Another cool but damp day with clear skies would be nice. Yesterday was gorgeous. Sunny, breezy, temp was perfect after a chilly start…
I need to unload and re-stack the stuff that didn’t sell. Some will not be returning to inventory. Some will be going on ebay. I sorted as I packed up, so it shouldn’t be too bad.
Wife and D2 will return from their back packing trip later in the day.
Hamfest was a lot of fun. I like talking to people, running a line of patter, and selling stuff. I don’t know what official ticket sales looked like but it felt a bit sparse. The swapmeet area wasn’t well filled out either, which worked ok for those of us that were there.
Several people commented on the cost of living increasing a lot lately.
People were buying smalls for the most part. I didn’t really see people buying new radios, or big ticket items. Several people brought their young kids and there were some middle or high school kids too. Ham radio is a ‘dad’s day out’ thing, even if most of the kids were girls.
Didn’t see as many people who looked like narco trafficantes this time. That’s a plus.
My best sellers were rack shelves, load bearing vests (mesh tactical vests with molle attachment points) and pistol holsters. The shelves were a no brainer, but the tactical and gun stuff sold better than I’d expected, and I’m glad I brought them, as the fact they sold means there was an audience for them.
All in all, it was a fun day for me, and most of the attendees seemed happy too.
I’m sore and beat up, with a bit of a sun burn, but I’ll live.
Today will be putting stuff away, returning the trailer, and nursing sore muscles and skin.
Wherever you buy it, keep stacking!
n
I’m not the only one with genius ideas, you know. Case in point, that was drwilliams’s idea.
I think that the problem is going to correct itself over the next few decades.
Datum A: A recent poll (yah, yah, skepticism is warranted but results match what I see) of American blacks found that half disagree with the statement “It’s OK to be White”.
Datum B: 13/55 and similar numbers indicating criminality.
Datum C: American blacks are outnumbered 4- or 5-to-1 by the Whites whom they don’t believe have a right to exist.
Datum D: Bystanders and would-be victims are fighting back against violent crime at an increasing rate. The offenders are being killed at an increasing rate. (Probably. The numbers are hard to rationalize, in the data sense.) The dead offenders are disproportionately black.
Black criminals in the US will learn to control themselves, they will be controlled by their community, or they will be controlled by Whites. In the latter case, the majority of the black community will be destroyed.
Related: The tolerance for unlimited welfare payments to parasites, especially to highly fertile parasites, will continue to decline as the economy continues to be wrecked and as the governments continue to lose credibility with ordinary working Americans. The various governments are the only thing which has allowed black (and hispanic) criminality to thrive for the past forty years and especially since about 2007.
Anecdotal support for Datum B: I’ve mentioned from time to time that I used to do urban cleanup. What I may not have mentioned is that the violent offenders were overwhelmingly black. This was not because I chose to walk through black neighborhoods. I’d just walk wherever and it was blacks who attempted armed robbery. Eleven of the twelve rapists or would-be rapists were black and I don’t know about the twelfth because it was dark. (And both of the actual rape victims were White and the would-be victim may have been; again, it was dark. Make of that what you will.)
I’ve posted before about Gypsies/Roma who I came across operating SE of Lubbock while moving from WA State.
If they can continue practicing their traditions in West Texas, good luck forcing them out of business anywhere else.
Things that make you say “hmmm”: Air Mobility Command Removes Tail Numbers and Unit Info from Planes, Alarming Watchdogs
Goes along with stealth police vehicles where the decals are invisible in daylight and can only be seen from obscure angles. Same with unmarked police vehicles.
I got stopped by an unmarked vehicle many solar cycles past. I only rolled down my window part way and asked for identification of the officer and for a marked patrol vehicle. My request was denied so I rolled the window up and drove away. I went to the nearest convenience store and called the police (this was before cell phones). I was told I did the correct procedure and waited for a marked officer to arrive. He took my statement and that was the end of it.
My concern was that there was a reported individual impersonating officers and pulling people over. A couple of the stops he robbed the people.
Today if I was pulled over by a an unmarked patrol vehicle I would still demand a marked vehicle. I would also call 911 to confirm the stop. And would still wait for a marked patrol vehicle. I would not get out of the vehicle until the marked patrol car arrives.
re: stealth cop cars.
In California it used to be illegal for unmarked or low contrast marked LE vehicles to make traffic stops. I am not sure what the laws are now, but even the gold & white CHP vehicles were not supposed to stop passenger vehicles (maybe out of state commercial were ok?).
PAF (Personal Air Filturation)
The absolute proof that the government was lying about the pandemic was the promotion of the Kubuki theater of “masks”.
The latest Cochrane study, in concert with real-world results, should have answered the question once and for all, but the apologists continue playing “yes but” games based on faith and desire to control people rather than any evidence or science.
All of this is understood by industry professionals.
Part of the investigation into government response to the pandemic should be the identification of how policy decisions on public health were made counter to the available evidence and recommendations of experts based on science.
But that’s too much to hope for, so I’d be willing to have a bunch of idiots rounded up and put into the camps that they wanted to establish for the
denierspolitical enemies.And, yeah, Fauci still gets the fence.
The Kabuki was still running at my GP’s office on Friday. I may need to find a new doctor for that and other reasons.
I hope you didn’t touch anything in the waiting room.
Most of the masks were useless, but the Kabuki enhanced the probability of the sheeple accepting the jabs without questions. The sickness theater was mostly successful in that goal, but 30% of the population still exists as a control group for mRNA vaccine studies, much to the disappointment of Pfizer and Moderna.
Oh, I’m careful in there. The patient base through that place ranges from the highest elected office holders in the state to clients of one partner’s AIDS clinic, however, so I’m not overly concerned about cleanliness in the waiting area.
The first couple of times I went, I got the usual spiel about getting the jab, but that stopped after some of the staff got caught telling patients that they would eventually need proof of vaccination to continue being seen in the office. Staff is always the weak point in any office, since most positions don’t require more than a semester of community college training if that, and Austin is steeped in the religion of “The Science”.
nuts
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/03/biden_authorities_diddle_around_without_charging_illegals_who_shot_a_bald_eagle_for_supper.html
Well. I ‘m up and moving (slowly, stiffly, gingerly) and fed. Working on the ’caffienated’ part.
Need to get moving, unload and return the trailer, and get the rest of the bins stored for next time. While I’m at it, I am taking the time to clean up and organize around the stacked stuff because it hasn’t been done in a long time, and with an eye to getting rid of more of it.
The ol back and shoulders need to warm up a bit before that though.
n
Ah here’s the classic Daily Mail of old. Interns must be back in charge on Sunday…
Toxic chemicals released in East Palestine trai crash REVEALED: From WWI choking agent to carcinogens, DailyMail.com looks at the substances and the terifying health risks
Only 2 typos? Must be slipping.
n
Random thought.
You know what I never see depicted in any media anymore? A mother animal carrying or moving babies by picking them up “by the scruff of their neck.”
In classic movies and books, you see that shown all the time.
Am I not seeing it, or has it been [b]vanished…
n
@nick:
Yes. In UK, a considerable number of people call the DM the “Daily Fail”, because of their penchant for breathless, “the sky is falling” journalism (sic). At least their print version isn’t prone to typos, probably because their journos have been exposed to spell-checkers. Or their sub-editors have.
Be it noted here, I do not read the Daily Fail. In fact, I do not read any newspaper, regardless of the figurative colour of the ink with which it is printed. The DM is printed in (figurative) blue.
You should note that we did not indulge ourselves in a change of political colour, so here the relatively left Labour Party is red, and the relatively right Conservative (Tory) party is blue.
G.
I’m so old, I remember LBJ picking up his beagle by the ears.
Just sayin’
Another note about typos: homonyms, or words that sound the same but have different meanings, e.g. to, too, two. And many others like them.
G.
From Glenn Reynolds’ substack:
@lpdbw:
Me, too. And I questioned it at the time.
Of course, at age 0x4A, I remember a lot that has passed beyond popular memory.
G.
You should pass on your memories and your wisdom to the younger generation.
But do it wrong. Those miserable little bastards don’t deserve your real wisdom.
“Young women, the key to a long-lasting marriage is to show your husband that you care about him enough to want him to be better. Make sure to tell him every time he does something wrong. Tell him over and over again, to make sure he gets the point.”
Chappaquiddick and the Apollo 11 landing, which happened within 48 hours of each other.
However, the Dems haven’t forgotten the lessons of manipulating the news cycle by throwing things over the wall late on Friday.
Oh, you silly person. Since when has any policy decision handed down by the clods in Washington DC been of any intelligence. Most, if not all, decisions are based on getting reelected or flaunting the power of the legislator.
@Geoff, I found it amusing that Charles Stross uses “Daily Mail readers” as a pejorative in the Laundry Files books, the same way libs on this side use “Fox News viewers.”
It’s also either tragic or ironic that Daily Mail US has the most even handed coverage of US politics and has gone from no readers to a massive US readership.
They certainly have their prejudices.
They hate Disney and take every opportunity to highlight anything even remotely bad that happens anywhere within a couple hundred MILES of Disneyworld.
They hate guns, but still have the most evenhanded treatment of guns in the news in the US.
Their copyediting was so bad I was starting to suspect that they did it on purpose, like a modern chinese restaurant putting typos in the menu for “authenticity”.
They have an unhealthy fascination with the Big-ass-ians, ROHNY, and Love Island, far out of proportion to their actual popularity.
All that said, unlike most US media they always follow up on stories even if it’s been years since the original story aired. And they will print shite that other outlets won’t touch, that more often than not ends up being true.
n
Unfortunately for the US, DM is the most accessible of world media. I’d recommend any of the Australian news outlets too, before other US media, but they are too obscure for the most part.
IDK how to even comment on this, because I’ve spent so much time beating this drum, but after Cali wuflu lockdowns, supply chain issues, shortages, and economic woes, HOW THE H3LL do you find yourself in this situation?
https://www.zerohedge.com/weather/help-us-southern-california-mountain-residents-go-survival-mode-after-snowpocalypse
F’ing FEMA says 2 weeks, FFS.
n
Off to return the trailer and put some stuff away.
Absolutely gorgeous day. 86F in the sun, mild breeze, clear sky.
GORGEOUS.
n
70 and sunny in north AL today. I finished up power washing the concrete today. I got the driveway finished yesterday, but I started late and ran out of light. I did the front and back porches and sidewalks this morning.
This was my first time using one of the round cleaning attachments. What a wonderful invention. It turns a multi-day job into a 3 hour job.
I also got the portable generator out, added some gas, and let it run until empty (about 20 minutes). No gas leaks and it was putting out electricity. I’ll change the oil sometime this spring.
In dog news, our younger golden just finished up being in heat, and now the older one just started. I’m going to make an appointment to have the younger one spayed soon, though I might wait and have them both done at the same time.
There are morons everywhere. This is also earthquake country.
In fairness to other residents, I imagine the reporters are cherry picking for good quotes. The guy that said he had a months food, 500 gallons of heating oil and a generator is going to get very little print.
It looks like the local governments and utilities are doing good work TBH, not sure what FEMA has to add.
I swear I remember that the DM has a Sunrise bureau. If not, then someone high on the US staff is based there.
The irony of what DeSantis did to Disney last month is that eliminating Reedy Creek has been a long time dream of Dems in Florida. However, they wanted the company beholden to Orange County‘s “Mayor” and not a still-independent board.
Carl Hiaasen’s “Team Rodent” was a huge book in Prog and media circles in Florida when it first hit 20 years ago.
This is from about thirty-five years ago, but it’s still funny.
Clip from Yes, Prime Minister.
“I know exactly who reads the papers.” https://youtu.be/DGscoaUWW2M
The year or so before I was assigned to Fort Drum, NY circa 1988, a huge snow storm crippled the area. Instead of waiting for the Feds, the goobernator rolled out National Guard M113 APCs to deliver food, water and other supplies to the stranded. The area is used to well over 100” of snow a year so you can imagine how bad the storm was.
@EdH
That’s the guy that declined to be interviewed because he didn’t want to find all those long-lost friends.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2023/03/our-media-at-work.php
NPR. Funded by the American taxpayers, whether they want to or not.
Evert time I have the conversation about defunding NPR I hear some noise about “public good”. My reply is the same every time: Daniel Schorr was employed by NPR for 25 years where he was given free reign to express his ultra-left-wing views. At no time during, before, or since has NPR employed a extreme right-wing or even a moderately right-wing voice in an attempt to provide balanced coverage. As an biased left-wing political organization, NPR has no business being funded with taxpayer dollars.
ADDED:
If you want the measure of Daniel Schorr, pull up his wiki entry and read about how he lied about Lesley Stahl to protect himself.
@nick:
That’s because you have taste. Everything you enumerate is catering to the lowest common denominator. And what I consider to be an unhealthy voveurism.
My last $EMPLOYER saw fit to licence “Keeping Up with…”, and I was tasked with packaging some of the US masters for our viewers to watch. Doing so convinced me that lowest common denominator is way lowerthan I can tolerate watching.
G.
Packaging, in this context, involved closing up black between programme segments, removal of sponsor material (which counted as advertising under our licence to transmit), painting over subtitled material (because English subtitles over inaudible/foreign (to Americans) dialogue would interfere with our own client language subtitles), and sundry other things that we routinely removed. And you would be surprised by the extent to which the US producers subtitled marginally intelligible dialogue. It seemed as though they assumed their viewers had little-or-no intelligence, and needed their hands held all the time. Not to mention the “tell me three times” way they would handle what’s coming in the next (after the break) segment.
But I shouldn’t bend your ears about such things – after all you know them even better than I.
G.
The new hearing aids seem to be working OK. I have only used them three days so I am still adjusting. I do know that I am hearing a lot more. These units are more powerful and have larger receivers in the ear and produce more volume.
The TV streamer is too loud. I have to turn down the volume. Each time it starts up with the TV I have reset the volume. It is annoying that I have to do that little step. I may just turn the thing off and rely on the volume from the TV speakers. The volume in the streamer does not adjust with the TV volume as I am using the optical interface. I have other available ports on the TV for a mini-plug connector.
The battery unit that for the charging unit is supposed to have shipped from Denver. That will help on the trip as I should be able to charge the units three times before requiring an external power source. USB-A so I could probably recharge from the vehicle.
The verdict so far is that my hearing has deteriorated more than I had thought. Some of the sounds I now hear are annoying. The hearing aids seem to adjust well to the environment. I can make the adjustments myself in the phone app.
It still amazes me that so much technology can be placed in such a tiny package. Analog to digital, processing the signal, digital to analog, along with Bluetooth with several devices, wireless charging, three microphones, a rocker switch, LED indicator.
A useful article on using AI from Recomendo by Kevin Kelly:
I think it’s a very good idea to let the girls have a cycle or two. Sure, it’s a pain in the you know when Wilma would sit and spot the carpet like a bingo marker. Yeah, I did try putting her in diapers, she put up with that for about three days. So, I cleaned up bingo marker spots for a week or so. Not a huge deal.
Anyway, it makes them mature and not a puppy anymore.
Ditto for the males. I think Buddy the Beagle was snipped too young. He tries to do the beagle howl but his voice cracks. But he sure does try.
Technology has not yet devised a “spouse filter”.
It has, it fits over her mouth.
h/t Rodney Dangerfield.
from AoSHQ today:
https://ace.mu.nu/archives/030523-Library.jpg
Chained Library:
https://guildford.daiyanyingyu.uk/home/history/rgs/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incunable
My wife’s grandmother had a hearing amplification device. A box that hung around her neck with wires to cheap generic hearing plugs, the kind found on cheap transistor radios, that went in the ear. It had to be the cheapest hearing aid I had ever seen. Probably similar to what the VA used to issue. Not much more than a simple transistor amplifier that could be purchased at Radio Shack. The thing ran on a 9-volt battery.
When she would get irritated with her husband talking, she would in a very animated fashion so it would be noticed, switch off the hearing amplifier and just stare at her husband. He generally got the message.
RE: Hearing aids
I tried hearing aids. Useless for me. I have several constant “sounds” that I hear much of the time, anytime night or day.
1) A low roar like to you hear at the ocean as you go over the dunes; not any one wave but the sum of all of the waves breaking. This noise is with me almost constantly.
2) When I move my head rapidly I hear a mid range humming. I get this both when my head is nodded or shaken left to right- but then nodding one is a lower frequency. Bouncy roads make this happen.
3) Music and/or talk radio. This hard to explain but my brain takes the input from my ears and plays music – often marches – or talk radio. Both are not quite understandable.
Trying to hearing through this “background or static” noise is tiring. Plugging my ears has no effect on these noises. The earing aids just add to the confusion.
Some times I can’t use the telephone because the static is too loud. Having a conversation can be challenging.
Well, that sucks huge amounts of dust bunnies. I have tinnitus but not as bad as yours. I hear a high pitched whine all the time.
You may want to check with an ENT as you may have fluid in your inner ears. The Eustachian tubes may be blocked. I have some blockage. I take a prescription nasal spray each night into both nostrils to help keep the tubes open. The fluid and the blockage causes my hearing to be really bad until about an hour after I wakeup and am vertical.
Been to ENT, etc. No infections or blockages. I can “clear” my ears my yawning easily and can make a temporary block easily also.
Tried three different hearing aids at various prices. Bought one set but it never has helped me.
Been to VA but I my retirement income is too high and there is no link to a disability from my service. Doubt if their aids would be useful to the high “static”.
Bought one set but it never has helped me.
Music used to be one of the things I really enjoyed. Some really good recordings are “OK” but the ones that have been compressed are horrible.
This one is fine:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSOXZNY8hAA&list=RDnSOXZNY8hAA&start_radio=1
This one is not:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evGwGkkfQ1M
I cannot hear the main theme in the latter at all. I only hear the bass and and some screeching.
>> While SteveF’s ideas are always welcome, they tend to be impractical. But, honestly, it is a problem. What do you *do* with people who have little or no chance of ever becoming productive member of society? More prisons aren’t the answer – that’s just a different kind of drain on the host society.
There’s a solution that gets you a bumper sticker for your Jesus truck that says “Recharging done using Soylent Green – ask me how you can too!”
@bobS, sounds like you may have something moving in your ears, like fluid, or wax, or just debris. A thorough inspection and cleaning might help. I’ve had a bunch of ear issues, and diagnosed tinnitus, but most of what you describe sounds like stuff in there moving.
@geoff – the “tell me three times” way they would handle what’s coming in the next (after the break) segment. The sitcom writing method TAUGHT to students is “tell them what’s going to happen. Tell them what’s happening. Tell them what happened.” There is a ton of redundancy in the information flow so that people can enter the program part way thru, get back from a break late, etc. and still understand what’s going on. IOW, it’s intentional and actually clever from an information science pov, not that any science was involved…
@EdH, not sure what FEMA has to add. FEMA brings the sweet sweet federal money. They also have pre-positioned useful stuff, and staff that exists to open the right doors for access to those things. They also bring a lot of un-needed cr@p, rules, and counter productive input. Texas Emgmt has more than once told FEMA to GTFO of the way.
n
I have a teenager…
@bob, just saw your reply… so if nothing is physically messing with your hearing, and it’s really just tinnitus related, there are therapies that seem to work for some people that involve retraining the brain.
I linked before to something, after some discussion about youtuber Rick Beato and his vid about tinnitus. I can look again later.
Mine is manageable with white noise generators, and ear plugs. My losses are real notch-y and specific, which leads to intelligibility issues and pain from certain sounds. I’ve been playing with some active noise reducing ear plugs and they do help me with comfort.
WRT recorded music, a lot of recordings were made with a bias applied and were meant to be played on equipment that removed that bias, so if a transfer was made without doing so it will sound horrible.
On the other hand, modern sound mixing is WAY better than it was, dynamic range is greater, they use EQ to ‘carve out’ space for each voice/instrument so they don’t all mush together, etc. Modern digital multi track recording is so much better than all but the absolute best recordings of the past. This is countered somewhat by lossy compressed encoding formats, mp3 I’m looking at you, that sound OK, but do have audible artifacts. The sound of brushes on a cymbal or the “ttss” sound of certain cymbal ‘hits’ are the most noticeable to me, but some vocals do it too.
Bandwidth is still a limitation. Some satellite and cable channels use really bad compression at high levels to squeeze more channels into their allotted bandwidth. Some Sirius/XM channels are more compressed than others too. AM radio used to squash the HECK out of stuff but it still sounded pretty good. The amount of bass signal in most modern recordings is astonishing from a historical pov, remember the low end roll off switch that would help save your amp by cutting sound your speakers couldn’t reproduce? Well they can now, and the sound pressure and rumble of that bass is profoundly different from how things used to sound.
Anyway, hearing issues suck, but there are things that can help. The field has come a long way.
n
@EdH, not sure what FEMA has to add. FEMA brings the sweet sweet federal money. They also have pre-positioned useful stuff, and staff that exists to open the right doors for access to those things. They also bring a lot of un-needed cr@p, rules, and counter productive input. Texas Emgmt has more than once told FEMA to GTFO of the way.
Never, ever, never, ever voluntarily go to a FEMA camp. You can enter but never leave is the theme of many apocalyptic books.
Go watch “Zombieland: Double Tap”, the sequel that fell through the cracks due to the pandemic.
The film is a combination of comedy and unique social commentary made possible by time being frozen in that storytelling world in 2009.
Went to HEB today for a few things, and for the first time in 9 years, there was armed security present at our store near Katy.
So my girlfriend looked online, and saw that there was an incident in Spring where an employee got assaulted and slapped because she stopped a customer from using self-checkout because of too many items. I suppose they increased security at all the stores as a result.
Naturally, I went to the news story. I had 2 guesses about the ethnicity of the “alleged” attacker, and I was right on the first try. Amish, once again, named Lynda Ukeh.
At some point, the distinction between confirmation bias and data collection gets blurry.
“I don’t know how he will manage it with a split Congress, but here he comes.”
https://areaocho.com/ok-joe/
Didn’t Slow Joe swear to uphold the USA Constitution ?
I know, I know, I am an idiot.
Mayuyama Koji, “The God Hand”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIoi-DSm0e4
The restoration of fine Japanese porcelain by a second-generation master, training the third-generation.
I’ve had the good fortune to be involved in a bit of museum work. Such color matching requires a natural ability and aptitude followed by decades of work.
At about 40:00 he uses a powder inherited from his father that contains air. I believe I recognize the properties, but speculating might get me a cultural visit I don’t need.
@ITGuy1998
Golden in heat / spaying
If you can hold off until their growth plates have closed, they will have more normal proportions and better bone density. Hormones send the necessary signals so the growth plates know definitively it’s time to stop growing bone length. The campaign to spay / neuter before heat cycles has resulted in leggy dogs that don’t develop adult bone density, properly depth of chest, some correlation between hip socket depth, and a whole host of growth stuff. The rescue industry cherry picks studies that tie cancer to hormones as adults.
Like anything there’s a sweet spot to get the good of the hormones while avoiding an increased risk of various cancers.
2 years seems to be that sweet spot in my breed. Jane Killion has a lot to say about it and is worth googling.
And we are down to just the three of us for the first time in months. It’s… nice.
Sadly put my aunt on her plane last night. Her last leg takes off in a few minutes and she lands in Auckland Monday morning. We are all very sad. It was a wonderful visit. I very much hope we can see her in person again. New Zealand is so far away, though.
Headed to Northern California in April for my sisters funeral. I’d hoped it would be in S California so we could visit a few friends (CowboySlim!) but not this time. We are renting a Winnebago Solis Pocket for our trip. Fly in, get the camper can, take a mini family vacation. Funeral then home. It’ll be good. The camper van sleeps three, seatbelts for three. It’ll be tight. Good trade off for better size, a bit wider than our current vehicle, 9.5’ tall, 17’10” long. Sat in its larger cousin today to ensure my Very Tall Husband can stand upright and fits on the bed. Tight. Ok for a few days adventure. Also verified my feet reach the pedals, I’m short and assuming I’ll be able to reach is risky.
Sitter lined up for house, dogs, rabbits, chickens. I’ve got 19 kits currently, they’ll be too young to slaughter before we go. I need to sort out efficient grow out cages for that many beasties.
Biden made the statement while speaking in Baltimore.
The new Governor in Maryland is a potential Jesus Candidate, complete with a ghostwritten book and the support of Oprah.
When we left nine years ago, WalMart had a decent presence on both sides of the river.
https://news.yahoo.com/walmart-set-close-stores-portland-154823875.html
Weather was beautiful in Texas today if she connected through DFW, much different than the beginning of February.
>> So my girlfriend looked online, and saw that there was an incident in Spring where an employee got assaulted and slapped because she stopped a customer from using self-checkout because of too many items.
Gee, mostly we hear about stores all but forcing people to use the self-checkout.
I dislike the self check out for any more than 5 items, and even then, I’d prefer to be feeding someone’s kids, not paying a vendor to continually swap out machines. The vendor has kids, but that is all one remove more than having a live checker.
If I’ve got marked down items, spray paint, or anything you have to look up (nuts and bolts) I will wait for a human, even if only one is working.
Pro-tip for our local Lowes, the cash register next to the Pro Desk is always staffed, even when the light isn’t on. And it’s a straight shot out the doors, so you don’t have to navigate anything if you have a cart full of lumber.
I never use the self check at Costco. Did it once, it was painfully slow and finicky, so now I let the checker and helper breeze me thru the line. I do set up everything in the cart so the UPC is visible, which speeds things up.
n
added- I avoid walmart unless I’m traveling and it’s literally the only store I can go to, and our HEB grocery doesn’t have a self checkout, so most of my experience is at lowes or HD.
n
“Appellant Brief Filed in Young v. EPA”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/03/04/appellant-brief-filed-in-young-v-epa/
“And during the prior administration, the Committee had concluded that the science did not support strengthening the standard. The new EPA Administrator decided that he could not risk that happening again.”
“He therefore promptly fired all seven members of the Committee and restocked it with six academics who have received a total of more than $126 million in EPA grants and a statutorily required state official, all of whom agree that the particulate-matter standard should be strengthened.”
“The newly reconstituted Committee then unanimously recommended that EPA make the standard more stringent, and the Agency proposed a rule that would do so.”
Bold. This EPA lowering of the particulate standard will shut down all coal, steel, and other manufacturing plants in the USA.