The bad old days

Too often we glorify the past. To a point, this kind of reverence is helpful to teach ourselves humility, in that we do not consider ourselves greater than our ancestors. However, extreme nostalgia clouds our judgment of all previous periods: we voluntarily abandon the ability to objectively identify what changes are actually improvements.

It is my hope that readers of various ages and demographics permit themselves to be gently reminded how so many of the things they might take for granted were nonexistent within the lifespan of our parents or grandparents. The goal of this post is to help spread the spirit of contentment for the present and optimism for the future. 

The criteria for this list are:

1. There was a well-defined problem in the past which may remain relevant today. It may have had no solution at all at the time. It should not be excessively obscure or too far in the past (in the view of the author).
2. If the problem had a process, tool, or material to manage it, this is considered inconvenient or undesirable by today's standards (and in the view of the author).
3. By modern standards, the problem has been dealt with so effectively by other means, and the technology so prevalent, that there are reasonably mature human beings alive today who have never heard of the older alternative.

I want this to be an organic, growing list which takes into account trends that others point out. Please leave a comment if you have an idea that meshes with my three criteria for inclusion. Leave a comment with the following two components:

• A general subject (e.g. "Internet access", "Music", or a topic not yet started)
• One or two sentences to describe the problem in the context of how it is to be detailed in one paragraph.

Internet access

• Before the mid-2000s, most US families had dial-up internet. This required internet users to wait for a connection over their phone line rather than having a continuous internet connection available to them. It also meant that phone usage over the same line was impossible, and anyone who picked up any phone in the house was likely to boot you offline. The connection over dial-up is accompanied by a fairly noisy connection signal involving actual dial signals over the public switched telephone network. It is demonstrably worse in every single way compared to DSL, cable, or satellite internet.

Phone access

• At one time, payphones were ubiquitous as a way to place a call when outside the home or office. In my earliest memories from c. 1990, a local call was 25 cents; long-distance calls were substantially more. The prevalence of cell phones in the 2010s make payphones increasingly difficult to find except in poorer neighborhoods and very old facilities. As of this writing, most Americans of my age (25) will probably remember using a payphone at some point, but the children who are currently in elementary and middle school may go through their entire lives without having to use a payphone.
• Before the early 1980s, most phones in use in the United States were rotary-dial phones. This required the user to place a finger in the hole for the appropriate number, twist the dial, and let it return to the default position. Doing this for each digit is rather time-consuming by modern standards. I only have the faintest memories of seeing a rotary telephone in use, and it was at my great grandmother's house in rural Indiana perhaps 18-20 years ago. Even at the time, it was uncommon to see the old-fashioned Ma Bell rotary phones.

Music

• Electric power generation on a large scale was invented in the last quarter of the 19th century, and its processes were surprisingly mature by 1900, but most households did not have electrical power, even well into the early 20th century. The Victrola, a popular phonograph of the 1910s-1930s, was available in a hand-cranked version, which was substantially less expensive. Until the onset of the 1930s, most phonographs were hand-cranked.
• The vinyl LP record was released in 1948 and was the primary high-fidelity means of playback all the way until the Compact Disc (CD) of the early 1980s. LPs are not actually obsolete, since they are still used for vinyl recordings on rare occasions. Before CDs, vinyl could be either cheap and extremely low quality, or very expensive and high quality. The amount of care and attention that vinyl records required to maintain their sound is a bit fastidious by modern standards.
• The first viable competitor for the record was the cassette tape, which was extremely popular in cars due to its greater resistance to vibration. Unfortunately, cassettes are very vulnerable to prolonged temperature differences. The degradation of sound quality after leaving tapes in a car throughout a hot summer is very pronounced. Most surviving cassette tapes from the 1980s or 1990s that spent their lives in a glove compartment or center console are almost unplayable. There is still more maintenance required than CDs, since cassette decks do need to have their head cleaned by playing a "cleaning" tape. In practice, I have never actually seen these used; most motorists did not keep their cars long enough for the cassette deck to degrade noticeably.

Vehicle starting

• Before electric starters, motorists had to start a vehicle by turning a hand crank which was connected directly to the crankshaft. The sudden forward motion of the crank when the engine started meant you had to cup your hand rather than firmly grasp it; the punishment for poor hand posture was a broken thumb. If the engine kicked back, the punishment was a broken wrist or arm. As the technique for starting these cars becomes more obscure, but the cars themselves still remain, its danger becomes even more real. Members of historical societies who lack the proper technique will be far more likely to break their arm in starting a Locomobile than veteran drivers of 1905, who were more accustomed to the process (and probably had bigger arms as a result).
• In cold weather, modern vehicles will probably start up on the first crank and require very little warm-up time before they can be safely operated. For very cold climates, vehicles are sometimes fitted with block heaters, a plug-in electrical device that heats the engine block directly to aid in starting. All early vehicles were unlikely to start at all in such conditions. Any of these were common in very cold climates at various points in time.
• Draining the engine's oil overnight so it could be poured back into the engine when warm
• Placing hot coals on the engine block
• Pouring boiling water over the engine block

Vehicle maintenance

• Batteries once needed to be topped off regularly with water. Today few automotive owners even know of any battery maintenance.
• Motor oil has gotten a lot more expensive over the years, but the engine's requirement has greatly diminished. Almost all vehicles of 50 years ago would consume oil in regular amounts, and need to be topped up with oil. It was impossible to treat an engine of 1963 with the same careless abandon as an engine of 2013.

Vehicle safety

• Vehicles generally lacked seatbelts until the 1950s. Even then, the seatbelt used was a lap belt which did not cover the shoulder, so it did not stop a passenger from hitting the dashboard.
• Vehicles before the 1970s generally did not have collapsible steering columns. If the driver did not have a shoulder belt, an accident at high speed was likely to cause a massive impact right in the chest area, with disproportionate likelihood of causing lethal injuries to the heart and/or lungs.
• Vehicles before the 1970s generally did not have shoulder belts. As stated before, lap belts offer much less protection than the combined lap/shoulder combination. By modern standards, lap belts alone would be considered practically useless. Shoulder belts and lap belts in combination are still the most important safety feature ever added to vehicles, and should be worn 100% of the time when in a non-parked motor vehicle.
• Vehicles generally lacked airbags until the early to mid-1990s. Until the turn of the 21st century, two airbags was the common number (one for driver, one for passenger.) In the first decade of the 21st century, side-curtain airbags became common, and other airbag placements would proliferate throughout the interior of modern vehicles. Vehicles made from 2010 onward are massively safer than those made even 15 years earlier.
• US vehicles of the 1940s-1960s had a very large amount of chrome on their dashboards, which could reflect light directly into the motorist's eyes in the wrong conditions, making him or her momentarily blind. Largely due to changing styles rather than a concern for safety, this trend was on the decrease by 1965, and by 1969 there was almost no dashboard chrome left.
• Automatic seat belts were extremely common on US cars from 1990 to 1995. As a result of US federal legislation, automakers had to ensure that all new cars were equipped with at least one form of active safety, and the choices were automatic seat belts or airbags. Airbags would be much better, but automatic seat belts were cheaper. Rather than doing nothing at all, the government decided to form a meaningless compromise that resulted in automatic seat belts becoming ubiquitous. The depressing thing is that automatic seat belts merely automate the process of buckling the shoulder belt, and don't do anything better than ordinary seat belts. As a result, airbags were obviously the superior solution for safety, and they became mandated by 1995, making automatic seat belts obsolete. My parents had two Ford Escort wagons from 1993 that had automatic seat belts. My grandfather's 1989 Honda Civic did not have it, but I did own a 1991 Honda Civic that did have this installed. I remember them as being perfectly ordinary as a child, but as the years went on I found them very restrictive and irritating. If you don't ride in a car made from 1990-1995 in your life, you may never know what an automatic seat belt is. It's a jarring experience if you're new to it!

Building safety

• Asbestos was used universally in building construction during the early 20th century. Usage remained steady until it began to fall off in the 1970s, and during the 1980s it was banned in certain building insulation applications. Asbestos is an amazing material, with extraordinary resistance to fire, electricity, and chemical damage. For centuries, it was a peerless insulator. But once a building reaches the end of its lifecycle, tearing it down will cause asbestos fibers to become airborne. Repeated scientific studies have verified that continued exposure to asbestos causes life-threatening respiratory conditions. Asbestosis is a highly painful way to die. The lack of asbestos in modern buildings actually makes them substantially cheaper to clean up after demolition, which makes them more economical over their lifetime.

Public health

• Smoking of cigarettes was once conducted by a decided majority of American males, and a much larger percentage of American females than today. Smoking was popular from the outset of the 20th century, and continued to gain in popularity up to WWII and into the 1950s. The first major condemnation of smoking for its health hazards was the landmark 1964 Surgeon General's report. The Surgeon General's Office has periodically released reports that inevitably describe smoking as a serious risk to the health of the smoker and all others around the smoker. In today's society, smoking of tobacco is much less common, and its popularity continues to decrease every year. Despite libertarian objections, no-smoking zones have been implemented in many public areas of the United States.
• Fluoridation of water is something that most Americans deal with every single day when they drink tap water. Fluoride is added to most of the US public water supply to improve dental health and fight cavities. In the 1964 movie Dr. Strangelove, fluoridation was considered a Communist plot by the primary antagonist, the insane General Ripper. Although a minority objected to fluoridation, the general public placed a great deal of faith in the scientific establishment in the 1950s and 1960s, and did not object to the widespread application of fluoridation. Prior to the widespread use of fluoride toothpaste in the 1970s, fluoridated water was the only way to raise the dental health standards of the nation collectively.
• There was once a time not long ago when parents feared very seriously for the lives and livelihoods of their children. Polio affected tens of thousands of children per year prior to 1954, and those who survived the disease were often handicapped for life. The polio vaccine was developed in 1952 by the famous Dr. Jonas Salk, and immediately entered intense testing on a small scale prior to its announcement in 1953. In 1954, the polio vaccine was subject to the largest-scale human experimentation in US history, eventually involving 1.8 children across the United States. The favorable conclusion of the test was announced on April 12, 1955- the polio vaccine was found to be safe and extremely effective, and at unprecedented speed almost complete vaccination was undertaken. More than 100 million doses were administered in the US over the next four years. By 1961, only 161 cases were reported. Polio took much longer to eradicate worldwide, but it was finally declared eradicated in 2012.
• Even greater a threat than polio was smallpox. The bane of civilization for centuries, smallpox has killed countless millions of people of all ages and classes. Various outbreaks have totally depopulated great cities throughout history. Because of the intense contagiousness and worldwide scope of the disease, it was impossible to eradicate it immediately. In fact, Edward Jenner's invention of the smallpox vaccine in 1796 is considered the first-ever vaccine, but the more-dangerous technique of innoculation persisted well into the 20th century, and smallpox continued to remain a threat in Africa and Asia. Worldwide, from 1800 to 1950, there was insufficient willpower and funds to destroy the disease, so it remained a threat to all people. Starting in 1950, the Pan American Health Organization undertook an eradication of the disease from the Western Hemisphere. Beginning in 1958, worldwide efforts were managed by the World Health Organization. WHO's Smallpox Eradication Team was led by Donald Henderson from 1966 onwards- at this point, millions still contracted the disease every year. Working on a global scale and with close cooperation with local authorities, they fought every single outbreak until the disease was declared eradicated globally in 1979.

Libraries

• Although the Dewey decimal system remains in place for physical order of a library, there was once a physical card catalog system to assist lookup of books. Each book had a card that located it. If you wanted to find a book, you had to look up an actual piece of paper that contained the code where you could find it. If you see the movie Ghostbusters from 1984, the opening scene shows huge cabinets full of cards that correspond to the inventory of the library. If such pieces of furniture still exist in modern libraries, they are mostly ceremonial. The real organization is handled by a computerized database in almost all libraries.
• Public libraries were once considered primarily valuable because of the books they contained. Although 20 years ago most libraries did have computers, the computers were usually just green-screen terminals that linked the user to a card catalog of the books in the library. By the early 2000s, internet service in libraries was becoming relatively common. Libraries have continued to remain relevant because they are a place where free internet is available. In poorer neighborhoods, as I have seen in Houston and Cleveland, as well as in small towns, the public libraries are full of kids playing online games and checking Facebook, job seekers printing out resumes, and elderly persons acquainting themselves with new technology. In this way, the public library has actually become more valuable to society than ever.

Cooking

• For those without much culinary expertise, it may come as a surprise that the old-fashioned way to obtain a non-stick surface was to season a cast iron pan with a layer of oil which would be baked in at high temperature; continued use over the years would keep up a jet black and silky smooth surface, but a brand new cast iron pan will disintegrate your eggs very easily. The solution came on two fronts: stainless steel in the mid 20th century, and Teflon, first marketed in France in 1954 and the US in 1961. The great majority of cookware surfaces on products sold in the 21st century are nonstick, but cast iron and carbon steel continue to be sold for niche markets.

Why I feel that time travel is necessarily impossible

When considering time travel, I feel it is necessary to weigh in with as logically complete an argument as I can muster. I do not know about the progress that may have been done with subatomic or massless particles. I do not claim that time travel of these objects may be found to be achievable by human technology. I do claim that these events are necessarily infinitesimal: if there is found to be a wall of progress, beyond which certain diminutive particles become too massive to transport, or beyond which the duration of the time displacement becomes too great to affect, then my points below will be just as valid.

My argument here is against travel through time of macroscopic objects, up to and including human beings. The time travel allowable must be of a non-negligible quantity. Let us say 1 second, but for pedantic readers, many important things have happened in less than 1 second, so you can go as low as you like, say 1 ms or 1 us. I do not believe that time travel (into the past) of massive objects, for non-negligible periods of time, is physically or logically possible.

1) What limitations do I propose of the term massive?

The limitations of “massive” are not hard and fast. If it is technically possible to transport 1 g of mass, then it will likely become possible to transport 100 kg, or 1000 kg or more. But this development is not necessary for my point to remain valid. If it is not possible to transport 100 kg, 1 g is enough mass for a suitably advanced microcomputer to influence past events. Even if 1 g is not possible, 1 mg of VX nerve gas could be sent back in time to the exact spot in which Hitler was standing in 1923, and kill him. As we drift downwards to other small quantities, there approaches a point in which the displaced object is too small to make any perceivable difference; that is what I would refer to as the cutoff point of “massive.” Something that is the mass of an electron naturally has nonzero mass but I would not refer to it as “massive.”

2) Is there just one timeline?

If there are multiple universes, and each event divides the present universe into parallel universes, this is in accordance with the “multiverse” theory. This means that a “timeline” doesn’t really exist; at best, going back in time would be to travel backwards from the present universe (the “leaf” of an infinite and constantly expanding binary tree of universes) along any of an infinitely long path of parent universes. If this theory is accurate, then time travel to the past is not logically impossible. Even if one were to go back in time and kill him or herself as an infant, the ramifications to the “present day” would be felt in a parallel “present day” universe in which the traveler did not exist. Since he must have lived in a divergent timeline in order to become an adult, no paradox exists.

The multiverse theory cannot be disproved at this point in time, but I do not feel that it is a valid model.  It is fairly magical and whimsical. If all events led to another set of universes based on the possible outcomes, then there would be an infinite number of universes. The observable universe that we know at the present moment is finite, and so it is possible that universes could communicate with each other. My argument here is not an appeal to ridicule, since the notion of communicating with other universes is strange but not inherently impossible, but that if communication could possibly exist, the infinite sophistication of technology that would come about through time travel would render it inevitable that in the present universe in which we currently exist, evidence of this communication would be manifest. Since such evidence is not manifest, I am inclined to disagree with the multiverse theory.

3) What constitutes physical or logical impossibility?

Something can only be definitively stated to be impossible if it causes logical error. This is to say,  if it defies logic for such a condition to exist. 2+2 = 5 is impossible. Using mathematical rigor that is beyond my ability to competently provide, it can be proven that 2+2 = 4. For something to be impossible, it must result in a paradox. Paradoxes are by their very definition impossible and unachievable. The Novikov self-consistency principle essentially states the same. It is basically a tautology, and of course like all things scientific it can be denied, but if you contend that paradoxes ARE possible, then you defy all existing human logic and you will have a very hard time creating a new one to suit your beliefs.

4) What is the grandfather paradox?

This is a very common theoretical paradox. An individual travels back in time and kills his own grandfather, thus making his own existence impossible. This constitutes a paradox in a one-timeline universe because he was never alive to kill his grandfather, but this event definitely happened in the past. There are lots of paradoxes, but I will use this one.

Having qualified these terms, I have a few premises (bulleted) that I want the reader to accept.

•  If time travel caused paradoxes to exist, then time travel must necessarily be impossible, since paradoxes are by definition impossible.

This should not be controversial. If you are a multiverse fan or you have some sort of alternate theory, then you are probably shaking your head since nothing near and dear to you is under assault yet. But let me go onward.

• A one-timeline universe in which time travel to past periods with macroscopic objects for non-negligible periods of time is possible, results in intentional attempts to create paradox.

This is a direct assault. I think it is crucial that this premise is accepted and I will go to all lengths to ensure that it is. I’ll start with an example in the form of one of my favorite middle-school novels, the very brilliant Timeline by Michael Crichton, published 1999. Robert Doniger, the ruthless founder of a technology company that invents time travel, gives us a monologue on why the grandfather paradox is invalid. He says that the traveler might have the most tenacious will to commit the act but the mere fact that history and his own memory records differently means that the act must not have happened. Something must have stopped the traveler and preserved the timeline. It could be as minor as getting second thoughts, or it could be as extreme as the grandfather shooting first and killing the traveler. Whatever the means, paradoxes do not occur.

Doniger’s explanation is not very convincing because it comes from the perspective of a writer of science fiction. The writer of science fiction often depicts the origins of time travel, gives us a good story to read, and never has to contemplate what would happen if, instead of one time travel journey, there were an infinite number of time travel journeys.

Maybe the perpetrator of grandfather paradox simply fails en route almost all the time. Maybe even the best-laid plans of geniuses to create paradoxes are somehow foiled. Maybe there are 1 million time travel events over 1000 years, trying to cause paradoxes, and somehow each one of them was defeated before it changed the timeline in any impossible way.

But we are talking about an INFINITE number of time travel events, which makes 1 million the same as zero. If there is any possibility of causing a paradox, if somehow even the most foolproof method of just going back in time to change history is always foiled, we should examine the preponderance of probability, as I refer to it. What is more probable? 1) Time travel is possible and an infinite number of time travel events somehow do not lead to a single activity that causes a time paradox; 2) Time travel is not possible, making it unnecessary to prevent every conscious effort to create a paradox.

I’m going to keep hammering on about infinity. Of course a time paradox isn’t “supposed to happen”, but how much probability can stack against it? If a time traveler came to the past with a million bombs, each of which is 99% likely to work, and every single one is a dud, is that more unlikely than time travel being impossible? But that’s not even fanciful. Let’s propose some other things that very definitely would happen in an infinite number of time travel events.

1.       A scientist and his colleague sit together in a sealed room for 10 minutes motionless. They have a time machine which can take one of them back exactly 5 minutes and can only be engaged from a remote console; the time travel machine will self-destruct in 15 minutes. At the 10 minute mark, one of the scientists goes back in time 5 minutes with a katana and decapitates the other scientist (sitting motionless), making the journey impossible.

2.       A pregnant woman who knows that her child will be born with a defect from the father goes back in time 6 months and persuades her earlier self not to have sex with that particular man.

3.       A very dedicated Japanese Imperial sympathizer goes back in time to 1945 and just minutes before the Trinity blast in Alamogordo, he arrives and sabotages the device on the spot. The test is declared a failure and Fat Man is not dropped on Nagasaki, which means that WWII does not end in August 1945, in contravention to known history.

4.       A Nazi sympathizer goes back in time and demonstrates his technology to the Germans. They bring their armies of 1942 and 1943 back to 1941, more than tripling the size and power of the force for Operation Barbarossa. The Soviet Union capitulates in 1941. Thereafter, the Germans conquer the world, in contravention to known history. They ostensibly preserve the "new" timeline by remembering to send exactly the same armies back in 1942 and 1943.

5.       The original inventor of time travel is identified by a hater of time travel, who goes back in time and kills the inventor.

All of these and millions more paradox attempts are guaranteed because time travel will perpetuate itself. Once time travel is invented, it will be used to go back in time, and then exist at a previous time period. Eventually the time travel events will encompass every moment. The leads me to the next main premise of my argument.

• Time travel’s existence will lead to an infinite number of time travel events, and an infinite number of attempts to create paradox.

As a prelude, let me address why each and every single time travel event can’t be managed so as to not cause paradoxes. I need a new example: Time Squad, a Cartoon Network show from the early 2000s.

This cartoon is actually pretty entertaining because it shows revered historical figures to be totally different from the way posterity records them. It shows Abraham Lincoln as a hooligan who has to be “reformed” by the Time Squad. If we suspend our disbelief concerning the fact that Lincoln’s second life was kept secret from the press of the 1860s, then their activities make total sense. We know that Abe Lincoln was president 1861-1865, and that he fought and won the Civil War, and that he signed the Emancipation Proclamation. Time Squad did not alter the past to change history. They went back into time to ensure that history was preserved in its current form. This causes no paradoxes, and it’s completely logical in a one-timeline universe. Of course they went back in time! Because somebody had to have gone back in time to help these historical figures- it obviously happened in the past, even if nobody knew about it. This is totally plausible even in the one-timeline model.

The problem is that Time Squad is made up of responsible persons who have not intervened in ways that are contrary to recorded history. They have not done anything that flagrantly violates what we acknowledge as fact. But they are one team working in a very regimented way with a very limited number of time travel events. If time travel were a real human technology, the infinite amount of time would tend to make it widespread.

I propose the following set of assertions that support my contention that an infinite number of time travel events follows from the mere invention of time travel.

1.       Human beings may endure catastrophes that set them back hundreds or thousands of years in technology, but on an overall trend, they must inevitably get higher in technology.

2.       If a technology exists once, there must exist a means, however complicated and expensive, to replicate it. Nobody has yet made a device so miraculous that its purpose cannot be met by a reverse-engineered device. We are not talking about what is “practical” to replicate. The pyramids could not be practically made again unless hundreds of billions of dollars were spent, and the workforce simply wouldn’t stand for it, but it is theoretically possible.

3.       Technology tends to become more widespread over time, inexorably and despite the best efforts and intentions of government and organizations and communities. We are at a point in the 21^st century where nuclear weapons could potentially be developed by most of the world’s countries. Almost all of them may choose not to do so, but as far as time travel is concerned, it would only take one exception to cause a time paradox. If North Korea developed time travel technology, it would spell the end.

4.       Free will does exist, and there are people who do want to see the world destroyed. Even if it takes millennia to happen upon such an evil person who would use time travel to contradict history, the passage of time will generate so many time travel events that the presence of nefarious intentions is assured in the long run.

5.       There is no human extinction event that will wipe out people before time travel technology can spread. This may be the hardest for some people to swallow. But if you consider that humans would have a desire to prevent the extinction of their species, if most of the world were rendered uninhabitable for a long time, one would reasonably predict that the nation or entity that controlled time travel would save itself from the extinction event by going into the past before the event. If you believe that extinction will come before time travel is even discovered, then you’re dodging the question of whether it’s possible or not. We have to assume that time travel WOULD be discovered before extinction, or else there is no point in discussing it.

6.       Going onward from Premise 5, if a nation or group of people would choose to avoid an extinction event by going backwards into the past or forwards into the future, then the timeline becomes basically circular. At any point on the timeline there are an infinite number of people who have chosen to avoid death by going into the past, because these people who went into the past inflated the population of previous populations, who later grew into the future population that also went back into the past to live there as well. Perhaps this doesn’t cause any visible paradoxes on its own;  maybe overcrowding is prevented by colonizing other planets. Perhaps censuses are no longer taken. Maybe the extinction-avoiders implement a government that kills off most of their population and rigidly limits the number who can be saved, so as to avoid interfering with the past timeline. However, the presence of this circularity does still make the number of time travel events virtually infinite, and see Premise 4 for a treatment of the ramifications of that condition.

The hardest part of my argument is yet to be made. We are at the point now, I hope, where you agree that time travel will create a “circular” timeline, if only one timeline exists.

D.      An infinite number of time travel events means that in the long run, a paradox is guaranteed to occur.

I know, you’re thinking “How can he say that?” If paradoxes are impossible, of course there must be some way to make sure that they do not happen. I propose that the actual method of not creating paradoxes is by time travel not existing in the first place, since if it did exist, there would be a million trillion billion quadrillion people at every second in the entire universe trying to go back in time and screw up the timeline. Whether they used reliable tools and obedience of solid mechanical rules, or half-hearted and poorly planned attempts, every action has to be counteracted by increasingly improbable counteractions. The timeline could only be preserved if there was an equally infinite number of “time preservers”, like the Time Squad, preemptively preventing paradoxes. However, their job too would become impossible, since the presence of infinite numbers of future travelers in the past would make the witness of such events unavoidable. Right now, if time travel existed, somebody from the year 2145 would unquestionably be trying to blow up a bomb in your neighborhood, and even if it took a million tries for such a person to successfully get to the year 2012 with a bomb, and even if it was defused at the last second, you would still bear witness with your own eyes to time travelers. A billion time travelers might somehow keep a secret, but an infinite number of time travelers would with certainty have success in making time travel known to previous generations.

I have met with some resistance on the topic of assuming time travel would be developed before extinction, if time travel were possible. Let us assume that extinction occurs; the argument becomes easy:

Premise: Time travel is not discovered before extinction of intelligent life.

Premise: Extinction causes the end of future technological developments.

Premise: Without future technological developments, nothing new can be discovered.

Premise: If time travel is never discovered, it remains impossible.

Conclusion: Time travel remains impossible.

If you have no further objections (please add them in the comments), then I’d like to condense my argument to conclude.

Premise: Time travel is discovered before extinction of intelligent life.

Premise: If time travel caused paradoxes to exist, then it must necessarily be impossible, since paradoxes are impossible.

Premise: A one-timeline universe in which time travel to past periods with macroscopic objects for non-negligible periods of time is possible, results in intentional attempts to create paradox.

Premise: Time travel’s existence will lead to an infinite number of time travel events.

Premise: An infinite number of time travel events means that in the long run, a paradox is guaranteed to occur.

Conclusion 1: Time travel in one timeline will generate paradox.

Conclusion 2: Time travel within one timeline is impossible.

Hope I’ve made you think. For a more entertaining story, let’s change gears to a most patently incorrect treatment of time travel, along with my most hated phrase: “ripple effect.” Of course I am talking about Back to the Future.

The most agonizing part for me about Back to the Future and the other two sequels is the notion that although there is one timeline, the past can be changed to affect it, even as a future observer traveling into the past.

Where does the Doc make it clear that there is one timeline? When he suggests that a paradox could arise. If there were more than one timeline, then paradoxes couldn’t occur. If Marty actually failed to get his mother to fall in love with his dad in 1955, then there would exist an alternate 1985 in which Marty McFly never existed, but that is obviously not the 1985 from which he came and of which he had memory. There would be no paradox here, just diverging timelines. If Marty stayed in 1955 for 30 years, he would witness an alternate 1985 that was distinct from his own memory, because the point of divergence occurred when he traveled back to 1955 and started a new timeline.

If there is only one timeline, then nothing like the “ripple effect” can occur. Marty being born around 1967 is an established fact. He knows when he was born. There does not exist any doubt about the fact that he was born, because he is a living, breathing teenager. If Marty could go back in time to make himself not exist, then he couldn’t have existed to go back in time to do it, because there is one timeline. A paradox is by definition impossible, so it’s imaginary to even consider what a paradox might be like. Let’s say that Marty failed spectacularly in getting his mom and dad to hook up in 1955. Let’s say that he actually just abandoned Lorraine without success and returned to 1985. He didn’t de-materialize. The timeline would have to remain intact. It would come out later that Marty’s parents were lying about kissing for the first time at the Enchantment under the Sea dance, and they got together later. Marty’s world could not be changed when he returned to 1985. George would still have to be bullied by Biff, because that is what happened in the one timeline. If Marty’s old 1985 showed his dad as a weak wimp, then unless he was in The Matrix or being fed some kind of virtual reality simulation, that was the only real 1985, and when he gets back his dad must still be the same weak wimp.

This happily precludes paradoxes. But it means that the ripple effect is garbage. If they were going back in time to prevent Biff from becoming rich, then their deeds done in 1955 predated Biff becoming rich in 1958-1985, and so it could never have happened in the first place. In our single timeline, they would have arrived in 1955 and burned the sports almanac three years before Biff ever won his first horse race, and so Biff would never have won all that money, and he never would have taken over Hill Valley, and Biff’s matchbook would either have to say that he was a casino owner or a car detailer, but it couldn’t possibly be blurred from one to the other based on meddling with the past. The past predates the present; the past has already happened relative to the present. The ripple effect is itself a paradox, because it allows the time traveler to change events in the past that would have affected the motivation to do the travel in the future, even when removing the problem.

The problem is not that paradoxes are possible, but that BTTF’s creators have taken liberties with the possible effects of time travel. Everything that is done by a time traveler in the past must have already influenced the future. It would create no paradoxes whatsoever if a man was his own grandfather. Perhaps he knew that his grandmother was a single parent but did not know who her lover was, and when he went back in time he had sex with her as a young woman, causing the creation of his family in the first place. His memory is intact, everything happened in a way consistent with the one timeline. Consequently, the very fact that Biff is rich in 1985 must be part of the timeline, and if they tried to go back to 1955 to stop it, they could not stop it from happening. Something would have to have intervened to stop it. The proof is in 1985. How could Biff be rich if he never got the almanac 30 ears ago? Moviegoers don’t really ponder the fact that the decision to stop Biff becoming rich came 30 years after it had to have happened or not, and consequently that bit of history was already written.

What the hell do Jains eat?

Adherents of Jainism subscribe to a principle of non-violence so open-ended that I am struggling to think of any carbon-based life that is available for their consumption. Jains, for example, refuse to consume beer or yogurt on the basis of the microorganisms that inhabit it, or eat food stored overnight, to avoid harming the bacteria that have grown in it. The general trend of the Jain diet is lacto-vegetarianism, but with some strange prohibitions on many vegetables, and with the community divided on the acceptability of dairy products.

The following is an incomplete list of foods that Jains cannot consume:

1. Meat
2. Eggs
3. Cabbage, because it is a root plant which is killed by uprooting it
4. Potatoes, for the same reason
5. Yeast
6. Beer
7. Wine
8. Vinegar
9. Gelatin
10. Garlic
11. Mushrooms
12. Fruits that bleed a milky sap when cut
13. Beansprouts
14. Carrots
15. Turnips
16. Any food item that has been prepared the previous day (it must be thrown out)
17. Onions (Oh my God no)
18. Water that has not been filtered in a traditional way
19. Rennet (used in the production of some cheeses)
20. Honey, on the basis that it involves violence towards bees to collect (????)
21. Food cooked at night because it must be done by artificial light, which attracts and may kill insects (?!?!). Jains take a vow to never cook food after sundown for this reason.

Some (but not all) Jains follow even stricter observations, in addition to strict veganism, and abstain from the following:

1. All cheeses
2. Milk
3. Vegetable greens, on the basis of pain to the plant when plucking the leaves
4. Fruit which is bright red, giving the appearance of meat, like apples, tomatoes, and watermelon

Holy fricking God. No meat or booze or potatoes. Not even onions or apples or honey. This is way beyond vegetarianism or veganism. This is like an intentional abstinence from everything that has flavor. If I end up in Hell, it will be something like this. I'd jump in front of a bus if I felt like I had to live that way.

The American Restaurant Culture

The involuntary vacating of writing duties that you have witnessed from Barn-megaparsec is due to the chief writer, me, being occupied with immense amounts of work. I have worked in a couple of restaurants for over 3 years, in roles as server, host, expo, dish, and prep or line cook. 

3 years is not a long time compared to some lifers, but given that most people who work in restaurants only remember it from part-time jobs in youth, it's probably enough time to discern some differences between the different management styles and reflect on how restaurant work can be so villified that any number of part-time job holders can walk out or fail to show up every day, while at the same time can hold to its credit lifetime employees who in their old age still show up for work after 20 years in a place that teenagers denigrate after 20 minutes of employment.

The time has come to do some writing about restaurant work, and the focus will NOT be on service. Everyone and their brother has read something on Yahoo or in Reader's Digest that details "things your server will never tell you." You can call this blog post "things you'll never hear from your cook, because he's not allowed to talk to you."

I want to start off with some definitions of terms that are used in American restaurant work. Some are elementary and assume you have never worked in this field before.

• BOH: back-of-house, meaning invisible or mostly obscured from customer vision. Refers to cooks, drive-thru, dishwashers, prep personnel, kitchen managers, and any BOH support.
• FOH: front-of-house, meaning within customer vision. Refers to servers, hosts, bussers, food runners, service managers, and any other FOH support. Expos may be FOH or BOH, but typically they are considered FOH.
• Expo: A person whose job it is to manage the flow of food and to order food runners and servers to take food tableside when complete tickets are filled. This job involves yelling and coordinating different stations within the restaurant. An expo is the last person responsible for making sure that food goes out with appropriate quality.
• Tipping out: A percentage of the tips made by all the servers are provided to those employees whom the management has seen fit to provide part of their wage through tips. This is done at my current place of employment, but I do not know what percentage is used. It's also calculated to make servers realize that they are just a cog in a machine, and they couldn't provide excellent service without their support staff.
• Host: You probably already know, but hosts and hostesses are the ones who seat you and keep track of who is in each server's section. They are typically young, pretty, and lack the experience or equanimity to be a server at the present time. They receive a flat wage and may be tipped out. It is common to have at least one host even in a small restaurant.
• Food runners: They are required to be as presentable as servers, and they sometimes act as surrogate servers, but they too lack the experience or equanimity to be a server at the present time. They receive a flat wage and may be tipped out. Food runners may not be present in small restaurants. We did not have them at Steak n Shake.
• Bussers: The bottom of the FOH totem pole at any restaurant. Customers rarely expect bussers to provide any service. They may not be as presentable or courteous as servers. They receive a flat wage and may be tipped out. Bussers may not be present in small restaurants. We did not have them at Steak n Shake.
• Line: In the BOH, a line is generally where food goes from being initially ordered to being fully made and sold, particularly all hot dishes. Following the experience of the automobile assembly line, the restaurants adopted the production line as the most effective way to make dishes and store the prepped portions.
• POS: Product Ordering System. This is the computer terminal in which the server enters all orders. It simultaneously prints orders in the kitchen, tracks sales for management pursposes, and creates receipts for the customer. It usually allows for completely customized kitchen messages in the case of a strange request. However, cooks are expected to be aware of nearly all modifications to the menu items using the lingo on the ticket, without having to ask for server clarification. Many restaurants have a standardized POS, whereas some larger corporations can afford a proprietary design that better meets their needs.
• Board: Tickets are placed on the board. In older style restaurants, tickets are handwritten and they are put on clips and slid on a big string that runs the length of the line. In restaurants with standard POS terminals, the tickets come out of a printer, and the board is a metal surface with small marbles underneath, that provide friction and hold a ticket in place when it is pushed into the gap. In restaurants where the cooks will often have oily hands, as in a grill cook at a fast food restaurants, tickets are sometimes eschewed in favor of a computer terminal that displays orders instead. If communication between cooks on the line is necessary, sometimes "board clear" is shouted to indicate that the last ticket has been sold. 
• Dish: Once you step into a restaurant, a dishwasher is a person, and the thing that washes dishes is called a "dish machine." Every restaurant with sit-down service has at least one dishwasher and one dish machine. They are typically the last to leave because they have to clean all the pans for all the stations, without which those stations cannot fully close. Dish, therefore, is only as fast as the slowest station in the restaurant. Because dish does not really require the best people, it is sometimes considered the lowest spot on BOH pecking order, but a good dishwasher is extremely valued and can make as much as the cooks on the line.
• Pans: These do not refer to skillets or similar. A pan is a metal or plastic tub for carrying prepped food quantities and storing them on the line. A full pan (or hotel pan) is large and rectangular. Smaller pans are defined in terms of them: there exist third-pans (1/3 the size, long and rectangular) and six-pans (1/6 of the size, square) and nine-pans (1/9 of the size, small and rectangular). Any of these pans can be shallow or deep. This pan terminology is not universally known at all restaurants; at my current job, many of the cooks are inexperienced and have no idea what I'm talking about.
• Soup well: The soups or other hot liquids (like queso) are usually prepped ahead of time and then kept warm in a soup well. This device rests on a countertop, and on the bottom has a layer of water that it converts into steam. Pans of soup are kept on a rack above the steam, which keeps them hot. Since the heating is uneven, it is necessary to stir the soups frequently. It is also necessary to keep water in the well at all times. If not, the well will not function properly, and it may emit a nasty burnt smell.
• Pantry: Often considered as separate from the main line, pantry is the part of the kitchen at which salads, soups, appetizers, and desserts are made. Protein is not cooked at this station.
• Spider: At one of the restaurants at which I worked, a spider was a small handheld filter through which oil was passed when transferring from the wok back into the oil bucket. It had a very fine mesh that removed impurities. This nomenclature may not be universal, but for this particular device it is the only name I know.
• Ramekin: This is a corruption of the French term ramequin. It refers to a small vessel that holds from 2-8 oz of a sauce or side item. Though some restaurants use ceramic ramekins and wash them, the overwhelming trend in restaurant business is to purchase a very large amount of disposable black plastic ramekins of small (2 oz) or large (4 oz) size. The plastic ramekins have another advantage in that they have a lip to which a lid can be attached, meaning they can be combined with to-go orders. Ramekins are often referred to as "rams". To avoid ambiguity, the older small ceramic bowls, such as might hold baked beans, are given another name. Ramekin today almost universally refers to a disposable item.
• Deck brush: This is not a "floor scrubber" or any silly nomenclature like that. The correct term for this is a deck brush, following the usage of such a floor-scrubbing tool on the decks of ships. A typical floor cleaning policy at the end of the night is to drop soapy water, scrub the floor with the deck brush, and then squeegee the water into drains. Mops are rarely used in BOH, but in the FOH mops and hot, soapy water are often used because they do not require drains or squeegees.
• Spindle: A spindle is an upright sharp stick on a mount; it is what tickets are stabbed onto when they are sold. It might be purpose-sold for stabbing tickets, or it might be a section of 2x4 with a nail sticking through it. Whatever works.
• Bus tub: Distinct from pans, bus tubs are of standardized size and are always made of plastic. They are both used for storing dishes as a busser makes his rounds, or they can be used for storing prepped food in large quantities, like salad mix. If a dishwasher is being bombarded from many servers or bussers dumping their bus tubs in his station at the same time, it might be jokingly remarked that he just got hit by a bus.
• Wrecking shop: The solution to a hectic situation on the line is to just kick ass. Wrecking shop is the restaurant equivalent of working very fast to meet the customer's demands, and doing one's work entirely correctly despite the stress of the situation. If your line is messy because everyone has been furiously making and selling food for the past hour, then a manager who complains about the mess might receive "We've been wrecking shop" as an excuse. This might be a more recent development, but I've heard it in a lot of places.
• Shut down: When the manager needs to announce that all customers have made their way through ordering food, and no more may be expected to be sold, the call for "shut down" is given. This means that cooks can start taking steps that can't be undone, like throwing away soups or rice that couldn't be sold tomorrow. Shut down is always later than closing time, because the managers must ensure that the restaurant will feed new customers until at least the posted closing time. Shut down might not come until an hour after closing time, on a very busy day.
• GM: General Manager
• DM: District Manager
• KM: Kitchen Manager
• Dead: The restaurant is dead if it's really slow or empty. However, that doesn't mean that you'll get really fast service. Maybe the managers wanted to pinch some pennies and cut 2/3 of their service staff just a few minutes earlier. Maybe there's only one cook back there. Even a mild rush can overwhelm the skeleton crew in the period 2-4 pm. Because large business is unlikely in this time period, this is when managers ask prospective employees to drop off applications and when they schedule interviews.
• Walk-in: The word "fridge" is never used in a restaurant. If it's a walk-in refrigerator, it's called a "walk-in". The smaller refrigerators that are kept nearby stations underneath the counter are called "coolers".
• Running trash: Sometimes it is as innocuous as it sounds, as in just taking trash to the dumpster. However, it's often used as a coded message for "taking a smoke break".
• All day: This means "everything that is currently on the board." To say that you need "four ribeyes all day" is to say that that is how many steaks you need for all the tickets you presently have.

Here's something you'll never hear from a cook: We are sick and tired of hearing all the waiter rants online and in publication. Having worked both as a waiter and as a cook, I can tell you that being a waiter is better than being a cook. Why? 4 basic reasons.

1. Temperature. The dining room has to be relatively comfortable because customers eat there. However, the kitchen might be sweltering, the floor might be greasy, every surface might be dirty, and the air circulation might suck. Because waiters stay out of the kitchen generally, they don't even realize how comfortable their work environment comparatively is.
2. Pay. Yes, I know that there are whiny servers out there who gripe about that $1 tip that they made from a big table, but these cases are few and far between. Cooks without any managerial responsibilities generally make under $10 per hour. Servers make significantly more than that once they learn the ropes at their place. I often dine with servers in the employee area on my break, and I hear how they consider a mediocre morning or afternoon shift's tips to amount to 50% more than I earned cooking for them that morning. Don't try to deny it and say that people tip less than you think. I  served at a Steak n Shake and I got stiffed a lot. Our most popular meals were $4. Even on that level of tipping, I earned noticeably more than I have ever earned as a cook, and my shifts were usually shorter and easier. Servers who whine about bad tips should have their fingernails ripped out. It's just disgraceful and I'll never tire of hating on it.
3. Management. Servers are often disciplined within near-earshot of customers, so the manager isn't going to cuss at you or make obnoxious threats. In the BOH, managers do freely scream at cooks to hurry up and move their asses. They will piss on you if you let something go wrong, even if there isn't jack shit you could have done about it. Oftentimes cooks are treated as being able to deal with more bullshit, as though it's a natural order. When business picks up, and you do more work than usual, you'll rarely if ever be congratulated. Receiving a simple thank-you is often all it takes to make a cook feel better about his job, but I can't even remember the last time I heard it from anyone in a management position at my present job.
4. Tedium. During times in which you aren't completely busy, and you're cleaning or stocking, your responsibility is usually limited to one small area. It's rather boring.

Despite this, there are plus points to being a cook rather than a server, but some of them are unique to me.

1. I don't like lying or pretending to be happy. I was actually a really good server at my first job, but I was much younger then, and I don't know if I could conscientiously come up with rapid-fire excuses or blame the kitchen for my mistakes when I know what I know now.
2. Cooking food makes you feel like you're producing something for mankind. Good service is relative, and not everybody even wants full service in the first place, but when you make hot, delicious food, it's just innately valuable. 
3. Some of the servers actually do understand you, and when you help another human being recover from a mistake, their happiness rubs off on you, and the fact that you can help them earn a better tip makes you feel good.
4. The labor is sometimes physically demanding. It requires more use of your muscles than being a server. You'll be standing all day long, rushing when needed, and moving big boxes, trays, and pans of stuff around all the time. Sometimes you realize that there are people who pay to receive a gym membership just to do what you get to do anyway, which makes you feel good.
5. If you work in a place that has good food (and almost every restaurant DOES have good food, it just needs to be prepared properly) then your employee benefits are a plus. Most places will give a free meal in between shifts of a double, and on single shifts before or after, 50% discount on whatever you order. It's also common to give employees a 20% discount when they come in to eat not as employees, but as guests with their families or friends. I should point out that most restaurants extend the same advantages to servers. However, the policy depends on the attitude of management. Cooks have pretty high retention in places where the boss lets them take home a free meal every once in a while without ringing it in, and they have pretty low retention if the boss gives them shit for what sort of employee meal they order.

My current job leaves me in a dilemma: the hours are as free-flowing as I could want, but the environment is as crappy as it gets. For the moment, my resolve is to milk it while I can, since this restaurant is basically seasonal and well over half of the staff, probably including me, will not find employment there after the summer months. I work major overtime every week. My boss has never said "Go home, you're on overtime" and they have sometimes actually asked me to stay to do some final chore after my station is broken down.

The restaurant industry is something for which I will always have respect. It is the most unbridled form of capitalism. A person or some people have an idea for a good place to eat, and they can start very small, perhaps operating from their own home. The sky is the limit beyond that. Americans as a whole are always willing to try something new, but they are notoriously finicky for what will get their food dollars reliably, so the fortunes of a restaurant or chain of them sways in the wind. The only fast-food giant that has always remained embedded at the top is McDonald's; at various times all the others (Jack in the Box, Wendy's, Burger King, KFC, Taco Bell, and many others) have struggled to maintain their current position. On the other hand, the tools and equipment of a restaurant or chain are not diverse or expensive compared to almost any other field, so a new startup can take advantage of the churn and get used equipment from any vendor with waning fortunes, and use the tools of the old failures to make a new success. Because the capital cost of a restaurant is so small, and the labor cost can be elastically tailored to suit the level of demand expected, restaurants can break even very quickly after opening, and so even if a chain opens a new location, and starts losing business after the initial fanfare dies down, they might have made a profit even if the doors close in a year.

To give you an example? I remember in Seguin, TX there was a California-based company that opened a restaurant called "Malibu Burger Shack" with expensive, gourmet burgers. I ate there once and was horrified at the price, but I think everyone in Seguin ate there at least once. They did get a bit of hubbub and the place was packed in the opening weeks. Even though they didn't even last 6 months, I'm quite confident that the CEO who came up with the idea wasn't hurting too bad.

As for the employees? Don't weep for them. So what if you worked for a company that closed down your location? If you have experience and a good attitude, you'll get a job in a hundred places within a 10-mile radius. It's impossible in America to remain unemployed if you are willing to work in a restaurant; consequently, when anyone says that they are unable to get any job, I interpret that to mean that they think that my line of work is beneath them, and so I lose sympathy instantly. Granted, my full-time work at a restaurant earns me perhaps under 20k annually, but that's enough for a person to live on while they continue to look for more gainful employment.

I have a sympathy for the managers because I know how much hatred they get for themselves from the employees. Sometimes it's justified, sometimes not. But my dad has been a restaurant GM for over 20 years, and whenever he explains how he does things, the logic of management makes sense to me. Of course good managers aren't universal, and if a corporation or private company is poorly-run at the very top, then bad managers will infest it in no time.

Although I have never technically worked with a pure fast-food company, my former jobs were with two corporations. The first one, I don't mind saying, was at Steak n Shake. The other, which was my longest-held job, was with a small but growing pan-Asian restaurant chain. I became a trainer at one position with this company. They would have given me more expanded employment options had I been able to travel to other stores, but I was a full-time student and this was not possible.

Let me start with Steak n Shake. If this location is not near you (weird, and I pity you) it's a 24-hour restaurant that focuses on "steakburgers" and milkshakes. They also have a breakfast menu, although it seems like few people know this. It's cheaper, albeit more basic, than IHOP. This company was founded in 1934, and its business model of casual dine-in or carry-out (with drive-thru coming later) is older than that of McDonald's or any modern fast food locations. The fact that these locations are often open 24 hours means that if you can stomach it, you can work nightmarishly long hours and the bosses will willingly dole out overtime if you're good and you cover shifts for people who never showed up. My location had an excellent GM, and most of the other managers were also tactful and courteous. My coworkers were mostly good. When I left after eight months to go to Texas (giving ample notice), I was missed, and even showing up 2 years later, there were workers there who remembered me. The thing that inevitably struck me about Steak n Shake is that they had a large component of their workforce composed of "lifers", who had held employment in the same chain or perhaps the same location for 10 or 15 or more years. You have to attribute that to a good company. The more I looked into it, from the top the bottom, Steak n Shake had effective corporate policies, good management and trainers, good advertising presence in the regions in which it operated, and the product was both cheap and pretty satisfying. Both as a customer and an employee, I really think Steak n Shake is a good company.

Then I worked for a place called Mama Fu's. This was also a corporation, albeit much smaller. Perhaps there were 7-10 locations at the time I was hired. I was with the opening crew of the New Braunfels location. I originally trained as a server again, but was moved to expo more often, and then did that full-time, until I decided I would receive more reliable hours if I became a cook instead. This change was heartily welcomed by my managers. I found BOH work to be much harder than FOH work. The pace was tougher and without the incentive of tips, you rarely felt rewarded for doing a better job. However, my perception was wrong on this count. Although there was no monetary incentive for wrecking shop, it gave you the kind of respect from your coworkers that you never got as a server. Cooks who can stay cool under pressure and with all the boards full of tickets get their recognition from those that witness them doing their job well. Management here was mixed. I felt we always had poor GMs, but our KM was always a good guy. However, this particular location had some co-workers whom I found utterly intolerable. At one point I arrived at a chaotic situation at this job, finding myself being ordered around by someone who was junior to me, and I waited one infuriating hour to receive an explanation or for a manager to return. When no one did, I hung up my apron and quit on the spot. I regretted this decision later, but I'm a man of my word.

The current job that I hold is with a family-owned company. It is technically one location, although the location is directly adjacent to several similar restaurants and bars which are owned by the same family. The neighborhood could be said to be owned by them, and they may have achieved an effective level of synchronization between these locations. However, compared to a corporation, the level of organization is incredibly sloppy, the management is simultaneously lax and irritable, there are no full-time trainers, and little or no incentive given to those who choose to teach others to do things the right way. Maybe it's just a madhouse in summer (business on weekend days exceeds $50,000 in sales and sometimes approaches $100,000) and in winter, when sales are significantly smaller, there may exist some kind of rationalization.

Sorry to keep banging on about it, but I really like corporations! They create a very common sense barrier of entry: giving a shit. If you don't give a shit, it doesn't matter if you show up on time, you're an obstacle to success. How can you please all the customers if the cooks haven't been trained or don't care to do it the correct way? Whenever a restaurant rolls out a new recipe, they do testing to see what is the best portion size, flavor modifications, and cost control tweaks. A corporation does these things better, and then they employ a network of trainers to ferry the information both to new hires and existing workers. In a family-owned or independent restaurant, there are often 10,000 ways to do everything, and different people will be dead-set in their ways until the day they get yelled at for doing a sub-par job. And then they'll blame somebody else and keep doing it, or adjust their method so it just barely scrapes by. Corporations hire trainers who do everything by the book. If there's a question, the answer exists in writing within easy reach. At a small business, the answer might not exist except in the mind of somebody who came up with the recipe, who happened to quit 2 years ago. 

This isn't to say that there aren't employees who work long-term in a family restaurant. Of course there are many people like that. But new hires don't receive the same level of training and conditioning as a corporation would give them, and consequently everybody shows up with their own differing opinions of how to do things. A worker must resign himself to simply not knowing the exact right way of doing things. For me, I'll never get used to it, and I look forward to the end of summer so I can move on to something else.

I want to add a list of "cook secrets" and something of a rebuttal to all these "waiter secrets" you keep seeing:

• Just because something is a special, doesn't mean it's virtually expired. Sometimes they have equally fresh proteins in every department and they just want to sell a lot of a particular item because the market price is cheap this week. Furthermore, if you think a special involving fish could involve fish that is past freshness, then smell it. Bad fish always stinks, and you can't sell stinky fish. If they are trying to sell the fish before it goes bad, is that really dishonorable in any way?
• If a server actually does something unsanitary with your food, a million other people will see it. Cooks would love to snitch on a waitress for sneezing in your salad, because while that waitress was gruff with us, we weren't up front to hear the chewing out that you gave her, so our sympathies will be with the customers over the servers.
• Cooks generally don't do unsanitary things either. In the entire time I've worked in restaurants, I've seen cooks get mad, but I have never witnessed anyone spit in the food, or do anything gross with it. The risk is too high that you'd be disciplined. Most restaurants have conscientious people who'd be fine tattling on those who commit willful violations of the health code. Yours truly is one of these folks.
• Unless the restaurant is visibly dead, the chances are high that your server has no chance of coming up with enough time to mess with your credit card.  If you're mean to your server for no reason, they would rather ignore you and focus on the other customers more, to maximize their tips there. It's pretty darn rare to see a server go out of their way to get even.
• We remake things constantly. If there's a finished dish that turns out bad in some small way that we can't put right very quickly while it's still hot, we will redo the whole damn thing, because if it's going to reach your table looking good, it has to come out of our window looking superb.
• Cooks very rarely put out food that they know is inedible. If you say it's cold or it's gotten crusty on the top, the odds are 5:1 that your server simply let it sit and didn't run it to the table promptly after we made it. We want to do it right the first time because we don't want to have to remake it.
• Managers let cooks throw away food that isn't good. If you tell a manager that you simply wouldn't feel conscientious to sell something, because you think it's ugly or nasty, they will back down and eat the loss of product, because it says something to have a cook stand up for the quality of the food.
• If you give your server a complicated order, and it's made wrong, the odds are 3:1 that the server didn't understand. I cannot count the number of times that a server has come back apologizing that they need us to remake that order that just had a bunch of modifications, because he didn't get it right the first time.
• DO tip your server poorly if the food is cold. This will force the server to have some kind of an incentive to get the food to you hot. They are supposed make sure the food is good before it leaves the window. If it wasn't hot when they grabbed it, they shouldn't have grabbed it!
• DO NOT tip your server poorly for saying that we can't make a specific modification. If you want the tortilla soup without onions, I beg your pardon, but it's impossible because there's a million tiny chunks floating around in it, and that is not your server's fault.
• Feel free to ask any and all questions about our recipes. If most of the cooks don't know, then they will ask the most experienced one, and then they'll all have to learn something. It's a win-win.
• Don't assume that it has to be made fresh to be good. Every single dessert we make at my restaurant comes to us frozen, but the German chocolate cake is the best I've ever had. Welcome to the 21st century- we have amazing technology nowadays. If it tastes good, and if your palate isn't put off by any artificial flavor, then it ought to be good enough.
• Know your allergies before you come in. If you have an allergy to nuts, don't order any desserts, since the dust could be in any of the dessert toppings. Don't ask me to ensure that no allergens could possibly contaminate your body, because you take the same risk walking out the front door every morning. I can't sanitize life for you.
• Salads aren't made days earlier! I have never heard such rubbish in my entire life. A 3-day old salad would be disgusting. Iceberg starts to go orange on the corners in maybe 30 hours, romaine will start to get brown spots in 2 days. I have never worked in a restaurant where a single portion of salad wasn't made and then sold in less than 12 hours, even if they were pre-made and then wrapped in a case. At my current restaurant, we sell so many salads that during our dinner rush, they are virtually made at the time of ordering, and the salad mix is made twice a day. And even THEN we sometimes have to throw out product that isn't fresh enough. We want our salads to look as good as you would ever care to make yourself at home using ingredients you just bought from the market.
• Nobody wears gloves unless they like the feel of them. 70% of pantry cooks (who make salads) do not wear gloves ever. Those who do wear glove don't change them often enough. But how often do you get sick from eating a salad? I'm kinda disdainful of the notion of wearing gloves as long as you wash your hands regularly and touch only sanitary things. We're cooks and we only touch food, but you might not even wash your hands before you eat, when your hands could have been anywhere.
• Cooks don't clean the bathrooms in the dining room. If the bathroom isn't clean, that has absolutely nothing to do with the cleanliness of the kitchen. To say that the cleanliness of a bathroom has any bearing on the sanitation of the kitchen is silly.
• I've never even heard of powdered eggs outside of "waiter secrets" lists. At Mama Fu's we used liquid eggs, which tasted fine. At Steak n Shake we used real eggs: there were HUGE cartons of them in the walk-in.
• "9 times out of 10, if your food takes a long time to come out, it's the kitchen's fault and not the server's." By my personal experience, servers make exactly twice as many mistakes as kitchen staff do. And go back and read my comment about how often we remake food. If it took a long time, I'd give 3 most likely reasons: 1) we're just plain busy and couldn't go much faster; 2) the server misunderstood you and we had to remake a mistake; 3) the cook didn't look at the ticket closely enough, and we had to remake a mistake.
• I read once that servers at casual dining restaurants earn a median income of $8.01 after including tips. That's horseshit: they don't have to report their cash tips if they bank personally. They can claim that they made $50 in tips when they made $100. Saves on taxes and makes them look poorer than they really are.
• The original purpose of tipping was to provide feedback and reward really good behavior by servers. If you tip servers at 15% regardless, you might be subsidizing lazy servers at the expense of really excellent ones. I feel free to give mediocre tips if they did a mediocre job that they should have been trained to avoid. I am not a tough or complicated customer, and if a server screws up big time, I am not afraid to stiff. Servers get 80% or more of their income from customers, with little or no management oversight. Managers won't know that there's a problem with a server's performance, or some hidden excellence, unless you show them exactly how you feel by giving a tip that reflects it.

Why the phrase "Google it" should never be uttered

Perhaps the single biggest pet peeve that I have is the phrase "Google it." After attempting to make some kind of qualification of this frustration, I've come to the conclusion that it's simply ignorant or impolite in any setting for any reason whatsoever. I simply cannot imagine a case in which a person could use this two-word phrase in which it would be desirable to do so.

We know the following "Things" about Google. I'm not going to call them rules because they are not codified as such, but we all know them to be true.

1. Almost everyone who conceivably might use a computer, particularly in the English-speaking world, has heard of Google or is familiar with the concept of an internet search in this manner. You'd have to go back a number of years to a time when "Google it" could be an appropriate advertisement for that company, before they were widely known.
2. Googling takes some nonzero amount of overhead time. It is usually greater than 5 seconds even if you have an iPad in your hand.
3. The notion of typing in a short description of what you seek, and then receiving a list of related websites and pages, is so common-sense that it's intuitively understood by young children. It is well within the mental capacity of even mildly retarded adults.
4. What you enter in a Google search matters. If you look for "John Wayne" you're not going to find the same result as "True Grit," even though they are related. If you're looking for a specific Matlab GUI which plots zeros and poles for your signals class, you do need to carefully google "zpgui.m" exactly.
5. The exception to Thing 4 is with extremely popular websites. If you google "Wikipedia" or "wiki" or "wikipedia main page", you will always get the same top result as a consequence of your search.
6. Not everything on the internet is reliable information.

So why does this add up to making the phrase "Google it" egregious? Well, let me describe what the phrase "Google it" feels like to me:

1. Vague: What exactly am I meant to Google? If the search phrase is VERY specific, you can tell someone to "Google [whatever it is]" and you exempt yourself from all of my complaints. See Thing 4.
2. Disconnected: It's like telling someone to "take a hike." It ends conversation because you've been asked to stop talking and listening, and go do something else. See Thing 2.
3. Wishful thinking: The speaker of this phrase may have shown that he has no definite knowledge about a certain topic and invites you to research it yourself. Unfortunately, this means that you will have to decide which is the pertinent information, and which is not pertinent. You may also be led astray by false information. What led the person who said "Google it" to know that it would lead to good results? See Thing 6.
4. Wasteful of time: As a caveat to the above reason, if she knows for sure that there is a reliable resource available from a quick Google search, then she must know something about its content. It is almost always easier to be given an instant verbal primer than to be asked to look it up on Google. This is just a case of "I can't be bothered to say ten more words." See Thing 2 again.
5. Disrespectful of intelligence: See Things 1 and 3. If you insinuate that a person can't use Google and needs to be invited to do so, you accuse them of being stupid. If you insinuate that a person wouldn't know what Google is, you're being either facetious or incredibly impetuous towards him.
6. Rude: It's just a two-word command. It's so short and rough that it could be used as a command for a sled dog or horse. We aren't sending telegrams and paying by the word; economy of letters is not a virtue in this case. You're dealing with a human being here. Isn't she entitled to just a teensy bit more friendliness? Couldn't you even make the subtlest modification and say "If you'll please google it then..."? See Thing 1 and Thing 4.
7. Potentially hiding misinformation: If you are told to "Google it" because you've never heard of and are skeptical of information that someone has provided you, then lack of veracity is all but proven. The tinfoil-hatted people spouting their "knowledge" to you have all the excuses they will ever need. Since you were not told exactly what to google, they can claim that you have googled the wrong thing, or didn't do it fast enough before the G-men took down their website of truth. How convenient!
8. Hiding the fact that you don't know jack shit: If you can throw out a hopelessly BS explanation that leaves an uneducated beginner lost, and then throw in "Google it" and excuse yourself, you've just passed the buck on to the internet. Well done. Now the unlearned person will learn whatever he finds on the internet, which might not be at all related to the topic. And you have deniability because if you're confronted with your lack of knowledge, you can always claim that you found a different item on your never-defined Google search. Congratulations, you're a dick! Look at Thing 4 and Thing 6 yet again.

Some concerns of yours that I have preempted:

1. What if I am talking to a child who is learning how to use Google for the first time? Then the child should still be taught how to google a specific phrase. One shouldn't utter "Google it" when asking a child to research something. Children are the most susceptible to misinformation.
2. What if it is already blatantly clear what "it" is in the context we're using? I don't think this is a good reason. See Thing 4. There's a lot of ways to phrase even a simple search. If the search is trivial, then the website or page must already be famous and easily found without guidance. The search is not trivial whenever this is not the case, and that is most of the time.
3. What if I do know what I'm talking about but I just can't be bothered to help someone out? Then you're being a poopy pants. Come down off your high horse and teach what you know before you let the internet do your job. I get so frustrated that in a modern world where so many of us have such comfort because of all of the technology made by brilliant people, that these same spoiled brats wouldn't dare spend a moment of their time enriching others with knowledge should they possess it.
4. I want someone to find something very specific which I happen to know is the first result of a Google search. That's still dicey because Google is not the same all over the world. What's more, order is based on hit statistics, so in a few months or even days its position may have moved. How about sending a URL?
5. What if a person is old and doesn't know how to use computers, so they've never discovered Google? Then she needs more help than you're providing. She needs to know HOW to "google it." You should tell her to type the address www.google.com into the address bar, click into the search bar once it loads, and then type in the desired search. All of that is implied by "Google it" but it's never explained, making this phrase outstandingly useless for teaching.
6. What if I'm dealing with a genuine idiot savant who is smart enough to know how to use Google but really truly forgot about the option of using it for an internet search?  This is an impossible situation. And if it isn't, send me the name of the person who forgot about Google. I bet he wakes up with a different family every day.
7. What if I am not being rude or mischievous, and just trying to get someone to do the exact same internet search on Google instead of a crappy search like Yahoo or Bing? This is the strongest point you can make to me. I feel the Bing hate pulsating through me as well. But it's still not good enough, because "google" as a verb has sometimes been interpreted to mean performing any internet search. Some people might interpret it to mean keep trying with their current search tool. So be more specific. Say something like "Use Google instead of Bing" which specifically addresses the problem.

In summation, the phrase "Google it" is worse than useless and should never be uttered again. If you disagree, and have any suggestions on how to use "Google it" in a positive way, you are welcome to state your opinion in the comments.

The best car in the world

Earlier this year, the internet was abuzz with postings about the new flagship model from Shelby Supercars (no relation to Carroll Shelby of Mustang fame). After some guessing about the name (Ultimate Aero II?), the company settled on a ridiculous name: Tuatara. It sounds better after you hear it spoken correctly (Twah-tah-rah, or Too-ah-tar-ah), and at least it's not as stupid as the Pagani Huayra or McLaren MP4-12C. I tried to dig up as much dirt as I could on the Tuatara, but there was nothing but renderings and a few company-sponsored videos with very little actual airtime of the completed vehicle.

Please, for God's sake, avoid the videos. Or mute them. You'll just hear Mr. Shelby, the company president, who looks like an ex-wrestler with a shiny bald head, tell you about how they chose the name Tuatara because it's a lizard that has the "fastest evolving DNA of any creature." It didn't make sense to me when I first heard it, and in retrospect, talking for 5 minutes about a name decision is kind of embarrassing when it's the weakest point on the whole car.

SSC Tuatara, the most beautiful car made today.

The last I heard, SSC visited the Dubai motor show with the Tuatara, and they so wowed the oil sheiks that Shelby came home with orders for 10 cars. Given that America's rich are selling off their private jets and anxious to deny their placement in the 1%, I can almost guarantee that we haven't sold 10 of these domestically. Rich people fear the wrath of jealous, envious neighbors. Our grandfathers may have approvingly ogled Duesenbergs from the windows of their Fords, but today, the average Joe would rather legislate away the right to buy supercars. A pity.



Perhaps this sheer rareness explains why we have yet to see anyone climb into it, and we don't even know what the interior looks like, apart from the CG rendering. They claim the top speed is 275 mph, which makes it the fastest car in the world, beating out the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport. It also does 0-60 mph in 2.5 seconds with a 7-speed gearbox, which in both cases matches the Veyron. Except that the Bugatti Veyron looks like a chubby hairless rat (it's so ugly I will spare your eyes and not post a picture), and the SSC looks like a fighter jet. It's even more over-the-top than the Zonda (which I do love), with nearly twice the power, and with a completely round, glass canopy.

Ferrari P4/5 Competizione; front end terrible, rest good.

Pagani Zonda F, sex on wheels.

The SSC reminds me of the Ferrari P4/5, which I didn't really like because I thought the front end had an ugly, straight-edged gaping mouth. Ferrari has also not really captured my respect for some time now. The last time I really looked up to them, it was when I was 8 because of a Hot Wheels Ferrari F40. Then I got a Hot Wheels Lamborghini Diablo and never looked back.


My family has never been big on American cars. I think the only reason that they bought Ford products in the old days, is that Honda didn't exist yet. When the 1980s rolled around, we moved into Accords and Civics, and never looked back. Still, at least my dad had a soft spot for cheap Fords, and he owned both a Festiva and an Escort wagon. I think this tainted my view of American cars as poorly-made, cheap boxes on wheels. I grew up never conditioned to the idea of American companies producing a world-beating car.  It wasn't until later that I acquired a taste for classic American cars. Perhaps in light of my family convictions, my prejudice is understandable.We just made ordinary, cheap cars for ordinary people, and imports dominated the market for the wealthy and tasteful.

Saleen S7: somehow it's just too ugly.

I am ashamed that I ever felt this way. How can any country remain great if it simply gives up in a field in which it was once dominant? Didn't we once make the most beautiful machines in the world? Didn't a 1965 Chevy Caprice once carry as much prestige and style as a person needed? How did we fall from the Cadillac Eldorado Brougham and Corvette Sting Ray, to the point where the most expensive American cars are flaccid Town Cars and souped-up Mustangs? Yes we still have the Corvette, and it has almost always been good, but it's not a supercar. It's at a very competitive price point, and it's a blast to look at and to drive (I actually have driven a C6 Vette! Had to keep it slow, but nevermind that). But it's common enough that it won't be seriously considered by the fat cats of the world. There's the Saleen S7, which is in supercar performance territory, but it's just dull to look at. I tried making it a wallpaper and I felt like a brainless jingoist for doing it, because clearly an Italian supercar was prettier and I was just deluding myself otherwise.

SSC Ultimate Aero TT: The original record breaker. Way too ugly.

And when SSC first made cars, the Ultimate Aero definitely had a cool name, but to look at it, it was even worse than the S7. It looked like a Chinese knock-off of the Lamborghini Diablo with a fussy rear-end and no unique touches whatsoever. It was so bland among supercars that I wasn't even thumping my chest when America recaptured the top speed record. The SSC Ultimate Aero TT in 2007 went up to 257 mph, beating the original Bugatti Veyron's 253 mph. If my memory serves me correctly, the Duesenberg SJ was capable of more than 130 mph, which was faster than any car produced until the Mercedes-Benz 300SL in 1954. That's a gap of 53 years. It should have made front-page news: AMERICA BUILDS FASTEST CAR. But that said, I didn't want to own one. I will never have a poster of this car on my wall, because it just isn't sexy at all.

If the Tuatara doesn't make American cars sexy again to the world, nothing will. I see it and I'm dumbfounded by its beauty. The first moment I laid eyes on a digital picture of its gleaming, pristine white bodywork, I knew that I was hooked. I'm still hooked. I don't care if it breaks down every week, if it has squeaks and rattles that can cause deafness, and if the clutch is so heavy that you need a bionic leg to use it. This car makes an Aston Martin look trite and a Zonda look unimpressive; it's the first mechanical thing I've ever seen which is more beautiful than Audrey Hepburn. And it has rear-wheel drive with a V8. And it's American-made by a team of just 16 engineers. I haven't yet seen proof that this car is capable of 275 mph, but I'm betting that under the right conditions it can. Remember that SSC was the same size back in 2007 and they gave a bloody nose to VW, one of the world's largest car manufacturers, when they overtook the Veyron in top speed. If they could take a giant leap forward in exterior design, why couldn't they do the same for top speed?

If you buy a Tuatara you'll be coughing up $1.3 million, which sounds like a lot, but the Veyron SS is about $2 million. So it's still a David-and-Goliath story. I'm not saying it's better because it's cheaper, because talking value comparisons is ridiculous at this price range. But the Bugatti Veyron SS is a masterpiece and it's still a bargain at $2 million. Now, if that's what a masterpiece is, then I don't have an English word to describe the brilliance of a tiny company in Washington state making a Veyron-beater for 60% of the price. Making Volkswagen look stupid is worth the price of admission alone.

SSC will never feature their car on Top Gear, Europeans will never give this car a fair shake, and millions of frustrated online pundits will call the car "vaporware" because of the lack of videos of the real deal. I'm sure despite the totally glass canopy, that visibility isn't great. I'm sure that the 7-speed manual with 1350 hp is a bit of a handful, especially with no ABS and no four-wheel drive. But if you bought one of these, you'd be buying a piece of priceless art, as well as investing in America's future. We need to be able to build things like these, even if it's a totally impractical concept. To see a design this beautiful and a car so well-engineered is just inspiring to everyone who has ever had an interest in machines. I pray that someday I can just catch a glimpse of one of these beautiful cars. Just looking at the pictures makes me feel like we still are as great as we were in 1969, when we landed on the Moon, the dollar was invincible, Hollywood still made good mvoies, and Corvettes looked like sharks.

Multi-millionaires of the United States (or abroad), if you want to be perceived as an incredibly tasteful, interesting, forward-thinking, and exciting person, please buy American.