When I'm the cafeteria I enjoy having the luxury of using a tray to carry my various plates and drinks to my seat. However this decadent luxury has been revoked by the fine people at Aramark for the sacrosanct reason of saving the environment. Naturally given their intentions I have no ground upon which no complain, and no argument to offer against their noble crusade. As napkin holders tell us (now housing 100% dye free recycled napkins) not having trays allows us to save the environment by saving water and soap while reducing food waste caused by trays. The fact that trays cause food waste is undeniable as shown by objective statistics compiled by Aramark using the grand sample of one day of food waste from our University (details such as the control, data gathering process, etc are unnecessary). And the atrocious wasting of non-replenishable natural resources such as soap and water speak for themselves.
Seriously, this is complete bullshit. Without even trying to compare the inconvenience of making four trips just have a meal with the carbon footprint associated with washing a 18"x 12" piece of plastic, can anyone take this seriously? This whole ploy, like most "green movements", are just designed to save money and not doing a damn thing for the environment. If the company could just be upfront and say "We're cutting simple commodities in an attempt to reduce costs and keep prices fixed.", I would actually respect their decision. As it is I'm just annoyed. Even if they were telling the truth, the result would be a negative one. If research would be spent on more reasonable things, eventually technological advances will come along which will lead to safer environmental practices. Look at Poland Spring. In attempt to reduced costs they find an optimized design for their water bottles which maximizes volume while minimizing surface area. As a result their bottles use less plastic. Here we see a technological advancement helping the environment, while providing no discomfort to the consumer. Aramark removes trays, slightly improving the environment, and greatly annoying the consumer.
Speaking of labs, why are they somehow considered by people in the "real world" to be of more merit than theoretical exercises. Being a math major I seem to be repeatedly scoffed at for having a lack of hands on experience with my major, with the lack of experimental courses being offered as ammunition. To which I must ask: What is hands on about labs? Yes you certainly are using your hands in a lab but that seems to be the only relation to me. While I work on a problem I determine everything. Every action I make, every road I travel on is uniquely determined by my thoughts and fully understood by myself. I know the tools at my disposal. I can prove that these tools work. I employ these tools at my own leisure be them right or wrong. What do you really do in a lab besides following directions? In a vast majority of procedures everything except trivially constructions are detailed for you. After following your directions in setting up the lab, you rely on mysterious equipment to give you reading to record as your data. Rarely do you have any inclination of how these machines work, whether they're working accurately, or how you would construct such a machine itself. Finally after recording your data you proceed to change it to fit the experimental results which usually aren't reachable given the resources available to you. Hands on indeed.
My music class pisses me off. "I can't dance to it", "It hurts my ears", "It sounds like I could play that", "That's noise" are not valid criticisms of pieces of music. More people need to shut up and read Milton Babbitt's
Who Cares If You Listen?
People who don't like baseball just because it doesn't satisfy their Sportscenter shortened attention spans are exactly 31% more annoying than the aforementioned students.
