Thorry84

They should have black flagged him and given out the penalty points. If Max wants to play bumper cars, he can go do that instead of F1.

I ride my bicycle to work, so on average I eat at least one decent sized bug each week.

Ah you are from the US? No then it probably won't be available. The US is very slow to make changes in retail. You only recently got those digital price tags that update constantly, we've had those for 10 years or so. In Europe the hand scanner or app self scan thing is very common.

Yup, that's the one.

I think where I live it's a company that offers the whole thing white label to supermarket and other shops. The systems are very similar across a bunch of different stores, but the branding is specific to the store. So their logo, their colors. Not just on all the UIs (both the scanner and the checkout), but also the physical hardware colors.

The hand scanners all run Android, the other day I got one that said Google Play Services had crashed. The scanner itself is probably made by Zebra and then customized by the company providing the scan and checkout solution.

It has become super common around here, to the point where I'm annoyed when it isn't an option and I have to use the self-checkout where you need to scan at the checkout.

No, the hand scanners aren't connected to the kiosks. They are at the entrance, you pick them up, scan all you want to buy. Then at checkout you place the scanner into a kiosk, it knows what you bought and you can checkout as usual. Every once in a while a store employee takes the scanners and puts them into the holders in the entrance. Depending on the size of the store there can be up to a hundred of these scanners available.

Other stores do the same, except your phone is the scanner with an app you can download. It works basically the same way. Most stores that offer the app also offer the hand scanners, which I prefer.

For me personally, the self checkout is just a way better solution to the problem. It's for me much faster and more efficient. It's also easier for the store itself. The best kind of self checkout for me is where you can scan everything with a hand scanner or app whilst shopping. Then just pay at the self checkout and walk out. That way I just put the stuff in my bag directly, instead of from the shelf into the basket or cart. Then from the cart to the checkout and then from the checkout into my bag. It also spreads out the action of scanning the products, which means avoiding a slow and repetitive task scanning it all in 1 go. I'm also not blocking a checkout whilst scanning. I hate it when stores that offer the hand scanner have people scanning a whole cart full of stuff at the checkout. And then bagging it of course, which blocks a checkout for ages. Just go to the regular checkout if you want to do that, the cashier is faster than you are and you can focus on bagging exclusively.

However the lack of human contact is an issue. I've seen a lot of stores that offer self checkout recently make one or two lines available for chatting. It's just the regular oldskool cashier, but they are relaxed about it and chat with the customer. This means people in a hurry or that don't need contact right then can go fast through the self checkout. And people who like to chat can use the chatty checkout with a good old human being.

This for me is the best way to apply new tech, all of the benefits for all parties involved and hopefully none of the downsides.

In trouble shooting it always important to answer at least these questions when asking for help:

• What are you trying to achieve, eg what is the end result you are hoping for.
• What is the expected behavior, or how do you think it should work?
• What is the experience behavior, so what actually happens and how does that differ from what you expected.
• What steps have you taken in trouble shooting. Are there things you've checked or ruled out? How so? What did you try?
• Any background you think is relevant, so which software, hardware, versions, urls etc.

This will help other people help you quickly and efficiently. This will greatly improve your chance of other people being able to help you, or you being able to help yourself.

I've always thought it to be important my partner comes first, I come second or not at all and that's just fine with me.

I got your mom off last night

There are valid reasons to limit password length. For example when a hashing function is used that requires a lot of processing power and the amount of power required to calculate the hash is related to the length. In that (very common) case, a denial of service attack vector is exposed. By simply spamming insane long passwords into a login form for example, the servers calculating the hash get easily overloaded. Even with rate limiting, only a small number of attacking nodes can be used to pull down a site.

So a maximum number of characters for a password is a valid thing to do. HOWEVER the maximum length for this purpose is usually set at something like 2048 or 4096 characters.

There is no excuse for a max password length of 16, that's just terrible.

Most of his books are standalone, but set in the same universe yes. They kind of follow each other, but can also be read as standalone books.

Pushing Ice is one of the better ones imho, I love that book. The first book I ever read from him was Revelation Space and it blew my mind. One of the absolute best books I've ever read. He has a way of creating a universe that feels absolutely real and logical, yet be completely different from the world we know.

Another good one is Redemption Ark.

And if you like stuff like this I can also recommend Fred Saberhagen, his books are excellent. They are old but hold up pretty well.

Check out the works of Alastair Reynolds, he loves to apply this principle in his books. Great on world building and describing the weirdest parts of large civilizations.

For more a meta/review/fermi paradox talk point of view check out the content from Isaac Arthur, he also likes to point out this when discussing things like the fermi paradox and sci-fi in general.