Show him the original patent for the toilet roll holder, it shows the how the roll is supposed to go on.

Yep. The best people will leave first because they have options. It’s called the dead sea effect

Lights using a 18650 seem to be the rage these days, at crazy cheap prices, but they all use some UI with clicks, holds, etc.

I have an Olight Seeker Pro 4 and it’s pretty simple to use. The on/off button rotates and controls the intensity. You do have to either hold it for a few seconds to turn it on or rotate the button 90º and then click but that’s unavoidable with these kinds of flashlights.

These lights are very small and yet very powerful. That means you can easily pocket them, but because they are so powerful they also get very hot. You don’t want a flashlight like this to accidentally turn on while in your pocket. If you look at these lights, the head is almost always ribbed, it’s basically a heatsink. Even then when you run them at full strength they usually throttle themselves down after a few minutes to prevent overheating.

They are also very different organizations with very different goals.

NASA is focussed on science, they are trying to learn as much as possible about our solar system and the universe.

SpaceX by contrast is focussed on engineering. They aren’t trying to find life on Mars, they are trying to build the ferry service to it.

When NASA built rockets back in the 60’s, space flight was a science problem. We needed to figure out if it was even possible to do so. Can we even get a capsule into space? Can humans survive in zero gravity? Nowadays space flight is an engineering problem. We know it’s possible, we know the math, but can we actually build those things?

Or just install a door on your bathroom and hang the toilet roll over.

If we’re going to be pedantic: Starship hasn’t reached orbit yet either. All flights so far were suborbital.

I've never been to a grocery store where the self checkout doesn't weigh everything. That's why people keep getting the "unexpected item in bagging area" error that requires an employee to come over to check and clear the error each time.

Sounds like a stupid system.

What stores in what country are you referring to?

Pretty much every supermarket in the Netherlands.

Here is a video of it in action

The anti-theft equipment for a system like this that would prevent someone stealing by simply not scanning something is probably a lot more expensive than the usual self checkouts.

There is no anti theft system other than randomized bag checks where they check up to 10 items from your bag to see if you scanned them. Takes about 1 minute and with daily supermarket visits this happens maybe once a month or so. (I think there is some kind of reputation system linked to your store loyalty card).

Do you exit the store through a specific gate that scans stuff or what?

You scan your receipt af the exit gate (you can also scan a barcode from the store’s app or choose a tiny receipt that only contains the exit barcode). You have to go through one or these gates regardless of wether you go through self checkout or not.

If the store is busy I never try to self checkout since there are lines at all of them

There are almost never lines at self checkout. There are 16 self checkout stations vs only one regular cashier. Self checkout is super fast and even if they are all occupied one usually frees up in less than a minute.

Your entire comment seems premised on the mistaken assumption that every self checkout system is implemented in the exact same way.

It basically is implemented the exact same way in every supermarket in my country.

The Netherlands.

Here is a video of the hand terminal in action (in Dutch, but you’ll get the gist of it)

Clothing and tech in a supermarket?

I’ve never seen anti-theft devices on items in a supermarket.

Self checkout works fine for large amounts of items. You grab a portable scanner at the entrance and scan items as you put them in your cart. When you arrive at checkout you already scanned all your items and all you have to do is pay.

Self checkout customers cannot verify their own age for age-restricted items.

Age verification happens asynchronously and causes zero delay for anyone who doesn’t look like a teenager. The employee overseeing the self-checkout gets an alert on their tablet-thingie, they take one look at me and press approve. You can just keep scanning items while this happens. Usually the ‘your age may be checked’ alert disappears within seconds.

Self checkout customers cannot scan something and report the number of duplicates (e.g., scan a can and punch in that you're buying 8 of them).

They can where I live.

In most stores, self checkout customers are policed by the system to make sure that each item is placed onto a scale that weighs everything, and stops the process if weights don't match up.

I’ve never seen that, and I’m not aware of any supermarket chain in my country that does this.

The ergonomics and flow of self checkout doesn't allow for a conveyor belt style rapid scanning, because a self checkout station is a tighter space and tends to require bagging as you scan, instead of scanning and bagging separately and independently.

The conveyor belt slows things down. You take an item out of your basket, scan it and put it in your bag in one go instead of it being two separate actions. You’re only handling each item once instead of twice. Besides, if you’re planning to get a lot of items you scan while shopping, not at checkout. You get a portable scanner, put it slot on your cart and just scan each item as you put it in your cart.

As a result, self checkout tends to be slower for customers who have more than 20 items.

If you scan while you add items to your cart it takes less than 10 seconds to check out, regardless of how many items you have

That might be offset if there's a longer line for regular cashier, but if there's no line the employee cashier is much faster.

My local supermarket has a grand total of 1 regular cashier, versus 16 self checkouts. If you go during a busy time you have to stand in line. Since the regular cashier is basically only used by people who don’t want to or can’t use self-checkout for some reason (that is: usually elderly people) this line doesn’t move very fast.

When it’s a quiet time of day there often isn’t a regular cashier at all and you have to ask the person overseeing the self-checkout who then has to call someone to help you out as they cannot leave the self-checkout isle unattended so you end up waiting for a cashier to arrive.

Self checkout is always faster, by an order of magnitude.

Why would you be pro self checkout? Besides the extra time and effort for the customer to check out if they have more than a couple items

In what alternate reality does self-checkout take more time and effort?

• If you go to a cashier then you have to wait in line. At my local supermarket there is one cashier vs. 16 self-checkout machines. Even if you go at an extremely busy time there is almost always a self-checkout machine available.
• With self-checkout you simply scan the items from your basket and put them in your bag. With the cashier you have put all your items on the conveyor belt, wait for them to be scanned, then put them in your bag.
• If you have more than a few items you simply grab a hand-scanner or just use the app on your phone and scan the items as you put them in your cart. Then you just go to a self-checkout machine and pay. No unloading the cart at checkout, you just pay and take your cart to your car.

the problems and delays they cause where they have to provide employee assistance anyway ("Unexpected item in bag", etc)

What do you mean unexpected item in bag? The self checkout machine can’t look into my bag.

The article also talked about people getting in trouble for accidentally not getting something scanned.

Never seen that happen. You get random bag checks before you pay (so at that point it’s technically not theft). If you missed something, they simply re-scan all the items and you pay the correct amount, that’s all.

I get why bike racks are used when there are a lot of bikes, as you can pack them closer together. If at all possible I’d rather not store my nice bike in one, too easy to damage the bike. Especially the way this is placed, with bikes blocking much of the sidewalk.

Why not just park your bike along the wall?

How is that even legal? How is someone who hasn’t examined the patient and isn’t their physician allowed to make treatment decisions? If they even have the necessary qualifications.

I mean, you have to explicitly give permission before apps can access the camera.

How can an app turn on the camera without your consent?

Who the hell illegally migrates to Myanmar?

Bacon. It’s super delicious.