[Arryn]

Originally posted by Zen:
I believe that the end of civilization is the self-checkout at the grocery store.

I agree. A most ill-conceived notion if ever there was one. An attempt to cut business costs (payroll) at the expense of customer convenience. What makes it especially egregious is that it's masked as an attempt to *improve* customer service. Yeah, right. A cashier can check someone through far faster than the customer can do the work themselves. Customers have too many buttons they need to push (a bad UI) and it still requires a cashier's involvement despite paying by credit card. Self-service gasoline and banking make sense. Self-service retail shopping does not.