Category: News

Just in case you’ve ever believed — even for a second — that NFL teams are forthcoming with information, we present the case of Jahvid Best(notes), the running back selected by the Detroit Lions with the No. 30 overall pick in the 2010 Draft.

Best reportedly had no idea that the Lions were interested in him — none at all. He met Detroit’s coaches at the NFL Combine (where Best ran a 4.35-second 40), but in the weeks that followed, "they didn’t call, they didn’t write and they didn’t invite him for a visit," according to Paula Pasche of the Oakland Press. Detroit nonetheless made a mid-draft deal with division rival Minnesota to acquire the pick necessary to select him. The Lions will now give a multi-year, multi-million dollar contract to a player they’ve been deliberately avoiding for a month.

That’s simply how business is conducted in the NFL (and how dating is conducted in junior high). If you’re interested, ignore.

Oddly enough, Detroit’s coaches apparently scout players in exactly the same way that fantasy owners do it. This from Pasche:

Coach Jim Schwartz credits Scott Linehan, the Lions’ offensive coordinator, for first bringing Best to his attention last fall.

"(Linehan) said, ‘Man what I would do for a running back like that. That guy, I don’t know if he’s coming out or what he would do in the draft, but I just watched him play a game and that guy is everything we are looking for,’" Schwartz said.

So Schwartz Googled the Best highlights and joined the campaign to get him to Detroit.

Lions fans, please note that if Best turns out to be a total bust, it’s Google’s fault. No one else’s.

But he isn’t likely to disappoint. In fact, he’s much more likely to emerge as the most dangerous back in the 2010 draft class. Here are a few of the highlights that may have persuaded Coach Schwartz…

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There’s breakaway speed, and then there’s whatever Best has. He’s a ridiculous talent, and the Lions needed to upgrade the backfield
in the worst way. You might recall that last year’s leading rusher, Kevin Smith(notes), tore
his ACL late in a blowout loss. In all likelihood, Best fell as far as he did due to concerns about his size (5-10, 199) and injury history (concussion, toe, foot, elbow, hip, etc). His ceiling is certainly as high as anyone’s.

As Schwartz told Yahoo!’s Michael Silver (creepily), "Some people watch adult videos on their computer. I go to YouTube and watch Jahvid Best highlight clips." And just like the video consumers to whom he relates, Schwartz smartly keeps his fetishes to himself. 

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Photo via US Presswire

[JURIST] US Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC) withdrew support for a comprehensive climate change bill on Saturday, delaying the unveiling of the legislation and casting its prospects for passage into doubt. The bill represents a major part of President Barack Obama’s legislative agenda and had been under negotiation between Graham and Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) for six months. The proposed legislation was to be unveiled Monday, but was postponed by Kerry after learning of Graham’s decision. In a letter, Graham, the only Republican Senator that has agreed to work with the Obama administration on the bill, criticized the Democratic leadership for the reported plan to move forward with immigration reform legislation before the climate bill. Graham described the move as motivated by partisan politics, saying: I was greatly looking forward to the opportunity to address on the floor of the U.S. Senate as we pushed legislation forward into law. But it appears President Obama and the Senate Democratic leadership have other more partisan, political objectives in mind. Moving forward on immigration — in this hurried, panicked manner — is nothing more than a cynical political ploy. I know from my own personal experience the tremendous amounts of time, energy, and effort that must be devoted to this issue to make even limited progress. In 2007, we spent hundreds of hours over many months … searching for a way to address our nation’s immigration problems. Expecting these major issues to be addressed in three weeks — which appears to be their current plan based upon media reports — is ridiculous. It also demonstrates the raw political calculations at work here. In responding to Graham’s announcement, Kerry said that he would be willing to return to negotiations whenever Graham was, but was unsure of when that would be. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) stated his commitment to passage of both the climate bill and immigration reform legislation before the November midterm elections and the end of the current session of Congress.
The US House of Representatives passed their version of the climate bill in June on a narrow 219-212 vote. The bill calls for a reduction in greenhouse emissions by 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020, and by 80 percent by 2050 by establishing a cap-and-trade system. The bill establishes first-time limits on greenhouse gases that will become progressively stricter. Immigration reform constitutes another plank of Obama’s legislative agenda. Graham and Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) unveiled their proposal for comprehensive immigration reform in March. The plan entails improving border security, creating a system through which temporary workers would be admitted, introducing biometric identification cards, and instituting a process to legalize illegal immigrants currently residing within the US. The proposed bill is also the first attempt at immigration reform since the failed Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill in 2007. At that time, detractors called the bill too lenient on illegal immigrants and said that by granting legal status to illegal aliens, the US was granting “amnesty.”

Even if Goldman Sachs doesn’t end up being found guilty of what the Securities and Exchange Commission alleges in its recent complaint (.pdf), one thing is for sure: the bank can’t be pleased with the negative publicity. At the center of the sleazy-looking deal is the only other defendant in the case, a young Goldman banker named Fabrice Tourre. At first, Goldman appeared to have its employee’s back, implying that no one at the firm did anything wrong. Since then, however, Tourre has been put on indefinite paid leave and de-registered in the U.K. He will soon have to testify before the U.S. Senate. Goldman can’t be too pleased with his antics.

Tourre was clearly a rising star at Goldman Sachs — a vice president by the time he was 28 and an executive director at 31. Obtaining those titles at such a young age is no small feat at any investment bank, much the less Goldman. There’s little doubt that he’s a very smart guy who made some extremely dumb mistakes. Even if he ends up being absolved of technically breaking the law, Tourre can still serve as an example to other young professionals of how not to act in business.

Take Your Job Seriously

Tourre probably thought he took his job pretty seriously. But he was clearly suffering from poor judgment or immaturity when he sent a now infamous e-mail from his work account to a friend, part of which read:

More and more leverage in the system, The whole building is about to collapse anytime now…Only potential survivor, the fabulous Fab[rice Tourre]…standing in the middle of all these complex, highly leveraged, exotic trades he created without necessarily understanding all of the implications of those monstruosities!!!

It’s fine to think this to oneself. It’s probably even fine to jokingly say that to a friend in a bar (just don’t get so drunk you leave your top-secret iPhone prototype there). It’s not fine to write this in an e-mail from your work address. Even if the SEC had never brought charges against Goldman, a supervisor should have been displeased with such an e-mail sent from an address ending with @gs.com.

Don’t Be Cocky

This one was probably especially hard for Tourre. After all, he was a rock star. He was pulling in more than $2 million per year before his 30th birthday. Anyone getting paid even one-tenth that amount by this age that should be proud of himself. Clearly, Tourre was living the dream.

But he shouldn’t have let that show — especially not in his work. Cockiness leads to laziness and feeling that one’s above reproach. No one is, especially not a 28-year-old. If Tourre had been a little more humble, he might have avoided some of his blunders that brought the SEC’s suit against him.

Exercise Prudence

On this one, you have to assume the facts of the SEC case are accurate, which they may not be. But if they are, then Tourre allowed hedge fund manager John Paulson to have input in creating the pool of securities that he intended to bet against. Here, Tourre should have done one of two things. Either he should have made crystal clear to the collateral manager ACA that Paulson intended to short the portfolio, or he should not have allowed Paulson to have a hand in creating the pool.

Frankly, that second option probably would have worked out okay. If Tourre had approached ACA and said he wanted them to originate a pool for a synthetic collateralized debt obligation that was backed by subprime mortgages, it would have still done so. As one report indicates, ACA was perfectly happy to pick subprime mortgages itself for the pool that turned out to be disastrous investments. So Paulson would likely have been quite pleased to bet against almost any subprime mortgage portfolio ACA came up with, even if his fund didn’t select any of the specific subprime mortgage-backed securities itself. And Paulson would have still made a lot of money.

The road to smashing success in business is not an easy one. Once you’re there, however, it is easy to make a stupid mistake that overshadows all of your hard work and ruins everything. Fabrice Tourre may one eventually overcome this setback and find success again in finance, but the tarnish will likely follow him for the rest of his career.

Para quem gosta de velocidade, nada melhor do que acompanhar um super carro atingir marcas de tempo incríveis ao demonstrar a sua performance. Foi isso que aconteceu com a Ferrari 599XX, ao desafiar o circuito alemão de Nürburgring.

A pista, com 20,8 km de extensão demora em média 8 minutos para ser percorrida, coisa que a 599XX fez em 6 min e 58seg. O tempo atingido pode se comparar aos carros de Fórmula 1 de alguns anos atrás, o que deixa a Ferrari 599XX com um dos melhores tempos desse circuito feito por carros produzidos em série, e chegou até mesmo a superar o Gumpert Apollo Speed, que tinha em 2009 o recorde de 7min e 11s, e chegando perto do recorde máximo da pista de 6min e 11s, por um Porsche 956.

Vejam o vídeo a seguir para sentir um pouco a performance desse carro, que chega a ultrapassar os 300Km/h e chega a impressionar com todo o seu poder.

Via | Carro Online

Jetyo’s HDV-T900 solar-powered camcorder is probably not suitable for any nefarious nighttime activities you might have planned for that special anniversary, and judging from how long it would take to recharge, it’s probably not good at much else either. More »

New quotes I love.

“Never memorize what you can look up in books.“
“I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious. […] The important thing is not to stop questioning; never lose a holy curiosity.“
– Albert Einstein

Filed under: Quotes I Love

The New York State Police do not think it is funny when you place a listing for your two sons on Craigslist.

A 24-year-old man was recently arrested and charged with “falsely reporting an incident” after posting a joke listing for his two sons, a two-year-old and a one-year-old. The man says he was “joking around.”

Police say that the listing for the children said they could be used as “child slaves” and “footstools.” They also pointed out how very not amused they are at having to investigate a joke.

“He didn’t actually sell is children, obviously. But he did cause enough annoyance or problems for three different agencies to get involved. And again, there’s some serious manpower and time that was wasted on something that he said was just a joke,” A State Trooper told WHAM in Rochester, NY. Police went on to note that the man actually clarified in the ad that he was only kidding, but that police took it seriously anyway because kids were involved.

The man says he is sure he will be found not guilty.

“I’m 100% positive this is going not going to be found guilty, because it’s completely ridiculous. It was 100% honest to God a joke, and everybody blew it way out of proportion.”

Brockport Man Says ‘Kids For Sale’ on Craigslist Was a ‘Joke’ [WHAM] (Thanks, Jarrod!)

Foi divulgado pela Ford do Brasil os valores referentes ao novo Fiesta da linha 2011, que vai estar nas concessionárias a partir de maio. O Fiesta vai ser comercializado nas versões com motor 1.0, a partir de R$29.900 a versão hatch e R$33.500 a versão sedã. Também eciste a versão 1.6 com valores que variam de R$ 34.000 e R$ 37.650.

O novo Fiesta lembra bastante o modelo que é vendido na Europa, China e Japão que também vai chegar ao brasil no segundo semestre desse ano. Entre as novidades do novo Fiesta brasileiro, estão os faróis com um novo desenho e mudanças completas na grade frontal e no para-choque.

Os dois modelos do Fiesta são flex e possuem câmbio manual de 5 marchas, e um motor 1.0 de 73 cv e o motor 1.6 com 106 cv. As demais características continuam as mesmas dos modelos anteriores, como de costume.

Via | Carro Online

Reader W. sends in an awkward sign that he saw behind the counter at Domino’s. It instructs delivery people on how to deal with a customer that thinks the “You Got 30 Minutes” slogan means that Domino’s has a delivery guarantee. They don’t, of course, because making pizza delivery people drive like crazy to make a deadline is unsafe. Instead, they explain that the slogan is a “challenge not for us, but for our CUSTOMERS. A challenge for them to be ready. A challenge for them to be hone in time. A challenge to be fully dressed.”

Here’s the sign. We would like to suggest that the idea that the phrase “You Got 30 Minutes” could be interpreted by anyone as instructions to make sure your pants are on in 30 minutes is a little silly, but we can also understand how important pants are in this situation:

Saw a few interesting articles in the last few days,

• James Cameron: The ‘Avatar’ sequel will dive into the oceans of Pandora
• Paul Samuelson Memorial by Paul Krugman
• Words from Richard Edelman, CEO of PR firm Edelman
• JTF2 – Canada’s elite commandos and the invasion of Afghanistan
• What Einstein Left Behind – from Life Magazine 55 years ago, on April 18, 1955

Filed under: Business, Canada, Economics, Movies, people

Filed under: Motorsports

Think F1 racers are more like fighter jets than cars? You’re not far off. Both F1 cars and jets are made primarily of lightweight composites, travel at ludicrous speeds, generate unfathomable Gs of force, have single-seat cockpits, cost millions of dollars, and are developed (and operated) by more engineers than a train yard full of locomotives. And the similarities could be getting even closer if the latest reports are anything to go by.

After recently reporting on a potential shift to small-displacement turbocharged engines in the sport, Pitpass.com says that a proposal on allowing the use of gas turbine engines is now being looked at by the FIA. The proposal was reportedly submitted by Project 1221, which says it could supply teams with race-ready turbines as soon as 2013 if the FIA were to give it the nod. F1 fanatics may recall that Lotus toyed with turbine power back in the 1970s, but never scored a better finish than eighth place at the 1971 Italian Grand Prix before giving up on the project.

The incorporation of turbines would bring several benefits while requiring significant re-adjustments to the current formula. Although turbines use more fuel, they require far less maintenance than a conventional internal-combustion engine – especially the highly-stressed units made for F1. Turbines can run on biofuels, allowing F1 to take a step forward as a “green” leader in motorsports. Since turbines cannot, however, be used as a stressed member of a car’s chassis construction – another innovation pioneered, somewhat ironically, by Lotus – teams employing turbine power would have to switch to a space frame chassis design. Any drawbacks would be offset by the turbine’s smaller form.

Though many teams – complete-package constructors like Ferrari especially – would be hesitant to adopt turbine propulsion, one could easily imagine independents like Red Bull (to say nothing of the reborn Lotus team) jumping at the opportunity. A level playing field would have to be established through equalization regulations with conventional engines, but the people behind Project 1221 say that limiting their turbines’ output would be relatively straightforward, opening the door to multiple engine types in the series. That’s if this idea ever moves anywhere beyond the proposal stage — a pretty big “if” at that.

[Source: Pitpass]

Report: F1 turbine engine proposal being analyzed by FIA? originally appeared on Autoblog on Sun, 25 Apr 2010 11:07:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm (D) says she’s once again on President Obama’s short list for appointment to the Supreme Court. In an interview with CNN, the term-limited governor says she has talked with people in the Obama administration about the upcoming nomination to replace retiring Justice John Paul Stevens.

“It’s a great honor to be on — considered on the list,” said Granholm who went through this process last year with the opening that went to Sonia Sotomayor. She did not say if she’s spoken with the President who Fox News reported this past week held informal discussions with some of the people he’s considering.

Granholm, like Obama, holds a law degree from Harvard and appeals to some people who want the President to pick someone who is not currently serving as a federal appellate court judge. All nine members of the current Court were federal appellate judges before their elevation to the high court.

Granholm shares that interest saying, “I think it’s a very wise move to consider experience that is not just from the judicial monastery because — I mean not just me but Janet Napolitano, people that have applied the laws that Congress enacts, that have seen their impact on people, that — you know, I mean I’m from the most challenged state in the country. And, you know, for somebody to experience and see what everyday people are feeling and experiencing out there, I think is an important thing to consider.”

Last Wednesday, key senators including Republican leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) met with Obama and Vice President Joe Biden at the White House. On Fox News Sunday, McConnell said the president didn’t tip his hand about the pick. McConnell also passed on the opportunity to publically support someone for the lifetime appointment. He even made light of the situation saying his support would work against an endorsement. “I don’t want to eliminate somebody’s possibility of being on the Supreme Court by suggesting that I might find them a worthy selection,” McConnell said before adding, “I think it would not do them any good, put it that way.”

More shots from Perth Zoo’s wonderful orangutan exhibit. These apes are incredibly intelligent and it would be terrible to let them sit in an enclosure with nothing to stimulate them. So the zoo runs a “behavioural enrichment” programme, which essentially means that they leave plenty of toys, items and challenges to keep the orangutans mentally engaged. Here’s a sequence of a female making use of one such opportunity, and demonstrating the orangutan’s prowess with tools.

She grabs a sturdy stick from the grounds…

and walks over to a metal tray, where a keeper has hidden something. She fishes around for the treat. Sometimes, they will take the stick out and lick it to see what’s buried.

Nearly there…

Got it! A biscuit. OM NOM NOM. Meanwhile, baby watches intently, probably picking up a few tricks or two.

One of the main features in the home console versions of Disney’s Toy Story 3: The Video Game is a Toy Box mode where where players are free to customize stuff and do whatever they want. This

Exactly much power does it take to run a virtual machine or specific piece of software? That’s the answer the Joulemeter team at Microsoft Research is hoping to answer for IT managers.

Over the years there have been several innovations to reduce energy usage in the data center, from custom, low-power servers to non-traditional cooling approaches. But more recently, attention has been turning to one feature common to all IT infrastructures: software. Intel, for example, recently unveiled its Energy Checker SDK in a bid to help developers optimize their code for energy efficiency. Now Microsoft is getting in on the act with Joulemeter.

Jie Liu, Senior Researcher at Microsoft Research

According to Jie Liu, a senior researcher at Microsoft Research Redmond, along with his fellow researchers Dr. Aman Kansal and Mr. Michel Goraczko, Joulemeter could have big implications for planning and monetizing virtual server environments and cloud infrastructures. In an email Q&A with Jiu, he answers some questions about Joulemeter and its green data center potential. Below is a lightly edited version of our exchange:

GigaOM: How did Joulemeter come about?

Liu: We started the Joulemeter project with the goal of providing visibility and fine-grained control to computer energy usages. The world has over one billion computers. As a whole, the IT industry is one of the fastest-growing energy-consuming sectors. [According to] an EPA study published in 2007, data centers in the U.S. consumed about 60 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) in 2006, which is expected to double in five years. The number of consumer computing devices exceeds enterprise and data center installations, so we expect the (corresponding) energy consumption is even higher.

Most computers, except the most recent servers, do not provide continuous monitoring of their energy consumption. Hardware metering, in addition to their cost, can only measure the power consumption for physical components (namely the entire computer or its key components like CPU, memory and disk). But computers are multitasking and the logical components in them (such as application, drives, and virtual machines) are what users understand and control. Thus, a software-based solution is very attractive both because it can be low-cost and because it can provide user-friendly granularities of energy-consumption measures.

GigaOM: Joulemeter not only measures energy use for servers and PCs but also virtual machines. Why is this important?

Liu: Infrastructure computers, as in data centers and large enterprises, are becoming virtualized for resource efficiency and isolation. Measuring energy use at the virtual machine-level enables several capabilities that were not possible before. For example, cloud computer hosts can charge their clients on a pay-as-you-go basis rather than the current pay-as-provisioned model. Better visibility also brings better control. For example, when power quality or the total consumption in a data center becomes a problem, we only need to throttle VMs of lower priority and preserve high-priority VM performance. Knowing how much power each VM is consuming prevents us from making decisions in the dark.

GigaOM: What’s the implication for software developers?

Liu: Software developers constantly make decisions during software development to optimize for, e.g. speed, memory size, storage, etc. Giving energy consumption visibility to developers will help improve software energy consumption in the design phase.

In Fine-Grained Energy Profiling for Power-Aware Application Design, we gave an example of two different compression libraries, which gives different performance and energy consumption characteristics. We advocate that developers should make informed decisions. In the future, is it also possible that compilers will help developers make such tradeoffs by providing energy-optimized executable code.

GigaOM: What impact would a tool like Joulemeter have on cloud computing platforms?

Liu: Joulemeter helps cloud computing twofold. One is at the service provisioning phase. VM power consumption, together with other VM placement constraints can help better assignment from VMs to physical machines. In addition, continuous monitoring of VM power consumption during operation can enable scenarios like charge-as-you-go and selective power-capping.

GigaOM: What have your own tests taught you?

Liu: We find that we can do much better data center provisioning (up to 15 percent) based on measure power consumption and VM-level power-capping capability. This means that for the same investment in building a data center, we can host 15 percent more servers without sacrificing application performance.

In another example, we have deployed Joulemeter to more than 50 computers in Microsoft Research. We were able to identify why some of the machines do not go to sleep at night when they should be, due to conflicting policy settings and misconfiguration. It clearly shows that visibility is important.

According to Liu, the general public will get its hands on Joulemeter in the “near future,” however he stresses that it’s strictly a research prototype at this point and may never see the light of day as part of a commercialized product. However, don’t be shocked if some of the concepts behind Joulemeter inform Microsoft’s offerings and internal strategies, particularly in light of the company’s efforts behind its Azure cloud computing platform (GigaOM Pro, subscription required).

For more on software and energy efficiency, join the GigaOM Network at Green:Net on April 29th in San Francisco. For more on cloud computing, join us at Structure June 23 & 24th, also in San Francisco.

Images courtesy of Microsoft Research

Dell, ever the leaky sieve after this week’s unexpected Flash/Thunder/Smoke peepshow, has let slip a presentation that outlines a number of upcoming gadgets, including Sparta/Athens netbooks, the Looking Glass Pro and three Streak variants. More »

Senator Graham (R-SC) told reporters Saturday that he was outraged at the idea that now immigration reform  might be voted on before the climate and energy bill and is no longer unveiling it Monday as promised.

He has been working for weeks with Senators Kerry (D-NH) and Liebermnan (I-CT) on making the climate and renewable energy bill just fossil-friendly-enough to actually hurdle the unethical 41 vote filibuster of all Democratic majority legislation routinely employed by Republicans since 2006 when they lost the majority in the Senate.

His frustration came because he had also spent weeks working with Democrats to make the immigration measure bipartisan and had not been alerted to the change in plans, moving the immigration vote first.

On Saturday night he said he can not now help unveil the long-awaited climate bill due Monday. But this could put it off till the new congress, when there will be several more Republicans in the Senate, ending the chances for US climate legislation indefinitely. (more…)

Reader J was at the Giants game the other day and bought a seriously overpriced ballpark item from a vendor and was wondering if an additional tip was appropriate for a $6 hot chocolate.

J says:

So I went to a baseball game over the weekend, (Giants @ at&t park!) and I had a question. Now we all know food there is expensive, overpriced, but that’s how the stadium makes money, and we just buy it because we’re having a good time, so a little overpriced food for a day of fun isn’t a big deal.

My question is, with all those vendors walking around selling things like cotton candy, popcorn, coffee, hot chocolate, etc etc, are we suppose to tip them? I mean I’m already paying for overpriced food, and it’s their job to walk around selling food, but should we tip as well?

I was purchasing an overpriced cup of hot chocolate for $6, and I had a $10 bill, and the guy asked if I wanted my change. In another instance, when another vendor was selling a cup of hot chocolate (or coffee) to another customer, the customer paid $12, but only for one cup. The vendor confirmed either the guy wanted one or two cups (he wanted one), so the vendor gave back his change, but I swore he only gave back $5, so did he take $1 as a tip?

I also know there are these people that walk around with menus that let you order, and they bring the food to you, I assume you should tip them, since they’re more like waiters? I’m not sure but I don’t go to baseball games too much, so I was just wondering!

As a person who only buys beer at these kinds of things (Hey, I like beer,) it had never really occurred to me not to tip a vendor, but I can see how it would be hard to tip when buying a $6 cup of Swiss Miss. The last time I bought Swiss Miss it was, like, $0.75 for a whole box of little packets.

Even so, we’re pretty sure you should tip the vendor — because according to this article in Slate, they don’t get to pick what they sell. So if they get stuck selling King Midas’ Swiss Miss, it’s not really their fault.

From Slate:

Sellers get paid on commission, so expensive items that sell in high volume (i.e., beer) are the most coveted. On game day, each vendor buys a lot of their assigned product at the commissary; any beers that get stolen, lost, or given away as freebies come out of his pocket. After work, the cashier at the commissary pays him a certain sum for each beer (or other food item) sold. Commissions range from about 7 percent to 19 percent—up to $1.14 on a $6 beer. In some ballparks, commissions increase as a vendor meets sales goals.

In general, the best and the most-senior vendors choose to sell beer, while the rookies handle hot dogs and peanuts. To sell beer, you have to be 21 years old, and you’re supposed to undergo special training. ARAMARK, which manages concessions for 11 teams (including the Angels, Astros, Red Sox, and Braves), requires that all beer vendors study how to identify and deal with drunken fans.

Location also makes a difference in meeting your sales goals. Folks in the cheap seats tend to buy in bulk but give less in tips. If the sales manager doesn’t assign areas of the stadium, vendors work out informal systems to divvy up the sections based on seniority.

Being a stadium vendor is also something of an art form, MentalFloss has a list of 9 famous stadium vendors — one of them even has his own baseball card!

Here’s a particularly awesome guy who sells beer at Cleveland Indians games:

So, in short, yes a tip for good service is appropriate. The real problem here is that even for a baseball stadium, AT&T park is somewhat overpriced. Maybe next time skip the expensive hot chocolate and get some garlic fries and an Anchor Steam.

So, You Want to Be a Beer Vendor [Slate]
9 Famous Stadium Vendors [MentalFloss]