You’re a dying breed.

It’s not as scary as it seems, and quite a bit of fun.

Don’t be afraid to try.

Source: Am dad. But, it’s been a long time since I held a baby. Not that I think anything has changed about it in the intervening years.

There’s always tarot cards and astrology, the old standbys.

This one crosses generational and political lines much more so than anti-vaxxers and the nanobots-in-the-masks crowd.

One way to fight it might be to politicize it, ironically enough, with Trump’s approval under 30% on many issues, if we can label AI support as MAGA, that might slow the advance.

In my town, MAGA supports data centers “because jobs.” Fucking idiots don’t know how few people it takes to babysit computers. The jobs are low-paying security, and a few IT staff, with the bulk of the work done off-site from other states.

Whether they “look bad” depends on how you feel about flushing grandma.

I have a small, 3" urn of my mom’s ashes, and ten years later when I was offered the same for my dad, I declined. It doesn’t mean anything to me, and at the time, I had actually misplaced mom’s urn.

Slava Ukraini!

“Terrible” is overstating it.

Maybe if you let grandma soak and she gets all clumpy it would have a bit of trouble. Nothing a plunger to the face won’t fix.

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.

Nah, I have hypertension. Can’t do it.

What’s the rush? You’ll know soon enough.

Ya gotta keep upping the ante till they break. That’s the game.

See, now I want to do it even more.

Only because he got caught.

Remember how they pissed their pants? If he had the training, perhaps some support and a better plan, he might have kept going.

Back when I finally started eating better, I quickly learned that no one wanted to hear about it.