Discovery Notes

I was thinking last night about Star Trek: Discovery. Some fans have said it's not real Star Trek because although it's set 10 years prior to TOS, the look and feel of the show are significantly different from that 1960s edition. As we have seen over the past few years, amateur productions of Star Trek, such as Star Trek Continues can capture the look and feel of the original show on a small budget. If you watch an episode you will think you're right back in the 1960s in terms of the production design, camera angles, and effects. According to Variety magazine, CBS gave Star Trek: Discovery a budget of $8.5 million per episode, making it one of their most expensive shows.  For those who say the show should have captured the visual look and feel of the original series, where should they have spent $8.5 million per episode? If you can't update the sets, the uniforms, or the props, where should the money have gone? What would you have spent the money on?

Lack of Content

One of the main complaints I've seen from multiple people in regards to the various platforms we've been migrating to as Google+ winds down is lack of content. Indeed, it's one of my own complaints. There isn't much content, and what is there is oft-repeated. We're stuck in a bubble universe. On MeWe, for example, I have about 80 contacts. I see a lot of posts from a handful of people and nothing from most people. On Pluspora I have about 200 contacts, and I see a lot of posts from a handful of people and absolutely nothing from most people. All in all, this does not surprise me. Less than 5% of people generate content on any given day. That means if you come to social media to see new material to interact with, you're just not going to get that with a few hundred people. You need to follow thousands of people in order to have volume and variety. Of course, not everyone wants volume and variety. Some people just want to see a dozen or so posts from close friends and that's it. For those who don't want that, we need to step it up and generate more content.

Tales of the Uber/Lyft Driver: How to Be the Perfect Passenger

It's not that hard to be a good rideshare passenger. I'll give you the basics.

Whether you're using Uber, Lyft, or some other rideshare app, before hailing your first driver, take some time to get familiar with the app. Complete your rider profile. Be sure to include your preferred name and add a recent photo of yourself. A lot of riders don't add a photo but trust me, it helps. As drivers, we want to make sure we're picking up the correct person.

Now you're ready to summon a car. Don't do it. Are you truly ready? Are you fully dressed? Do you have everything you need to bring with you on the ride? Have you paid your bill at the restaurant? Do not hail a ride until you are completely ready. While everyone thinks it might be 20-30 minutes (or more) before a car can get to you, the nearest driver might only be 5 minutes away. You want to be ready to go when the driver arrives. Don't be that passenger who tells the driver you need a few minutes to get yourself together before you can leave.

Let's pause for a moment and get personal. Your driver is operating a car as a business. You will be one of many passengers for the day. If you're a smoker, please put out your cigarette before the driver arrives. Do not wear clothes that reek of smoke (or anything else). Do not wear a lot of perfume or cologne. Do not do any personal grooming while in the car. Don't bring mud or dirt into the driver's car. Don't be an asshole.

The car is on the way. If the weather is decent and your surroundings are safe, you should be standing outside and you should be clearly visible when the driver arrives. If you're standing outside, the driver knows they're in the right spot. If you can't stand outside, be ready to go outside the moment the driver arrives. If you're not outside within a few minutes, the driver can cancel the ride and collect a cancellation fee. In addition, if you're not outside when the driver arrives, be prepared to receive a call or text from the driver. The call or text will come from a number you don't recognize. If you don't respond, the driver will cancel the ride and drive away.

Most drivers will want to confirm your identity and destination before unlocking the doors to let you in. Just introduce yourself and say where you're going. The driver wants to know if they're picking up the right person and heading to the right destination.

Now you face a choice, will you sit in the front or the back? I'll be perfectly honest with you. Most drivers would prefer you to sit in the back. They won't tell you to sit in the back, but you'll make them much happier if you sit in the back. Sitting in the front puts you in the driver's space. It also impairs the driver's view when looking to the right. The driver won't look to the right as often as they normally would because they don't want to appear to be getting all up in your business.

Should you talk or remain quiet? That's entirely up to you. Some drivers would prefer to have a conversation, others would prefer to drive in silence. If you would rather ride in silence, just let the driver know or put some earbuds in.

If your ride has a stop along the way, remember that you only have 5 minutes per stop according to company policy. After 5 minutes your driver can end the ride and drive away, leaving you to summon another car to take you to your destination. Uber and Lyft do not pay well enough for drivers to wait for you. If you're going to ask a driver to wait more than 5 minutes, a generous tip is highly advised. I'm not talking a couple of dollars if you catch my drift.

Stops should be set up within the app. It's considered bad form to ask the driver to make a stop that isn't set up in the app. If it's set up in the app, we're getting paid properly for it and the company knows why we stopped there. If it's not set up in the app, we're getting screwed when it comes to our pay and the company doesn't know why we made the stop. "Do you mind if we stop at the gas station up there?" Yes, we mind if you don't add it in the app. Take a few seconds and add the stop in the app, please.

Speaking of rides with stops along the way, when you leave the vehicle, take everything with you. Drivers frown upon items being left in the car intentionally. We refer to those as "anchors" because you're trying to keep us from ending the ride and leaving by weighing us down with your personal items. Most drivers are savvy to "anchors" and will end the ride and drive off with your stuff. Good luck tracking them down to get it back.

If you genuinely forget and leave an item in the car after the trip your driver can report it as a found item. You will be charged at least $15 and will be contacted by the company to make arrangements for the return of your item. Low-value items such as phone charging cables will probably not be reported as found items. High-value items such as phones and wallets will generally be reported as found items.

Once you get back to the car from your stop, if you have lots of items with you, ask if you can put them in the backseat or whether you should put them in the trunk.

Don't eat or drink in the vehicle. We're talking mess and odor, folks. The driver's car is not your personal car and it's not your living room. Do not make a mess.

If you are intoxicated and feel like you might barf, let the driver know. Most of us carry barf bags. Do not try to open the door or lower the window without warning the driver. If you barf and make a mess, you will be charged for the cleanup fee (up to $250) and could be banned from using the rideshare service in the future. 

As you approach your final destination, let the driver know if you'd like to be dropped off in a specific spot. It might not be possible for the driver to park the car, especially at concert venues and such. In such instances, the driver will get you as close as practical and let you out so they can turn the car around and leave. If you're going to give the driver a cash tip, please have the money ready before the vehicle stops. If you're going to leave a tip in the app, just do it. Never tell the driver you'll tip in the app. We know that when most passengers say they'll tip in the app, they usually don't tip at all.

When the ride ends, get out. Quickly. The end of the ride is not the time to become chatty. Unless it's your driver's final ride of the day, they want to get out of there and pick up another passenger as soon as possible. Thank the driver, grab all of your stuff (including any trash), and get out. It's been real, but your driver is ready to go.

Tales of the Uber/Lyft Driver: 3 Stars & You're Out

It's a little-known secret of the major US rideshare companies, Uber and Lyft, but it's super-easy to make sure you're not paired with a particular driver (or passenger) again. All it takes is to rate them 3 stars or fewer. That's right, what most of us would consider "average" they consider as "I never want to be paired with this person again." As a driver, I can rate a passenger as 3 stars and I never have to worry about being paired with that passenger again. (I've only done this once.) Even if I'm the closest driver to them and I'm headed in the direction they want to go, I won't be paired with them again. I've only had one passenger give me a 3-star rating and I have no idea what I did wrong during their ride. Unfortunately, comments are not required with ratings from passengers, so if no comments are left, drivers have no way of knowing what happened. As a driver, if I rate anyone as 4 stars or fewer, I have to indicate why the ride was less than perfect.

In the case of the 3-star rating that I gave, the low rating had nothing to do with the passenger but had everything to do with her husband. I had picked up the passenger twice before and never had any issue with her. She was polite and friendly. On the third ride, however, her husband came with her and he was quite drunk and belligerent. Most couples will sit in the back together, or the man will sit in the front by me while the woman sits in the back. On this ride, the wife sat in the front and the husband sat in the back. He went on the attack the moment he got in the car, belittling her and mumbling about my driving. When we reached the first stop on their trip, I canceled the rest of the ride, gave the 3-star rating, and drove off. I explained to the wife that I was canceling the trip and they would need to hail another driver to take them the rest of the way. The wife apologized for her husband's behavior, but I never wanted to be paired with her again at the risk of being paired with him again.

Many drivers will not pick up passengers rated below 4.8, figuring passengers with low ratings have done something to deserve it. Since ratings are averages, it doesn't take much to drop from a perfect 5.0 and it can be difficult to rebuild a good rating after receiving a few low ratings. I think one of my future posts will be tips on how to be the perfect passenger. Until then, happy journeys to you.

1-Star Reviews

What's up with 1-star reviews over minor issues? As a society, we seem to have lost our sense of nuance. Things are either absolutely great (5-star review) or absolutely horrible (1-star review) with nothing in between. Let's say you go to a restaurant for breakfast and order an omelet. You order a triple-cheese omelet but they bring you a single-cheese omelet. It's still tasty, but it's not what you ordered. They offer to make it right for you but you just ask for the ticket to be adjusted for the price difference and go ahead and eat the whole thing. Later, you give them a 1-star review over the fact that they got your order wrong. Seriously? Why would you give them a 1-star review for an order they offered to correct and you ate the whole thing? To my way of thinking such a situation might garner a 4-star review. There was nothing else objectionable about the restaurant, they promptly offered to correct their mistake, they did correct the pricing, and the omelet was tasty enough to finish. I would only give a 1-star review if they didn't acknowledge their mistake, didn't offer to make it right, overcharged me, gave me dirty silverware, and the omelet was inedible. My 1-star review would be a warning to other customers that this restaurant isn't worth your time and will likely make you sick.

We now have companies that tell their employees that anything less than a 5-star review is a problem. This was the case for my last job. If I received 4 stars or fewer on any customer review I had to have a talk with my manager about what went wrong. Often, nothing went wrong. I gave great service, but the customer was upset over having to take off the entire day for the service call, or upset because the part to fix their appliance wasn't available locally and would need to be ordered. I would get a low review although I had done my job fully. If the average of my reviews for the week dropped below a 3.5 I'd be written up. If the average was below a 3.5 for the month, I'd be fired. A single 1-star review could sink the weekly average. A handful of 1-star reviews in the month would easily get someone fired.

There are some 1-star situations but they should be exceptionally rare, reserved for those times when something has gone horribly, unforgivably wrong. Likewise, there should be few 5-star situations. Most honest reviews should be 2-4 stars because most experiences are either slightly below average, average, or slightly above average. A 1-star review over a minor problem doesn't help anyone and just makes you look like an asshole. Your 1-star review might even cost someone a job over something that wasn't their fault.

Tales of the Uber/Lyft Driver: Your Tardiness Is Not My Fault

I recently had a passenger get upset with me because she was 10 minutes late getting to her destination. It wasn't my fault, however. When she requested a ride I was 5 minutes from her location. She had 2 stops programmed for the trip because she wanted to pick up some food along the way to her final destination. We reached the restaurant she had chosen and they took a really long time getting her order prepared. I didn't time the wait for her food, but it was at least 10-15 minutes before the order was ready. We left from there and drove straight to her final stop in the middle of rush hour traffic. When we reached the street her final stop was on, I asked which house we were going to because house numbers weren't clearly visible. She pointed to a house, and following the line of her finger, I stopped at the house I thought she had indicated. She finally looked up from her phone and said we weren't at the right house and we should have been at the house next door. She opened the door and began getting out. I told her I could drive her to the house next door and she said she was already late anyway and walked off in a huff with her food. The fact that we were 10 minutes late wasn't my fault. She should have requested a ride earlier to build in more time to get her food and for traffic. It's not fair to smart off to the driver when the tardiness is your own fault. Plan better.

As a rule of thumb, for trips of under an hour, double the time estimate when using a ridesharing service. So if it would normally take you 15 minutes to drive there in your own car, you should hail your Uber/Lyft at least 30 minutes before you need to be there. If you're requesting additional stops along the way it's safe to add at least 10 minutes per stop. Add a few more minutes if rush hour traffic is expected. In essence, allow enough time for things to go wrong. Don't blame the driver when you didn't plan appropriately.

Tales of the Uber/Lyft Driver: Don't Judge the Tip by the Rider

In the service industry we often try to judge what kind of customer we're dealing with. When tipping is involved, it's tempting to size up the customer in regards to the amount of the tip you might reasonably expect to receive. Assumptions are often invalid. As an Uber/Lyft driver, I have received large tips from passengers I didn't expect to tip at all and I've received no tip at all from passengers who could have easily afforded a large tip. I recently gave a long ride to a passenger who is easily one of the wealthiest men in the entire state. He gave less than a 10% tip. I recently gave a short ride to a woman who needed a lift to work because her car wouldn't start. She gave a 50% tip on the ride. They say black people don't tip. Not true. They say young women don't tip. Not true. There are patterns but there aren't absolutes. Some drivers ask for tips or have signs posted in their cars requesting tips. Some drivers have tip jars. I don't use any of those. If you tip, you tip. If you don't, you don't. I'm not going to mention tipping during the ride. If you ask about tipping, however, I will explain how to do it through the app or let you know you can tip in cash. I try to not size up passengers by the tip they might give, and I don't give better or worse service to passengers based on their perceived ability to tip. You get the same ride, regardless.

Why am I on MeWe?

Yes, I have an account on MeWe. Yes, I know about the white nationalists, libertarians, and racists who call it home. I also know of a great many people I've come to know on G+ over the last 8 years who have migrated their as their new home. My presence there is so I can remain in contact with these people. Unfortunately, there isn't a single place G+ refugees have moved to. We're scattering all over for various reasons. My own new home will be my blog, but I will be crossposting to other platforms such as MeWe, Pluspora, Twitter, and to a lesser extent, Facebook. I can't force people to follow my blog, but I can make it easier for them to find my content by crossposting to platforms they might also use. As such, I'm on MeWe. If you're there, you'll see links to my content from time to time. I might also comment on your posts. You can also find me on Pluspora, Twitter, and Facebook and I will be more than happy to engage with you on those platforms as well.

Tales of the Uber/Lyft Driver: We Reserve the Right

While I'm glad more people are using rideshare services such as Lyft and Uber, especially in place of driving while intoxicated, I do have to point out that your Uber/Lyft driver reserves the right to kick you out of the vehicle at his or her discretion. If the driver believes you are behaving or speaking inappropriately, your ride may end rather abruptly. If necessary, the driver will summon the police to assist with getting you out of the vehicle. Paying for your ride doesn't give you a license to make a mess, behave inappropriately, or insult the driver. Your ride may also end abruptly if you take too long at any stop along the way. A quick stop is fine, but a stop to buy groceries for the week is asking too much. If you do need to buy groceries for the week, plan on hailing another driver when you're done. We reserve the right to end the ride at your stop and leaving personal items in the car to "anchor" the driver is uncool.

Easy Credit

My father has often told me he remembers the days when standard auto loans were for 24 months. He remembers when loan terms were stretched to 36 months. These days, standard auto loans are for 60, 72, and even 84 months. In the housing market, prior to the economic collapse of 2008, it became easier and easier to get a mortgage loan. Credit standards were greatly lowered. It was possible to get loans for 150% of your income. Why did we all get easy credit? Some would say the banks got greedy, and that may be part of it, but the major reason credit got easier is because worker pay has not increased markedly over the last 45 years or so. When factored for inflation, worker pay stagnated in the early 1970s. At the same time, we switched over from an economy driven by our manufacturing exports to one driven by consumer spending. Consumers can't spend if they don't have money. Employers weren't raising pay so banks had to extend easier credit terms. By not addressing employer pay, we're not addressing the real problems with the US economy. Concentrating the wealth at the top is screwing us all over in more ways than one.

Tales of the Uber/Lyft Driver: Front or Back Seat?

When you hop into a rideshare vehicle, should you sit in the front or back seat? Opinions vary, but if it's one person or a couple, I greatly prefer the passenger(s) to sit in the back seat. I prefer to reserve the front seat for third/fourth or tall passengers. Having a total stranger sitting directly beside me limits my visibility. I find myself less likely to look to my right, either to look out of the window or to look at the passenger-side mirror when a passenger is sitting beside me, especially a female passenger. I don't want to see what the passenger is looking at on their phone. I don't want to see how they're dressed. I don't want to look them straight in the face if they're talking to me. For me, when the passenger sits in the back it makes our relationship transactional, as it should be.

Tales of the Uber/Lyft Driver: To Perch Or Drive?

There are essentially two strategies rideshare drivers use to maximize their time. Some drivers will perch, while other drivers will hunt. Each strategy has advantages and disadvantages. Perching is the practice of finding a good spot to park and wait for ride requests (pings) to come in. A good spot might be a parking lot in the central business district, or near a busy shopping center, or near a large movie theater. The chances that someone might need a ride from such spots are fairly good. A perching driver isn't wasting fuel by driving around without a passenger. A hunting driver stays in motion, driving through the central business district, driving past busy shopping centers, and driving past apartment complexes and condos. The hunting driver is trying to catch passengers who would likely be missed by perching drivers by being in the right place at the right time.

Which strategy works best? It's hotly debated among drivers. Some drivers hate wasting fuel by going on the hunt. They would rather find a good location, park, and wait however long it takes for a ride request to come through. Other drivers would rather take their chances with being in the right place at the right time to pounce on ride requests. Perching drivers will have different places to perch depending on the time of day or local events. Hunting drivers will drive through areas during times when ride requests are likely.

One driver gets up every morning at 4:30, gets dressed, and goes out to sit in his car at 5AM. He sits there for 15 minutes waiting on a ping. If he doesn't get a ping within 15 minutes he goes back in his house and works on household chores until he gets a ping. Once he gets a ping, he stays out for the rest of the day driving from perch to perch to handle ride requests as they come in. He ends his day around 5PM and goes home. Another driver starts his day at 5AM by driving through the suburbs hoping to catch riders who need a ride into the city. Once he gets a ride he takes them into the city and then drives back out into the suburbs to catch the next fare. He's constantly on the move as long as he's meeting his goal of making $25 per hour. When he's no longer meeting his goal, he goes home. In the afternoon he drives into the city and begins to ferry riders out into the suburbs, continuing to go back and forth until he's no longer making $25 per hour.

Some drivers combine perching and hunting. That's generally how I work. Once I'm dressed for the day, I log into the rideshare apps. I stay home, however, until I get my first ping. That first ping is usually someone who lives within 5 minutes of home. After I drop them off at their destination, I will go on the hunt for a few minutes, driving through areas where I know people might need a ride. If I don't get anything quickly, I find a place to perch. I like to perch in places where I'm close to areas that might need service but I'm also in a place where a parked car with someone sitting inside it isn't going to draw unwanted attention. My perches are often shopping centers, large gas stations, and movie theater parking lots. Once I get settled into my perch, I start a timer and I will remain parked there until I get a ride request or my timer expires. When the timer expires, I go on the hunt again until I reach my next perch. It seems to be a strategy that generally works. My area doesn't have a dense enough population to make full-time hunting worthwhile yet it is spread out too much to warrant full-time perching either.

Netflix Recommendation: Pine Gap

If you're looking for a well-written whodunit, Pine Gap on Netflix is a winner. Pine Gap tells the story of a joint US/Australian electronic intelligence monitoring facility located near Alice Springs, Australia. The facility monitors electronic communications for both governments so half the staff works for the US and the other half for Australia. In addition to world events, they are also dealing with internal conflicts and mysteries. Someone has been leaking intelligence from the facility to the media and it's a race to find out who has been doing it at the risk of starting a nuclear war with China.

Farewell Google+

My Google+ journey began on 9 July 2011 with my first post. I had received my invitation to join a few days earlier but had been busy with my sister's funeral and other necessities of offline life. I recognized the potential of G+ for being a home of long-form posts. I have always been a creator of content. I began in 2006 on a site called Newsvine writing mostly opinion pieces about the news of the day. As Newsvine declined (long story), I moved to Twitter, which was not the place for me to be. I don't express my thoughts in fewer than 140 characters, such as the limit was at the time. I don't think in tidy little snippets. I write long pieces.

Although I had a Facebook account, I hardly used it. I quickly determined Facebook was not the place for me to spend much time. Most of the people I followed there were high school classmates and family members and I just couldn't be myself with them. Well, I could be a version of myself, but I couldn't be my true self. I was content to check in with Facebook every month or two to see what was going on, but I could not and would not contribute original content to the site.

In Google+ I found a site based on following people for the ideas they expressed, not for how you knew them in the real world. It wasn't necessary to know someone in the real world in order to follow them based on the fact that they presented ideas I liked. It was possible to follow each other based on shared interests, not real world affiliations. It was possible to put people in circles and post content directly to them based on those circles. Google+ was never the Facebook-killer. It was the best Facebook alternative.

The writing was on the wall quite some time ago that Google no longer cared about Google+. Development had ground to a halt. Marketing had ground to a halt. Participation by brands slowed down. Google+ could have been a contender, but for various reasons, it checked out of the fight after the second round.

I will miss the community of G+ more than anything. I'm one of the few people who routinely hit the limit of following 5,000 people. On any given day I could see posts from people on a wide range of topics. In the course of my time on G+ I had amassed over 10,000 followers. On any given day I would have direct interaction with 50-100 people through comments on my posts. Over the years I've met several G+ users in the real world and had a great time with them. As G+ winds down over the next couple of months, we'll all scatter to the winds. There is no single platform everyone will be moving to and connections will certainly be lost. Many of us have dropped breadcrumbs so others can find us, but this isn't my first rodeo. I know I will lose contact with 90% of the people I follow and who follow me.

Google+ was a fun ride. It has lasted 8 years and about 43,000 posts for me. My new home will be here, on my blog. I can't promise daily posts, but I will post as often as possible on whatever seems worthy. If you see me around elsewhere (Facebook, Pluspora, MeWe, YouMe, and Twitter) say hi, but stop by the blog for original content.

It's been real.

8 Times Doctor Who Violated Its Own Canon

8 times Doctor Who violated its own canon

Making the Move

I have removed Google+ commenting from my blog and will be making additional changes to get away from the G+ integration. Instead of a mixed bag of G+ comments and native comments, all comments will be native to the blog.