More Kmart stores closing

[kkt]

The real interesting thing is the type of music that is usually played is the vanilla popular stuff to basically enhance that "losing yourself in time" approach.

Now the weird thing is that if you ever go into a Target store there is actually never any music playing.

The only thing I lose is my sanity. Considering that most stores I've been to lately tend to play the same damn songs by the same people over & over (ex: Adele, Taylor Swift, Katy Perry), I consider Target a welcome relief.

Yes.  I really dislike having someone else's choice of music inflicted on me.

[Max Rockatansky]

The real interesting thing is the type of music that is usually played is the vanilla popular stuff to basically enhance that "losing yourself in time" approach.

Now the weird thing is that if you ever go into a Target store there is actually never any music playing.

The only thing I lose is my sanity. Considering that most stores I've been to lately tend to play the same damn songs by the same people over & over (ex: Adele, Taylor Swift, Katy Perry), I consider Target a welcome relief.

Which is probably why a lot more people have an MP3 player in when they shop nowadays.  That seems to be increasingly more common as the years roll by.  The interesting thing is that I noticed it really draws attention away from employees, I guess it is the same effect on the mind that gives one the impression that someone looks busy.  I'd give it a try but usually I'm on a mission that will have me in and out of whatever store I'm in under 10 minutes at worst. 

[Scott5114]

The real interesting thing is the type of music that is usually played is the vanilla popular stuff to basically enhance that "losing yourself in time" approach.

Now the weird thing is that if you ever go into a Target store there is actually never any music playing.

The only thing I lose is my sanity. Considering that most stores I've been to lately tend to play the same damn songs by the same people over & over (ex: Adele, Taylor Swift, Katy Perry), I consider Target a welcome relief.

Yes.  I really dislike having someone else's choice of music inflicted on me.

Just imagine working there and not liking the music. Or, just as bad, there's only a one- or two-hour loop. Most customers won't hear the same song twice, but someone working an 8+ hour shift will.

Sometimes the day-shift management will put the music at work on country and it's abysmal. If I go in a store and they're playing country, I leave and find another company to do business with. This is the metro, not Chickasha.

On a similar note, Target seems to be one of the few big box stores to still use acoustical ceiling tile over the entire sales floor area in newly-constructed stores.

I do appreciate that. I imagine most stores have ditched it to save on maintenance–think of the nasty ceilings that most Kmarts seem to have–but it does make the stores look a lot better and feel quieter and more relaxed. For some reason, the exposed beams at Walmarts grate on me; I'm guessing it's the fact that there's nothing keeping sound from echoing off the metal roof. That, and it feels like I'm in some utilitarian corporate warehouse instead of somewhere that's making an effort to serve my needs.

[inkyatari]

Yes.  I really dislike having someone else's choice of music inflicted on me.

I work in a warehouse, and our music system is the same they use in my employer's stores..

They play the songs "Welcome to my Life" by Simple Plan and "In The End" by Linkin Park.  Way to get people in the mood to buy, by making them all depressed.

[Max Rockatansky]

The worst would have to be when there is a loop of retail Christmas music.  Most of those are pretty short but even the songs would get grating probably a couple in. 

[bing101]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnLwsVrgrP4&app=desktop

[allniter89]

I worked in a K-Mart in the 80s. I became so accustomed to the music so it was like white noise way way in the background.

[Max Rockatansky]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnLwsVrgrP4&app=desktop

Funny....nowadays the little Mom & Pop shops seem to be making a comeback due to the hipster crowd.  Its almost like in Back to the Future Part 2 when downtown Hill Valley revitalized by 2015.  I guess that all goes back to trend of growth inward towards the urban core.

[vdeane]

It's amazing how much Back to the Future 2 actually got right.  Get rid of Mr. Fusion, flying cars, and hover anything, and it's eerily similar to the real 2015.

[Rothman]

It's amazing how much Back to the Future 2 actually got right.  Get rid of Mr. Fusion, flying cars, and hover anything, and it's eerily similar to the real 2015.

The fashion?

[Max Rockatansky]

It's amazing how much Back to the Future 2 actually got right.  Get rid of Mr. Fusion, flying cars, and hover anything, and it's eerily similar to the real 2015.

The fashion?

The bombardment of mass media was accurate when it came to TV.  I found it somewhat ironic that Future Marty got fired via a Skype-like device and a fax machine.  3-D movies kind of made a come back and 1980s culture becoming the latest retro craze certainly was a thing as well.  We never really got around to creating a truly viable means of replacing a video game controller which is still largely like a "baby's toy."

[briantroutman]

It's amazing how much Back to the Future 2 actually got right.

I'm thinking back through the movie...and I'm drawing a blank on what about today it got right. '80s nostalgia perhaps? But that would be pretty easy to see coming. Then again, I haven't seen the movie in several years.

That said, I can easily recall lots of things it got wrong: Self-drying jackets, self-lacing shoes, abolition of all lawyers, automated full-serve gas pumps, paper fax machines in every room, Japanese take over everything (a major '80s fear that went away), scenery screens in home windows, robotic trash cans roaming the streets, dehydrated Pizza Hut pizzas...

The bombardment of mass media was accurate when it came to TV.

Perhaps, but I think that was really just an amplification of what was already well established by the '80s. We already had big screen TVs, picture-in-picture, and dozens of channels by satellite or cable, so it would be pretty logical to imagine that the screens would get bigger and the PIPs would be more numerous. Now if young McFly had divided his attention between a real TV show and some kind of user-generated videos (like we have today with YouTube), that would be more strikingly accurate.

[Max Rockatansky]

Funny to think how the concept of the internet being used day-to-day or even cellular technology wasn't present in any form whatsoever...not even a glimmer.  Basically the future presented in Back to the Future Part 2 really is just an 80s-fication of the jet age future from the 1950s and 60s.

I'd love to see a fourth movie where somehow Doc and Marty are responsible for the present we have now by their actions in the first three movies.  There could be some sort of angle like the smallest change has the biggest ripple given enough attenuation of time.  It would even be more amusing to see them somehow try to fix the future to only have it end up being some depressed hell-scape where Kmart owns 85% of the retail sector which happens to be run by Biff.

[vdeane]

There actually is a short video on that... Doc Brown needed to prevent the invention of hover circuits and Mr. Fusion to prevent a catastrophe a couple decades later.  Personally, though, I prefer to think of the actual 2015 as the "original" one, and the film one as a new version created by Marty's interference in the first movie - with the gadgets invented by people inspired by George's novels.

As for what it got right, don't forget how the kids spent the entire dinner on their cell phones.  Sure, they don't look like actual cell phones, but I'm going for the concept here rather than literal depiction.  The dehydrated foods remind me of the rise of frozen, microwavable meals.  The lack of lawyers is like the increase in the usage of plea bargains.  Skype is real (though not quite as prevalent), as is digital cable.  Hollywood really does love its sequels (though Jaws 19 was never made), and there was a 3d craze.  Downtown revitalization and removing space for cars in favor of parks and development happened exactly as depicted in the movie.  Plastic surgery has become big (too bad the full rejuvenation isn't a thing, though Doc could have conceivably gone even further into the future for that).  And like the 80s cafe, we have hipsters that love retro things (notably record players).  I think Nike was even working on self-lacing shoes, but I'm not sure if anything ever came of it.  Add the jacket to the list of things that didn't happen, though.

[GCrites]

Pretty much everything digital happened from the movie, but nothing involving the physics-based things did. People back then didn't expect innovation in working with physics to cease even though it already had by the time the first movie was made.

[Mr_Northside]

Pretty much everything digital happened from the movie, but nothing involving the physics-based things did. People back then didn't expect innovation in working with physics to cease even though it already had by the time the first movie was made.

There's a lot about Star Trek you could even say that about.  Especially TOS - We already have beyond a lot of the computer technology they had, and even more refined - but we still don't have matter transportation/teleportation or Light Speed+ capabilities (and may never).  The notion of subspace communications seems irrelevant (for us) at this point)

[roadman65]

The real interesting thing is the type of music that is usually played is the vanilla popular stuff to basically enhance that "losing yourself in time" approach.

Now the weird thing is that if you ever go into a Target store there is actually never any music playing.

The only thing I lose is my sanity. Considering that most stores I've been to lately tend to play the same damn songs by the same people over & over (ex: Adele, Taylor Swift, Katy Perry), I consider Target a welcome relief.

Yes.  I really dislike having someone else's choice of music inflicted on me.

I used to work in Macy's and they would play some of the hip hop rejects as many songs were never played on the radio, but were of the same type of music .  I guess you can say it were the artists and songs that never made it to the list that program directors create when marketing.   However, in June and the first few days of July when the store starts being patriotic for Flag Day and Independence Day with the usual John Phillip Souza marches, they start playing popular songs to get shoppers in the mood for Summer.

Its all about marketing even though we do not understand it, they do research on it and just like the nielsons and the polls for elections they can tell by the the few how the rest of the country is going to either watch or vote.  Its called demographics and its why you get junk mail as marketers think that because you like to have a Saturday beer they figure you are going to be buying this because one researcher found out that people who drink on Saturday generally buy such and such merchandise.

To us it sucks but for executives they go by polls and marketers even if the data is unscientific so meanwhile worthless music in stores.  In fact it was worse in the 80's as you went out to dinner in your favorite restaurant and the elevator music would be the norm there because it was believed that people would not eat out if it were not playing.  The Demos changed since and now it went to top 40 style music.

[roadman65]

Pretty much everything digital happened from the movie, but nothing involving the physics-based things did. People back then didn't expect innovation in working with physics to cease even though it already had by the time the first movie was made.

There's a lot about Star Trek you could even say that about.  Especially TOS - We already have beyond a lot of the computer technology they had, and even more refined - but we still don't have matter transportation/teleportation or Light Speed+ capabilities (and may never).  The notion of subspace communications seems irrelevant (for us) at this point)

Also World War III that happened in the 90's as they said it would in some TOS episodes. 

In addition many TV shows that took place in the 80's too showed a more modern world even in the late 90's.  Quantum Leap had time travel in 1999 where the start point of lead character Sam Beckett before he got lost in time. Now time travel as far as we know yet to this day and hope we don't as all we need is our enemies to be able to rewrite history.

[kkt]

We're still a long way from a united government, not needing money, or medical treatment for people who can't afford to pay.  Some days those seem even farther off than warp drive.

[Max Rockatansky]

Pretty much everything digital happened from the movie, but nothing involving the physics-based things did. People back then didn't expect innovation in working with physics to cease even though it already had by the time the first movie was made.

There's a lot about Star Trek you could even say that about.  Especially TOS - We already have beyond a lot of the computer technology they had, and even more refined - but we still don't have matter transportation/teleportation or Light Speed+ capabilities (and may never).  The notion of subspace communications seems irrelevant (for us) at this point)

Also World War III that happened in the 90's as they said it would in some TOS episodes. 

In addition many TV shows that took place in the 80's too showed a more modern world even in the late 90's.  Quantum Leap had time travel in 1999 where the start point of lead character Sam Beckett before he got lost in time. Now time travel as far as we know yet to this day and hope we don't as all we need is our enemies to be able to rewrite history.

That detail about WWIII never did get ironed out in the rebooted Star Trek Series.

[slorydn1]

Pretty much everything digital happened from the movie, but nothing involving the physics-based things did. People back then didn't expect innovation in working with physics to cease even though it already had by the time the first movie was made.

There's a lot about Star Trek you could even say that about.  Especially TOS - We already have beyond a lot of the computer technology they had, and even more refined - but we still don't have matter transportation/teleportation or Light Speed+ capabilities (and may never).  The notion of subspace communications seems irrelevant (for us) at this point)

Actually, I saw something on the Science Channel back when they showed quality programming that the concepts behind the transporters have been proven to be possible, and I think they did transport a single atom (so they say) from Tokyo to London I think it was.


If memory serves in that same program it was shown that the actual acceleration of an object itself to speeds faster than the speed of light (Star Wars style) doesn't seem to be possible because of the infinite amount of energy it would take to accelerate from 99% to 100% light speed, however the basic concept behind the Star Trek style transwarp drive (the folding of space-time to make it happen) has been calculated to be possible, the hang-up again is the extreme amount of energy needed to accomplish that is way beyond what humans can produce anytime soon.


Oh and with the advent of 3d printing, we are pretty much just about there when it comes to replicators as well.


I miss when Discovery and it's family of networks had quality informative programming and not the reality trash they show today.

[SP Cook]

There's a lot about Star Trek you could even say that about.  Especially TOS - We already have beyond a lot of the computer technology they had, and even more refined - but we still don't have matter transportation/teleportation or Light Speed+ capabilities (and may never).  The notion of subspace communications seems irrelevant (for us) at this point)

Considering the era, it is indeed astounding how much Star Trek, particularly TOS but also TNG got right.  And it really was not, IMHO, an attempt to be predictive, but rather just pure science fiction that came, at lest close to, true.

Consider:

- Universal translator.  We already have multiple websites that do darn fine translations, and several cellphone aps are not far behind, as in TOS.  TNG concept of an implanted hearing aid type device where each person hears in his own language what the other says in his is reportedly on its way.

- Cellphone.  Well that is what a communicator is.  TOS's even looked like a flip phone. 

- Voice recognition.  Be that in cellphones or interacting with computers, TOS was written in an era when even a keyboard was not a real way to interact with computers.

- Touch screens.  TNG's computers and navigation systems were the modern touch screen just todays cellphones or tablets.  And that was in the late 80s.

- GPS, wi-fi tracking.  TNG replaced the simple patch with a "com badge" and the system always knew where everybody was.

- Voice controled climate.  Found to a small degree in TOS but standard in TNG, this is Alexa and her friend.  Alexa turn on the lights. 

You can also get over into sociology, and leaving out the whole "eugenics war/WWIII" idea, the concept of a one-world government is there, as is the idea (though never specifically mentioned) that the communists would be defeated and the "second world" reintergrated into the first, and the idea that the third world would advance to first world levels, which certainly has happened to some of the former third world.  The concepts of racial equality and, more in TNG than TOS, gender equality is also there. 

Now, IMHO, the big things, which is "warp drive", which is the concept that people will ever be able to go faster than light (which, is 100% necessary as a plot device in any space science fiction, as without it, we are forever limited to this otherwise lifeless solar system) was wrong.  Which is why the space program is about done as a scientific venture, but it was darn good work for 1965.

[roadman65]

In the TOS they used rollover digits for their clocks instead of digital form we use now.  Also buttons were still shown then as Gene Roddenbery never imagined the touch panels in the era he created the series.

[Max Rockatansky]

In the TOS they used rollover digits for their clocks instead of digital form we use now.  Also buttons were still shown then as Gene Roddenbery never imagined the touch panels in the era he created the series.

I wish someone would un-imagine them in cars.  I can't be the only one that finds all the touch screen controls cars use now to be a complete pain in the ass to use while moving?   I had a Buick Enclave that I rented last year after my daily driver was in an accident, I picked it because it had buttons for everything in addition to the screen.

[kkt]

Considering the era, it is indeed astounding how much Star Trek, particularly TOS but also TNG got right.  And it really was not, IMHO, an attempt to be predictive, but rather just pure science fiction that came, at lest close to, true.

Consider:

- Universal translator.  We already have multiple websites that do darn fine translations, and several cellphone aps are not far behind, as in TOS.  TNG concept of an implanted hearing aid type device where each person hears in his own language what the other says in his is reportedly on its way.

Darn fine?  We have websites that do crappy translations, misunderstand the object and the subject of the sentence, use the wrong senses of words.  The realtime, idiomatic translations seen in TOS and TNG are still an unsolved problem.  Especially how they start working within seconds of exposure to hitherto undiscovered civilizations, that will probably never be possible.  It's just a dramatic necessity not to get bogged down with translation difficulties on an hour show.

- Cellphone.  Well that is what a communicator is.  TOS's even looked like a flip phone. 

You mean some flip phones looked like TOS communicators

But you're focused on the part held in your hand.  Cell phones need a dense network of cell phone antennas linked by landlines (or microwaves, etc.).  More than about five miles from a cell phone antenna, and your phone is a paperweight.  When Kirk beams down to a new planet, he can communicate with the ship anywhere it's in orbit from anywhere on the surface, even underground as long as it's not too deep.  It also allows the ship to locate him.

- Voice recognition.  Be that in cellphones or interacting with computers, TOS was written in an era when even a keyboard was not a real way to interact with computers.

Well, there were people using keyboards to communicate with computers even then.  It was early and they were mostly in academic settings experimenting, but they did exist.  The airline computer reservation system, Sabre, was put into use by American Airlines in 1964, and had people interacting with the computer through keyboards.

- Touch screens.  TNG's computers and navigation systems were the modern touch screen just todays cellphones or tablets.  And that was in the late 80s.

Touch screens were used in an academic system in Project Plato in 1972.

- GPS, wi-fi tracking.  TNG replaced the simple patch with a "com badge" and the system always knew where everybody was.

The com badge isn't GPS technology, though.  It's better.  Com badges can locate the wearer even if they're not outdoors, they don't rely on satellites, and the ship knows where the com badge is, not just the GPS receiver in the wearer's hand.

- Voice controled climate.  Found to a small degree in TOS but standard in TNG, this is Alexa and her friend.  Alexa turn on the lights. 

You can also get over into sociology, and leaving out the whole "eugenics war/WWIII" idea, the concept of a one-world government is there, as is the idea (though never specifically mentioned) that the communists would be defeated and the "second world" reintergrated into the first, and the idea that the third world would advance to first world levels, which certainly has happened to some of the former third world.  The concepts of racial equality and, more in TNG than TOS, gender equality is also there. 

Now, IMHO, the big things, which is "warp drive", which is the concept that people will ever be able to go faster than light (which, is 100% necessary as a plot device in any space science fiction, as without it, we are forever limited to this otherwise lifeless solar system) was wrong.  Which is why the space program is about done as a scientific venture, but it was darn good work for 1965.

There's been good and interesting science fiction without FTL travel.  For instance, large sublight ships where the crew is numerous and expected to have children and raise them, through many generations before reaching the nearest star.