... of things that are supposed to be an {X}-killer, but flame out. I've lost track of the number of MMOs, for example, that were supposed to be a WoW-killer.
I don't know if "hate" is the right term for how the majority of people feel about President Trump, but his job approval (RCP average from 9/11 to 9/27) has him at 40.1% approval, 54.0% disapproval.
So, at the very least, most (polled) people don't approve of how he's doing his job. Even FOX News's most recent poll has him at 42% approval, 53% disapproval.
Let's face it, the real goal of those advertisements was to create division. Now, I'm not saying that without all those Russian advertisements, the election wouldn't still have been divisive. Both Trump and Clinton are polarizing people. But the advertisements stoked the flames, as it were.
Because Russia wants a weak West. Honestly, Putin probably would have preferred Clinton in office. (No, hold on, let me finish.) Because if that had been the only election day difference, the GOP would still have control of both the House and the Senate. Clinton would be unable to get anything done, and come on, the calls for her impeachment would have started the day after the election.
The U.S. would be even further up shit creek than it is right now.
Because, depending on your employer and your position, your boss might be calling or emailing after normal work hours? You might be under pressure to work extra hours, and that cuts into your non-work time, and sleep is regularly the first thing to be affected by that sort of thing?
I mean, hell, I work a 9-5 job (in-house developer for a smallish company), and there have been times where one member of management or another has pulled a "Oh, we absolutely have to have this done today" at 4:45.
And I've gotten in trouble (for a given value of trouble) for not responding to an email that wasn't sent until 6 p.m. (Hell, one time, a member of management sent an email at 1 a.m., and had a case of the chapped ass that I didn't respond to it until nine hours later. He... doesn't work here any more.)
The problem isn't with all employers, full stop.
It's with a specific sub-set of employers who think that because they're the ones providing a paycheck, that you must be available whenever they say, regardless of how unreasonable it may be.
He might have had to sign off on it, but if he did, it would be almost certainly one of dozens of things he signs every day. Honestly, I seem to recall, under the Obama administration and the Bush administration, when something like this happened, the President was 'credited' with it.
"Thank you for trying to buy beer. All of our video representatives are busy right now. Your average wait time for someone half a world away to check your ID over a video link is EIGHT minutes."
*plays hold music while customer says "fuck this" and goes to a convenience store*
Okay, I go up to this cabinet, use the app to unlock it so I can buy something. (Side note: presumably the cabinet door contains an automatic relocking system after so many second have passed.)
I get a box of Cheese Nips. As I take it out of the cabinet, it passes by the cameras in the cabinet and I am charged accordingly. But then, I notice that they have uh... Wheat Thins. I want those instead.
I put the Cheese Nips back in the cabinet. Do the cameras register that as putting it back in the cabinet and refund the sale? Or is the software dumb enough to think that I just took another box of Cheese Nips out? Or neither of those?
What if I'm reaching for the box of Cheese Nips and some jerk behind me reaches out and grabs something and runs? I'm going to get charged for that. What's the resolution process for that?
How are the cameras arranged? Can you use a "blind spot" to get free stuff? Can you use one product to block the view of another product so you get that second product for free?
Hrm. That would increase the complexity of the cabinet, but not horribly so. I'm not sure what information is 'contained' in the bar code of licenses either.
I still suspect that it wouldn't pass legal muster, though, in that you could easily fool the cabinet by using the bar code from someone else's license. Unless they put in a safeguard so that the app "user" has to match the license holder.
Even then, are the bar codes on the back of, say California licenses in the same format as Nevada licenses? Would sort of program or reader would the cabinets need to access the information stored in the barcode in a quick and correct manner?
Laws in the U.S. don't. Even if it they could stock alcohol and tobacco products in these cabinets, there's too much potential liability for selling to underage customers.
I mean, okay, if some 19-year-old goes to a convenience store right now, and buys alcohol (they're weren't carded/denied) and the cops find out, the convenience store will get hit with a fine over it, and the cashier could face jail time. (I believe it varies from state to state)
If some teenager buys alcohol through one of these cabinets, who gets fined? The company that made it? The business who has the cabinet located in it? I'll tell you right now, there's no way in hell most businesses will accept that liability as a requirement of having one of these things in their location.
If they're going to use weight sensors (possible, but I doubt it), they'd have to have one or more sensors for each "product" location in the cabinet, which would increase the training requirements of the people who restock the products. "Only put the Cheese Nips in the first tray. Only put the Snickers bars in the 12th tray. Make sure to synchronize to the product weights database before restocking."
Or, I suppose, they could combine weight sensors and RFID tags in some way. The tag informs the sensor what the product is, and it knows what weight that product should be. But then you have to put RFID tags on everything. Which increases your costs.
Yeah, but in the case of hotels, it's more of a 'captive audience'. I mean, you've checked into your room, unpacked, and you realize that you forgot to pack your toothbrush, or you need some aspirin.
If your choices are "buy from the vending machine in the hotel" or "walk to a nearby convenience store", most of the time, the vending machine choice is going to win. Simply because it's' closer, and it offers what you need.
There's no way that these cabinets can provide everything that people actually go to bodegas for, so the whole "replace the bodega" thing is marketing hype and crapola to begin with.
So they can overcharge you for things you could buy at a convenience store, which, let's face it, are already marked up a bit from a full grocery store.
Exactly. This is one of those ideas that "looks good on paper" and is certainly designed to attract venture capitalists, but will really fall flat for a number of reasons.
As you mentioned, they won't be able to sell any forms of alcohol or tobacco through these cabinets. They also probably won't be able to sell any types of lottery tickets.
They almost certainly won't have any sort of products that require freezing or refrigeration, as that significantly ups the power requirements and size of the unit.
Forget any fresh produce, or anything with a very limited shelf life. Or freshly made sandwiches.
So, already they're not replacing a lot of things that people go to bodegas for.
Now, and it's possible they've already thought about this, but what's their "return" policy? You see, at an actual bodega (or any store, for that matter), I could be shopping, and put something in my cart, and then decide "Nah, I really don't need this." and put it back on the shelf.
What happens when you do that here? Do you confirm your purchases? What do they have in place for loss prevention (i.e. the five-finger discount)?
What do they have in place for if someone accidentally knocks something off the shelf when reaching in for something else? Are you charged for that?
What do they have in place for requesting products that aren't in the cabinet at all? How easily can that be manipulated to, say, have every cabinet stock up on products that won't sell, because someone decided to troll their request service? (Even assuming that they have something like that set up.)
The only problem with the "North Korea is only saber-rattling" thing is that the other side has to recognize that it's only saber-rattling.
Trump.... doesn't. He has a serious "run off at the mouth" problem on Twitter and in other media where he is clearly not thinking things through before he says them.
Which, if he were still just a businessman, or just a Senator or Representative, wouldn't be that bad, really. I mean, how much attention do people pay to all the stupid shit Louie Gohmert says, for example?
But Trump's the President. And a President with a tendency to not think statements through before saying them is.... not good.
I never said that they wouldn't deal with the refugees in their own way. But they don't want to even have that problem to deal with.
I don't believe for a second that China wouldn't restrict refugees from North Korea entering China, at the barrel of a gun, if they thought it necessary. But they would rather that refugees fleeing en masse from North Korea doesn't happen to begin with.
They will take whatever actions they find necessary to stop that from happening. Right now, those actions include supporting the recent sanctions that passed the UN Security Council.
The Russians have less to worry about in terms of refugees from North Korea simply because their border with North Korea is that much smaller. (~1400 km of border between NK and China, and ~17 km of border between NK and Russia.)
Yeah, I remembered that 'refugees' point after I posted.
If North Korea is preemptively attacked, China's response will be based off of the nature of that attack. If it's just bombing runs on NK's nuclear and missile facilities, China's response will probably be in the nature of providing aerial support and anti-aircraft support.
If it's an escalated preemptive attack, China's response will also escalate. I'm hoping that with this latest batch of sanctions from the UN that it won't come to that, but we're literally operating with two attention-craving idiots who weren't hugged enough as kids running the U.S. and North Korea.
Also, China really, really doesn't want a whole bunch of North Korea refugees fleeing over the border if North Korea gets attacked (preemptively or not), so they want to keep things calmed down.
China is propping up North Korea because they want a buffer state in the way. They're not exactly pleased with Kim Jong Un's nuclear ambitions, but the last thing they want is a regime change to a more democratic model.
They're supporting the (somewhat watered down) sanctions that just passed the UN Security Council, and you damn well bet that there's some conversations going on between China and North Korea over this. But they still have to be careful about this because, as you may have noticed, North Korea doesn't have a history of stable reactions.
China has also said that if North Korea is preemptively attacked, they will honor their defense treaty with North Korea and assist them. Hopefully, Trump isn't stupid enough to test that. But China has also said that if North Korea starts anything (like attacking Guam), then they're on their own. Hopefully, Kim Jong Un isn't stupid enough to test that.
I was under the impression that a company (at least in the U.S.) had 90 days from the point where they learned of the data breach to notify affected persons. It may vary from state to state though, as I know several states have laws about this. Apparently, the breach started in late May, but Equifax didn't discover it until July.
So they are technically within that 90 days. (Assuming that I'm not pulling that impression from some poorly remembered article.) Some of the execs are still shady as hell for selling stock right before the data breach was announced, and the company certainly doesn't come off as looking very good overall, even before the lobbying story broke.
But they were lobbying for this change before the data breach started. And they're hardly unique in lobbying Congress to make it harder for people to sue them.
I work for a company where, going by scuttlebutt (I'm not in sales), the sales commission structure and policy has changed multiple times over the last few years.
At one point, it was apparently "each sale earns commission" and the sales department was broken into teams, where there would also be a team bonus for most sales.
Now, because of the nature of the product, I think it's something like "the customer still has to have an account six months after the sale" to count as a valid commission. And there's no teams any more, so it's very cutthroat over in sales.
More likely, it's "Here's this list of items we're cutting prices on. The most we're cutting any single item's price by is 43%. Most everything else is getting a small price reduction. Let's lead with the 43%."
Slashdot Mirror
... of things that are supposed to be an {X}-killer, but flame out. I've lost track of the number of MMOs, for example, that were supposed to be a WoW-killer.
I don't know if "hate" is the right term for how the majority of people feel about President Trump, but his job approval (RCP average from 9/11 to 9/27) has him at 40.1% approval, 54.0% disapproval.
So, at the very least, most (polled) people don't approve of how he's doing his job. Even FOX News's most recent poll has him at 42% approval, 53% disapproval.
Let's face it, the real goal of those advertisements was to create division. Now, I'm not saying that without all those Russian advertisements, the election wouldn't still have been divisive. Both Trump and Clinton are polarizing people. But the advertisements stoked the flames, as it were.
Because Russia wants a weak West. Honestly, Putin probably would have preferred Clinton in office. (No, hold on, let me finish.) Because if that had been the only election day difference, the GOP would still have control of both the House and the Senate. Clinton would be unable to get anything done, and come on, the calls for her impeachment would have started the day after the election.
The U.S. would be even further up shit creek than it is right now.
Because, depending on your employer and your position, your boss might be calling or emailing after normal work hours? You might be under pressure to work extra hours, and that cuts into your non-work time, and sleep is regularly the first thing to be affected by that sort of thing?
I mean, hell, I work a 9-5 job (in-house developer for a smallish company), and there have been times where one member of management or another has pulled a "Oh, we absolutely have to have this done today" at 4:45.
And I've gotten in trouble (for a given value of trouble) for not responding to an email that wasn't sent until 6 p.m. (Hell, one time, a member of management sent an email at 1 a.m., and had a case of the chapped ass that I didn't respond to it until nine hours later. He... doesn't work here any more.)
The problem isn't with all employers, full stop.
It's with a specific sub-set of employers who think that because they're the ones providing a paycheck, that you must be available whenever they say, regardless of how unreasonable it may be.
He might have had to sign off on it, but if he did, it would be almost certainly one of dozens of things he signs every day. Honestly, I seem to recall, under the Obama administration and the Bush administration, when something like this happened, the President was 'credited' with it.
"Thank you for trying to buy beer. All of our video representatives are busy right now. Your average wait time for someone half a world away to check your ID over a video link is EIGHT minutes."
*plays hold music while customer says "fuck this" and goes to a convenience store*
Yeah, but that's the question.
Okay, I go up to this cabinet, use the app to unlock it so I can buy something. (Side note: presumably the cabinet door contains an automatic relocking system after so many second have passed.)
I get a box of Cheese Nips. As I take it out of the cabinet, it passes by the cameras in the cabinet and I am charged accordingly. But then, I notice that they have uh... Wheat Thins. I want those instead.
I put the Cheese Nips back in the cabinet. Do the cameras register that as putting it back in the cabinet and refund the sale? Or is the software dumb enough to think that I just took another box of Cheese Nips out? Or neither of those?
What if I'm reaching for the box of Cheese Nips and some jerk behind me reaches out and grabs something and runs? I'm going to get charged for that. What's the resolution process for that?
How are the cameras arranged? Can you use a "blind spot" to get free stuff? Can you use one product to block the view of another product so you get that second product for free?
Hrm. That would increase the complexity of the cabinet, but not horribly so. I'm not sure what information is 'contained' in the bar code of licenses either.
I still suspect that it wouldn't pass legal muster, though, in that you could easily fool the cabinet by using the bar code from someone else's license. Unless they put in a safeguard so that the app "user" has to match the license holder.
Even then, are the bar codes on the back of, say California licenses in the same format as Nevada licenses? Would sort of program or reader would the cabinets need to access the information stored in the barcode in a quick and correct manner?
Yeah, but just try selling that here in the States where we're all pretty much used to refrigerated milk.
"Hey, here's some unrefrigerated milk. It's been in a warm cabinet for who knows how long! Go ahead, you know you want to buy it."
Hell, if nothing else, you'd probably make yourself silk through psychosomatic response, just like with gas station sushi.
Yes, because their laws allow it.
Laws in the U.S. don't. Even if it they could stock alcohol and tobacco products in these cabinets, there's too much potential liability for selling to underage customers.
I mean, okay, if some 19-year-old goes to a convenience store right now, and buys alcohol (they're weren't carded/denied) and the cops find out, the convenience store will get hit with a fine over it, and the cashier could face jail time. (I believe it varies from state to state)
If some teenager buys alcohol through one of these cabinets, who gets fined? The company that made it? The business who has the cabinet located in it? I'll tell you right now, there's no way in hell most businesses will accept that liability as a requirement of having one of these things in their location.
If they're going to use weight sensors (possible, but I doubt it), they'd have to have one or more sensors for each "product" location in the cabinet, which would increase the training requirements of the people who restock the products. "Only put the Cheese Nips in the first tray. Only put the Snickers bars in the 12th tray. Make sure to synchronize to the product weights database before restocking."
Or, I suppose, they could combine weight sensors and RFID tags in some way. The tag informs the sensor what the product is, and it knows what weight that product should be. But then you have to put RFID tags on everything. Which increases your costs.
So, it's the "Whole Foods" (pre-Amazon) of vending machines?
Yeah, but in the case of hotels, it's more of a 'captive audience'. I mean, you've checked into your room, unpacked, and you realize that you forgot to pack your toothbrush, or you need some aspirin.
If your choices are "buy from the vending machine in the hotel" or "walk to a nearby convenience store", most of the time, the vending machine choice is going to win. Simply because it's' closer, and it offers what you need.
There's no way that these cabinets can provide everything that people actually go to bodegas for, so the whole "replace the bodega" thing is marketing hype and crapola to begin with.
So they can overcharge you for things you could buy at a convenience store, which, let's face it, are already marked up a bit from a full grocery store.
Exactly. This is one of those ideas that "looks good on paper" and is certainly designed to attract venture capitalists, but will really fall flat for a number of reasons.
As you mentioned, they won't be able to sell any forms of alcohol or tobacco through these cabinets. They also probably won't be able to sell any types of lottery tickets.
They almost certainly won't have any sort of products that require freezing or refrigeration, as that significantly ups the power requirements and size of the unit.
Forget any fresh produce, or anything with a very limited shelf life. Or freshly made sandwiches.
So, already they're not replacing a lot of things that people go to bodegas for.
Now, and it's possible they've already thought about this, but what's their "return" policy? You see, at an actual bodega (or any store, for that matter), I could be shopping, and put something in my cart, and then decide "Nah, I really don't need this." and put it back on the shelf.
What happens when you do that here? Do you confirm your purchases? What do they have in place for loss prevention (i.e. the five-finger discount)?
What do they have in place for if someone accidentally knocks something off the shelf when reaching in for something else? Are you charged for that?
What do they have in place for requesting products that aren't in the cabinet at all? How easily can that be manipulated to, say, have every cabinet stock up on products that won't sell, because someone decided to troll their request service? (Even assuming that they have something like that set up.)
The only problem with the "North Korea is only saber-rattling" thing is that the other side has to recognize that it's only saber-rattling.
Trump.... doesn't. He has a serious "run off at the mouth" problem on Twitter and in other media where he is clearly not thinking things through before he says them.
Which, if he were still just a businessman, or just a Senator or Representative, wouldn't be that bad, really. I mean, how much attention do people pay to all the stupid shit Louie Gohmert says, for example?
But Trump's the President. And a President with a tendency to not think statements through before saying them is.... not good.
I never said that they wouldn't deal with the refugees in their own way. But they don't want to even have that problem to deal with.
I don't believe for a second that China wouldn't restrict refugees from North Korea entering China, at the barrel of a gun, if they thought it necessary. But they would rather that refugees fleeing en masse from North Korea doesn't happen to begin with.
They will take whatever actions they find necessary to stop that from happening. Right now, those actions include supporting the recent sanctions that passed the UN Security Council.
The Russians have less to worry about in terms of refugees from North Korea simply because their border with North Korea is that much smaller. (~1400 km of border between NK and China, and ~17 km of border between NK and Russia.)
Yeah, I remembered that 'refugees' point after I posted.
If North Korea is preemptively attacked, China's response will be based off of the nature of that attack. If it's just bombing runs on NK's nuclear and missile facilities, China's response will probably be in the nature of providing aerial support and anti-aircraft support.
If it's an escalated preemptive attack, China's response will also escalate. I'm hoping that with this latest batch of sanctions from the UN that it won't come to that, but we're literally operating with two attention-craving idiots who weren't hugged enough as kids running the U.S. and North Korea.
Also, China really, really doesn't want a whole bunch of North Korea refugees fleeing over the border if North Korea gets attacked (preemptively or not), so they want to keep things calmed down.
China is propping up North Korea because they want a buffer state in the way. They're not exactly pleased with Kim Jong Un's nuclear ambitions, but the last thing they want is a regime change to a more democratic model.
They're supporting the (somewhat watered down) sanctions that just passed the UN Security Council, and you damn well bet that there's some conversations going on between China and North Korea over this. But they still have to be careful about this because, as you may have noticed, North Korea doesn't have a history of stable reactions.
China has also said that if North Korea is preemptively attacked, they will honor their defense treaty with North Korea and assist them. Hopefully, Trump isn't stupid enough to test that. But China has also said that if North Korea starts anything (like attacking Guam), then they're on their own. Hopefully, Kim Jong Un isn't stupid enough to test that.
I was under the impression that a company (at least in the U.S.) had 90 days from the point where they learned of the data breach to notify affected persons. It may vary from state to state though, as I know several states have laws about this. Apparently, the breach started in late May, but Equifax didn't discover it until July.
So they are technically within that 90 days. (Assuming that I'm not pulling that impression from some poorly remembered article.) Some of the execs are still shady as hell for selling stock right before the data breach was announced, and the company certainly doesn't come off as looking very good overall, even before the lobbying story broke.
But they were lobbying for this change before the data breach started. And they're hardly unique in lobbying Congress to make it harder for people to sue them.
What? And leave his mom's basement? And potentially expose himself to the evil daystar?
I work for a company where, going by scuttlebutt (I'm not in sales), the sales commission structure and policy has changed multiple times over the last few years.
At one point, it was apparently "each sale earns commission" and the sales department was broken into teams, where there would also be a team bonus for most sales.
Now, because of the nature of the product, I think it's something like "the customer still has to have an account six months after the sale" to count as a valid commission. And there's no teams any more, so it's very cutthroat over in sales.
More likely, it's "Here's this list of items we're cutting prices on. The most we're cutting any single item's price by is 43%. Most everything else is getting a small price reduction. Let's lead with the 43%."
If I take it to small claims court and the judge/magistrate asks me if I was affected by the breach, I should risk a perjury charge? Yeah, no.