I took quantum physics with Prof. Kroemer. At the beginning it was standing room only with about 30 students. By the time finals came around there were six of us. Brutal. I've got some stories about that guy. RIP.
Readit NewsBossHogg commented on Nobel Lecture – Herbert Kroemer [pdf] nobelprize.org/uploads/20... · Posted by u/akshatjiwan
I don't quite understand the singling out of women. The men have been doing this too[0]. And Americans are committing crimes just so they can go to prison and get healthcare.
BossHogg commented on Some homes withstood the LA fires – architects explain why bloomberg.com/news/articl... · Posted by u/JumpCrisscross
This may seem silly but step 0 of every alternative ROM install is always what? "Backup your phone." But they never tell the user how. If you're really going to target "non-tech savvy folk" you can't just leave important steps at "you figure it out."
BossHogg commented on Majority of Americans now use ad blockers theregister.com/2024/03/2... · Posted by u/dotcoma
BossHogg commented on Walmart joins other big retailers in scaling back on self-checkout cbsnews.com/news/walmart-... · Posted by u/maraty
Self-checkout would be better with some simple fixes.
- Improve the layout. Provide more input side workspace for the customer to unload their cart. Make the workflow more like cashier checkout - unload cart onto conveyor, pass items across scanner, deposit in bagging area. Don't cram so many self checkout stations into a small area that customers and carts are crowded together trying to use them. De-clutter the self-checkout area. Get rid of the high-margin impulse items. Remember Bed, Bath, and Beyond, with the most cluttered checkouts in retail? Remember what happened to them? As one retail consultant wrote, "Never put an obstacle in the way of the customer giving you money".
- Big screen with no distractions showing what you've scanned, without abbreviations but maybe with item pictures. Do not treat this as an advertising opportunity. It's a progress chart.
- Use multiple cameras and computer vision to watch what's happening. Provide good cues - "Didn't get a good look at that item - please show it to the scanner again." Use something with enough smarts to approximately recognize products. The system should be able to tell how many bags you used without user help. It should be able to resolve most minor problems without human assistance. This is not primarily an anti-theft measure, although it will help. It's an anti-confusion measure.
- Get the payment system properly synchronized with the checkout system. Never show a display that says to present a card until the system is ready to accept the card. Once a card has been read, say so. Get RFID readers with decent receivers so the customer isn't struggling to get the card read properly. (Looking at you, Toast.)
There's probably a YC24 in this for somebody. All the necessary hardware exists. The integration is terrible.
You forgot "give customer a meaningful discount for doing the labor of checkout."
BossHogg commented on RSS is cool Some RSS feed readers are not (yet) linux-audit.com/rss-is-co... · Posted by u/mboelen
"[RSS is] an easy way for readers to quickly discover released and updated articles." This is true. And there's nothing in that statement about how frequently a site updates.
Telling sites to reduce the number of entries in a feed and telling users to decrease the refresh frequency is a bad idea for sites that update frequently. Very few self-hosted rss readers allow for per feed refresh rates (freshrss is the only one I've found that does I think) so to capture everything on sites that update frequently but have tiny feed sizes I have to run separate cronjobs. That's after asking them to increase the feed size.
BossHogg commented on Elon Musk Leads Far Right Propaganda Blitz on Brazil's Democracy brasilwire.com/elon-musk-... · Posted by u/frontalier
Musk's "sin" is not silencing people a judge wants silenced.
https://archive.is/gsvVZ Brazil Judge Wrangling With Elon Musk Has Long Battled Social Media. Alexandre de Moraes is also at the heart of case against former leader Jair Bolsonaro By Samantha Pearson WSJ April 10, 2024 9:00 am ET
`SÃO PAULO—Before his weekend showdown with tech billionaire Elon Musk, Brazil’s Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes had already earned a reputation as a lightning rod in Brazil’s battles over free speech.
In recent years, de Moraes has slapped fines and bans on social-media companies and ordered police to investigate—and even arrest—some of the country’s most powerful conservative bloggers, businessmen and politicians over what he deemed offensive online posts.
Now the court’s order to block a swath of X accounts has sparked fresh debate, with critics on the right, including many legal experts, saying de Moraes has gone too far. They argue his crusade to clean up the internet in the name of safeguarding democracy is arbitrary and repressive, and that the biggest risk to democracy in Brazil could be the Supreme Court.`
Musk has repeatedly claimed he allows what the law allows. Well, court orders are legally binding which is why people can be found in contempt of court and jailed for violating them. That's the case in the US and I assume in Brasil as well otherwise orders would be meaningless. People like Musk believe they can pick and choose what laws and rules apply to them.
Love the pizza boxes an arm's length away.