Slashdot Mirror
When the Senate Tried To Ban Dial Telephones
An anonymous reader writes "With the Senate now looking to have the government block access to websites it deems to be bad (which seems to be called 'censorship' in other countries), it's worth pointing out that the Senate doesn't exactly have a good track record when it comes to deciding what technologies to ban. Back in 1930, some Senators came close to banning the dial telephone, because they felt that it was wrong that they had to do the labor themselves, rather than an operator at the other end."
"Gotta save those phone operators jobs!" This is really no different than those backwards member states (i.e. OR and NJ) that don't allow self-pumping of gasoline. They probably would outlaw self-dialing too if they had thought of it.
Every time I drive through NJ I pump my own gas, not because I'm anti-full service, but because they move so damn slow. I have better things to do than sit in my car for ten minutes waiting for an attendant to show up, especially if I still have a 2 hour drive ahead of me.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
I hardly qualify as "older" and I honestly think self checkouts are a waste of time and resources. When they're properly maintained and every item is entered correctly in the system and has a bar code I'm sure they'd work perfectly. As a former retail checker for several years and a customer I know that's hardly ever the case. SKUs change too fast to keep up with sometimes and maintenance from the equipment vendors doesn't come often enough and they react too slow to emergencies. The number of times I've gotten stuck on "Please put your item in the bag" are too many because it can't detect the weight properly and not to mention it feels like the laser in the scanner is much weaker than the one on a proper checkout terminal. If there's an issue you have to wait for the single employee who manages at least four of those self checkouts to come over and fix it. Usually that means waiting for them to finish with the other one or two customers with issues.