work the same job. And it's because other restaurants serve more expensive food. And even in the same restaurant, each server makes a different wage working the same job. There are servers at my job that go home with 50$ more each day than I do. And there are people who go home with that much less than I do each day. It just depends on the tables you get, whether or not you get parties, whether or not you get sat with tables of people who are good tippers, whether or not you get sat with tables that rack up high tabs, and whether or not you have a good section. Also, sometimes hosts and hostesses pick their favorite people that they work with and sit them with parties. And some hosts/hostesses are bad at their jobs, so they lose track of who they have given tables to, so they end up giving one server 3 tables in a row, while another server goes an hour without getting a new table. Both servers are screwed, because the first server is overwhelmed and doesn't do a good job on his/her tables because of it, and the other server doesn't even get a chance to make any money! It also depends on how expensive the restaurant is. If the tab is low, your tip is low. And cheap people eat at cheap restaurants. If they cheap out on the food they eat, then they cheap out on the tip. And if you think the customers can be bad, imagine what happens when you have a bunch of servers all competing for the best tables that will yield the most money. That's essentially what we are doing. Some servers will do anything to make ends meet. When there is no host/hostess, the servers seat themselves, which means someone has to go to the door and remember which server is next in rotation. This is how servers do what we call "sharking tables." This means they steal tables. They skip some servers and repeatedly seat themselves. Or they pick and choose which tables they want. They get a table with only one person, so they say "Hey, I don't want that table. You take it." So I'm thinking, "Ok, cool, I get an extra table. I'm still next in rotation, so I get the next table. She just gave me one of her tables out of the kindness of her heart." NO!!! She's planning on taking the next table that comes in. So essentially, she's making you take her table of one, so that she can take your table of 8 that's about to walk in the door. So much of this kind of crap goes on in restaurants. You think that's bad? Wait until the manager decides you're not one of her "favorites." She can't fire you, because you're a good server and a hard worker, but she can definitely give you crappy shifts. She can put you on the schedule for every Monday, when there's almost no business. She can refrain from putting you on the schedule on the weekends when it's busy. She can only put you on day shifts, which aren't as busy as night shifts. Of course, I would recommend you get another job if this is happening to you. But getting a job is difficult these days, and it's tiring jumping from unstable job to unstable job.
2. It's bad for restaurants, and it's unfair. Can you imagine why? Some servers, not to name names, give out free stuff when they're not supposed to, thus raising their tips. We honest servers do the right thing but come up short on our tips. That is certainly not fair, and restaurants lose money that way. Tipping servers encourages insane competition and dishonesty.
3. If you're not convinced by what I've already said, then this should certainly convince you. Tipping is discriminatory against servers. I know someone who used to be a server and is smoking hot. She told me that sometimes she used to make 300-400$ a night as a server, and she had several male customers come in and give her 100-200$ tips each time they came, and they asked her for sex in return. She always accepted the tip, of course, but she never went home with the guys, yet they kept coming in and giving her amazing tips in hopes of getting in her pants someday. That is not fair. We not so attractive servers don't even have a chance there. We don't have opportunities like that, and no one should earn money just because they were born beautiful. This is not a hooking business. We are to be paid based on service, not looks. Also, by being a server, I've noticed that people don't like to have male servers. When some people get male servers, they request females instead. If you ask me, that is insanely discriminatory and bold. But see, if the table isn't bold enough to say what they feel and ask for a female server, they will take the male server but not tip him very well. At my restaurant, the male servers almost never go home with as much money as the females do, which is ridiculous and makes no sense.
4. The money is unstable. Every day, you don't know how much you'll make. You might make great money (for what it is) from May-June. Then July-August, you might not even make ends meet. You never know if you'll make rent on a certain day.
5. There's no way to properly file our taxes. At lots of restaurants, servers don't even claim their cash tips. And at the end of the year, it's actually really difficult to remember just how much money we've made in cash tips, so we can't file our taxes properly. So the government gets screwed over in the process of this tipping mess!
6. Upward mobility as a server is basically just a dream, because you legally can not be paid anymore than $2.13/hr as a server. And your tips are unchanging. If you've worked at a restaurant for 10 years, your customers don't know that. They aren't going to tip you an extra $5 per table, just because you have been working there longer than everyone else.
7. Servers get blamed for everything. If the cooks make the food wrong, the servers get blamed for it, and their tips suffer. If spouses go out to dinner and have an argument, or if a family thinks the music is too loud, or if it's too hot or too cold in the restaurant, then the customers aren't happy. If the manager won't take something off the bill that they think should've been taken off the bill, the server suffers. If the manager or someone else who works at the restaurant is rude to my customer, my tip is on the line. And if customers are not happy and not in a good mood, then they are less likely to tip well. Customers who are happy usually tip well. So servers get blamed (and suffer for) anything that could possibly go wrong in a restaurant.
8. Going back to the discrimination thing. Tipping is discriminatory against customers as well. Think about it. Servers know which customers will tip and which ones won't. Usually servers dismiss rednecks, hispanics, foreign people, blacks, poorly dressed people, extremely uppity-appearing people, men, businessmen (We call these guys "Suits," because they wear $300 suits but leave 10% tips,) senior citizens, Christians, gay women who don't feel like they're being hit on by their female server, and teenagers as bad tippers from the start, so lots of servers are not going to be as attentive to those tables. Also, restaurants usually have lots of recurring customers, and we always remember if they tip well or not. If your server knows you won't tip them, no matter how hard they work for you, why in the world would they work really hard on your table? You've already upset them and made them feel worthless, just because they know they aren't about to get paid for their time. I have always been one to try to give good service to everyone, no matter how what, because people will surprise you, and honestly, people deserve good service when they go out to eat. However, if I don't have enough time to be attentive to all of my tables, I have been known to pay more attention to the table of adults, rather than the table of teenagers, admittedly. But that's only when I'm crazy busy with 8 tables at once and don't have much of a choice! But the point is, servers do it. Some more than others. That's not fair to the customers.
9. If servers tip out hosts/hostesses, bussers, bartenders, etc. by percentage, then if the servers that tip them out do not make much money, then neither do they, and they had nothing to do with the small tips the servers received. Literally their wage for a particular day is based on someone else's work, rather than their own. That's unbelievably unfair.
10. All this tipping crap has caused a whole bunch of multi-million dollar lawsuits. You can read about that here: http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2013/07/abolish_tipping_it_s_bad_for_servers_customers_and_restaurants.html.
11. Tipping is relative. And that's not fair to servers, bartenders, or delivery people. Lots of people think 20% is only for perfect servers, and that most servers deserve 15%, even though 20% is what good servers expect (and deserve, if you ask me.) Some people think a 5-10% tip is perfectly acceptable for service that was ok but not the best. If you ask me, tipping less than 15% EVER is completely unacceptable. No matter how bad the service was, your server provided you with a service, nonetheless, and he/she deserves to be paid for that service. Lots of people don't even realize they're supposed to tip delivery guys, nor do they know how much to tip them. Foreign people don't know the tipping norms of the country they're in. Teenagers certainly don't know how much to tip or the importance of tipping properly, nor do they care. They haven't learned the value of a dollar yet or how hard it is to be an adult and make your own living and pay your own bills. Lots of people simply don't know how to tip and/or are bad at math. Lots of people are cheap and not generous at all. Lots of people are poor and should really stay home and cook but insist on going out to eat and leaving crappy tips to make up for the money they just spent on food. Sometimes people know how to tip but don't care. You're supposed to be a good server and do a good job in order to get a good tip, but even if you're a great server, you don't always get paid as such. So even if the whole reason we use tipping as a form of payment is so as to ensure good service for customers, the system is flawed.
12. The promise of a good tip is supposed to give servers incentive to give good service. If you need incentive like that to do a good job at your work, then you shouldn't be working there. Why do I need incentive to be a good server? Cashiers don't need that incentive! They're paid hourly. Yet most cashiers I've had have done the job for me. And a lot of them are even friendly. It's like that for every other job out there!!! The threat of losing your job should be incentive enough for you to do a good job at your work! I would try to be the best server I could be, with or without the incentive of tipping as my form of payment. (And for the record, there are some servers, as well as people in any profession, who don't care. They don't care if you tip them poorly. They are still going to treat you badly. That doesn't happen often, but it happens.)
13. Servers do all kinds of work before the restaurant opens and after the restaurant closes, and they don't get paid for it, because they're not serving tables, so they're not being tipped! At my restaurant, we have all kinds of kitchen duties, side work, sweeping to do, and other cleaning to do. We do all this before we open and after we close. And after a certain time at night, we have to be our own bussers too. And we have all kinds of times when we don't have any customers for 2 hours straight. So what are we doing? Working around the restaurant. Helping our fellow servers who might have a table. Cleaning. Whatever we think might need to be done. And during all this time, all we're making is 2.13$ an hour. But we won't see that on our paychecks, because when we get our paychecks, it will read a big, fat $0.

So I don't even understand where we got this horrible idea of tipping from. Maybe it really is to ensure good service for customers. But if that's true, then shouldn't we use that form of payment for everyone else, including cashiers, baristas, and other people working customer service jobs? Heck! Why don't we just tip everyone as their payment? Lawyers. Doctors. Policemen. Firemen. And like I said, tipping might be a good form of payment in theory, but in reality, it's just a whole big mess of crap. You're supposed to receive good tips if you work hard and are good to your customers. That, to me, is the whole point of tipping as the form of payment. But that does not at all determine the amount of money you make off a table. There are lots of people out there who are cheap and don't tip or tip very little, because they don't care or aren't very generous. Some people have been doing badly on money lately, so they leave bad tips. Some people are in a bad mood or get into an argument with their spouse and end up upset at dinner, and like I said before, unhappy customers leave unhappy tips. Some people don't tip when one tiny thing goes wrong, even when everything else is right. Servers are being graded for every move they make. They're being judged constantly. Some people don't tip based on things the server has no control over. Some people tip really well, no matter how bad the service was, because they've been in their servers' shoes. (That would be me.) If restaurants just raised their prices on food, then their workers would be properly paid for what they truly are worth. And their incentive to be good workers should be and would be exactly what it is for every other job out there - the threat of losing the job and the bribe of upward mobility within the company (and outside of the company, like in terms of boosting resumes and gaining experience.) I'm pretty sure my servers would give me good service, even if they didn't rely on me to make a decent wage - just like all other customer service workers. So let's get rid of this bull and start really paying our workers! We're America, for crying out loud. It's time we start acting like it. But no, I'll tell you why we don't do this. It's BECAUSE we're America! We're a country that runs on capitalism. As I've said before in my note "Dodger Logic #10: Is Capitalism Working?," there are all kinds of horrible things that come from capitalism, and this is one of them. We want to make our prices seem as low as possible, so as to draw people in. We want to trick them into thinking they're spending less money than they actually are. People often don't factor into a meal how much they have to tip until the end of the meal. Then it hits them like a blow to the face. "Oh, crap! I forgot about the tip!" That's also why we mark prices as $9.99, instead of what it really is - $10. It's ridiculous. So there's no way anyone will ever change this system, because they won't want to have to advertise a meal as $20, when the actual meal only costs 15$. How ridiculous is that? It doesn't even cost that much more to tip 20% for a meal that is only $15! (Or to go ahead and add the 20% tip for the server onto the meal price on the menu.) But no capitalist would be willing to do this, nonetheless.

Now don't get me wrong. Serving can be decent money. You might say "If your job sucks so badly, why don't you get a different job?" Because this is the best I can get while I'm in college. I don't have a degree, so I can get a legitimate job until I do. And serving is usually better than a cashier job, or something similar. Usually I make more than minimum wage, even if it's not much more. And serving is a lot better than standing around at a register, doing practically nothing all day with aching feet from standing in one spot for 5-10 hours. Also, cashier jobs, in comparison, come with fewer hours usually. The one good thing about serving is you can usually have as many hours a week as you want vs. cashier jobs that usually only hire people for part-time work. My shifts as a cashier (before I became a server) were usually like 4-6 hours, whereas I can work 10-14 hours days as a server. Yes, that's a lot of hours of work, but it's that much more money I'm making, so it beats a 4-hour shift making $7.25/hr. And even if I did want to get out of serving and get a different job, it's hard to find work these days! Sometimes the job you have is your only option at the time. Sometimes you put out applications and try and try and TRY, but no one is hiring. So you focus on your studies, so that you can get out of this business as soon as possible. Trust me, no one is in this business because they WANT to be.

So just in case tipping as a form of payment doesn't go away, you should know that you should tip your server 20% for good service. You should never tip less than 15%, even if the service is the worst you've ever had. 15% is for awful service but service, nonetheless. If you want to give more than 20% for insanely amazing service, go for it. Your server will appreciate it more than you know. And if you need to learn how to calculate tips or do the math, just take the first number of your tab and double it. If your tab is 20.00$, your tip should be 4$. If your tab is 25.00$, don't forget about the 5 there. Don't tip 4$. Instead, your tip should be 5$. And for the love of God, if your tab is 29$, don't tip 4$! Your tab is almost 30$, so tip 6$. If you want to be precise, just multiply your tab by 0.20 (20%.) Also, just so you know, the courtesy is to tip off the entire tab (not just the tab before tax,) AND to tip off the tab as it was before you used any coupons. So if your tab was 40.00$, and then it was cut down to 30.00$ after you applied a coupon, you should still tip your server 8$. He/she did, afterall, bring you 40.00$ worth of heavy food. Also, honestly, a 1, 2, or 3$ tip is not enough to make off a table. Even if 2$ is 20%, try to be a little more generous than that and leave AT LEAST 5$, no matter what, because you did, afterall, take up an entire one of your server's tables. And if you took up his/her time for an hour, 2 hours, 3 hours, etc., please tip him/her for that time. If I take up a server's table for an hour, I usually tip him/her 5$ for decent service, no matter how low the tab was - even if I only ordered a coffee. I tip even more if I think my server was really great and friendly. Remember, a bad tip can ruin a server's day. It not only makes you realize you're poor and aren't making any money that day, but it hurts your self-esteem. If someone doesn't even think you're time and effort is worth anything, then how are we supposed to feel about ourselves? Sometimes it's more about the gesture than the money. I just ask that, if we can't change the system, everyone just be more mindful of tipping. But I also ask everyone to push for a change in the system too.

The question was "Do you think we should do away with the tipping system?" Apparently the world agrees that we should put an end to tipping.

This is good information to know. I did not know some of these, and now I'm glad that I do.


 This is good too.

The only thing I don't agree with is "Men" and "All Male Dining Parties." Those are hit or miss, but men often tip poorly. I would also move "Blacks" all the way to the end, but I'm not sure if I would have it before or after "Teenagers." They're about the same, I think. Also, it seems to me like gay women only tip well if you are a female server and you flirt with them, so I'm not sure where I'd place "Gay Women." Anyway, 95% of this is correct.


Wooh! Check out that low annual income that servers make! A whopping $4,499 a year!


This is constant. It's supposed to be: good service = good tip, but that's not always how it goes.


This happens too often. This is degrading and downright bullying. If you do this, you're not really upset that your server doesn't have a real job, and you're not concerned with their wellbeing. You're a cheap piece of sh*t who wants to justify leaving next to nothing as a tip. (So you guys know, this person should've left a $27 tip on this tab. That would have been 20%. I'm pretty sure this server probably cried for the next 24 hours straight after receiving this.)


Yes, because that is definitely the server's fault. This is what I mean when I say servers are blamed for EVERYTHING that goes on in restaurants.


Best sign ever and so true!

#73: Travel Tips For the Wanderlusters

Wanderlust: A very strong and irresistible impulse or desire to travel the world.

I wrote these travel tips as a speech in a speech class my sophomore year of college, and I finally decided to share them! Let me start this by saying that checking out a travel agent before going anywhere is a great idea. I wish I had mentioned that in my speech somewhere. Also, I want to mention that you guys should check out all my travel photos sometime if you're interested. I have photos from Ecuador, Peru, Chile, England, Greece, France, Spain, Mexico, Canada, the Bahamas, several islands, and more than half of the 50 states. And that's just by the time I wrote this blog entry. Anyway, this is definitely not an exhaustive list of travel tricks I have up my sleeve, but this is a good place to start. So here are some travel tips for you guys. The following is my speech, then my works cited, and then some travel websites to help you guys along: 

Raise your hand if you have a passport. Keep them raised if you have ever used that passport to visit another country. Keep your hands raised if you have studied, worked, or lived in another country. This is only a sample from one class of college students out of one school in the United States.

If we talk about how many people in the United States own a passport, what percentage would you guess? According to CNN, 30% of the people in our country own a passport (Avon). According to Gigi Zenk, a spokesperson for the Washington Department of Licensing, by 2006, only 10% of Americans had actually used their passports to visit another country (Ammons). These low statistics may be because many people believe travel is too expensive and maybe not worth their while. Or maybe they simply don’t know how to go about it. I always said that if you sit me down in a classroom and teach me about the Taj Mahal, I’ll never learn a thing about it. But if you take me to India and show me the Taj Mahal, I’ll learn EVERYTHING about it. That’s because history and art become way more exciting and fun when you actually see it with your own eyes. Traveling is just like learning in a classroom, except you’re doing it first-hand. Not only can you learn about history and art when you travel, but you can also learn new languages; bring new trades and customs back to your home country; and become more open-minded about other countries’ religions, beliefs, customs, etc. For example, I just moved back here from South America. Even though I was living in two extremely poor third-world countries, I had the time of my life. I learned to speak Spanish, I brought back home with me a new trade called Macrame, and I even came to view a lot of aspects of their lifestyles as better than my own. I have a completely new perspective on life now. As Henry Miller said, “One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things” (Akerstrom).

There are several different ways to travel. You can simply take a vacation somewhere, you can volunteer or work somewhere for awhile, or you can backpack. Fortunately, you college students, have one extra way to travel: studying abroad.

One great thing about vacationing is that you can go somewhere for 4 days or 3 weeks. It’s whatever you want and however much you can afford. Volunteering and working are great options too, because there are countless places to go in other countries where you can volunteer or work as long as you want, and many of these places do not require work visas. For example, I worked at a wildlife refuge in Ecuador for 2 months, I didn’t need a work visa, and I left when I needed to leave. It was the same type deal for me in Peru as well. Backpacking is probably my favorite form of travel, because you can jump from one place to another whenever you’re ready, and it gives you a chance to see a lot of places at one time. Studying abroad, however, may be the best way to start off traveling, especially if you’re not comfortable with traveling by yourself. It has also become very popular, as the percentage of American students who study abroad has quadrupled from the 1987-88 school year to the 2007-08 school year, according to the Institute for Education Sciences (The Condition of Education).

Many people, especially in this economy, are on low budgets, but a lot of people still want to give traveling a shot. Even if you have very little money, you can still travel very easily. In some situations, you may have to keep an open mind, but travel can easily be affordable.

First, if you decide to study abroad, you can do it in one of two ways. If you study abroad for an entire semester or even an entire academic year, you can choose a “sister school” in another country, which means you only have to pay that school’s tuition and fees, which may even cost less than attending the school in which you are currently enrolled. If you study abroad for 2-3 weeks, you can apply for scholarships to cut the price in half (or more.) Study abroad scholarships are very easy to obtain, which is why studying abroad is possibly the best and cheapest way for students to travel. If you would rather volunteer or work abroad, there are all kinds of sites you can find about places that need help. A lot of these places house you for free, some of them pay for your food, and some of them even give you some extra spending money. If you're interested in the Peace Corps, they house and feed you for free and give you a pension. They also have all kinds of other benefits, monetary and more, for while you're in the service AND after you leave. If you would rather take a vacation somewhere or go backpacking, I have some great tips, but you have to be open-minded about them. There are great sites for cheap airline tickets. For instance, www.ryanair.com is an extremely cheap site for flights in Europe. You can book a flight for as low as 4$ a person to fly from one country to the next in Europe sometimes. Also, to cut down on transportation costs, some of my traveling buddies hitchhike. (Just be careful if you choose this option.) Bus travel is usually very cheap too. There is also a really great website called www.couchsurfing.com, where you can search for people in the city you wish to visit, and they will lend you a free bedroom for a few nights, until you jump to the next city. If you don’t feel comfortable sleeping in someone’s home, you can always buy a tent or simply find a cheap hostel (which are easy to find in most countries.) The lowest rate I found in South America was 5$ per person per night. As far as food goes, you can “Dumpster Dive,” which is when you go to a restaurant after it has closed and request the food they are going to throw out. It’s illegal in the United States for a restaurant to give out such food, but it’s perfectly legal in a lot of other countries. I have also found that buying groceries at a grocery store and cooking while I’m in another country is a money-saver. Also, in many other countries, there are markets, where food is almost free.

Along with these tips, I have a ton of other great ways to save money on traveling and many more sites to give you if you guys want to see me after class and get them from me. The point is, travel can be extremely affordable. You may just have to be willing to rough it sometimes.

Works Cited:

Akerstrom, Lola. "The 50 Most Inspiring Travel Quotes of All TIme." Matador BNT. 7 Mar.

2008. Web. 23 Oct. 2011. <http://matadornetwork.com/bnt/50-most-inspiring-travel-

quotes-of-all-time/>.

Ammons, David. "State Project Targets U.S. Passport Plan." The Olympian (2006).

Mobilisa.com. 14 Nov. 2006. Web. 23 Oct. 2011. <http://www.mobilisa.com/highlights/

newsArticles/The%20Olympian%20-%20State%20Project%20Targets%20U.S.%20Pass

port%20Plan%2011.14.06.pdf>.

Ammons, David. "State Project Targets U.S. Passport Plan." The Olympian (2006).

Mobilisa.com. 14 Nov. 2006. Web. 23 Oct. 2011. <http://www.mobilisa.com/highlights/

newsArticles/The%20Olympian%20-%20State%20Project%20Targets%20U.S.%20Pass

port%20Plan%2011.14.06.pdf>.

Avon, Natalie. "Why More Americans Don't Travel Abroad - CNN." Featured Articles from C

NN. 04 Feb. 2011. Web. 23 Oct. 2011. <http://articles.cnn.com/2011-0204/travel/america

ns.travel.domestically_1_western-hemisphere-travel-initiative-passports-tourism-

industries?_s=P M:TRAVEL>.

"The Condition of Education - Contexts of Postsecondary Education - Characteristics of

Postsecondary Students - U.S. Students Studying Abroad - Indicator 40 (2010)." National

Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Home Page, a Part of the U.S. Department of

Education. U.S. Department of Education, 2010. Web. 23 Oct. 2011. <http://nces.ed.gov/

programs/coe/indicator_ssa.asp>.

Travel Websites:

Lodging

www.couchsurfing.com

Study Abroad

www.studyabroadfunding.org

www.statravel.com

www.studentuniverse.com

Air Transportation, Lodging, Tours, and More

www.ryanair.com

www.orbitz.com

www.clarkhoward.com

www.airtran.com

www.cheapoair.com

www.easyjet.com

www.wizzair.com

Volunteer and Work Opportunites Abroad

www.peacecorps.gov

www.gapyear.com

Now is as perfect a time as any. If you don't do it now, you'll never do it!

This girl gets each country colored in once she visits it.

#72: Mind Reading and Brain Hacking

Scientists say your brain is like a super computer. If we can hack computers, can we hack someone's brain? In a way, we already can read minds, which a step toward brain hacking... Well, some people can read minds. For instance, there are people who can read facial expressions to tell us, in a way, what we're thinking. For instance, there's a "magician" who can tell you to pick a card out of a deck. You look at the card, and he recites all the different possibilities of suits the card you picked might have. If your card is a Ten of Hearts, for instance, then you will make a subtle facial movement that even you can't detect, but the magician will, and that tells him your card is in the heart suit. Then he will recite the different numbers that the card could possibly be, and when he says ten, your face will make a subtle movement again, and he'll know the card is a ten. In a way, that's mind reading. Also, some people are very good at reading facial expressions and manipulation. I know one person in particular who is really good at assuming thins. So she will tell you something happened to you like she knows for a fact that it happened, but she's really only assuming, and your facial expression or what you say back to her gives you away, and she then knows if her assumption was correct or not.

But that's not what we really mean by wanting to read minds. We mean we want to be able to literally hear other people's thoughts, like Edward Cullen on Twilight. Actually, there might be a way for a computer to measure the neuron activity in your head and, thereby, put together a series of thoughts that you are thinking. For instance, there is a computer that you can hook up to yourself, and according to what you are thinking, a huge spiral of words are transferred to the computer screen. Then the computer puts together the words that you're thinking and then project an image based on a compilation of those words. How cool is that? There is also a kind of technology that we can hook up to people who can't speak, and whatever they think comes out of the machine in words. This gives people who can't speak the ability to communicate. That's really freaking cool too!

So if we can essentially read minds, how long will it take for us to figure out how to hack people's brains? I mean, in a way, we're already doing it. Ads, propaganda, and subliminal messages are highly influential. There are also really good salespeople who are very convincing. And for instance, I know someone who is really good at manipulating people into thinking a certain way and doing certain things, just based on what he says and how he says it. So there are certain people who can, in a way, hack brains and change people's thoughts and way of thinking. However, will we one day be able to REALLY hack the brain and change people's thoughts? Check out this article: http://www.csoonline.com/article/715359/brain-could-be-target-for-hackers-researchers-show. It talks about how you can use a neuron device to track brain signals, thereby, in a way, letting the viewer see the guinea pig's thoughts.

So what does this mean for us? Well, like the article says, there may be ways for criminals to access your social security number, credit card number, and other personal information if they are able to hack your brain. So be careful! You never know what kind of danger is coming in the future - especially if it becomes easier to hack the brain. And let me just say that I think it's a horrible idea to want to read someone's mind. Because yes, you might be able to tell when a guy thinks you're cute, and that might make you smile. But what about all the negative things people think about you? You don't want to hear that all day every day. That crap would get old, and you'd probably become depressed and hate yourself. And let's hope people don't end up having the ability to change our thoughts. I don't want anyone messing around in my brain.

I got most of this information from the brain hacking episode of Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman. You should check out the entire episode. It has way more information and details, and it's really interesting.

Brain hacking technology.