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Pushing To Attract Millennials, Taco Bell Will Offer Beer And Wine

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On Tuesday, Taco Bell announced it is launching a new concept that "redefines fast food experience." The first of these "experiences" will open in Chicago next week, and another one will follow later this month in San Francisco.

In a statement, the company says:

"Taco Bell Cantina restaurants will be the first and only Taco Bell restaurants to serve alcohol to customers who are of legal drinking age. The San Francisco restaurant will serve beer and wine only, while Wicker Park will serve, beer, wine, sangria and twisted Freezes. Cantina restaurants will also feature a new tapas-style menu of sharable appetizers — including nachos and rolled tacos — during designated hours each evening, in addition to the standard Taco Bell Menu."

These new cantinas won't have drive-throughs and will have open kitchens, according to a press release. They will also have digital menu boards, television monitors and an option for customers to use a mobile app to order and pay for their food.

[...] As USA Today reports:

"The company knows that its Millennial customers increasingly are attracted to urban areas, where real estate is pricey. Company officials think that selling a stiffer drink might pad the receipts — the typical Taco Bell receipt is in the $7 range — and in turn help make their urbanization push more doable.

" 'To put in a drive-thru you need land,' Neil Borkan, the Taco Bell franchisee who will operate the Chicago test location, told USA TODAY. 'Can you imagine buying an acre of land in a neighborhood like [Chicago's] Wicker Park? You couldn't afford it. As real estate becomes more and more expensive, this kind of concept makes more sense.'

"Taco Bell is treading carefully into booze. While quick-service rival Starbucks recently announced it would accelerate its push of its beer and wine program and has applied for liquor licenses for hundreds of stores across the USA in recent months, Taco Bell spokesman Rob Poetsch said the company could potentially open 10 locations selling hard drinks next year."

The day I met Rio’s favela master: the drug lord who championed the poor: Misha Glenny tells of his prison meetings with Nem of Rocinha, the slum crime boss who channelled some of his cocaine profits into running a welfare state for 100,000 people

After his arrest, I wrote to Nem in prison and asked if he would speak to me. He agreed. The story that emerged was fascinating: once he reached the top, Nem was, in effect, mayor, police chief and director of the chamber of commerce for a community estimated at 100,000 residents. With the receipts from the cocaine trade, he ran a business that supported nearly 1,000 people. He also channelled some of his profits into a basic welfare state. He could do this because he paid close attention to accounting and budgetary matters.

“The food baskets and the support we gave to extracurricular school activities, such as the Thai boxing or capoeira classes, were all accounted for as part of our business expenses,” he explained. “But the burials, prescription costs or if anyone who couldn’t afford it needed gas, these were all extra payments.”

In the absence of any regular police, law was maintained by 150 armed men, most in their teens and early 20s. But while the man known locally as Mestre, or master, decided over life or death, he usually opted for the former. Under his rule, homicide rates dropped by more than two-thirds.

This was part-calculation, part-intuition. Rocinha was so profitable for the cocaine trade because it is surrounded by the three richest areas of Rio – Leblon, São Conrado and Gávea. By turning Rocinha into the safest and most attractive favela in Rio, business boomed. “He was not a man of violence,” said Detective Bárbara Lomba, who led the three-strong team that patiently investigated the Rocinha drugs operation for four years. “He had a policy of avoiding confrontation wherever possible and of not facing down the police. Rather the opposite, he was in contact with them in a corrupt relationship.”

Nem’s policy paid off. Rocinha became a fixture on the tourist route; Brazil’s biggest pop stars such as Ivete Sangalo and Claudia Leitte were happy to include the favela on their tours, boosting their popularity with Brazil’s poor. Politicians including former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and the current incumbent, Dilma Rousseff, were keen to tour, as were members of Brazil’s national football side. Above all, the youngsters from the surrounding middle class areas went to buy coke.

Beltrame knew that he would have to “pacify” Rocinha because of its symbolic power and its location. As the World Cup and the Olympics approached the pressure grew. But by taking Nem out of the equation, Rocinha’s character has changed. The relationship between the police and residents is uneasy at best. In July 2013, a group which included the chief of Rocinha police murdered an innocent bricklayer, and the favela came close to open insurrection.

Since then the drug cartel has been edging its way back and there are sporadic shootouts with the police. Homicides remain at historic low levels but domestic violence, rape, assault and burglary have increased fourfold.

Started my oldest son reading the Little House series. He tore through the first book in a day. We did some online reading about the parents and siblings of Laura Ingalls Wilder.

I didn't get into Rose Wilder Lane with him (yet), but she is a very interesting character to read about! The FBI kept a file on her because she was "subversive," meaning she didn't approve of everything the government did. (Just like me, and one day my children, too, I hope.) I love this account of her tearing into a state trooper who was sent to check her out. The FBI insisted that they had no choice but to investigate, because she responded to a radio survey about Social Security by expressing her disapproval of it.

My 10yo son just came to me and asked "Is the moon pulling on the earth?" I confirmed it was and reviewed gravity with him. Then he asked "So is there a place in the middle where if you put something there it would just stay there?"

Wow, son! You've figured out Lagrange points! I'm proud. :)

Whelp, today is day 30 of my 30 days of clean eating challenge. There's more info about the challenge I did here but short answer is: cold turkey no alcohol, no dairy, no bread, no junk food. So basically I went out and bought a grill and ate a lot of grilled meats (chicken and steak), steamed vegetables, and some fresh fruit. When I weighed in this morning, I was down 17 lbs. BF% is a little harder to measure, my tools don't seem that accurate, but I'm guessing around 2-3% BF.

Some lessons I learned:

1. Strength Training - I made sure to lift weights 2-3 times a week so I didn't lose too much muscle mass. I also started working on the Hundred Pushups Challenge.
2. Other Exercise - Make sure you do some kind of exercise that makes you sweat. Seems like a lot of the weight/fat/toxins are excreted through sweat.
3. Healing Crisis - So I'd heard about this, it was interesting to experience. After a few days, and for about the first two weeks, I felt kind of horrible, actually. Lethargic and sore. I think its because when your fat cells start excreting a lot, all those toxins are in your bloodstream. So...
4. Drink a lot of Water - Helps flush those toxins and the excreted fat. But you'll have to pee a lot.

I would definitely recommend this for anyone. It was hard at first, but seriously, once you get through the first few weeks it really does get easier. Of course, now the trick is not to just go back to my old eating habits but to continue to eat healthy, but allow some "cheat" meals in here and there. This is actually probably easier than it seems...if you had asked me 3 weeks ago I would have told you when this is over the first thing I'm doing is hitting the buffet but actually, by the time you're done with the 30, your palate and cravings have changed enough that there's not a big desire to go eat a bunch of pizza.

https://soylentnews.org/submit.pl?op=viewsub&subid=8941

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/metamesh/meta-mesh-community-wireless-networks-for-all

Funding Canceled

Funding for this project was canceled by the project creator 1 day ago.

http://www.metamesh.org/blog/2015/08/14/ks-closure

Today we decided to halt our Kickstarter campaign. In the past few weeks, Meta Mesh and its volunteers have had to face a lot of challenges, both in the business and personal realms. We received wide support from many of those we directly asked. For that, we are terrifically grateful.

We have decided to change the direction our company is headed. In no way are we finished. In fact, this Kickstarter experience revealed a lot to us about who we want to be and how to be it.

In the upcoming months we will be expanding PittMesh, launching a webstore where pre-configured routers can be purchased, and will be building a dedicated PittMesh Working Group where people who want to contribute to building a Community Wireless Network can learn about new technology, can gain new skills, and can network with inspired people.

Definitely stay tuned to our website and our social media feeds. In fact, mere moments after closing our Kickstarter campaign something occurred which we will announce shortly that has been months in the making and we are incredibly excited about.

We’re not done. No way. As they say, it’s hard to keep a good man down. We’ll be in touch with you all again shortly.

I'm really amazed at how I spend so little time at Slashdot now. SoylentNews just sort of seamlessly replaced Slashdot in my mind for whenever I would have gone there. My fingers know to type "so" in my browser bar now instead of "sl", and the rest is automatic. I still check in there about daily or so, but I have a lot less inclination to post.

Thanks, SoylentNews!

OK, so I fudged that quote a bit. The real quote is:

"Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals study logistics."
- Gen. Robert H. Barrow, USMC (Commandant of the Marine Corps) noted in 1980

Many self-respecting nerds have probably seen Gladiator. A key point near the beginning of the movie is the Roman army, under the command of Maximus, defeats the Germanic horde (or whoever they were supposed to be) in a brilliant battle. The tactics are pure Maneuver Warfare as taught by John Boyd, that is, a main force engages and holds the enemy, then a rapid flanking movement comes in and hits them from a second front (a "left hook").

So the first time I saw this on screen I was of course Shocked and Awed at the brilliant tactics. But over time, thinking about that scene again, I realized the key to the success was not the flanking tactic, it was the logistics. Which is the bigger challenge, riding some horses in from the side? Or...

• The Roman Army was exactly in the place they wanted to be
• ...with a bunch of heavy siege equipment
• ...and all those horses and men
• ...and they were all well fed and equipped
• ...and they got all those men and materiel in place, set up, and were rested when the horde charged them

The real success in Gen Maximus's leadership was the logistics, not the tactics.

So how does this apply to software engineering? Say you're a dev lead. What are your key concerns for your teams? Is it tactics, i.e. "What programming language or framework are we using?". Or is it really making sure that the team has:

• Good desks
• Good monitors
• Good coffee
• Whiteboards
• A quiet work environment

I'm not saying the choice of programming language isn't important. Maximus wouldn't have won that battle without that flanking maneuver. But the logistics are in some ways more important. If you're in a leadership role, maybe focus less on whether the developers on the team are using hard tabs or soft tabs, and instead make sure they all have 2 monitors. Just sayin'.

The first Republican primary debates will be "legally" available online only to Fox News cable subscribers. Assuming you don't have TV access to the debate and are bored/interested/depraved enough to want to watch live, look for and post streams in the comments. They are sure to be clamping down on livestreaming services like Periscope, but others might escape notice. Twitter real time search is a great way to find these kinds of links and generally a good source of entertainment during these sorts of live events. Here's the Fox News schedule:

• 5pm ET: First (kiddy pool candidates) Debate
• 6pm ET: Online Pre-Show
• 9pm ET: Primetime Debate
• 11pm ET: Online Post-Debate Show

Jon Stewart's last episode of the Daily Show will start at 11pm ET and will last 52 minutes.

The candidates making the cut for the main debate were Donald Trump, Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, Mike Huckabee, Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Chris Christie, and John Kasich. Seven candidates who did not qualify were invited to participate in the 5:00 PM forum; these were Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, Bobby Jindal, Carly Fiorina, Lindsey Graham, George Pataki, and Jim Gilmore. Because of a rule-change announced by FOX one week before the debate-invitations went out, Graham, Pataki, and Gilmore will participate at 5pm despite averaging below 1% in the five selected polls. (Former IRS Commissioner Mark Everson was excluded from the 5pm tier, along with other relatively-unknown candidates who did not meet the updated invitation-criteria of "consistently being offered to respondents in major national polls as recognized by Fox News.") The five selected polls were conducted by Fox News, Bloomberg, CBS News, Monmouth University, and Quinnipiac University.

I made this as a journal because I didn't want to subject all of Soylent to it, especially since Fox News is not making it easy to watch the debates.

Keep in mind: Republican debate drinking games are dangerous.

Working with arch (through the antergos installer) is pretty nice so far (and learning the i3wm is nice: educating with cool, lol)(actually, it's reminding me of the days of installing macmillan red hat 5.2, where i had to mess extensively with config files, especially to get X working).

Got my i3status bar to correctly show that my VPN is working (had to do some googling, as well as finally seeing i'd left off double quotes, to make it work).
Pacman is quick (VERY quick) and easy, and pamac-manager makes it easy to include AUR packages without adding it into your config file.

So far, really enjoying i3, but have included plasma (for k3b) and the default gnome just as fall-backs in case i need to do something that i don't know the command for (yet).
Am pleased with my set up, and with deja-dup to backup, i may keep this setup as my stable, and use my other partition to play with distro-hopping.

Currently watching Black Sails (episode 1, so far) while playing minecraft... (sad that it was bought by Microsoft, though). Will not be installing windows 10 to try my 'free' minecraft win10, lol. That kind of free is too expensive! :)