Those plastic bags are great for using as trash bags in your car (hang it off of the stick shift) or for small trash can liners. I also use them as trash bags while backpacking so I don't end up with a dusting of hot cocoa powder or mac & cheese mix all over the inside of my pack.
"I actually spend my time in line making fun of the products they're trying to get me to impulse buy"
Like how every woman's magazine will have one title on the cover on how to lose weight followed by a recipe for "make this incredible chocolate cake!"? They do this EVERY time.
I think the lack of windows and clocks is normal for almost every store. It is just cheaper to build a box without windows, cheaper to heat/cool, and there is one less way for people to break in or thing for vandals to trash. They probably figure everyone has a clock of some sort on them (phone, watch, etc) and they do have clocks in our local supermarket by the customer service area. I don't think it is a conspiracy.
I have a suspicion that the software that runs the displays is built seperately from the company that makes the hardware. So the company that builds the self-checkout system buys the software, then buys the ATM controler, then buys all the other pieces and puts them together. That the pieces clash with each other ("OK" instead of "YES") is probably a result of the system builder not being careful or buying parts based on price only.
9 times out of 10 a normal cashier is faster than the self-checkout. The only time I use the self-checkout is if every cashier has a queue of overflowing carts.
- I'm usually tired from work and would rather have someone else take care of it. - Anything over a handful of items is handled much more quickly by most cashiers. - That damn little bagging shelf that you have to put your stuff on is too small and if you have anything round in a bag, like apples, they roll in the bag and off the shelf. - They fail too often and you have to wait for assistance anyway - You have to hunt through a menu for produce (I could type in "mangos" if they let me). My store doesn't give you the option of entering the code off of the fruit label. - If you pay in cash you have to feed each bill in vending machine style and deal with the usual "This bill has a folded corner, it is unacceptable!!" - I get the nagging feeling that I'm not being provided a convenience but being tricked into doing the store's work for them. I can't wait until they start having us go into the stockroom and move the pallets for them too.
I bet right now there is a sales consultant telling a grocery exec "What you need to do is put ads or nag screens in the self-checkout lanes. Have them ask customers 'Would you like to buy a Snickers bar today? They're on sale!'." So then you'd lose the speed advantage of the self-checkout.
"I tend to go grocery shopping once every other day, sometimes daily."
Try making fewer trips to the store. You must spend most of your week going back and forth to the market. If you know you go through so much lube a month just buy it ahead of time.
I've had no real problems with my system and gaming. The only problem I've had lately has been since I loaded the latest nvidia drivers. Sometimes not everything loads at boottime and I have to log back in again. Other than that it has performed like a champ.
"If one game stifles a whole industry resulting in lowered sales of other games and this consequently results in:
1. A bunch of copycat games trying to steal market share from the leader 2. Game development being cancelled on games that don't fit the business leader's model 3. Less diversity of choice for gamers - a flood of me too MMOs and lack of games in other genres"
Congratulations! You just described the movie industry!
I agree whole heartedly. I'm turned off by the clic nature of many online games and the predictable "noob" abuse you have to put up with. I have little desire to make small talk with hundreds of strangers. I've also stuck with NWN for the single player aspect (though I wish I could control my own party) and the deep catalogue of scenarios that are available. Hey, let's get online and play NWN together! Wait a minute...
Many of the old arcade games must be the inspiration for WoW's business model. Instead of asking for a quarter to restart the game many of them started taking quarters to heal your character, continue from that point, add energy, etc. So the more quarters you pumped in the further you could go vs putting in another quarter to replay the game. WoW gets you to funnel in more time. Instead of quarters they get your monthly fee.
"more and more of the gamer population consists of gamers which don't have the time to seriously go into online RPGs and would rather just have games which you can just pick up and have fun for half-an-hour."
Exactly, which is why I like to play Neverwinter Nights because I can play a quick quest or exploration for an hour or so. If I step away from the game for a few days when I come back I've missed nothing. I also have access to scores of well made fan built scenarios I can download.
If I want to play online I like Battlefield 1942 since it has no real begining or end, it is just back-and-forth action. It doesn't matter if I play for an hour or 10 minutes.
I knew a woman who worked in one of MIT's biotech labs. The labs were generally a mess and grad students were constantly going back and forth between the labs at all hours of the day and night. Unfortunately the local crooks and bums new about the lousy security too and would occasionally steal student's laptops, wallets, purses, etc. I'm sure they also kept an eye out for hypodermic needles.
One day I came in and she said that someone had come in during the night and opened the small fridge they used for bacterial cultures and drank some bottles with liquid media in them (like a hi-c colored bacterial growth medium). Lucky for the idiot the bacteria were plant pathogens. About a year after, MIT closed the building and rebuilt it into a much nicer, and much more secure, facility.
I was fingerprinted as part of my DOD security clearance at a DOD lab. At the time I had psoiasis on my fingers so my fingerprints were practically smooth from thickened skin. After it cleared up I doubt any prints they took would've been too useful.
I think the term "man trap" itself originated with castles. The main gate would consist of an inner door and and outer door. Attackers getting past the outer door could be attacked (with rocks, burning coals, boiling water/oil, etc) in the confined space by defenders above them through holes in the floor.
They even talked about 8x8 (2x 4 core CPUS). Just 4x4 strikes me as wasted power that the vast majority of enthusiasts would never touch. Most of the time the 2nd core is barely used even now.
Gillette has already created a version of this overkill in shaving:
Actually these tapes were just the rehersal tapes. "Ok Neil, can you hide your footsteps with the brush and go back up the ladder? This time just stick to the script please."
Slashdot Mirror
They are even better than vending machines because they accept PENNIES!
Those plastic bags are great for using as trash bags in your car (hang it off of the stick shift) or for small trash can liners. I also use them as trash bags while backpacking so I don't end up with a dusting of hot cocoa powder or mac & cheese mix all over the inside of my pack.
They didn't invent this. Border's Bookstores, The Gap, and REI's, for examples, do this also.
"I actually spend my time in line making fun of the products they're trying to get me to impulse buy"
Like how every woman's magazine will have one title on the cover on how to lose weight followed by a recipe for "make this incredible chocolate cake!"? They do this EVERY time.
Sadly, behind every joke there is an ounce of truth. I'll pray for you my monkey spanking son.
I think the lack of windows and clocks is normal for almost every store. It is just cheaper to build a box without windows, cheaper to heat/cool, and there is one less way for people to break in or thing for vandals to trash. They probably figure everyone has a clock of some sort on them (phone, watch, etc) and they do have clocks in our local supermarket by the customer service area. I don't think it is a conspiracy.
I have xenotriskadecatechnophobia. The fear of 13 foreign robots.
I have a suspicion that the software that runs the displays is built seperately from the company that makes the hardware. So the company that builds the self-checkout system buys the software, then buys the ATM controler, then buys all the other pieces and puts them together. That the pieces clash with each other ("OK" instead of "YES") is probably a result of the system builder not being careful or buying parts based on price only.
9 times out of 10 a normal cashier is faster than the self-checkout. The only time I use the self-checkout is if every cashier has a queue of overflowing carts.
I'd rather use a cashier for most purchases.
- I'm usually tired from work and would rather have someone else take care of it.
- Anything over a handful of items is handled much more quickly by most cashiers.
- That damn little bagging shelf that you have to put your stuff on is too small and if you have anything round in a bag, like apples, they roll in the bag and off the shelf.
- They fail too often and you have to wait for assistance anyway
- You have to hunt through a menu for produce (I could type in "mangos" if they let me). My store doesn't give you the option of entering the code off of the fruit label.
- If you pay in cash you have to feed each bill in vending machine style and deal with the usual "This bill has a folded corner, it is unacceptable!!"
- I get the nagging feeling that I'm not being provided a convenience but being tricked into doing the store's work for them. I can't wait until they start having us go into the stockroom and move the pallets for them too.
I bet right now there is a sales consultant telling a grocery exec "What you need to do is put ads or nag screens in the self-checkout lanes. Have them ask customers 'Would you like to buy a Snickers bar today? They're on sale!'." So then you'd lose the speed advantage of the self-checkout.
"I tend to go grocery shopping once every other day, sometimes daily."
Try making fewer trips to the store. You must spend most of your week going back and forth to the market. If you know you go through so much lube a month just buy it ahead of time.
I've had no real problems with my system and gaming. The only problem I've had lately has been since I loaded the latest nvidia drivers. Sometimes not everything loads at boottime and I have to log back in again. Other than that it has performed like a champ.
Epox NF4+Ultra, NVidia 7800GT, AMD X2 3800+, 2 gb ram, Win XP sp2 + latest drivers
"If one game stifles a whole industry resulting in lowered sales of other games and this consequently results in:
1. A bunch of copycat games trying to steal market share from the leader
2. Game development being cancelled on games that don't fit the business leader's model
3. Less diversity of choice for gamers - a flood of me too MMOs and lack of games in other genres"
Congratulations! You just described the movie industry!
I've played that game! It's my favorite FPS! Too bad I only get one life and it takes me months to heal.
ZG? MC? AQ20? I haven't seen that ugly an abuse of abbreviations since I worked for the DOD.
If you RTFC you would've seen that they are talking about how hard it is to find PC games in the EB Games stores.
I agree whole heartedly. I'm turned off by the clic nature of many online games and the predictable "noob" abuse you have to put up with. I have little desire to make small talk with hundreds of strangers. I've also stuck with NWN for the single player aspect (though I wish I could control my own party) and the deep catalogue of scenarios that are available. Hey, let's get online and play NWN together! Wait a minute...
Many of the old arcade games must be the inspiration for WoW's business model. Instead of asking for a quarter to restart the game many of them started taking quarters to heal your character, continue from that point, add energy, etc. So the more quarters you pumped in the further you could go vs putting in another quarter to replay the game. WoW gets you to funnel in more time. Instead of quarters they get your monthly fee.
"more and more of the gamer population consists of gamers which don't have the time to seriously go into online RPGs and would rather just have games which you can just pick up and have fun for half-an-hour."
Exactly, which is why I like to play Neverwinter Nights because I can play a quick quest or exploration for an hour or so. If I step away from the game for a few days when I come back I've missed nothing. I also have access to scores of well made fan built scenarios I can download.
If I want to play online I like Battlefield 1942 since it has no real begining or end, it is just back-and-forth action. It doesn't matter if I play for an hour or 10 minutes.
I knew a woman who worked in one of MIT's biotech labs. The labs were generally a mess and grad students were constantly going back and forth between the labs at all hours of the day and night. Unfortunately the local crooks and bums new about the lousy security too and would occasionally steal student's laptops, wallets, purses, etc. I'm sure they also kept an eye out for hypodermic needles.
One day I came in and she said that someone had come in during the night and opened the small fridge they used for bacterial cultures and drank some bottles with liquid media in them (like a hi-c colored bacterial growth medium). Lucky for the idiot the bacteria were plant pathogens. About a year after, MIT closed the building and rebuilt it into a much nicer, and much more secure, facility.
I was fingerprinted as part of my DOD security clearance at a DOD lab. At the time I had psoiasis on my fingers so my fingerprints were practically smooth from thickened skin. After it cleared up I doubt any prints they took would've been too useful.
I think the term "man trap" itself originated with castles. The main gate would consist of an inner door and and outer door. Attackers getting past the outer door could be attacked (with rocks, burning coals, boiling water/oil, etc) in the confined space by defenders above them through holes in the floor.
The ultimate limit on your online time is when you get bedsores on your ass.
They even talked about 8x8 (2x 4 core CPUS). Just 4x4 strikes me as wasted power that the vast majority of enthusiasts would never touch. Most of the time the 2nd core is barely used even now.
Gillette has already created a version of this overkill in shaving:
Mach 5Platinum Mach 14
5 Blades!
Actually these tapes were just the rehersal tapes. "Ok Neil, can you hide your footsteps with the brush and go back up the ladder? This time just stick to the script please."