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That sure explains why they ask you for your phone number, email address, rewards card, and whether you want to apply for a new credit card (while 5 more people are waiting in line behind you) every time you check out...
That's not the POS system, that's the store management.
POS back ends are designed for fast transactions, it's the human and networking elements that tend to slow them down.
I always thought that, even if there is server-side protection for it already, the final "click this button to pay" button should get disabled when you click it the first time, preferably with a processing icon or the like. That way you provide a visual clue that something is happening if they are on a slow connection.
Nope,
The server is handling 100 transactions a second or more. All through SSH sessions, or worse yet a proprietary protocol. Front end terminals are usually connected to a server in another location over VPN (or worse yet, a WAN link with an open port at the server side) and this server may be across the country. In almost all of the Point Of Sale software I've seen error checking is done locally and there is next to fuck all of that happening anyway as the goal of POS systems is to move as fast as possible. The customer hates waiting for the cash register to do its job properly.
Bad idea for whom?
For the merchants accepting the payments, because they'll have to bear the cost of chargebacks on transactions that were otherwise perfectly valid but cannot be proven to have been authorised by the cardholder.
In addition to the fees for accepting the transaction.
Yes, a merchant pays a fee for accepting payment via card. Fees for accepting a credit card range from 1-5% of the transaction amount. Paying with debit (your own money) is usually under 1% of the transaction.
Personally I feel that people who are willing to contest traffic convictions should put their own car on the line.
Wow... if you can't see the problem this would cause in such a massively corrupt system, you are hopelessly lost.
And if you cant see that letting bad drivers go due to a technicality is bad, someone is already dead.
sometimes paying twice when they have used another payment method.
Why is the software even accepting a new payment? Shouldn't the balance already be 0 by then?
Because the software is shit.
Having dealt with a few Point Of Sale systems I can say that the acronym POS is no accident.
A lot of systems are just Windows systems with a program like Pronto Xi running on top. It's not unusual for these terminals to be running Windows XP. The back end is usually pretty good but the software really suffers on the front end and the front end is where we tend to get most of the errors.
I think "Makr Shakr" might not be the right name for an alcoholic beverage-related product. It sounds vaguely Arabic, and the Arab world still has Prohibition.
That's OK, we're planning to sell them the militarised version of this robot, the Mastr Blastr.
As long as it understands "Keep 'em coming".
Leave Bottle?
(Abort | Retry | Fail | Ignore)
so how does it know that that drink you just ordered did not get handed to your new friend?
It pre spikes it for you.
If enough people contest their tickets, they might just create a DDoS on the system that causes it to be more expensive for the system than it's worth.
We've known how to deal with DDoS's for some time.
The system simply adds a fine (or worse) on for wrongfully contesting. Remember that all costs get covered by the taxpayer or the fine payer. They aren't a business and can just issue their own fines to cover costs.
Personally I feel that people who are willing to contest traffic convictions should put their own car on the line. If you're guilty and lose, your car gets auctioned off. If you're innocent you are let off, oh and you might as well hang around a bit to see if you can get a cheap car.
Also remember that this is pretty much the same tactic the MPAA/RIAA uses. Spam the system, hope that it caves and get a blank cheque to do what you want.
"All speed limits are based on ideal driving conditions."
Please reread your driver's handbook before you get behind the wheel again.
Don't worry, we've already established he has no idea what he's doing behind the wheel. Unfortunately that makes him amongst the majority of drivers in our respective nations.
(I recently worked for years in the highway safety sector, and one of my colleagues, a former cop, did a research paper on this subject. He started the research with a high opinion of red light cameras, but found that red light cameras had no significant effect on fatalities while significantly increasing non-fatal collisions.)
I'll ask you since I'd like to know: I've heard that one of the most positive innovations for traffic lights is the inclusion of a "timer bar". A bar light along side the normal traffic signals indicates how long the single has until it changes. I've heard that the places it was tested vastly reduced the number of collisions and injuries. Is there any truth to that?
Not really.
It's been well proven that most drivers dont take any notice of signs that have changed, added or removed. So adding a timer bar wont do a damned thing because people aren't disciplined or observant enough. This is why they haven't been implemented.
Also I've driven in nations that have countdown timers (in seconds) and you get people running red's at 10 seconds to green when there is traffic. These countries have terrible driver fatality rates due to poor driver discipline.
The problem with that is in a lot of cases if you follow at a safe distance, somone will merge into your lane in between you.
This isn't a problem with the procedure, it's a problem with driver training and lack of enforcement.
The problem with improving enforcement is that people write it off as "revenue raising" and refuse to admit they did something wrong.
The economy functions fine with workers and companies right? Why wouldn't it function with robotic workers and companies?
Uh... because robots don't buy stuff?
Erm. The printer at work already orders it's own toner.
Hmm, fembots. I suppose the Apple model will be prettier, but much more expensive?
The problem is, the Apple fembot will be male.
Abstainer, n.: A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"