Interesting Links for 12-07-2022

[andrewducker]

1. US Crosses the Electric-Car Tipping Point for Mass Adoption

(tags:usa cars electricity )

2. Turns out that 84% of people actually like self check-out in shops

(tags:shopping automation )

3. Food-seeking behavior is triggered by skin ultraviolet exposure in males (but not females)

(tags:light hunger gender )

4. 'Face of the first European': Archeologists in Spain may have found continent's oldest human fossil

(tags:europe archeology humans )

5. NASA's new Webb Telescope Delivers Deepest Infrared Image of Universe Yet

(tags:nasa astronomy )

6. Elvis Film Review - I would rather like to see this

(tags:music movies review history )

7. How Puerto Rico 1897 Came to Be - an update to the classic boardgame to include less slavery and colonialism

(tags:racism slavery games viaSwampers )

Comments

[rmc28]

2: ... and that poll is from nearly 20 years ago. Personally I definitely prefer self checkout, although in fairness I haven't tried it for a really big supermarket shop. We tend to get "big grocery shop" done once a fortnight by Ocado, and small top-up shops in between from the local shops, so at most I'm buying "what fits in my granny trolley plus a rucksack. Aldi has self-checkouts that accommodate a small trolley, Iceland doesn't, I generally prefer the Aldi checkout.

[andrewducker]

There don't seem to be any more recent polls, sadly.

Looking forward to Ocado reaching Scotland, some day!

[cmcmck]

I always take the view with self checks that if I wanted a job, I'd ask for one!

[dewline]

1. I see that Canada hasn't yet joined that list of countries reaching that tipping point, although it seems as if month by month, we're getting closer.

2. I'm not thrilled with it. The thing that is starting to push me in the direction of self-checkout whether I want to or not is the increasing tendency for some cashiers to go maskless while on the job. I consider that a form of intimidation.

5. Wow.

[flemmings]

1. The clerks here are still behind plexiglass shields, for what that's worth, but if the omicon variants are indeed fomite transmitted, that's no help. My local doesn't have self checkouts so I go to the clerk who's wearing a mask.

[wildeabandon]

2. I am always slightly bemused that anyone, given the option of not having to interact with a random stranger whilst going about one's business, would nonetheless chose to do so, and can only remind myself that allistics are very weird.

[lilysea]

I can't use the self checkouts because they're not wheelchair accessible :(

[wildeabandon]

That seems primarily like an argument for making the self checkouts more accessible.

Although I agree with your comment below that they should be one of, rather than the only, option wherever possible, both because of accessibility, and because some people do prefer them, and shouldn't be prevented from making small talk with strangers, just because I find that preferable incomprehensible.

[cmcmck]

But if you live in a small town as we do, the checkout operators are not strangers but people one knows.

[andrewducker]

Oh yeah, small town etiquette and city etiquette are not the same.

[cmcmck]

And you become aware that the more self checks there are, the more of these local folk will lose a job and it's so often women needing to work part time to provide for a family who lose out.

[movingfinger]

It's not even a small town thing. In the city, I lived near a smaller supermarket with a longstanding staff of cashiers and stockists. They were union jobs. We knew everyone and everyone knew us. We complimented their manicures and Maybelle's huge, elaborate earrings and asked about their grandchildren and holidays and about what they would do when Whole Foods bought the small supermarket's building. What they did was disappear. One man made the transition, having moved over to working at the market when the photo store closed, and soon he too vanished.

[threemeninaboat]

That checker study is 20 years old.

[andrewducker]

Do you have a more recent one?

[lilysea]

In not-COVID times I avoided self checkouts because they were not wheelchair accessible - I always ended up injuring myself trying to use them.

I think self checkouts should be a choice, not the only option.

Since COVID, I get all my groceries home delivered.

[simont]

The thing that annoys me about self-checkouts is how often the cashier has to come and intervene for one reason or another. 8–12 self-checkouts with one staff member ought to mean 8–12 people able to do useful stuff in parallel, but in practice it only ever seems to realise about half that benefit, because at any given moment half of them are held up because they're buying booze, or because the built-in weighing scale is having a snit, or because the UI has completely confused them, or because they've just shown up with a rucksack (or other bag of nontrivial weight) and can't even get started until a person in authority clicks "ok".

I do still use them, because I think on balance I end up getting through faster due to being able to take-out-of-basket-scan-and-pack each item in one go instead of having to pass each item back and forth to another person (via the conveyor belt) in between. But it always frustrates me that it could be so much faster still if they only fixed the bugs.

[jack]

I think they have got somewhat less flaky over time, but I'm not sure.

[simont]

My usual supermarket tends to have the same person on duty at the self-checkouts most of the times I go there – I guess she tends to be the one getting that particular time slot – and she's come to recognise me as someone { it's quicker to deal with by | who can be trusted with } putting the checkout into permanent admin mode so that I can clear scale malfunctions by myself and not bother her.

The UI is slightly less sensible that way, but it's a net win for me given the number of scale malfs that would otherwise slow me down. I miss that staff member when someone else is on.

Turns out that 84% of people actually like self check-out in shops

[jack]

Interesting! I'm always a bit torn.

I feel like "putting groceries into a bag" is something I can do just as well as just standing there waiting while someone else does it, so it's pointless to have someone else do it for me. But I'm not *as* fast as someone else...

I'm not convinced "people need jobs so lets require hiring them even if its not beneficial" is a good argument. It can be, if it gets people some wage rather than no wage and produces a more pleasant experience. But I can't help but feel it would end with grocery stores being eaten by some sort of alternative that didn't have the unneeded overhead. And that if we're going to pay people to chitchat with me and make my life more pleasant, I could do the bagging and they could be paid to make paintings or something.

But on the other hand, the risk of "this job isn't as necessary any more" is "the company fired everyone and then hired them to do something else slightly more efficient but less prestigious and for less money"

And there needs to be some channel for people who physically can't do the scanning, and to avoid everyone held up forever because one person has a bag in the (whisper) bagging area.

I don't have a problem with talking to cashiers most of the time, but also if I want just one thing, it does feel a lot more convenient to grab it and bag it and not need to go through extra steps.

Re: Turns out that 84% of people actually like self check-out in shops

[andrewducker]

I feel like "putting groceries into a bag" is something I can do just as well as just standing there waiting while someone else does it
And definitely much faster than 1/6 of a person can do it!

I am definitely up for UBI so that people don't starve because I packed my own bags.

How Puerto Rico 1897 Came to Be - an update to the classic boardgame to include less slavery and col

[jack]

Ah, cool! I had heard of it but not seen as much description. The board with the varied different local faces were lovely. And it looked like it just made more sense too.

I remember at one point, I was definitely confused by how some of the puerto rico phases worked. If as a "settler" you carve out a plantation in the countryside, why do you separately then need a "colonist" to come and work it? Same for a "craftsman". When I realised that the colonists originally represented people forced to do the drudge work, it made a lot more sense. Not that I'd set out to find problems, I'd been confused what the roles did until I learned the history.

Apparently the new version didn't quite manage to make the hired labourers paid as part of the mechanics, but hopefully it makes more sense if it's described consistently.

I think I was also confused that the "mayor" dealt with arriving ships and the "captain" dealt with departing ships. I'm not sure if that confusion came from avoiding any slavery terminology or was just an unrelated mistake.

[andrewducker]

It does look like it makes more sense, as well as being less slaveriffic.

[qilora]

"2. Turns out that 84% of people actually like self check-out in shops"

i am one of the 16% of the old farts... i am so awful with technology i might break the machinery if i have to actually talk to the cash register...

[cmcmck]

I'll admit to enjoying having a chat with the cashiers since I know most of them! :o)

[trailer_spot]

Re self check-out: I haven't read either in full, but the extensive CNN article leads to this survey.

Here in Germany, of the 8-10 different supermarkets that I frequent from time to time, I think only one has a self check-out option. I don't use it because I like to pay cash. :)