Gigabiting

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Do you tip a straight 15%? Do you bump it up to 20% or more for really good service? Not to worry; you should be in the clear.

Bad tippers take note. They’re naming names.

If you are rude, if you are demanding, if you totally stiff your server, you just might find your name making the rounds in cyberspace on a list of bad tippers. Waiters, bartenders, even pizza delivery guys all have their go-to websites for rants and revenge, pulling transaction details from credit card receipts and posting them anonymously. The tweets could be flying before you get your car back from the valet parker (and yes, they have their own site). Read entire article.

     image courtesy of Culinary Cory
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Budget travel. Eco-tourism. Agri-tourism.

If you’re looking for the kind of relaxation that comes from sitting on a beach, this is not for you. If you take your rusticity in small, controlled doses then I suggest you look elsewhere.

If you would like to make a genuine connection with the food you eat, gain some practical skills, and immerse yourself in the culture of the sustainable food movement, this is your opportunity. Read entire article.

The kitchen is small and cramped. Food prices are high. There are tons of ethnic dining options. The International Space Station sounds a lot like a New York City apartment.

It costs $40,000 a day to feed an astronaut.

It’s all about the delivery costs: more than $10,000 to blast a pound of food into outer space, with each astronaut allotted 3.8 pounds of food a day. And while it’s come a long way from the days of freeze-dried ice cream and squeeze tubes of baby food-like purees, there are some serious limitations to cooking in space. The refrigerator is tiny, food packets are heated in suitcase-like food warmers, and meals have to be velcroed onto trays so they won’t float away. Read entire article.

The British newspaper The Telegraph recently published a list of 50 things that are being killed by the Internet.

The list itemized some of the bygone civilities that we will miss: handwritten letters (#12); the pleasures of flipping through a photo album (#15): or listening to a record all the way through (#3). There were relics we haven’t noticed in years: telephone directories (#8); footnotes instead of links (#47); and street corner prostitution (#45). And a few significant losses that could drive a person to Ludditism: punctuality (#5); memory (#13); privacy (#31); and enforceable copyright protection (#22). Read entire article.