half_fiction

The downside is forcing a bunch of people through self checkout who need a cashier. Whenever you all talk about how great self checkout is, I wonder what mecca you live in. My only experiences with it are long lines and long waits caused by a number of factors:

-Many self checkout lanes closed because they think everyone is stealing and refuse to staff more than one person to watch over you

-Old people who can't use technology and don't want to be using the machines

-People who have entire carts and struggle to effectively scan their groceries on the tiny space allocated.

-Machines that scan painfully and artificially slow because they want to weigh every goddamn item to prove you aren't stealing

-Machines that record you and yell at you for stealing if you move an item slightly awkwardly

Yeah, same here. I barely dated before online dating (granted I had a boyfriend for a couple years.) When I found online dating, it felt kind of magic. All of a sudden there were all these men interested in me who were actually cute/smart/funny AND into the same shit as me? It even made me realize what a bad match my ex had been and that some portion of our relationship was just out of convenience because he had actually asked me out. (The men I found myself most compatible with online weren't generally high in confidence and didn't ask many women out.)

Within a month of trying online dating, I found 2 fantastic men I wanted to be in a relationship with (at the same time... Womp womp.) However just within like 5 years of dating one of them, the online dating scene had already felt like it shifted it a lot. It was way more frustrating with a lot more people I wasn't interested in and the really compatible ones fewer and further between (or maybe just harder to find.) I ended up casually dating online in earnest for several years before meeting my husband. It was still easier than meeting someone in person imo (but I'm also a woman) and I definitely understand why younger people might believe in person was better.

Yeah, I understand why it's currently happening like that, but it's still annoying to call at 2am and be like, "they were so hard to get on the phone!" Seems to be a recurring problem so might be worth it to have a contingency plan for winners within certain time zones, even if you just quietly inform them a few hours earlier that they should make sure they're available at that time.

The Nobel committee also hit a roadblock trying to reach Brunkow – both researchers are based on the US West Coast, which is nine hours behind Stockholm – but eventually got ahold of her...

In 2020 the Nobel committee had similar difficulties in contacting the winners of the prize for economics. When Bob Wilson’s phone rang in Stanford in the middle of the night, he unplugged it so the committee had to call his wife instead.

When the committee couldn’t reach his fellow winner, Paul Milgrom, either, Wilson had to go and wake him up.

This is annoying to me. Is there seriously no better way than to call older people in the middle of the night and then act surprised when they are not immediately available?

Yeah, this sure sounds like the "free market" correcting itself as these people love to prattle on about.

Seriously, "I don't like this thing, so fuck anyone who does!" Why can't we just be chill with people liking whatever makes them happy (within reason obviously) rather than actively rooting against it?

I got it at CVS in California and it was just a box you had to tick on the intake form, "I am qualified to receive the vaccine" lol. It was in same section that asks the standard stuff like, "are you allergic to stuff in this vaccine?" etc. No conversation about any of it at all.

He has no self-awareness that he isn't a genius with money.

I am selling my house, giving up my well paying job, and leaving Texas in a week to be with my fiance who has already moved. I am terrified of the house not selling and of being unemployed. I originally graduated into a depressed job market with a soft degree and spent 2 years(!!!) job hunting before I got a job in retail customer service. Somehow over a decade, I managed to claw my way, tooth and fucking nail, into a career I'm proud of. The closer I get to being out of a job, the more scared I get but then I see stories like this and I am reminded why we decided that getting the fuck out of here was worth more than whatever financial security we're giving up, (hopefully just in the short term.) This place is not fucking safe.

Yeah, exactly this. I have a mortgage and a car payment so I've got lots of debt, but I wouldn't consider myself "broke" by any stretch. I don't live paycheck-to-paycheck, I put 10% away for retirement, and I can afford to spend money where I want without stressing about it. Overall, pretty charmed compared to how a lot of folks are struggling these days and it's honestly kinda wild to act like it's comparable to anything they're going through.

I also read the article and am having a hard time understanding what happened in the car. Given the driver's relative young age, I have to wonder if it was a newer driver who straight up panicked and accidentally hit the accelerator instead instead of the brakes. This is often the cause when old people drive into buildings.

I feel like it's one of those things where if you're in California, people are going to have a lot of big opinions. But if we're talking outside the state, we got each other's backs.