If they just used them as additional* lanes, I wouldn't mind, but in every case, there's suddenly significantly fewer human cashiers.
Doesn't sound like "complete" disagreement to me. I've only ever experienced them in supermarkets (and I usually just go to the human cashiers if I have awkward security tagged or restricted items like DVDs, clothes, alcohol, that kind of thing).
Human cashiers at these places also always offer me cashback, and I find it much more tiresome to respond to that than to have my finger pressing the screen for £0.00 cashback as soon as the option appears.. partially because out of the few times I have taken cashback, I ended up losing it a couple of times, so the self checkouts have cost me at least £30 (the cash tends to comes out around my knee level in the place I visit most, so I just forgot and didn't notice it a couple of times because I was hate holding people up). But apart from that downside, I think they're well worth it, and I'd happily pay another £30 to never have to deal with long queues and human cashiers for the rest of my life:p
They only introduced them here in the UK a couple of years ago. I've never worked in a checkout, so I quite enjoy the novelty of scanning my own stuff even after these 2 or so years. I actually stopped going to one supermarket entirely because it didn't have self checkouts, though it must have them by now as I noticed its sister store now does (and they're even faster than the ones I've used in other stores, it's awesome).
I'd actually gone a less conventional route to start, then tried to fit it more in with the scheme. However, I find banging things to be a more entertaining image than bucking them, so I'm happy with my choice.
Never tried the game I have to say, but around the time that the "economic system almost collapsed", the company I work for started picking up, and I got a very reasonable raise. We were struggling before the crisis and things started picking up just before and throughout it. I see people always complaining or talking about the "crisis", but if it wasn't for all the constant news coverage, I doubt anyone would have noticed much difference. It's almost a self fulfilling prophecy to get everyone worked up and worried about spending too much money or hiring more employees etc. I've had the best couple of years of my life recently. Maybe it would be different if I were a home owner or relied on loans/credit to do stuff, but I never have and I'd prefer to keep it that way.
The last time I went to a real checkout thinking that it would be quicker because the queue was shorter, I ended up watching as people who had joined the self checkout queue after I joined the "normal" queue, checked out, feeling like an idiot. Yes the occasional person will be slow on the self checkout, but in general it is much, much faster.
People don't take "50 items" to the self checkouts, they take hand baskets - at least in all the supermarkets I've been to you're restricted to baskets. If I ever did a massive shop in one go then I'd be happy to go to a normal checkout - trying to do multiple bags on a self checkout is just asking for the computer trying to start some shit with you.
Here in the UK we do have.99 stuff (though generally only for more expensive items like electrical equipment or computer games), definitely not "most all" though. The stuff I buy like bread, milk, rice etc are not all at.99. Then again, 99 cents is around 50 pence here so in America it's a lot easier to round stuff out to.99. And then the competitor could go to.95 to try to beat them out on price.
.95 seems to be an American thing btw, I've not really noticed it over here.
Do you think you should take offence even if I'm asian, hispanic, or white, and no offence was intended, nor was the word directed at anyone? Why is this?
If you're going to choose a cause to stand up for, that one seems a bit strange. Your average mother is going to just glare at you and get her kids out of there before you have the chance to undo the result of thousands of years of societal conditioning and opinion. Or worse, I suppose you could get assaulted. I find violence far more reprehensible than swearing, but I expect some people aren't that logical.
An old lady was angrily glaring at us out her window the other day, threatened to call the Police because we were doing Parkour (basically just balancing along a rail at that point) in the public area around the flats she lives in. I eventually forgot she was there and swore loudly at one point, it was quite amusing to hear her window slam.
I do try to talk to people if they have problems with us doing Parkour as it's something that is worth the effort, but for the swearing thing it's really not. Even if the parents are fine with swearing, the kids themselves can get into trouble for it, etc etc etc..
Nope, for some reason (probably the "fucking" tag) I was still thinking about sex. Even after I read it had 15 horns, I was waiting until the summary said "and a 9 foot penis" or some such.
It doesn't matter how illogical it is. If you go to a village full of crazy hicks who kill people for wearing pink, it's a good idea to not be wearing any pink unless you are a fully kitted out Navy SEAL or something. Swearing in front of someone's kids is likely to get you in trouble and foster ill will for no reason. I agree with you that it's illogical and stupid, and it would be nice if people could see life without looking through the lens of society's preconceptions all the time, but most people never think about this stuff logically, they are ruled by traditions and emotions.
Seems like it could be quite an expensive and fiddly solution, with even more waste than conventional packaging. I was imagining more a system with a conveyor belt where the barcodes are auto-scanned one at a time, but that admittedly also would be expensive and fiddly, just in a different way.. but at least it would be compatible with current packaging standards.
HTML5 videos are a bit tough to find, particularly amongst 'normal' stuff
Like I said, YouTube has a HTML5 viewer that works with all their videos, that's about as normal and not hard to find as you can get:P
Even a small increase in performance is worth it on my netbook for videos in the browser, but the increase isn't small for me, it's very noticeable. This is with a single core Atom and onboard graphics. Fine for playing video files offline unless they're in HD, but atrocious for watching Flash videos with a lot of fast movement in them (most of the videos I watch are Parkour compilations and tutorials).
If I wanted to start getting money conscious, I'd probably start by getting a diesel vehicle again, it would make much more difference in terms of budget, and it wouldn't mean having to fuel my body with lower quality foods or do an in depth audit on food costs at different supermarkets just to save a tiny amount of money. I would change my shopping habits to always do massive food runs rather than doing small trips to the supermarket each day (but that's kind of necessary to get fresh vegetables anyway so meh).
I'm quite serious about trying to live and especially eat well these days - and I don't have to pay any money to have a fun weekend since I can do Parkour anywhere:) I should probably be saving up a bit more money sure, but I live within my means, and at least I'm not in debt like a lot of people these days seem to be:/
Actually you can't. Far from it. It's just your perception that it is faster. A clerk can pass items through the scanner and down the bench much faster and usually has the benefit of another employee bagging the groceries
I know that the machines at the normal checkouts are technically capable of scanning faster than the self checkouts, but the people operating them often aren't. And we never have other employees doing bagging here in the UK. Once every few months you get kids from some charity helping people bag their groceries and expecting a donation for it, but that's it. Usually the actual checkout person asks "would you like help bagging your items?", and usually I say no.
Yes, the time saved in the queue alone is a big deciding factor.
That's similar to asking why you shouldn't run around naked in public. Not saying that running around naked is wrong, but the answer should be obvious. Society just has developed a lot of weird rules about how things "should" be over time and most people never question why things should be how they are.
The only complaint I've heard about them wasn't about jobs disappearing, it was about having to do the work themselves when someone else for some reason "should" be scanning and bagging everything for them. Small sample size of course.
I think the majority of people who complain about them will just be lazy or scared of technology, and looking for excuses to complain about them rather than doing it out of any noble ideas of keeping unemployment rates down.
I buy very few items, and you really can't assume that all checkout workers prided themselves on speed as much as you do. I've dealt with some reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaally slow checkout workers in my time, some obviously just new to the job, but some just slow. I prefer to do things myself, I can have the current item bagged and the next item in place ready to scan as soon as the machine has checked the weight of the last item.. it seems as fast or faster than a normal checkout to me when I get it smooth.
guess I'd better clarify: the ads saying "we have 2000 items cheaper than [competitor]" is how I noticed the price wars, and I rarely even watch TV..
I don't see how it's dumb to assume that they will use further improvements in efficiency to continue to try and beat their competitors on price. And not every item can be a loss leader.
I just remember the ads from TV and the slogans. I stopped checking the prices of stuff when I started getting paid enough that I can buy what I want to eat rather than having to buy the budget items on everything. Also I have a fairly limited set of stuff that I generally buy - maybe from time to time if I'm buying something new I will briefly compare prices out of interest, but in the grand scheme of things food is pretty cheap, and it's crazy of me to be trying to save a couple of pounds a month on toothpaste or peanut butter or whatever when I spend so much more on CDs, DVDs, games, etc
The ONLY way to avoid all the tricks a supermarket trows at you is very high tech. It is called a "shopping list".
I find will power works perfectly fine for me. Then again, I often forget to buy one item and have to go back the next day, so I probably should make lists more often..
All of these things are true, but I still find them much more convenient and pleasant than traditional checkouts. Then again, some people enjoy social interaction with strangers, but I'm not one of them.
Yeah it's certainly a lot less boring than waiting around. I have the whole paying process down to a fine art these days though at ASDA, my brain pretty much knows the exact timings and onscreen positionings etc that the machine will ask me if I want cash-back, or the card reader will beep to say to remove my card, so I waste minimal time and don't have to wait for the thing to ask me to do something, nor have to speak back to it.. if I'm only buying a couple of items I can easily knock through it in less than a minute.
Secondly, any "savings" for this method will NOT be passed on to you, they will go to slightly greater corporate profits. You honestly still believe in such fairy tales?
Have you not noticed the insane price wars always going on between major supermarkets?
I don't really check the prices of stuff any more to be honest, but I assume the reduction in staff will indeed show up as savings, the same way that Amazon can afford to be so cheap.. razor thin margins to attract a large volume of customers.
Both of those. Generally I don't buy much at a time, but also I can swipe things pretty fast by just guessing where the barcode will be and swirling it around in the general vicinity (helps that there are 2 scanners in the checkout as well and they can read codes from almost any angle).
Sometimes it's a pain getting a bag open, but other than that it's much easier to just drop stuff right into the bag than deal with it at a normal checkout. I only go to the normal checkout now when I buy age restricted stuff or stuff with security tags on it.
Slashdot Mirror
You and I are in complete disagreement
If they just used them as additional* lanes, I wouldn't mind, but in every case, there's suddenly significantly fewer human cashiers.
Doesn't sound like "complete" disagreement to me. I've only ever experienced them in supermarkets (and I usually just go to the human cashiers if I have awkward security tagged or restricted items like DVDs, clothes, alcohol, that kind of thing).
Human cashiers at these places also always offer me cashback, and I find it much more tiresome to respond to that than to have my finger pressing the screen for £0.00 cashback as soon as the option appears.. partially because out of the few times I have taken cashback, I ended up losing it a couple of times, so the self checkouts have cost me at least £30 (the cash tends to comes out around my knee level in the place I visit most, so I just forgot and didn't notice it a couple of times because I was hate holding people up). But apart from that downside, I think they're well worth it, and I'd happily pay another £30 to never have to deal with long queues and human cashiers for the rest of my life :p
They only introduced them here in the UK a couple of years ago. I've never worked in a checkout, so I quite enjoy the novelty of scanning my own stuff even after these 2 or so years. I actually stopped going to one supermarket entirely because it didn't have self checkouts, though it must have them by now as I noticed its sister store now does (and they're even faster than the ones I've used in other stores, it's awesome).
I'd actually gone a less conventional route to start, then tried to fit it more in with the scheme. However, I find banging things to be a more entertaining image than bucking them, so I'm happy with my choice.
Never tried the game I have to say, but around the time that the "economic system almost collapsed", the company I work for started picking up, and I got a very reasonable raise. We were struggling before the crisis and things started picking up just before and throughout it. I see people always complaining or talking about the "crisis", but if it wasn't for all the constant news coverage, I doubt anyone would have noticed much difference. It's almost a self fulfilling prophecy to get everyone worked up and worried about spending too much money or hiring more employees etc. I've had the best couple of years of my life recently. Maybe it would be different if I were a home owner or relied on loans/credit to do stuff, but I never have and I'd prefer to keep it that way.
The last time I went to a real checkout thinking that it would be quicker because the queue was shorter, I ended up watching as people who had joined the self checkout queue after I joined the "normal" queue, checked out, feeling like an idiot. Yes the occasional person will be slow on the self checkout, but in general it is much, much faster.
People don't take "50 items" to the self checkouts, they take hand baskets - at least in all the supermarkets I've been to you're restricted to baskets. If I ever did a massive shop in one go then I'd be happy to go to a normal checkout - trying to do multiple bags on a self checkout is just asking for the computer trying to start some shit with you.
Here in the UK we do have .99 stuff (though generally only for more expensive items like electrical equipment or computer games), definitely not "most all" though. The stuff I buy like bread, milk, rice etc are not all at .99. Then again, 99 cents is around 50 pence here so in America it's a lot easier to round stuff out to .99. And then the competitor could go to .95 to try to beat them out on price.
Do you think you should take offence even if I'm asian, hispanic, or white, and no offence was intended, nor was the word directed at anyone? Why is this?
If you're going to choose a cause to stand up for, that one seems a bit strange. Your average mother is going to just glare at you and get her kids out of there before you have the chance to undo the result of thousands of years of societal conditioning and opinion. Or worse, I suppose you could get assaulted. I find violence far more reprehensible than swearing, but I expect some people aren't that logical.
An old lady was angrily glaring at us out her window the other day, threatened to call the Police because we were doing Parkour (basically just balancing along a rail at that point) in the public area around the flats she lives in. I eventually forgot she was there and swore loudly at one point, it was quite amusing to hear her window slam.
I do try to talk to people if they have problems with us doing Parkour as it's something that is worth the effort, but for the swearing thing it's really not. Even if the parents are fine with swearing, the kids themselves can get into trouble for it, etc etc etc..
Nope, for some reason (probably the "fucking" tag) I was still thinking about sex. Even after I read it had 15 horns, I was waiting until the summary said "and a 9 foot penis" or some such.
It doesn't matter how illogical it is. If you go to a village full of crazy hicks who kill people for wearing pink, it's a good idea to not be wearing any pink unless you are a fully kitted out Navy SEAL or something. Swearing in front of someone's kids is likely to get you in trouble and foster ill will for no reason. I agree with you that it's illogical and stupid, and it would be nice if people could see life without looking through the lens of society's preconceptions all the time, but most people never think about this stuff logically, they are ruled by traditions and emotions.
Seems like it could be quite an expensive and fiddly solution, with even more waste than conventional packaging. I was imagining more a system with a conveyor belt where the barcodes are auto-scanned one at a time, but that admittedly also would be expensive and fiddly, just in a different way.. but at least it would be compatible with current packaging standards.
If you buy a 200euro amd you get the best bang for your buck. If you buy a 800 euro Intel you get more bang but pay more bucks per bang.
That's all very well, but how many bangs could a bangbuck buck if a bangbuck could bang bucks?
HTML5 videos are a bit tough to find, particularly amongst 'normal' stuff
Like I said, YouTube has a HTML5 viewer that works with all their videos, that's about as normal and not hard to find as you can get :P
Even a small increase in performance is worth it on my netbook for videos in the browser, but the increase isn't small for me, it's very noticeable. This is with a single core Atom and onboard graphics. Fine for playing video files offline unless they're in HD, but atrocious for watching Flash videos with a lot of fast movement in them (most of the videos I watch are Parkour compilations and tutorials).
If I wanted to start getting money conscious, I'd probably start by getting a diesel vehicle again, it would make much more difference in terms of budget, and it wouldn't mean having to fuel my body with lower quality foods or do an in depth audit on food costs at different supermarkets just to save a tiny amount of money. I would change my shopping habits to always do massive food runs rather than doing small trips to the supermarket each day (but that's kind of necessary to get fresh vegetables anyway so meh).
I'm quite serious about trying to live and especially eat well these days - and I don't have to pay any money to have a fun weekend since I can do Parkour anywhere :) I should probably be saving up a bit more money sure, but I live within my means, and at least I'm not in debt like a lot of people these days seem to be :/
Actually you can't. Far from it. It's just your perception that it is faster. A clerk can pass items through the scanner and down the bench much faster and usually has the benefit of another employee bagging the groceries
I know that the machines at the normal checkouts are technically capable of scanning faster than the self checkouts, but the people operating them often aren't. And we never have other employees doing bagging here in the UK. Once every few months you get kids from some charity helping people bag their groceries and expecting a donation for it, but that's it. Usually the actual checkout person asks "would you like help bagging your items?", and usually I say no.
Yes, the time saved in the queue alone is a big deciding factor.
That's similar to asking why you shouldn't run around naked in public. Not saying that running around naked is wrong, but the answer should be obvious. Society just has developed a lot of weird rules about how things "should" be over time and most people never question why things should be how they are.
The only complaint I've heard about them wasn't about jobs disappearing, it was about having to do the work themselves when someone else for some reason "should" be scanning and bagging everything for them. Small sample size of course.
I think the majority of people who complain about them will just be lazy or scared of technology, and looking for excuses to complain about them rather than doing it out of any noble ideas of keeping unemployment rates down.
I buy very few items, and you really can't assume that all checkout workers prided themselves on speed as much as you do. I've dealt with some reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaally slow checkout workers in my time, some obviously just new to the job, but some just slow. I prefer to do things myself, I can have the current item bagged and the next item in place ready to scan as soon as the machine has checked the weight of the last item.. it seems as fast or faster than a normal checkout to me when I get it smooth.
guess I'd better clarify: the ads saying "we have 2000 items cheaper than [competitor]" is how I noticed the price wars, and I rarely even watch TV..
I don't see how it's dumb to assume that they will use further improvements in efficiency to continue to try and beat their competitors on price. And not every item can be a loss leader.
I just remember the ads from TV and the slogans. I stopped checking the prices of stuff when I started getting paid enough that I can buy what I want to eat rather than having to buy the budget items on everything. Also I have a fairly limited set of stuff that I generally buy - maybe from time to time if I'm buying something new I will briefly compare prices out of interest, but in the grand scheme of things food is pretty cheap, and it's crazy of me to be trying to save a couple of pounds a month on toothpaste or peanut butter or whatever when I spend so much more on CDs, DVDs, games, etc
The ONLY way to avoid all the tricks a supermarket trows at you is very high tech. It is called a "shopping list".
I find will power works perfectly fine for me. Then again, I often forget to buy one item and have to go back the next day, so I probably should make lists more often..
All of these things are true, but I still find them much more convenient and pleasant than traditional checkouts. Then again, some people enjoy social interaction with strangers, but I'm not one of them.
Yeah it's certainly a lot less boring than waiting around. I have the whole paying process down to a fine art these days though at ASDA, my brain pretty much knows the exact timings and onscreen positionings etc that the machine will ask me if I want cash-back, or the card reader will beep to say to remove my card, so I waste minimal time and don't have to wait for the thing to ask me to do something, nor have to speak back to it.. if I'm only buying a couple of items I can easily knock through it in less than a minute.
Secondly, any "savings" for this method will NOT be passed on to you, they will go to slightly greater corporate profits. You honestly still believe in such fairy tales?
Have you not noticed the insane price wars always going on between major supermarkets?
I don't really check the prices of stuff any more to be honest, but I assume the reduction in staff will indeed show up as savings, the same way that Amazon can afford to be so cheap.. razor thin margins to attract a large volume of customers.
Both of those. Generally I don't buy much at a time, but also I can swipe things pretty fast by just guessing where the barcode will be and swirling it around in the general vicinity (helps that there are 2 scanners in the checkout as well and they can read codes from almost any angle).
Sometimes it's a pain getting a bag open, but other than that it's much easier to just drop stuff right into the bag than deal with it at a normal checkout. I only go to the normal checkout now when I buy age restricted stuff or stuff with security tags on it.