Technological/practical "backward steps" we all just accept now

Philip, I don’t know if I’d want to go back to that 100% (haven’t experienced it) but it’d be cool to have maybe one or two stores where that could be done

it sounds really nice hearing older families reminiscing about what sainsburys used to be like (go to the butter man ask him to carve you some butter etc) but I wasn't there maybe it was shit

what we have now is probably marginally better from an autistic pov but it has put a hell of a lot of people out of work so I'm generally against it

table, thank you for your service. I have spent considerable time behind a cash register myownself. If needed I could probably key in my ID from 1990 blindfolded. I could also probably count and reconcile a drawer full of coins (remember those?) in my sleep. Every evening, arranging pennies like soldiers in ranks of ten.

I always use self-check at Walmart because it's the store of last resort and I never have more than 4 or 5 items, plus the staff there all have the "please release me from this hell on earth" dead eyes. I do my main shopping at a different chain in Tupelo and always go to a staffed lane because they make quick work of a full cart and don't seem miserable to be there, lots of laughing and shit-talking among themselves.

I never use self-check because they don't allow alcohol in those (at least here in CA) and I'm always buying some form of alcohol, sometimes just a beer for the parking lot

i will never use the self checkout options.
i like having a chat with the staff.
have got to know most of them on the checkout at the shop i use.
fuck automation.

ymp and jvc, wasn’t meant as a humble brag or boastful, just sharing my experience.

I just had to do a capcha thing for a finance thing for work... "Click any motorcycles" "Click any Traffic Lights, if there are none click next"

21 fucking rounds of this... 21 times I had to pick the bicycles and fire hydrants.. and THEN I had to do the double-identifier thing with a code sent to my phone... fuck this shit

Hilariously last week I was being rung up and the cashier said, "oh, wait a second..." and grabbed a card from the checkout station next to her. I thought she had maybe scanned something twice by accident and needed the card to void it, but no, she used it to apply A SENIOR DISCOUNT!!!!

It happened again, tonight! With a different cashier! What is going on? I realize the pandemic years have probably been rough on me but I don't look THAT old? Was it the Geritol that I put on the conveyor belt? I didn't give them the store discount card so it's not like they have magic access to my age, and even if so I doubt that their program begins at fifty?? The only thing I can figure is that someone made a huge fuss and subsequently management encouraged the employees to apply the discount when in doubt, like the reverse of carding for booze. Or that I tend to throw my change into their weird tip containers if I pay with cash, and it's karma boomeranging. Fwiw it's a "Foodtown" and the other Foodtown I go to doesn't ever give me magical age-based discounts.

a quick search reveals that at some stores such discounts apply to those as young as 55.

Not trying to be ~ageist~ or unreasonably vain btw, am just really fixated on this in part because grocery shopping is one of my favorite things in life. That Kurt Vonnegut thing about going to the post office is me, except replace w grocery stores. I love life but mostly the things that most people seem to think are boring or resent because perceived as quotidian. I should probably become a P.A., except not for the scary type-A people who are millionaires and want someone to arrange elaborate playdates for their kids. More like, can you go to the Hungarian bakery for me, it's treat time and I am kinda busy, etc.

xpost yeah, I'm fifty! Maybe Foodtown are pioneers in that respect, though.

Dell(ll) I am with you on one thing: I generally find grocery shopping really soothing and pleasant. Aisles, choices, colors, produce.

I love my wife utterly but this is a place where we differ: I would happily shop every day. (How do I know on Tuesday what I will want to eat on Friday?)

So she orders delivered groceries and does real adult meal planning. I just kinda go where whims take me. We work it out.

Yes! It's the summum bonum of creation. I'm surrounded by all these things that originate in plants or elsewhere and then feed us.

i’m on team YMP and del here— i love shopping every day. my husband hates it.

We have a local butcher and fishmonger; if they're busy on a Saturday morning you can spend 20 minutes waiting to be served listening to the same conversations about shared acquaintances, Spurs' chances this afternoon etc etc.

I find grocery stores awesome as an aesthetic experience, but only when they’re mostly empty.

I don't use self check-out as passive resistance against automated shops, even if I am not sure how much point there is in trying to save these jobs. And out of laziness of course.

I also secretly enjoy doing groceries, especially in the nicer shop. There's a little of the childhood magic left in all the things to choose from, the excitement of saving on good deals, the pleasure of picking and discarding with conviction or arbitrary rationales. Even if in the end I always more or less get the same things. I'm not very efficient in a shop, it's more a relaxing time.

I’ll wait in line for self checkout even if there are empty cashier lanes to support automation.

I don't really have an ideological relationship with self-checkout.

At first I liked it because I am very introverted and I enjoyed avoiding people. Now that it has gotten so fussy, with so many prompts, I no longer am as sanguine.

Also as Nabozo writes, capitalism isn't likely to reverse course and become more humane. I can patronize different businesses, like mom and pop corner stores, but I doubt that what I do inside Safeway or Target or whatever is going to affect their business model.

even if nobody uses automated checkout, it doesn't inherently mean more cashier jobs will be created. automation creates the potential for these employees that would have manned registered to be deployed elsewhere. it doesn't inherently eliminate a job.

When jobs are invariably eliminated ANYWAY but these greedy shit companies, is not really the fault of the automated checkout, but rather employers not giving a fuck about labor as they haven't for centuries. budget cuts, reduction in force, all these things were happening before automated checkout and will continue. they'll just have 3 cashiers handling everything while the line is 25-30 people deep at all times, much like every call center has 2 hour waits now.

also self-checkouts give you the ability to steal from greedy stores so that's a plus.

*by these

Otm Neanderthal

give you the ability to steal

Probably why smaller stores who wanted these to save a grand total of around $20/hr quickly got rid of them

I recently had two of something. Scanned one, forgot to scan the other, simply walked out. I don't generally think of myself as an inveterate criminal or serial shoplifter.

But I got home and had two thoughts:

Thought 1. "wow, I didn't mean to do that, oops."

Thought 2. "Damn, that was actually surprisingly easy! If I needed to sometimes steal stuff, that's a pretty slick way to do it. If caught, all you need to say is 'oops, didn't realize.'"

Did that when my mom and I drove two cars off the lot when we only filled out paperwork for one

lol

i have scanned an avocado in a bag when i was apparently supposed to scan the avocado bag. whoooooops sorry wally

ENBB - self scanners are way way easier than self-checkouts! Which I only use when buying maximum 5 items because the tills are always tiny.
Also it's pretty fun to go round zapping stuff.

They have a little kiosk in Camden Yards in Baltimore that will charge you based on what it sees you pick up and walk past the turnstile with.

so i just need to imperceptibly pick it up

It does have a human attendant LOL

Can someone not make a touch-screen phone which understands the difference between the thing you wanted to touch half a second ago and the thing you accidentally touched because it popped up or moved in that half-second?
Or just a keyboard, a phone with a keyboard, can I have one of those please?

will photobucket ever learn that i do not care about 'saving my account' y/n

touch screens at gas stations. why????

touch screens are an abomination afaic

"Can I have $20 on 3 please?" that's all I need. i guess you could call it "voice control"

“Or just a keyboard, a phone with a keyboard, can I have one of those please?”

I still hold that the Palm Pre was the far better phone than the original iPhone.

understands the difference between the thing you wanted to touch half a second ago and the thing you accidentally touched

you know how many companies only ever get clicks because of mistakes like this? do you want to drive them all out of business?

I'm sure this has been bemoaned multiple times here for years but *why* do tech design people hate things like knobs and pushbuttons so much? does their research indicate that manipulating things physically in that way risks disrupting the kind of zombie fugue flow state of their ideal consumers? is it about a misguided obsession with a vaguely sci fi aesthetic? do people who aren't nostalgic whiners actually prefer this smooth crap?

I tried cooking on one of those smart touch hobs recently and it was just insufferable. any small splash of liquid from a pan turned something on or off or confused the whole thing into shutting itself down for safety. it seemed to have been designed by people who have never cooked before. everything took at least 1.5x longer than it should. I'm still pissed off about it. how do people live with this?

I think your basic bottom of the range 4 burner gas hob/oven is all anybody needs, there is barely anything that can go wrong with them short of your gas getting cut off because of non-payment or the apocalypse. They lack flame power, but if you want a an industrial kitchen in your house then you need to win the lottery.

we have one of those at home, yes extremely annoying.

I have arthritis in both hands, not severely but enough that it's a pain to operate, also cannot open twist-top "child-proof" containers, and yes, writing on a smartphone (as I'm doing now) is a very frustrating process. But nobody building these things has apparently ever considered this.

apologies for the ableism there, but these smart cookers are something I'm going to avoid for as long as possible

sorry calz, that was an xpost, I would love to have a basic 4-ring gas hob, unfortunately the landlady does not agree.

the best low-tech kitchen investment I've made in recent times was buying a steel garlic press. It looks indestructible, is easy to clean, doesn't have any removable parts and you can squeeze 4/5 cloves in it. It's fucking amazing!

We have one and the plastic grip came off and vanished in the maw of the kitchen god. Still usable and amazing but leaves some deep indentation marks in my fingers!

I shamefully buy jars of pureed garlic now

I still buy jars of pureed garlic/ginger every few weeks, because my hands and skin get worn out from too much mincing and need a break sometimes

You can get induction hobs (which ARE a technological forward step compared to gas) with dial controls - but they tend to be more expensive ones for the professional kitchen marker. I’m stuck with a cheaper one with touch displays which is a bit of a pain - but it honestly is much better than the gas hob we had before and also does not emit loads of pollutants.