Logbook: Stores
AI and Fast food, A marriage made in hell.
I have been thinking, I was hungry and went to a Burger King and there was a profound difference. The store was near empty, The front kiosk was devoid of life and replaced with computers. At the wall was 3 computers that had screens with “order here!” , In the first five seconds of looking around I felt unwelcomed with a place that looked closer to a funeral home , most of the old decor was removed. In its place was ugly sterile furniture.
Before this to make an order you walked up to a human and said “Hi i would like to order a original chicken sandwich meal. They would put that in the machine, you’d pay with cash and be on your way.
Now there is a massive change that basically makes you create the meal from scratch. You go to the machine, you tap order . You scroll around through menus until you get to your original chicken sandwich. From there it goes into a conundrum. You get a menu with 45 different options. Mentally you are going “I just want a fucking original chicken sandwich” . They have made the same trap that subway has, Go there and try to order and Italian sandwich, you spend 10 minutes trying to remember the base components of the damn thing. This methodology turns you into an unpaid worker.
With this, the human element is gone. they have replaced 3 workers that could be floaters helping in rushes with stuff, Now its 3 to 5 cold machines that sit there , they don’t say hello, they don’t say Hi nice day isn’t it what would you like to order. You have to dick around with a machine for 10 minutes because you have no idea how to assemble the thing you want. Now with the cost of those machines and the upkeep and the electricity they have replaced 3 to 4 workers with a machine that likely cost more than what those workers would of made in the time those employees would of made in the churn lifetime of those workers. Not only that those machines are likely taken care of devs that are paid to keep the machines updated. This tech is not fire an forgot , there is a near constant maintenance. You likely replaced 4 workers with a computer that cant help in a rush when a school bus drops 70 kids plus 4 teachers. Those computers cant help bag , get fries, and help with other things. so with the leftover staff they are now picking up the fluff work that normally is hidden from them and their process time doubles. these machines are strategically inefficient. They have hidden costs, while workers may fuck up, machines can absolutely fuck up because they are absolutist. These machines do not have intuition , they will not adjust the frialator because they can not see 4 school buses pull up and 5 teachers approaching.
Outside it gets worse , the person who used to be on the radio is gone . replaced with an AI that basically is dumber than dirt because variable is its enemy , If you say I’d like an order of umm A whooper with fries and a coke and um no cheese. the AI will likely fuckup.
“We are witnessing the loss of humanity of America through a drive-thru speaker. We traded the ‘Hi, how are you?’ with machines that can’t handle a stutter or slurring. These machines are a ADA nightmare under the guise of Innovation, They replaced the ‘Floater’ with a ‘lamp that pretends to be a computer. And when the system inevitably crashes with the arrival 4 school buses, they’ll blame the Staff instead of the machines that caused it.
We need to talk about “smart” devices…
In this world of AI and smart devices we are leaning towards a smart Armageddon. There are so many stupid smart devices out there. Smart Water bottles ? Fuck that, they are likely stealing your data and location. Smart Toasters? Fuck that you can turn a knob and almost 500$. Smart thing you piss on for tracking hydration.
The sad sad story about this of all of these smart devices that claim to make your life easier are doing one thing. They are taking data from your life apart one piece of data at a time. You end up losing your own agency and sovereignty. They end up selling every piece of your life away for pennies, then reselling that and making more money… if you need a true smart device, buy a whiteboard, it’s safer. it will not steal your data. A whiteboard doesn’t leave you open to marketing unless you pin a pizza advertisement to it. If the smart device company goes out of business you have a Dumb smart brick. You are stuck with someone else’s mistake and a worthless product.
These smart on-the-go devices like water bottles also leak your position in real time with Bluetooth. They are as secure as a screen door on a sub made of paper. Your data also has no chain of ownership, so once your data gets “analyzed” you lost a bit of yourself. You have NO idea where this data is sold off too. This is the sick future of things you will not be able to take a shit without that data being sold off.
If you think about it , a whiteboard is more secure than all of these devices. A smart toaster could leak information about you to an insurance company, You’d have no idea why your rates shot up because they bought data on your carb habits. the piss tracker for hydration could “leak” data saying you are a health risk because you do not drink enough. These billion dollar companies spend more time buying data about you than talking to you. One of the biggest spies in the world …. Walmart!! Walmart could train the CIA. Walmart is turning into a data company that just happens to sell you socks when you need them while tracking your phone. When you are in their stores buying smart shit they follow you around the stores with facial recognition, they likely buy the information from the smart device makers to “help” you make informed decisions. Walmart has used this ecosystem to generate 6.4 billion dollars! they are planing devices inventory tracking that have Bluetooth, the funny thing about that it’s not about that . every time a mobile phone passes these devices will become aware that your phone has passed it . they will map you out through the store and see your exact habits. at that point just buy a cucumber some Vaseline and condoms, While checking out if there are any employees left just say your going to have some fun tonight. Just to screw with metrics. .
But in all when purchasing a “smart” device, ask yourself, Do i really need this device to be smart. Coffee parts are smart enough with the built in clock. your smart enough to put the grinds in the coffee pot , You are smart enough to add water. If you need something more smart, Upgrade to a Prosumer level or a commercial grade. Don’t get distracted by apps , Features you don’t need or See things on your phone. because in the case of the coffee pot you pass by it 20 times a day in your house.
Because, In the end you need to ask yourself, what did they remove to add the “smart” tech. What happens to the device if you lose internet. There are coffeepots out there that already stop working when the internet is off. How reliable is the small computer that tracks you in the device, will a device like a toaster stop working when toasters have worked nearly 100 years if the “smart” dies. The whiteboard is your best device if you need to track things. if you really need a “smart” coffeepot buy a smart plug and a dumb coffeepot with a switch if you really need a smart coffeepot. the plus is less data leaky about your caffeine habits.
Final thoughts here, if you need a smart device that doesn’t really need it , Buy a smart plug. That’s my opinion. The smart plug will leak data but at worst they will leak Wattage use vs hard data. Need a smart crockpot. skip it . buy a smart plug and you can turn it on in the middle of the day and all the smart plug knows is you turned the plug on. Not stuff they sneaked into device or menus asking what you are cooking to have you volunteer more data.
in the end buy a smartplug with 1800w 15a so you don’t burn your house down anciently and moreover don’t give anyone data on when you are cooking your 239842398 alarm chili in your crockpot.
I’m not saying all smart devices are bad, but you need to think about what you are giving up the first time you sign into an app. If you really want to have that “smart” device – Buy a dumb device and use a smart plug, it is cheaper in more ways you than you can count. You do not lose your personal security. A smart plug might give up the energy your using and perhaps some network mapping. A smart device with an app on its own is a spy that will leech every bit of data it can get.
In all that’s my opinion… Now back to my coffee from my non smart pot.
Is amazon ok?
Amazon has been weird lately, Just a bunch of things I have noticed .
For one amazon prime Video is getting weird. Not sure if this applies to everyone but, Watch a TV show on amazon… Rather than go to the next episode It returns you to the Amazon Prime Video screen, I thought it might of been a fluke in the amazon app. I tried the same thing on my samsung TV , Same thing happened! Loaded up a brand new firestick that i have for media sharing Same problem?
This alone may not have anyone going Hmmm but there are other things Amazon Resale has people complaining because of people order X and get Y. Other items are shipped and people are getting refunds and told to dispose of Item.
They also are heavily leveraged into AI and their Rufus is dumber than a brick. They are putting hundreds of billions into AI and are hemorrhaging money for this.. They are trying so bad to be next Facebook in a way by being Big Data and they do not know how to do it . Costs for their AI outwiegh there standard app approach. The way it is going Jeff Bezos might have to use low grade fuel for his plane.
Amazon is also hiding reviews from normal users and instead show compensated reviews. Compensated reviews are garbage because the only way to keep getting items is give a glowing review. I’d take 10 Honest reviews over a single review where the person received the item for free.. They are so badly losing their way that they are bleeding long time customers turned off by this approach. Amazon probably knows they are losing a small percentage of customers. They are over leveraged and I am willing to bet they dont know how to get back . but even month to month if they lose 0.25% customers , You don’t have a leak you have a crisis , because even in that small percentage they are losing “whales” people that are big spenders.
If you go by this metric it works out to big money and the more that leave would be catastrophic.
| Metric | Regular Member | The “Whale” (Top Tier) |
| Est. Annual Spend | $1,400 | $12,000+ (Business/Bulk) |
| 0.25% Monthly Churn | 625,000 users / month | ~6,250 high-spenders / month |
| Annualized Users Lost | 7.5 Million Users | 75,000 “Whales” |
| Direct Revenue Loss | $10.5 Billion / year | $900 Million / year |
| Subscription Fee Loss | $1.3 Billion (at $179/yr) | (Included in revenue) |
So right now Amazon is using an enshitification phase while they try to bet the house on Rufus. Rufus has the tact of getting a pickaxe to the skull. If you ask google it gives you what you want while Rufus throws shit at you and goes HERE THIS IS WHAT YOU BUY NOW! At a guess Amazon knows they are bleeding but they are so committed to their act that they are reducing everything just to keep the ship running. So piss away customers and hope they can profit. if amazon had incrimented the changes rather than try to use a grenade to empty a bucket people may have tolerated this. But even marketwise they are pissing away money , The stock is down 8.18% in the last 6 months.
While amazon serves better as the general store they are trying to get into a neiche market and they have no fucking clue how to do it because they seem to be trying a what can we replace while not realizing th e limitations on the new.
They’ve replaced the general store with a high-stakes AI experiment, and right now, the experiment is blowing up in everyones face like wile E coyote trying to catch a profitable roadrunner.
Anyways, back to my coffee after this steamy thought.
Removing the penny was a bad idea and a scam.
In the year 2026 we bid farewell to the penny, But was the death of this penny warranted? I say no. Others will say yes and scream and stomp their feet saying “It CoSts 3.7 cents to make!” While this is a factual number i am going to call bullshit on this. There are more factors in the penny that make that 3.7 sound expensive but in reality the real cost of a penny is a fraction.
Pennies in of themselves are not a one time use commodity. If you have pennies laying around check the dates on them. More times than not you will find pennies that are 10+ years old. But is removing the penny logical? No…
Removing the penny from the currency system will inherently will not save any money for the average consumer. moreover, It will cost Americans much more than ever. Going forward with the elimination of the penny corporations and their products are suppose to round the prices to the nearest nickel. I really do not think they will use this logic at all. They will go for the greedy approach and round right to the next dime. This is an automatic Gift to companies. They will part out everything and charge you through the ass for the product.
Imagine a device made of 37 small parts, each costing 3 cents.
- Actual Cost: $1.11
- Fair Rounding: $1.10
- Corporate “Creative” Rounding: They’ll price each part individually at $0.10, turning a $1.11 product into a $3.70 expense.
Do i trust companies to do the right thing? Absolutely not! They will use methodology to make a bigger profit and scale their prices to make rounding in their favor. Companies are out there and they are not in the business to make humanity better. they are out to screw the consumers for the benefits of the shareholder. Do I believe every company will do this? No, they will start out honest at first but, once profits take a dive, they will use creative rounding in order to scale profits. Because why Improve when you can use some magic rounding and make a huge profit. I’ve made an example below to show how rounding can run away with pricing!
| Calculation Method | Price for 37 Parts | Percent Increase |
| Original Cost ($0.03/part) | $1.11 | — |
| Total Price Rounded (Fair) | $1.10 | -0.9% (Small loss) |
| Nickel Rounding (Per Part) | $1.85 | 60% Increase |
| Scam Corp Rounding ($0.10/part) | $3.70 | 233.3% Increase |
As you can see, this is not only bad but it can be completely destructive. But i digress I’ve strayed a little bit here. The statement a penny costs 3.7 cents is a shortsighted idea. Lets look at the penny. Does it magically disappear if it is used? No. Does it break easy? No! is the penny reusable? YES! A penny can stay in circulation for up to 25 years and be reused up to 2500 times. if the penny was a one time use device it would be a terrible thing! we’d be using more resources than it costs. but the penny in a year can be used 100 times. So lets break the costs down. since a new penny is not needed after use we can spread these costs. If we are to break this costs per used the penny is actually a very cost effective device.
If we say a penny is used 100 times in a given year in the first year the cost of this penny is actually closer to 0.037 Cents ! If we go for the average lifetime of a penny (25 years) 0.000148 cents. the cost analysis here shows the penny to come out on top, It’s worth it to keep. Why hide the penny? it can account for stealth inflation that hides inflation by elimination lower currencies to make it look like efficiency.
The Bottom Line: The “3.7 cents to manufacture” argument is shortsighted. Killing the penny isn’t about efficiency; it’s about stealth inflation. By eliminating the smallest unit of currency, we make it easier for corporations to hide price hikes and “round” their way into your retirement fund.
Holy Shit it’s only Tuesday!: A bit on things about things 1.
I know I have not posted too much over the year but I keep saying the same thing, I’ll fucking post at one point. Over the past year I have picked up another hobby- Interest. Archery.
You may think what the fuck. in all the interest in the world you come up with that! Well… yes … Yes I have .. Because if your are going to do something you might as well have fun doing it, In the past year I have had more issues with loosing the ability of moving my arms to a degree. It’s annoying, It makes me want to be like an old G I Joe. if the arm is fucked… add another. But , Anyways, I was in therapy at the time and I knew someone that took up archery , Their movements was exactly replicated what I was doing in therapy, And I thought to myself, Hey….. I can do this and destroy things……?
Well now… Fuck me I am in! Mind you it has not been the easiest road and Its been a journey into myself that made me realize how much I have lost. That day I went to a sporting goods store and tried my hand at shopping for a bow. At the very moment you enter a sporting goods store that’s bigger than your average Cumberland farms You will realize three things if you purchase something from a big box store.
- As much as the employees give you recommendations… They don’t know shit about things.
- The first purchase you make at a big box store in order to acclimate yourself to a new hobby will be a waste.
- What ever money you put out you will realize you should of gone to “X store” to begin with.
In those three things you will reflect and end up realizing every mistake you could possibly make is in the first 20 minutes of buying your first bow with no help. After you buy your first bow you will have delusions of grandeur, The first time you hit the center of the target you think your motherfucking Rambo, and can take out the army
But in Archery there is something that will snap you back into reality faster than an exploding tank. The first time you do it , its an awe inspiring shot of reality of how well you really know archery.
The first time you do that , You will reflect for a moment of how exactly you fucked up and attempt to never do that again and not two seconds later you will end up doing the same thing like a sadist on the weekend at a convention.
In almost a year , I have got some strength in my arms.
Its a good feeling to be able not to feel like you’re falling apart or even able to pick up things. Even with the advent of this I have my problems, fine coordination is out the window . but in the very least I can do a bit more . I figure this is a good starting point for now… but for now this is it and I will add more later.
-Mike
Phone Fun part 3.141592653589793238462643383, So long and thanks for all the fish.
Well its been fun sprint. We’ve had a fun ride and through troubled times and the fun times you’ve been with me but , There is a time where is it possible that Sprint and I, have grown so old and so inflexible that we have outlived our usefulness? As I have moved on and my life has gotten a bit more complete that the room for sprint has taken the squeeze of outliving its usefulness. Mind you sprint at the time of having more bells and whistles than you can count is an excellent thing. But when my bills were going north of 150$ I was starting to choke. Sprint at times could be a love hate relationship..
I have gone to the nexus 6p from the nexus 6 … while the nexus 6p is a bit smaller it retains the size of an aircraft carrier and is easier for me to use , I have realized that i am getting worse in the way of doing thing and that a bigger phone is needed for me to retain coordination. The sound on the 6p from the speaker is astounding.
As I’ve had this phone only a week I am going to have to revisit this in a month.
thanks all for now .
Attack of the Christmas part III
Another year another holiday , What used to be called Christmas creep to me is now attack of the Christmas. When they started Christmas stuff in October I was angry, but now it seems we cant get the fuck through summer without some sort of Christmas. Every Year we are losing the war on Christmas , soon we are going to get Christmas advertisements in April .. I was walking through a store in AUGUST… and what do I see to fill me with enough rage to make me light plastic santa clauses on fire… this…..
Are you fucking kidding me… ?
My answer to this ..
Stores wonder why there Christmas sales are so poor around Christmas. They do not think that forcing christmas down our throat early and earlier is a bad thing. Actually it is . It starts to wears people out faster when they start having christmas music vomited out of every speaker in store just to get in the “spirit” of shopping. This does not get me in the spirit at all, moreover it gets me in the spirit of getting the fuck out of that store faster. In the long run companies lose out on profits by spreading out christmas more because people are like likely to impulse buy with christmas that is months and months away. Instead they will make decisions that will save some money and not do the christmas rush. Not that I support the christmas early thing, but it spreads a lesser profit over a year and actually could result in less profits for the company. These companies should put christmas back where it belongs after thanksgiving and focus on that time rather than bitch and moan that black friday was a huge loss. Well fucking Duh …. People bought all there shit in August when you started putting your shit out.
If you give me the choice of proctology by hand grenade or Christmas music in the middle of the year. I will most definitely take the hand grenade thank you . It is less painful and it gets you out of listening to the Christmas music.
As far as advertisements are concerned K-mart has earned a special place in hell this year. They put on a commercial for christmas by saying it was not a Christmas commercial. They seriously need a lesson in fucking timing.
They use weasel wording to get around the topic that its a christmas related commercial and try to act coy about it . By saying its not christmas and having santa drive by in a handicap cart … wow fuck you K-mart. Whoever the suit at K-mart thought this was a great idea should have a polar ice cap shoved up his ass.
More coffee….. We all need it some days.
Since I’ve moved into my new place, I have a conundrum for the ages. As a drinker or better said a former drinker of outside coffee because I was too impatient to wait for the coffee pot , have the coffee cool down than make it into an iced coffee. I’ve bought coffees from almost every major company that served iced coffee. But as the years press on and the coffee gets watered and cheapened its getting very hard to make a choice , Now i can’t blame the companies , Its more over the franchisees . There are problems all around, They have crazy employee turnover and skip on machines in order to earn more money.
Formally, You’d have well trained employees that could manipulate the machines , now they just do whatever the hell they please when making coffee. For the milk and cream containers they have straws that need to be cut to a certain length , You just do not see that anymore, also the portioning has gone fucking nuts. Dunkin Donuts for explain if you ask for extra sugar , You summon the Brimley god and have to sign a contract.
I’ve said in other post that i’ve sort of cracked the enigma code of ordering from dunkin donuts, if you look at the receipts they do not list regular sugar/ Medium sugar /Extra sugar/Extra super Diabeetus sugar. If you watch the cash register when you order a coffee you will see the coffee droid press the Sugar button with a fix amount of sugar 1 2 3 4 5 6 sugars normally, I’ve seen these go higher. For the poor souls that do not know this system and ask for extra extra sugar they normally get this in there coffee!
There maybe a dunkin donuts under that pile! After they get a bulldozer to check where it is .
Honey Dew on the other hand 95% of the time they are fairly good repulsing the Brimley god away, Even asking for extra sugar the does not quake with the Eventual resurrection of the Brimley god. On a rare occasion at honey dew though you will get a new worker that makes the mistake of it but they are whipped tortured and appeased to the brimley god so he does not rise. My only problem with honey dew these days is travel time. I walk or ride my bike so its a little bit of a huff to get to my preferred coffee. Though my bike was just stolen not too long ago. So my options are not really that great right now due to limited travel and health issues and being disabled does not help me get a bike .
Starbucks ….. Is …. Special , there is no way about this, they are just damn special. The last time I attempted getting coffee from there was a failure on all levels. Ten monkeys on miralax had a better chance of getting my coffee, I walked in thinking hey no line, A guy working on a particle physics book and 5 workers…. I thought to myself “this just might work” The person in front of me ordered a simple coffee and I thought this will be quick. I have no idea of the mental breakdown between five workers and two customers could reach critical mass this easy. So after standing around watching these coffee baristas in action, THis is where all things started going down hill. Out of the 5 coffee droids 4 had short outs and the register droid was broken as well. The order was made and from Cashout to coffee serve was longer than 10 minutes. I have never seen so many question in my life about an order and I tried to be patient. While Starbucks is a bit higher in price i was ready to pay the premium to avoid Dunkin Gonuts. Wrong move there, I should of just rolled around in coffee grinds while forcing K-cups into my eyes. I ended up leaving ten minutes into this exorcize of watching how coffee is made by professionals.
This was the final straw, I’ve gone to making my own iced coffee. Sure it has a learning curve, but the money savings are excellent. In 3 weeks i’ve only bought myself coffee outside the house 2 times and both were goooooood.
You can make your coffee any damn way you want it . Even if you want nuclear death coffee or coffee that you can mess with genetics with and rewrite the base of the universe. Overall i’ve spent 10 dollars on making my own coffee and its worked out really well. I keep perfecting my coffee to the taste i want. which is pretty much Stronger than all of the coffee shops aaround without tasting like burnt donkey ass (starbucks) Coffee Flavored Water (dunkin) Or A fairly ok Coffee for day to day that i miss (Honey Dew) . But the savings are extreme by making your own coffee…. I’ve likely been saving somewhere around 5$ a day by avoiding coffee shops.
Note: this post was made at 4:30, I’m half brain-dead.
With a new place to live i am testing more ways to make coffee and trying to replicate drinks from coffee places and see what I can come up with. I have pretty much nailed down iced coffee to perfection of what i want.
In two and a half weeks my wallet is also noticing that i am saving money on my attempt to make my own coffee, From my own math so far in 2.5 weeks if i had gone to a store for coffee everyday I would of spent over 70.40 in coffee , Thats fucking insane, Since I’ve started this i’ve spent less than 15$ for coffee and still have half a bag left.
I am curious to see where this goes and see how much of a savings there is by the 21st of this month… Lets see…
Coffee post to follow up shortly!
Teva Shoes the revisit.
A shoe post! It has been ages since i’ve posted anything about shoes , the last time I did was due to a problem to which Teva/Decker shoe company where absolutely incredible helping me out with getting my shoes replaced. Since then I’ve stuck with the company and their shoes due to there reliability, My most recent pair of shoes was a pair of the TEVA Churn Watershoe.
Although most sites list these as a watershoe I can not say that they are since I’ve never tested them in water, they have been my day to day shoes for the entire summer. as far as fit , they are a seemingly good fit and remind me of the Teva X-1 Control shoe. 
Why Teva ever stopped making these shoes is beyond me… If anyone out there from Teva is watching , Please bring back these shoes, those were about the best shoes I’ve owned and I had 2 pairs of those, They weighed next to nothing and were extremely comfortable, The Churn though could be regarded as the cousin to these, while not as rugged as the X-1’s the style of the shoe is based on alike construction and weight although the major differences are in the treads of the shoes the Churns are more like road wear while the X-1 were trail wear. But both shoes are very alike in construction and weight , they are almost like wearing socks treads . If you are on your feet all day these will stand up to the test of the day , I’ve worn shoes that you want to light on fire just to feel a bit more comfortable because the heel or other parts of your foot are in agony .
For the churns I’ve done a ton of walking in them and they do not wear as easy as the X-1s, If you do alot of road walking or walking in building these are the shoes for you, the no lace thing is also very nice due to the fact you can throw them on in a hurry if you are going out.
So my opinion for the shoes.. Awesome!
*Yes! I get to use the shoe tag!
Wow.. I’ve not had a coffee post in a looong time.
You’d Figure with a name like Coffeecommander. I’d post about coffee more. Well, Today is a good day for coffee, As any day is. With the price of coffee going up and nearly needing a loan, Honey Dew Donuts has an really good coupon this month..
This months coupon is a Free upgrade on any Iced Coffee.(opens in new window)
source: Published on Honey Dew Donuts (http://www.honeydewdonuts.com)