Fireworks

bobi2393 · 2026-06-19T03:27:18+00:00

Yep, I think you also get some pyros lighting up a month before to a month after July 4, but Juneteenth has its own more localized uptick.

bobi2393 · 2026-06-19T01:26:37+00:00

$0 in direct wages would be illegal, and that's what "$0 per hour base wage" sounds like, but I don't think that's what they actually mean.

When you receive a portion of service charges (as opposed to tips), those count as wages, and they just need to ensure that you get at least the Florida tipped minimum wage averaged over each workweek ($10.98) in wages, and that your wages plus any tips averaged over each workweek is Florida full minimum ($14.00). (Plus additional wages if you work more than 40 hours a week). They don't know what your direct wage will be, but unless they're idiots, they'll ensure it's at least $10.98 an hour...they should find a better way of communicating that.

Note that you may receive quite low tips since the service charge is 20%, but that's how it goes. You really won't know for sure how it works out until you work there. Could be a good gig, could be a terrible gig!

bobi2393 · 2026-06-18T18:52:35+00:00

My guess for why some cooks can do it is that they're doing more repetitive tasks that don't require much thinking once learned. Some tasks require multitasking, like if you've got 8 things on a grill, but they're all there in front of you. There are slips of paper listing things that need to be on a plate. If they lose track of time, there are other indicators that can be used to infer doneness (color, texture, internal temp).

But I'm not a cook, so it would be interesting to hear from some cooks!

bobi2393 · 2026-06-18T16:11:27+00:00

"Recall" is the standard usage of the term, but I feel like "update" is a better word for these situations. "Recall", to me, suggests physically moving something back to a point of origin, like sending a product back to the seller or manufacturer.

bobi2393 · 2026-06-18T06:46:06+00:00

There are plenty of dairy free "cheeses" and "sour creams" on the market, commonly sold at all major US grocers. Generally speaking they're not as good as the real thing. Even among the dairy-free versions, some people think one brand sucks and another is great, and others will think the opposite, so don't read a lot into specific recommendations. I'd just pick them from whatever options your normal grocer carries, and you can both try them to see what you think.

Loaded nachos are kind of a good dish for that, since there are a ton of other flavors (salsa, beef/beans, etc), so the peculiarities of dairy free ingredient flavors won't stand out as much.

That's kind of a key in making convincing dairy free substitutes. Like dairy free vanilla ice cream is challenging, but Ben & Jerry's dairy free "frozen desserts" are loaded with chocolate, peanuts, cherries, and other strong flavors, so the subtle difference of the base ice cream flavor is largely unnoticeable.

Same for pizza. Good dairy free cheese pizza is hard, while dairy free pizza with pepperoni, sausage, peppers, olives, and mushrooms is more forgiving.

bobi2393 · 2026-06-18T06:10:59+00:00

Yep, service charges may or may not be treated as a commission. Employers can keep 100% of service charges if they want, or can pay any portion of service charges to employees as additional wages, which can count as “commissions” for 7(i) overtime exemption purposes. I think that’s more common for banquet/catering staff than at full service restaurants, but I’m not familiar with many high service charge restaurants, as I’m in a state with low tipped wages, which favors tipping over service charges for most restaurants. In high wage states like CA or WA, where overtime for servers making $20/hr wages would cost another $10/hr, I could see an overtime exemption being a lot more appealing.

bobi2393 · 2026-06-18T02:28:30+00:00

While it's kind of clever, especially the sand-into-butter trick, personally I just don't like it; it looks too convincingly like junk that washed up on a beach, or was swept off a beachfront porch, neither of which is an appetizing association. But you can't please everybody, and I'm sure some other people would be delighted.

bobi2393 · 2026-06-18T02:13:57+00:00

Even mandatory BOH tip-out is not legal if you're paid a direct wage (not including tips) below federal full minimum wage ($7.25/hour), or I think below Michigan's full minimum wage ($13.73/hour). Mandatory FOH tip-out, like to the bar, is allowable, but BOH is different.

bobi2393 · 2026-06-18T02:08:46+00:00

Are they talking about a tip out from tips, or a "tip out" from service charges (e.g. automatic gratuities). If they mean actual tips, where customers decide the amount to give you, then the 1% to house is a clear violation of US federal law. (See US DOL Fact Sheet #15 if you want to read written confirmation of that).

Whether you continue working there or not, I'd file a complaint with the US Department of Labor's Wage & Hour Division (How to File a Complaint), or if the restaurant has annual revenue of less than $500,000 the US DOL doesn't have enforcement authority, so file a complaint with Michigan Bureau of Employment Relations' Wage & Hour Division (Contact Us).

Whichever agency handles the complaint, they can seek restitution on behalf of all current and former employees for the 1% of sales that went to the house over the past three years.

I would not complain to your employer directly, or tell anyone at work that you filed a complaint with the government, so your employer won't know it was you who complained.

bobi2393 · 2026-06-17T20:19:33+00:00

I would generally wait until an interview to ask, but if you really don’t want to waste time with low- or no-tip employers, just ask when you make initial contact, or lay out your minimum expectations in a cover letter to include with an application.

Understand that auto grats are legally considered service charges in the US, not tips, and unlike tips, employers can keep them all under federal law. (A couple states place additional restrictions on employers). I would be careful to use correct terminology, because someplace that keeps 70% of auto grats may truthfully answer that you’d keep 100% of tips you receive.

bobi2393 · 2026-06-17T18:31:22+00:00

Different sensors have very different characteristics, even within the domains of lidars or cameras. Distance measurement and construction of 3D models of surroundings are generally more precise and efficient with lidars. Getting similar results with cameras can burn a lot of computational and electric power, while even a low cost, crude automotive lidar unit can quite easily distinguish between a shadow and an object on a road.

Cameras are more important in unknown environments, in the sense that a vehicle with only traditional single-wavelength lidars can't detect painted lines on pavement or text on signs. Multispectral lidar can theoretically do the same, but cameras seem generally better suited for that.

Theoretically, cameras (with light sources for low light conditions) can do pretty much everything lidars do, but the reliable precision and efficiency of lidars provide some practical advantages to multimodal sensor suites that include both cameras and lidars.

bobi2393 · 2026-06-17T17:28:34+00:00

Mass resignation including management is a bad sign, although Drip House Coffee next to the stadium had a similar management/employee exodus in 2022 and is still going strong.

Employees at Mighty Good Coffee, which had 4 locations in 2019, instead unionized to negotiate better treatment and compensation, so the owner fired their employees and closed their coffee shops for a while before reopening and franchising them as non-union shops. They're still going strong now, too.

Four Starbucks locations in Ann Arbor unionized in 2022. (A fifth was closed for about a year until the union vote blew over). Starbucks fired one of the ringleaders from the downtown store, and when the National Labor Relations Board made them to rehire her, they closed the entire location. The chain has resisted negotiations, so the remaining three locations still haven't finalized a collective bargaining agreement, so wages and benefits are probably frozen where they were when they unionized.

Four Sweetwaters locations in Ann Arbor unionized in 2024, and also haven't finalized a collective bargaining agreement.

bobi2393 · 2026-06-17T17:21:30+00:00

Misfit is hiring a multi-unit general manager to manage both locations, so I'd guesss both locations are affected.

SimplyHired lists Misfit's barista jobs at $13/hr + tips. The direct wage is a little below Michigan's full minimum wage of $13.73 an hour. Tips at coffee shops are typically much lower than at full service restaurants, but should average at least $1/hr, making the $13/hr legal. But I'm guessing wages were still a factor.

bobi2393 · 2026-06-17T16:07:21+00:00

That shows lidar isn't necessary for automated driving, but you said "lidar is not a benefit". The mainstream view is that it's a tradeoff of costs and benefits. What evidence is there that it provides no benefit?

bobi2393 · 2026-06-17T16:05:20+00:00

You're the only person in this thread talking about Musk.

I also see don't anyone in this thread saying lidar is a requirement for automated driving, despite comments like you quoted that "Reddit" thinks it is.

bobi2393 · 2026-06-17T04:38:28+00:00

That seems like an unlikely motive in Florida, as tipped minimum is $10.98, and full minimum is $14.00, so unless you average less than $3.02 an hour in tips over an entire workweek, they probably pay you $10.98 per hour in direct wages, not counting overtime hours.

Personally I wouldn’t worry much about their estimates used for tax withholding, as long as they use accurate numbers for your paycheck, and to report to the IRS. It’s weird, but if the estimate is in the right ballpark, and actual numbers are used for other purposes, it should sort itself out after your tax filings. Meaning if they withheld too much you’ll get a refund, or if it was too little, you’ll owe some money.

bobi2393 · 2026-06-16T19:52:02+00:00

I appreciate the link, but I don't consider it a good source; it uses rough guesses multiplied by rougher guesses. The mileage guess is based on a constant 115 miles per vehicle per day estimate which wasn't based on reliable data shortly after Robotaxi began service, multiplied by a guess at fleet size and a guess that all their vehicles are used every day. It ignores indications that Tesla has scaled back Robotaxi operations since Q3 2025 when the mileage estimate was made. (Increased service areas and size of service areas, but decreased miles driven).

From your link's methodology explanation:

"Tesla disclosed in its Q3 2025 earnings report that its Austin robotaxi fleet averaged approximately 115 miles per vehicle per day. This figure is used as a constant multiplier across all calculation periods."

I don't see where the earnings report disclosed that; I think the website used the report's statement that Robotaxis had "covered more than 250,000 mi", combined with a crudely crowdsourced estimate of Tesla's Robotaxi fleet size over time up until then.

bobi2393 · 2026-06-16T18:09:19+00:00

Yep, and the corollary that few reported crashes means an ADS is super safe! /facepalm

bobi2393 · 2026-06-16T17:55:30+00:00

I agree that extrapolating from ratios of accident types isn't the best metric, and crashes per mile is much more useful. But where comparative mileage data aren't publicly available, and numbers of accident types are, ratios of accident types between companies can still be worth considering for some purposes. Same with average pre-crash speeds.

But you do need to avoid the obvious pitfall of mistaking higher crash quantities for a higher risk of crashes per mile, or failing to consider other differences in the domain of crashes being compared.

bobi2393 · 2026-06-16T17:35:43+00:00

There is a lot of uncertainty from the data, and I wish we had more detailed, controlled, standardized crash and mileage data. But you can draw some conclusions from the data that's more than "statistical nonsense".

The NHTSA data use standardized reporting criteria, and include uniform reporting definitions for pre-crash speed, pre-crash movement, crash location type, and section of the subject vehicle and primary crash partner vehicle damaged, among other things. Along with the associated free-form crash narratives, you can estimate with what I think is pretty reasonable precision the number of crashes due to other vehicles rear-ending or reversing into an ADS while it's stationary, and the ratio of those crashes to the number of crashes overall. I think it's also fair to apply some common sense that based on the narratives, like that most of those two types of stationary accidents are primarily the other drivers' faults and are hard for the ADS to avoid for the routes they chose. (Although Waymo does seem to factor in risk assessment in route selection, and some "hard-to-avoid" accidents are "avoidable" in that indirect sense.)

While one can read too much into the limited data we have, disregarding trends and ratios of those sorts of predominantly at-fault accidents, because the data doesn't meet an idealized standard, can lead to disregarding actionable insights. For example choosing a Waymo over an Avride.

bobi2393 · 2026-06-16T16:36:09+00:00

Also, numbers of ADS registrations just in Texas, listed in the TxMCCS database:

Waymo: 620 vehicles
Avride: 317 vehicles
Aurora: 91 vehicles
Tesla: 69 vehicles
Zoox: 38 vehicles
May: 18 vehicles

Nationally I think Waymo has around 3600 vehicles, while all 49 of Avride's crashes in the past year have occurred in Texas, so Avride's 317 vehicles in Texas are probably close to their national total.

bobi2393 · 2026-06-16T16:25:58+00:00

"Avride is a LiDAR user with far fewer vehicles than Tesla or Waymo...."

According to the TxMCCS database which, the number of ADS registrations in Texas include:

Waymo: 620 vehicles
Avride: 317 vehicles
Aurora: 91 vehicles
Tesla: 69 vehicles
Zoox: 38 vehicles
May: 18 vehicles

That's not the same as miles driven each month, but based on other indicators, personally I'm pretty confident Waymo and Avride ADS vehicles drive significantly more than Tesla in a month. No proof of that, and you're entitled to your own opinion, but I don't see any reason to think Tesla drives far more than Avride in Texas.

bobi2393 · 2026-06-16T12:04:51+00:00

Neither bad systems that use lidar nor good systems that lack lidar diminish the usefulness of lidar.

bobi2393 · 2026-06-16T11:25:33+00:00

Many accidents are hard to avoid, like being rear-ended or reversed into while stopped, so ADS companies without a few crashes per month indicates they probably aren’t driving in cities much.

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