Here's a little secret that Starbucks doesn't want you to know: They will serve you a better, stronger cappuccino if you want one, and they will charge you less for it.
Ask for it in any Starbucks and the barista will comply without batting an eye. The puzzle is to work out why. The drink in question is the elusive "short cappuccino"—at 8 ounces, a third smaller than the smallest size on the official menu, the "tall," and dwarfed by what Starbucks calls the "customer-preferred" size, the "Venti," which weighs in at 20 ounces and more than 200 calories before you add the sugar.
The short cappuccino has the same amount of espresso as the 12-ounce tall, meaning a bolder coffee taste, and also a better one. The World Barista Championship rules, for example, define a traditional cappuccino as a "five- to six-ounce beverage." This is also the size of cappuccino served by many continental cafés.
Within reason, the shorter the cappuccino, the better. The problem with large cappuccinos is that it's impossible to make the fine-bubbled milk froth ("microfoam," in the lingo) in large quantities, no matter how skilled the barista. A 20-ounce cappuccino is an oxymoron. Having sampled the short cappuccino in a number of Starbucks across the world, I can confirm that it is a better drink than the buckets of warm milk—topped with a veneer of froth—that the coffee chain advertises on its menus.
This secret cappuccino is cheaper, too—at my local Starbucks, $2.35 instead of $2.65. But why does this cheaper, better drink—along with its sisters, the short latte and the short coffee—languish unadvertised? The official line from Starbucks is that there is no room on the menu board, although this doesn't explain why the short cappuccino is also unmentioned on the comprehensive Starbucks Web site, nor why the baristas will serve you in a whisper rather than the usual practice of singing your order to the heavens.
Economics has the answer: This is the Starbucks way of sidestepping a painful dilemma over how high to set prices. Price too low and the margins disappear; too high and the customers do. Any business that is able to charge one price to price-sensitive customers and a higher price to the rest will avoid some of that awkward trade-off. It's not hard to identify the price-blind customers in Starbucks. They're the ones buying enough latte to bathe Cleopatra.
The major costs of staff time, space in the queue, and packaging are similar for any size of drink. So, larger drinks carry a substantially higher markup, according to Brian McManus, an assistant professor at the Olin School of Business who has studied the coffee market. The difficulty is that if some of your products are cheap, you may lose money from customers who would willingly have paid more.
So, businesses try to discourage their more lavish customers from trading down by making their cheap products look or sound unattractive, or, in the case of Starbucks, making the cheap product invisible. The British supermarket Tesco has a "value" line of products with infamously ugly packaging, not because good designers are unavailable but because the supermarket wants to scare away customers who would willingly spend more. "The bottom end of any market tends to get distorted," says McManus. "The more market power firms have, the less attractive they make the cheaper products." That observation is important.
A firm in a perfectly competitive market would suffer if it sabotaged its cheapest products because rivals would jump at the opportunity to steal alienated customers. Starbucks, with its coffee supremacy, can afford this kind of price discrimination, thanks to loyal, or just plain lazy, customers.
The practice is hundreds of years old. The French economist Emile Dupuit wrote about the early days of the railways, when third-class carriages were built without roofs, even though roofs were cheap: "What the company is trying to do is prevent the passengers who can pay the second-class fare from traveling third class; it hits the poor, not because it wants to hurt them, but to frighten the rich." The modern equivalent is the airport departure lounge.
Airports could create nicer spaces, but that would frustrate the ability of airlines to charge substantial premiums for club-class departure lounges. Starbucks' gambit is much simpler and more audacious: Offer the cheaper product but make sure that it is available only to those customers who face the uncertainty and embarrassment of having to request it specifically. Fortunately, the tactic is easily circumvented: If you'd like a better coffee for less, just ask.
related post
I adore coffee. It is one of those splurges in life I hope never to give up. In fact, I love coffee so much I invested in a coffee bean roaster so I can have fresh roasted coffee at home. However, just like eating out, sometimes it is nice to let someone else do the "brewing" and when those times hit, I head to one of our local coffee shops.
Mainly because of proximity and product consistency, I go to Starbucks and kiss my ten-dollar bill goodbye on two Venti cappuccinos and then sit, pretending to savor miles of froth with a few sips of coffee. That was until I read an article about the secret cup size Starbucks does not advertise and a Consumer Report comparing Starbucks, McDonald's, Burger King and Dunkin' Donuts.
In the simplest terms, global warming is just what it sounds like: the worldwide rise in surface temperatures. The National Academy of Science has put the rise at 1 degree F over the course of the 20th century, but measurements from satellites of both land and sea surfaces are showing that the rate of warming is increasing sharply.
It's more than just surface temperatures that are going up, however. A lot of research into temperature changes in the upper layers of the atmosphere, as well as the deep oceans, is showing warming. Then, there are the more obvious signs: the rapid retreat of glaciers in Greenland, Alaska, the Himalaya, the Antarctic Peninsula and on high tropical mountains; the thinning and disappearance of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean during summer; the melting of permafrost in Canada, Alaska and Siberia; and the rise of sea level and an increase in extreme weather.
The cause of global warming is what's called the "greenhouse effect." That's shorthand for the ability of gases in the atmosphere to slow down the release of heat into space at night. Some gases are better at this than others. Carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide are the top three "greenhouse gases." They are very good at absorbing sunlight and converting that energy into heat – rather like a rock does just sitting in the sun.
Surprisingly, the greenhouse effect isn't a bad thing. It's essential for life on Earth – when it's not too vigorous. If not for the greenhouse effect, the temperature on the surface of Earth would be like that of the airless moon – swinging wildly from 225 degrees F (107 C) during the day to -243 degrees F (-153 C) at night. Not a good place for life.
The greenhouse effect is only troublesome when it gets too strong and warms things too much. And that's just what scientists say has happened over the last 150 years or so as the people of industrialized nations have extracted Earth's vast buried stores of fossil fuels and burned them. Since the start of the Industrial Revolution the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide has increased nearly 30 percent, methane has more than doubled, and the nitrous oxide concentration is up about 15 percent. All those extra greenhouse gases mean more and more solar energy is being trapped in the atmosphere, exacerbating the greenhouse effect and making things warmer.
The result: 2005 was Earth's warmest year in a century, according to NASA climatologists. The years 1998, 2002, 2003 and 2004 were the next four runners-up. The year 2005 was also a record-breaking year for Atlantic hurricanes in which the coastal city of New Orleans – made all the more vulnerable because of sea level rise – was almost wiped off the map by Hurricane Katrina.
Of course, because the effects of global warming on local climates are very complicated, it remains to be seen exactly how different regions will feel the heat.
"Global warming is a term that's extremely useful when you're running a planet," says John Cox, author of the book Climate Crash. "But it's regional change that affects people. It's the wet and cold and hot and dry."
That's why climate modelers are constantly refining their simulations, and climate scientists continue to refine our view of past climate changes to create a better idea of what to expect.
by Larry O'Hanlon from discovery
The choice of islands was based on natural attractions, activities/sights, restaurants/food, people and value, according to the magazine, whose readers this year ranked the Italian cultural city of Florence the world’s best city.
The top-voted hotel for the first time is an Indian property, The Oberoi Udaivilas in Rajasthan, noted Travel + Leisure editor-in-chief Nancy Novogrod.
“This year's results underline T+L readers' ever-increasing embrace of global travel in their search for distinctive and authentic experiences.
“The extraordinary rise of India among the top hotels and resorts in the world is one sure reflection of this tendency, with the Oberoi Udaivilas ranking number-one hotel in the world.”
Second- and third-ranking hotels were the Singita Sabi Sands in the Kruger National Park in South Africa and The Oriental, Bangkok, respectively.
Readers voted Singapore Airlines as their favorite international carrier, followed by American all-business-class MAXjet Airways and Emirates Airline of Dubai.
Travel + Leisure is published by the American Express Publishing Corporation and has a circulation of almost one million, according to corporate data. Apart from the US, it is published around the world, in such countries as Spain, Turkey, China, Australia and in South Asia.
Given that Bali continues to be voted as the world’s top island, local tourism industry analysts said, is a reflection of its enduring global appeal, despite setbacks in recent years that the predominately Hindu island has robustly bounced back from.
Cok Oka Arta Ardana Sukawati, deputy head of the privately run Bali Tourism Board, told The Bali Times on Wednesday that Bali is a perennial favorite with tourists because of its unique culture.
“What most distinguishes Bali is its culture, which is why Bali keeps being named the world’s best island.
Bali’s eight regencies – Badung, in the south, where most of the island’s tourism is located; Jembrana in the west; Tabanan in the southwest; Buleleng in the north; Bangli in the northeast; Karangasem in the east; Gianyar in Central Bali; and Klungkung in the southeast – each had their own tourism potential, he said.
“Unfortunately, not enough is being done to identify that potential and to improve it for tourism purposes,” he said.
“Some regencies are remote and hard to reach, so it’s good that we have events like the Bali Arts Festival where everything can be displayed together.”
Increases in tourist figures, however, would lead to bigger environmental problems, he warned, adding that his office had received complaints from visitors.
Gede Nurjaya, head of government’s Bali Tourism Office, told The Times separately that the naming of Bali again this year as the world’s best island by Travel + Leisure readers meant the authorities had to work hard to meet visitors’ expectations.
“We are grateful of the appreciation of the international community in choosing Bali as the best island. This also challenges us to prove that Bali indeed deserves such an honor. With this award, we hope it will send a message that Bali is safe and has more to offer, despite the travel warnings.
related post
Kecak Dance in Bali
Ngaben (Cremation Ceremony) in Bali
The Barong Dance of Bali Indonesia
A Bali beach you'll never want to leave
A Bali beach you'll never want to leave
Wayne Arnold NYT
Friday, February 27, 2004
BALI, Indonesia Everyone who is anyone in Bali's expatriate community shows up for sunset and cocktails at Ku De Ta.
As the shadows lengthen, the island's cognoscenti drift onto the bar's breezy beachfront deck, their linen shirts billowing open to expose native jewelry, their Thai fisherman's pants revealing calves tanned and toned by long walks on Kuta Beach. A deejay spins his latest chill mix, the international assemblage settles into chaise longues and the sun plunges into the Bali Strait.
It's the typical end to a typical day in Seminyak, Kuta's trendy northern neighbor. A few kilometers from the center of Kuta, away from the packs of Australian and Japanese surfers that rule the tourist strip, Europe's well heeled revel in their own barefoot Balinese playground.
Once a quiet village, Seminyak is now one of a handful of settlements that have been engulfed by Kuta's vacatino megalopolis, with its T-shirt shops, tawdry bars and touts. But Seminyak has remained distinct in style and clientele, playing shiraz to Kuta's ice beer.
"It's chalk and cheese," said Arthur Chondros, an Australian who helped start Ku De Ta three years ago and now manages the restaurant and bar. "Seminyak is a bit more outgoing and a bit more risky. It's got an opinion."
People who stay in Seminyak are for the most part long-term visitors, guidebook émigrés whose weeklong visits turned into monthlong sabbaticals. Some have taken up residence, setting up businesses.
They are backpackers all grown up and wielding credit cards. They don't write postcards; they send text messages on their mobile phones.
I discovered Seminyak only recently, in October, despite at least a dozen visits to Bali over the last decade. Allergic to Kuta's carnival atmosphere, I typically leave Ngurah Rai International Airport south of Kuta and head literally for the hills - to Ubud and the highland rice paddies beyond it.
But if Kuta is boisterous in the extreme, Ubud and its environs offer what verges on an excess of serenity. A few days of quiet contemplation amid its dragonflies and amphibian nocturnes is enough to make anyone pine for a beery Australian singalong. So when some friends decided to rent one of Seminyak's many luxury villas, I eagerly signed on.
Seminyak provided the perfect balance of seclusion and exhibition, a polished port of call for those staying in the villas moored in the nearby rice paddies. And unlike Ubud, Seminyak has a beach, the quiet end of the beach that makes Kuta one of the world's famous surfing spots.
Kuta was also the target of terrorists in October 2002, when more than 200 people were killed by a bomb at a nightclub; the area now has an ephemeral air. Fewer people have visited Bali since then: Tourism dropped by about half, chilled by the Kuta bomb, severe acute respiratory syndrome and a bomb in Jakarta. The Balinese economy was hard hit, and local people suffered.
In its consular information sheet, the U.S. State Department continues to warn that "Indonesia is experiencing an ongoing terrorist threat," particularly from the Jemaah Islamiyah organization. It says that the terrorist attacks in Jakarta and Bali took place in areas with large numbers of foreign tourists and expatriates, and clearly indicate that a security threat extends to private citizens. The travel warnings are on the Web at travel.state.gov/travel.
Lately, though, visitors are returning in bigger numbers, as monthly arrivals of foreigners to Bali's airport have recovered to roughly two-thirds their level before the bombing.
For the traditional visitor, Seminyak has a selection of fine hotels, including the beachfront Oberoi, which resembles a traditional Balinese village. One of Bali's first luxury hotels, it was designed in the early 1970s by the Australian architect Peter Muller, who also designed the Amandari Resort near Ubud. The Oberoi is such a landmark that the entire area around it at the northern end of Seminyak is often referred to simply as Oberoi.
Most of the people who stay in that area, however, wouldn't be caught dead in a hotel, no matter how luxurious. Renting villas is the thing there, which affords distance from crowds but proximity to the scene. Many villas are a short drive away.
"People want to go to restaurants and bars and be where the action is," said Dan Brooks, a documentary photographer from London who came to Indonesia to film Komodo dragons and ended up staying to manage and rent villas for a company called Elite Havens. The first villas in Bali, according to Brooks, were built in the 1970s by disenchanted trust-fund kids who got tired of roughing it in Bali's simple local huts. For a few thousand dollars, they built respectable Balinese-style villas, open-plan affairs with several bedrooms under traditional, thatched roofs. When they went home for the holidays, they rented out their villas to their friends. An industry was born.
By the 1990s, foreign visitors to Bali discovered that building a villa could be a lucrative investment: The rental income more than recouped the cost of construction and maintenance. The Asian financial crisis fueled the boom in villa-building; when financing for new hotels dried up, Western-trained contractors turned to villa projects.
Now companies like Brooks's match villa owners with tenants. They are gaining such popularity that many businesses around Asia have begun renting villas for exclusive retreats rather than hotels. Not surprisingly, some rival the fanciest luxury resorts. The five-bedroom Istana, for example, sits on a cliff with a sunset view and starts at $1,000 a night.
My friends and I opted for a more bohemian feel, splitting a three-bedroom villa festooned with purple lanterns and throw pillows embroidered with tiny pieces of mirrored glass.
There are choices to fit almost every budget or preference. The three-bedroom Villa Liamika in Seminyak sits about 200 yards from the beach and rents for as little as $400 a night. Farther inland is the four-bedroom Istana Semer, which goes for $375 a night or about $94 a room. The Maharaj, on the other hand, has five bedrooms and rents for around $300 a night, or $60 a room.
If you have enough friends or family members in your group, a villa offers a wonderfully intimate - and economical - alternative to a hotel. Like self-enclosed resorts, they come complete with cooks, maids, security guards and, in our case, a couple of mangy watchdogs. The villa staff can arrange house calls by masseuses or yoga instructors.
If you want to dine in, all you have to do is give the staff a few hours warning. You pay only for the food; the services of the cook are included in the price of the room. At the end of a stay, a generous tip acknowledges their attention to your whims. Most villas are equipped with a stereo, TV and DVD player. Some even have Internet access. With two iPods among our group to pump tunes through the stereo, our villa quickly became a home away from home.
The New York Times
Copyright © 2003 The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com
Atheism is perhaps a new global trend, but it is nearly as old as the idea of God itself.
Due to the increase in religiously motivated violence in many parts of the world and the widening gap between science and religion, the idea is now becoming more inviting, more challenging and, thanks to the Internet, more militant than ever before.
Here the word "atheist" is usually linked to the demonized Indonesian Communist Party (PKI), whose aborted "coup" left a traumatic wound deep inside the consciousness of most Indonesians. That is why, according to Martin Sinaga, a Christian theologian at the Jakarta School of Theology, atheism is more often prejudiced against here than discussed.
In 1949, Achdiat Karta Mihardja published Atheist, a novel about a young Muslim named Hasan in his quest for God in the newly born country charmed by atheistic socialism. The book stirred controversy and Achdiat was intimidated -- even though he never proclaimed himself to be an atheist -- after people misunderstood his novel.
In 2004, he wrote Manifesto Khalifatullah (The Manifesto of God's Successor), which he considered as a sequel to Atheist because in it the quest of God is over, concluding that human beings are the successors of God on Earth.
Books on God, including those that discuss atheism, have never reached Aksara's "top 10" best-selling list, according to the book-stores's marketing manager, Penny Purnawati. (JP/Ary Hermawan)
Responding to the planned publication of books on atheism in Indonesian language, Sinaga said there was nothing to worry about.
"We can't deny their existence. Such books as The God Delusion and God is Not Great are asking the questions that are also asked by the believers.
"Where is God when people are suffering? Where is God when disasters strike? Where is God when there is evil? The main issue is not atheism here but the internal struggle in the quest for God," Sinaga said.
Ihsan Ali Fauzi, a Muslim scholar at the Paramadina Foundation, concurred with Sinaga, saying there was no use in pretending the books never existed or deliberately trying to keep them away from the younger generation.
"The youth, who are mostly Internet literate, would easily find out about it one way or another." he said.
Fauzi argued that religions, if they are true, should be able to survive any attack, and books on atheism should be seen as a test for the faithful.
"Instead of damning these books as poisonous, it would be a lot more productive if we proved that what they claimed was false," Fauzi said.
"This is actually something that we should appreciate as it will sharpen our thoughts," he added.
Nevertheless, both Fauzi and Sinaga both doubted these kinds of books would be widely accepted by the Indonesian public. If they did not resist, they said, the public would simply ignore the books, especially when the big players in the industry, which have bigger promotional budgets, refused to publish them.
Candra Gautama, the editor in chief of Kepustakaan Populer Gramedia (KPG), said it would not be easy to translate a book like The God Delusion.
"The main problem our publishing industry faces is the quality of translation," he said.
Pustaka Alvabet said it would press ahead with its plans to publish "enlightening" books on atheism, despite apprehension they would not sell well or, worse, incite religious violence, confirming what the anti-religion books are saying.
Serambi is also prepared to launch Julian Baggini's A Very Short Introduction to Atheism, which the company's editor in chief Qomaruddin SF said was more "informative" than "provocative".
Time will tell whether books on atheism -- whether or not they have sufficient promotion and high quality translation -- really have a place in Indonesia.
-- Ary Hermawan
Yahoo has angrily rejected a joint takeover offer from Microsoft and the investor Carl Icahn.
Microsoft would have bought Yahoo's search engine while Mr Icahn would have ended up with the rest of the business.
Yahoo objected to being given only 24 hours to consider the offer and there being no opportunity to negotiate the terms of the deal.
"It is ludicrous to think that our board would accept such a proposal,"
Yahoo said in a statement.
"This odd and opportunistic alliance of Microsoft and Carl Icahn has anything but the interests of Yahoo!'s stockholders in mind," Roy Bostock, chairman of Yahoo, said.
Still for sale
The proposal involved the immediate removal of the Yahoo board as well as its top management.
The statement from Yahoo repeated the offer to sell the entire company to Microsoft for at least $33 (£16.5) a share and suggested that a takeover of the entire company would be much simpler than the proposed restructuring.
Microsoft offered $31 a share for Yahoo in February. On Friday the shares closed at $23.16.
The latest offer comes weeks before Yahoo's 1 August annual meeting, when Mr Icahn will be trying to replace its board with his own slate of directors.
Mr Icahn owns about 5% of Yahoo.
Microsoft has said it is no longer interested in negotiating with the current directors, but will enter talks if a new board is in place in August. [kutamaya]
Fresh Asian Girls
