It’s really the worst. For the uninitiated, the platen where your bags go is actually a scale. The self-check-kiosk software waits for this bagging scale to quit moving (see: de-bouncing) before weighing and approving the scan and purchase of a single item. This is why, occasionally, if you’re too fast or too slow, the kiosk gets angry and makes you flag down an attendant.

That’s not a problem for 10 items or less, but for a whole cart? All that waiting around adds up. Because of all that, it’s literally impossible to achieve the same or better speed than an employee.

Jeorgia?

like sifting through resumes.

Then we need to call it what it is: This exchange is an HR screen.

That’s a good call. I kinda/sorta figured that the fire department would see it sooner or later, but that’s clearly not the case.

It might be a matter of just being under a rock for the last 10-20 years. Retail PoS systems have changed quite a bit in that time, but how you interface with gas pumps and dining, hasn’t changed at all.

Also: a lot of folks navigate digital systems by rote memorization and don’t read or think all that much. If you throw a new interface in front of them, just sit back and watch the bewilderment. Gotta give people like that time to learn it all.

Sadly, we still do. But it’s really more a matter of vendor preference these days, since some places (usually small/personal operations) don’t do digital payments. That and nobody carries large amounts of cash around, so checks are the only alternative.

That said, anyone that hasn’t moved on to prefer a bank card or credit-card is behind the times, or doesn’t have a bank account. Still, it’s rare to see these days, especially at the grocery store.

This is the core problem, right here. At a minimum, people need training to learn what information to ignore so you can navigate the whole thing. Even if you know the store’s layout, you still need to have the will to ignore advertising and disregard extraneous information. Being a fast reader that can do fast mental math, also helps tremendously.

Traffic flow is another problem. Wegmans is the chief offender here, IMO, by putting impulse items in massive crates that crowd the store entrance+exit combo. It amazes me that it’s not a fire hazard, because it makes entering the store a nightmare. But most grocery stores have awful choke points in produce, dairy, meat, and other high-traffic areas. And of course those are the stores that have no small carts or hand-baskets, obligating customers to gum up the works with big metal baskets that are 70% empty.

A better idea is a store that doesn’t flood your eye sockets with information you don’t absolutely need. Get rid of the special displays, end-cap bullshit, and vendor promotional stuff. Then, normalize all the price tags and include unit cost per lb/oz/L/whatever to make bargain hunting a snap. Then, measure the fucking carts and make sure that two can get by everywhere in the store. Finally, pick a store layout and stick to it. </rant>

I want to say that Aldi is already doing all of the right things, but I could be wrong.

In my greater friend-group, we call them “shamans”, and rotate responsibilities when people go on trips. Like a designated driver or lifeguard, it’s a position of elevated and celebrated importance, even though the traveler may not ever leave their couch.

and most importantly be human

Now that I think about it, it’s key to be the most human possible. People do irritating and annoying stuff when they toss sobriety out the window, and sometimes it takes a lot of compassion and empathy to manage.

Eh, I give it a 4/10 right now. There’s still some cool stuff to do and plenty of great people around, but generally, can’t recommend it if you don’t have to.

I know a handful of oddball pharma trivia facts, but that’s a new one on me. It’s just wild that a drug could even do that.

For her sake, I hope she applied for QA.

A burn so severe, so long-lasting, that he no longer has to pay to heat his home.

A garlic sauce containment breech is nothing to sneeze at. Entire living rooms have been rendered uninhabitable by such events.

I think that’s closer to 500-750ml. I wonder what the 250ml amount was intended for? Are people dunking their crab rangoons in this stuff?

Industrial: The world is broken and has been for a while so let’s go to the abandoned husk of the inner city, throw a party, and make insane music before it crashes down around our ears.

For your listening pleasure.

What really breaks my brain is that the pigment responsible for this purple hue are called anthocyanins. It literally has a root-word for blue in the name, even though that’s not the only color it can make.

It’s even better worse if you hear it at a dead mall, with hardly anyone around and almost no open stores.

I went through this last year and was pretty gutted by the process… at first.

When the final bill came in for all the renovations and prep for sale, we just added it to the list price. Our realtor’s thinking was that we could entice buyers with something that is turn-key, rather than just doing the bare minimum. It was boring looking, but you wouldn’t have to change anything because it was perfectly inoffensive, if not without flair. And the buyer gets to finance un-doing our to-taste changes along with the house. Win-win.

The key here was that our realtor had the float to finance the renovations, a crew that could do the work for a steal, and felt our home was a sure bet. YMMV.

Now, my new place… yeah. Still saving up to un-fuckulate what the last guy did.

Not to long ago, I was mourning the loss of the Conversatron 3000. It was a forum site that was nothing but comedy writers, using the medium to tell a flavor of joke and observational humor that could only work on that medium. A lot of it had this formula of “dumb question/observation”, “dumber retort”, “setup”, and finally “witty punchline.” Sometimes, that would just thread on for multiple rounds. Rarely, threads were open to user comments too.

Now I understand why that hasn’t come back. We don’t need it anymore.