Alright, I'll bite...

Seriously, they still have internet cafes?!?

I await the huge pro-gun anti-gun argument that'll start here, but I'll also remove internet as a channel, as this doesn't teach anything about the internet, it just happens to be at an internet cafe. Also, it doesn't fit 'fire', putting all gunshots into fire seems a pretty long stretch of the bow.

*nochannel
*Wtf
*Fear
*Law
*Fail

^Upvoted^
*Fire - (Guns)
*Internet - (Cafe)......If that's ok

They're totally missing all the HISHE "Cuz I'm Batman!"s...

http://videosift.com/video/Super-Cafe-Pros-and-Cons

>> ^ChaosEngine:

>> ^GenjiKilpatrick:
Hah! But no, seriously.
@<a rel="nofollow" href="http://videosift.com/member/lantern53" title="member since August 6th, 2010" class="profilelink">lantern53 knows.. that depriving servers of a living wage and forcing them to bust their asses for 5% gratuity on a $130 check.. you know, builds character.
Struggling in quasi-poverty for years of your life is what the American Dream is all about! duh.
That's why Mitt Romney is such a great American and needs to be President.
He knows what it's like.. to force people to struggle. For their own good.
p.s. - Everyone knows that raising the minimum wage is just another Socialist/Marxist scheme by Obama to disenfranchise the Job Creators in this country.
While I completely agree that people should be paid a living wage, I don't really have a problem with tipping. People should bust their asses in their job, especially if your job is customer facing. Customer service in the USA is so much better than almost anywhere else I've been, (it's particularly bad in NZ)


Just a meaningless anecdote (just find it funny that you mention it):

I went to Sydney once (15 years ago) and the very first day, I went to a place called the Juba Cafe. My friend and I were surprised to find porridge on the menu, because all I knew of porridge was from Oliver Twist or Little Orphan Annie. Our server, who's name was Anna, was really surprised to hear it, so she bought us porridge to convince us it was good. It was. Then, after we ate (before we tipped her) she invited us over to her apartment for some wine that night. When we got there, she had invited all her friends over to meet "her new Americans." They gave us wine, we talked for a long time about NZ (where she was from) and they rolled me the first "baseball bat" that I ever smoked, with the the little cardboard filter in it and everything. They also introduced me to Aphex Twin (the "Richard D. James Album") and we bonded over Ween, which I was surprised to hear they knew all about, even in 97'. So, after we were completely blitzed, Anna and her friends took us out to dinner, where we ate and drank and talked for hours and didn't pay a dime while these guys all treated us to a great first night in their city. I'm not even sure how we got home, but they sure didn't let anything bad happen to us.

The reason I mention it, is that I would say it was, easily, the best service I've ever had in my entire life, anywhere. We had to leave town the next day and I never saw or spoke to any of those guys again. I really wish I'd kept in contact with them because I owe them so much more than a night out. I still roll a fat bat and pop in the Aphex Twin on a pretty regular basis.

>> ^EvilDeathBee:


Have you ever been to Japan?

Nope, but I'm going in september... can't wait

>> ^EvilDeathBee:

Every where else is a mixed bag. You get friendly, you get indifferent. You get surly, you get downright rude.

True, there are definitely highs and lows, but overall, I've found the standard to be much higher in the US than almost anywhere else I've been in Europe, Asia or Oceania.

>> ^EvilDeathBee:

The place where I encountered the friendliest waiting staff was my local cafe back in Melbourne (god i miss it) where I've never been obliged to tip (did occasionally though).


Haven't been to Melbourne in a few years, but I remember it being pretty good there too (and great coffee!).

I dislike being expected to tip regardless of service. I remember being outraged that a service charge of 15% was added to my bill at a reasonably expensive restaurant in Ireland where the service was just awful. I point blank refused to pay it.

On the flip side, I'm happy to tip in countries where it's not the norm if the service is good.

>> ^ChaosEngine:

>> ^GenjiKilpatrick:
Hah! But no, seriously.
@lantern53 knows.. that depriving servers of a living wage and forcing them to bust their asses for 5% gratuity on a $130 check.. you know, builds character.
Struggling in quasi-poverty for years of your life is what the American Dream is all about! duh.
That's why Mitt Romney is such a great American and needs to be President.
He knows what it's like.. to force people to struggle. For their own good.
p.s. - Everyone knows that raising the minimum wage is just another Socialist/Marxist scheme by Obama to disenfranchise the Job Creators in this country.
While I completely agree that people should be paid a living wage, I don't really have a problem with tipping. People should bust their asses in their job, especially if your job is customer facing. Customer service in the USA is so much better than almost anywhere else I've been, (it's particularly bad in NZ)


Have you ever been to Japan? Only country I've been to where shops and restaurants have been consistently friendly and welcoming (with a couple exceptions). Every where else is a mixed bag. You get friendly, you get indifferent. You get surly, you get downright rude. The place where I encountered the friendliest waiting staff was my local cafe back in Melbourne (god i miss it) where I've never been obliged to tip (did occasionally though).

"The following collection of 25 flyers produced by the FBI and the Department of Justice are distributed to local businesses in a variety of industries to promote suspicious activity reporting. The flyers are not released publicly, though several have been published in the past by news media and various law enforcement agencies around the country."

http://publicintelligence.net/fbi-suspicious-activity-reporting-flyers

Threat Areas
Airport Service Providers
Beauty/Drug Suppliers
Bulk Fuel Distributors
Construction Sites
Dive/Boat Shops
Electronics Stores
Farm Supply Stores
Financial Institutions
General Aviation
General Public
Hobby Shops
Home Improvement
Hotels/Motels
Internet Cafes
Shopping Malls
Martial Arts/Paintball
Mass Transportation
Military Surplus
Peroxide Explosives
Recognizing Sleepers
Rental Cars
Rental Properties
Rental Trucks
Storage Facilities
Tattoo Shops

>> ^EvilDeathBee:

"You know how there are those pretentious assholes that work at high end coffee shops and they make you feel stupid if you're not as obsessed with a stupid drink as they are?"
No I don't. Are these common place in the US? Does good coffee equal pretentious arsehole selling it to you?
My local cafe when, when I was living in Melbourne, the waitresses were so friendly and oh-so lovely, and their coffee was amazing (and so was the food) with their own blends.
Don't have to be snobby or pretentious to sell good coffee, but I guess since good coffee is easy to come by in Melbourne, there's no need to feel snobby about it.


I'm sure there are a few in the larger cities, I wouldn't say common. I've been in a few hipster pretentious coffee shops, where most of the pretentiousness was coming from the people I went with. The coffee was always odd tasting, the establishment dirty, and the seating overly casual, aka big disgusting couches.

>> ^longde:

A couple of weeks ago, I was in a mall in Beijing, I walked into a little cafe off the food court, and there were lots of young folks playing the game. Some of them were probably over 18. They didn't strike me as dorkish either.
When I was in my late teens/early 20s, I played. I was pretty thin back then.>> ^Payback:
Is there anyone under 250lbs yet over 18 that has ever played Magic the Gathering?



Speaking as a nerd who just got back from a weekend convention where people were playing M:tG, absolutely agreed. One thing I do always notice is how unfit people at cons generally are, but that stereotype is broken quite frequently too- there is no shortage of people who are a healthy weight or even athletic, just a total surplus of unfit, overweight people. Mind you, that was at the con as a whole, I didn't survey the M:tG players on their own or anything. Nerds really live up to or embody negative stereotypes more often than I can sometimes believe, but there really are a bunch out there who you might not even know are nerds unless you specifically bring the topic up, and others that manage to not fall into not fall into the negative behaviors or traits associated with nerdity.

A couple of weeks ago, I was in a mall in Beijing, I walked into a little cafe off the food court, and there were lots of young folks playing the game. Some of them were probably over 18. They didn't strike me as dorkish either.

When I was in my late teens/early 20s, I played. I was pretty thin back then.>> ^Payback:

Is there anyone under 250lbs yet over 18 that has ever played Magic the Gathering?

"You know how there are those pretentious assholes that work at high end coffee shops and they make you feel stupid if you're not as obsessed with a stupid drink as they are?"

No I don't. Are these common place in the US? Does good coffee equal pretentious arsehole selling it to you?

My local cafe when, when I was living in Melbourne, the waitresses were so friendly and oh-so lovely, and their coffee was amazing (and so was the food) with their own blends.
Don't have to be snobby or pretentious to sell good coffee, but I guess since good coffee is easy to come by in Melbourne, there's no need to feel snobby about it.

I come from a rather coffee obsessed city, in fact the guy in this video has (or had) a cafe here, after moving from Tasmania:

http://videosift.com/video/Latte-Art-Swan-Lake

I'll have to check when I get back to Beijing, but I don't think it would be too hard to "baidu" (the chinese equivalent of google; hardly anyone uses google in china) tianamen square. After all, it is a major tourist destination, maybe the most visited place in the country! While many foriegners get a VPN to view content like youtube and facebook, I don't use them, so I'm guessing I see what everyone else sees on the internet (not that chinese couldn't get a VPN).

I can access the NYT, and wikipedia, linkedin, and other popular sites. I have never looked up democracy, or liberty or Tianamen square, though. I can access videosift, but I can only see liveleak or comedy central videos.

However, even if the internet isn't blocked, to really buy access to the internet (via a SIM card or cable access) one has to register with the government. It's part of the service application process, but it's still there. So, you know even if you have access, someone is watching. Even internet cafe monitoring has been enhanced recently.

I talked to a friend about knowledge of TS. She pointed out that even US history books don't chronicle recent history (the last 40 or 50 years) that thoroughly. I'm in my late 30s, and mine certainly didn't. She also said, even if it came up, older people would be reluctant to discuss such a topic.>> ^shoany:

Speaking of "google-ing Tienanmen Square", isn't there a giant, nationwide block against those keywords, as well as a billion others? I thought I read something to that effect a while ago, wherein the average Chinese internet user had extremely limited access to anything that might possibly be deemed anti-government or pro-free speech.
If that's the case, it wouldn't be so simple to Google Tienanmen Square. I imagine the story gets passed on, but probably in hushed voices and hidden books, as it's certainly not a publicly welcome topic of discussion.

>> ^misterwight:

How does she keep a black apron so spotless around so many cats? That's inconceivable!


That's what the said about Jesus, dude. HALLELUJAH!