Slashdot is a US site. You have freedom of speech here. You can say Trump is a piece of shit.

It's the same in Europe. You can go online and say Trump is a piece of shit, too!

I thought the US was under a tourism boycott already. Remember those German prostitutes who got deported from Hawaii to Japan?

America is closed. Don't come. Tourism economies suck. You don't tip, either, which is why you get spit in your food and poor service.

Tell all your friends America is closed, too. Stay home. We built a Disneyland in Paris for this exact reason.

For Aldi, which uses Instacart, I assumed it was because there is no 'fee' for pickup, but they have to pay someone to shop for you. I consider the difference a convenience fee.

That said, by not shopping in store, I end up getting only what is on my list and end up paying FAR LESS than I would if I was wandering around.

Much like Cracker Barrel, this was a deliberatte "fuck you" to get attention. It worked!

These jobs are the important entry-level jobs for immigrants, regardless of documentation status. Replacing them with robots is straight-up cruelty.

These beggars are selling a product, though they do not know it.

That product is the approval of your own conscience. Are you the kind of person who can look at someone in need and ignore them?

It's also ingroup solidarity,you can leave comments with others who also gave money.

It's worthwhile to note that socialists despise charity. Government should do everything. That's why they got angry when MrBeast dug all those water wells in Africa. He made the governments look bad.

And never forget that socialism is for workers. It's a workers' paradise. It's not 'free money for lazy people who don't work," no matter how often Trump says that.

If AI could replace humans, it also replaces corporations.

AI is not taking jobs. It's just the latest excuse to outsource. The myth is that Idiot + AI = competent worker. But that isn't the case.

If corporations were run by smart people, they'd be using AI to speed up their roadmaps and rush ahead of the competition. Or come up with new pet projects for people to work on.

If Zuckerberg can build wealth with AI and not workers, then the workers can build wealth with AI and not Zuckerberg.

If AI replaced corporations, they'd shut it down. And it already is. But not yet to the degree that it upsets them.

The problem is not AI. The problem is not paying people. If you create a product people like and it makes you money, pay people to displace your reliance on AI.

Right... I worked for The Beer Store, the brewer-owned private company which distributes beer across the Province of Ontario. Our Premier (roughly equivalent to a State Governor) made a campaign promise of "A buck a beer!".

So, a new empty can cost roughly $0.20 at the time. The law in Ontario is that shelf prices include tax and deposit. So, the can is $0.30 - twenty cents for the can itself, plus another dime for the deposit to make sure the used can comes back for recycling.

Now, on top of that, you have to make a food-grade beverage, pay your excise tax to the federal government, and then there have to be profits for the manufacturer and the distributor/retailer (that would be Brewers Distributing Limited dba. The Beer Store).

Customers would come to me and - with that "I know more than you even though I haven't held a job in 16 years" expertise - tell me that we were going to be carrying "buck a beer" because they voted for Doug Ford (who also cut their welfare increases).

"When do you get it? It's gotta be soon!"

"The first shipment arrives February 31st, so mark your calendar!"

I must have used that line 500 times. Only one person realized that there's no February 31st. To his credit, he had to come back to the store to tell me. LOL

Exactly ONE brewer made the Buck A Beer - Cool Brewing of Etobicoke, in Doug Ford's riding. We were lucky if we got a single case (24 beers) a month. Promise fulfilled... Right.

Anyway... The Beer Store's shelf tags were printed at the distribution center and sent to stores with truckloads of beer and empties in and out. Of course, you always had too many tags you didn't need, and were always short of the shelf tags that you did need. If a tag was outdated and wrong, you have to - ethically if not legally - honour the price. And, of course, if a tag was damaged or lost, there was no tag for that product. All of this hearkened back to The Beer Store's roots as Brewer's Retail where everything was behind a counter and we had a selection wall. In a newer self-service store like mine, this did not work.

Electronic shelf tags were implemented. It was amazing. Snap the tag into place on the shelf. Scan the tag. Scan the product. Press a button. The scan gun would beep and a moment later, the tag would update with the item description and price.

Price changes? Automatically updated on all tags.

Now, something about selling addictive substances: Sometimes someone decides that the item's price is what they have, not what the shelf tag says. And they will argue with you until the cows come home. You get jaded to it.

"That will be $2.25 for the can of Pabst Blue Ribbon 5.9."

"The tag says $1.95 so you have to give it to me for that. You forgot to update the sticker."

"No sir, I assure you that it doesn't. They're not stickers, they're electronic and tied to the POS."

"It says $1.95."

"Sir, if the shelf tag says $1.95 for Pabst Blue Ribbon 5.9, I will give you a full case of it. On the house."

For a moment, they're elated. And then they realize that I'm coming out from behind the counter to call their bluff. In front of the lineup of impatient customers during the daily 10:01AM opening rush. Catcalls. Whistles. Jeers.

Walk over with the dude... shelf tag says $2.25 for PBR 5.9. Now, at this point, I'm annoyed, and I'm not going to short my till $0.30 for him. Or suggest to him an alternative beer that is $1.95 a can. If he'd just passed me all his change and come up a little short, I would have covered it. Personally, out of my pocket, if I didn't have a few nickels and dimes perpetually floating around my cash. I've spent way too much time on both sides of the counter at The Beer Store, so I have plenty of empathy - just don't be an asshole.

Anyway... Dollar stores are dealing with customers who are on the very bottom economic rung, whether from addiction or for some other bad life event. Now, sometimes these people are a nickel away from being able to afford a can of beer - or a jar of baby food. I have seen split tender three ways for a $2 item - $0.50 from returning 5 empty cans, $0.97 by scraping a prepaid Mastercard from last Christmas to the last cent, and then $0.55 from under the sofa cushions or wherever. Unexpected price changes can drastically upset plans these people have made to get a few supplies with their very last dollar.

"I can get a box of Kraft Dinner at Dollarama for $0.50, and two cans of cat food at A Buck Or Two with the other $0.50..." I've seen it, and I've personally lived it.

The shelf tags, especially at a dollar/discount/alcohol/cannabis store of any sort, must be accurate. As an experienced retail manager, electronic shelf tags are simply essential.

You can sell the boss on implementing them with the operational savings, the labour of having to change stickers with every price change. Electronic shelf tags will pay for themselves in very short order.

We need to push for CEOs to be replaced with AI. They'd do a better job and would cost a LOT less.

Start repeating this everywhere and get the meme-makers on it. It will be wonderful to watch them squirm as they suddenly find reasons why AI shouldn't replace a company's most valuable assets: its most highly-paid executives.

They did ragebait on purpose. It worked on you. You engaged with it and got angry enough to leave a comment. That boosts posts.

It's literally what ragebait is meant to do.

Someone smarter than me can tell us if this is true literary irony or not. I never got the concept very well.

Wanting a "people's car" was inevitable.

A school bus, with the red lights flashing, may NOT be passed on either side. This is to prevent children from being run over. Texas cops are quick to fine anyone who does, and it's hammered into your head in Drivers Ed.

In some states it's not a big deal, and so many of those people moved to Texas to get away from their states, only to turn Texas into what they hated. They don't learn.

You're clearly not talking about American cars. What's a 1-tonne Ford Escort? I did have a 1983 Dodge Ram D150 half-ton pickup truck with a Slant-6 and an A-833 manual transmission; that thing would get 25MPG and hold 75MPH all the way westbound across Michigan... of course, it took it a while to get to 75MPH, merging was just like driving a Peterbilt with a 53' trailer full of anvils. That exact same engine and a comparable transmission were available for the Dodge Trucks line from 1960 to 1987 and was renowned for durability and reliability.

The key point is that Americans typically don't want them. To this day, in Canada, gasoline is cheaper than water. I'm not sure if that's a statement about gas prices or a slam against the sort of fool who feels the need to buy their tapwater in PET bottles, but I digress. So people buy horsepower. People buy large vehicles based on truck platforms.

As CAFE forces vehicles to become more fuel efficient - without addressing the underlying consumer demand problem! - manufacturers are being forced to use smaller and smaller engines. This means adding turbochargers to cute little aluminum blocks, narrower cam lobes and variable displacement oil pumps and smaller oil control rings all to reduce the internal drag, and thinner oils which offer zero cushion on connecting rod bearings. All of this gets stuffed into a full-size pickup truck with a trailer hitch. They're intolerant of real-world conditions and use, and because of their complexity they're expensive to repair. These vehicles will not have a long lifespan - sure, you might get a good fleet average mileage, but if 50% of the vehicles don't make it to the 100,000 mile mark, they're getting replaced faster with all the environmental damage of producing and disposing of the vehicle.

Maximizing vehicle life is an important part of reducing the vehicle's overall environmental impact.

There's a great YouTube channel where the owner of a full-service used auto parts business takes apart modern engines and shows you what failed. No prior knowledge of engines is required to understand this. Some engines are spectacularly broken. And Eric talks about what will last, and what won't, with an entertaining sarcasm.

Recycling? The lead-acid primary battery gets removed, then the car gets crushed and shredded. Only the steel and the aluminum get recycled. Anyone who thinks that any other material in a car gets recycled in any quantity has never seen a car shredder in operation. ASR (Auto Shredder Residue) is a special waste stream now consisting mostly of mixed plastics, smashed safety glass, and the crap people leave in their cars when they junk them. All that plastic gets landfilled.

"Trump must win"?

Do you people even listen to yourselves?

The man is literally ADOLF HITLER.

"Here"

Here's an idea, pajeet! Why don't you fuck ALL THE WAY off and get off our AmeriKKKan social media?

Nobody wants to listen to you stinky foreigners who whower once a week and don't tip.

Leave. Go. Get on your own country's social media and post all the "AmeriKKKa sucks" comments you want there.

AUSLANDER RAUS!

That's the business not investing in the people and the resources to move ahead. "Missing deadlines" also often stems from demands exceeding resources.

From the 1990's to the 2020's, Intel was more focused on profit and shareholders than investing in people and R&D.