I haven’t logged into my Amazon account in ten years, and this won’t make me do it.
Learn the difference between need and want. Stop buying crap you don’t need. And, never knowingly buy anything off Amazon.
Fuck Amazon, and Jeff Bezos. All excuses people make to willingly buy off that fucking site are bullshit.
For what we pay, every store could be this way, but the billionaires keep demanding more and more of the profits.
They’d only “need” to raise prices to keep their personal profit up. Fuck every single billionaire with a running chainsaw hard in the ass.
I’ve used delivery on a few items when it was free, and felt a little guilty about it. Once, I added some coffee to my online order that was only available to ship, just to get it over the $35 free delivery, because it’s something I buy every week, anyway. They fucking delivered just the coffee, free or not, such a waste. But, I won’t pay a premium for it. I’m not rich.
More crappy subscriptionware. No, thanks.
Also, the last time I went to a cashier, because it was the one time I saw a long line at the self-check lane, I stood in the short line, I was third, while the cashier chatted up the customers, left the line to help another cashier with something and was generally very slow. I suspect they’re not required to be efficient anymore, and perhaps even encouraged not to be. I watched as the guy I would have been behind in the self-check line left the store while I was still second in line at the cashier.
I’m sure they were shown a staged demo of how the camera and “AI” catches people putting items in the bag without scanning and that convinced them the tech was good enough.
But, the scan camera check only catches people who aren’t trying to fool it. There are easy ways around it.
It’s only free until they hook you.
I’m waiting for them to close the stores to customers entirely and go to pick up or delivery only.
I know that would kill impulse buying, but I think they might make it up by not needing to police the isles, and no theft.
Service Merchandise did tag pulls and pick up at the register for everything back in the 70s and 80s. That might come back.
I like self check because there’s never a line when I go. With cashiers, the policy was to only open a new register if the lines got over three deep. So, there was always at least three people in line, no matter what time of day, on average.
I’ve never waited in line since I started using the self check lanes.
You like their food (objective, so there’s no “lying” around that), and so excuse their politics. I get it, it’s like separating the artist from the art. Lots of people pay to see Tom Cruise movies, or now to see Ed Sheeran, or maybe Bill Burr.
Some people don’t.
Throwing Bender into the middle of old ST:TOS episodes would be one use of AI I could forgive.
The reality: “Nobody stops to fuel their vehicle taking gasoline, gets out, rushes as fast as possible, puts as much fuel in the car as possible, and gets back in the car and drives away,” Cutler said.
I, in fact, do exactly that. I pull up in front of the pump, get out, stick my card in, fill up, and leave. It’s been over ten years since I went inside the store at a gas station, there’s nothing in there I want to buy.
However, needing to spend half an hour recharging if I were on a road trip would be fine, because on a road trip I would stop for a break from driving in any case. But, I almost never go on road trips, and 99.9% of my trips around town would be well within one charge, which I could do at home.
So, while I agree that charging doesn’t need to be as fast as gas, it’s not because of his stated reason.
Better to pay the small fine, than ask permission.
Fuck the techbros, fuck AI, fuck data centers, fuck billionaires.
He’ll probably tear it down. He just wants the land to build something new.
A better article with more details:
G7 announces oil reserve release, as Trump hails Europe diesel deal
Macron says G7 will release 100 million barrels over four months; diesel release to be ‘frontloaded’
In 2025, distillate (or diesel) fuel consumption (excluding biodiesel and renewable diesel) by the U.S. transportation sector was about 2.94 million barrels per day.
The U.S. alone uses 3 million barrels per day, 100 million barrels would last about a month. These barrels are not being released to the U.S. directly. It’s going to help a little, but not much, and not for long.
My understanding is no country stocks significant reserves compared to what is used each day, because oil sitting in storage costs money instead of making profits. Instead, we produce what is used and can be sold as soon as possible. Essentially, Just In Time for the energy sector, like every other manufacturer. So, this isn’t a real solution, it’s just Trump trying to earn brownie points before the election.
I’ll point out that term limits for Congress would mitigate this issue. And, term limits are better than simple age limits, because a young person voted into office could still have decades to become entrenched and corrupt. Whereas term limits keeps up the churn.