Interesting Links for 04-01-2012

[andrewducker]

• This is What Happens When You Give Thousands of Stickers to Thousands of Kids
  (tags: art children )
• The US ends its pro-democracy pretense
  (tags: politics usa iran egypt democracy middle east israel )
• Some science on why dieting doesn't work (and what you need to do to make it work).
  (tags: diet weight health )
• 'Big banks make their money from optimism' - an interview with an investment strategist
  (tags: banking finance investment )
• Killer instinct - the financial company that deliberately hired psychopaths.
  (tags: economics psychopath psychology finance banking )
• Paypal forces buyer to destroy disputed violin worth thousands of dollars
  (tags: paypal violin )
• Top Ten Cutest Photos of 2011
  (tags: photos cute 2011 )
• The Dumbest Idea In The World: Maximizing Shareholder Value
  (tags: business economics management capitalism finance value )
• Mineways - 3D printing of Minecraft landscapes/objects.
  (tags: minecraft printing 3d )
• Steam reaches 5 million concurrent user mark
  So, PC gaming still not dead? I wonder what the comparative figures for the 360 and PS3 would be.
  (tags: steam games computergames )
• I Have Seen the Future of Retail…And It Doesn't Have Cashiers
  Of course, this is about the low end of the market. Where people are prepared to pay higher prices there will be assistants there to make it easy for them.
  (tags: business shopping technology )

Comments

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

Ah, well, it was treating us like criminals that put off the Waitrose system for us -- invariably bringing us up for a 'random' check whenever we'd done a particularly large and fractious order -- culminating with 'randomly' rechecking our Christmas groceries. At which point I explained that to them that if we were defrauding them they would be able to tell because our grocery bill would be *lower* than usual not *higher* than usual. Idiots.

[nmg.livejournal.com]

We've been using the system for about four years now, and I think that we've averaged about one rescan each year, but they're getting further apart. They even waived the rescan on the 2010 xmas shop, and we haven't had a rescan in over nine months.

This I can handle. What I find unacceptable is a self-scan terminal that insists on every object being placed in a carrier bag on their scales (or alternatively, for you to press the "I'm not going to put the next item on your scales" button after every scan) because, heavens forbid, you might be shoplifting paracetamol worth less than 50p.