Minor things that bother you

[JayhawkCO]

I also despise using a cart in a grocery store because I tend to walk much faster than the public and I just feel like everyone is in my way.

The nice thing about capitalism having destroyed my circadian rhythm is that means I can go to the store in the wee hours of the morning when the only people there are stockers. (They still sometimes get in the way, but they move less erratically than the General Public.)

Back in my restaurant days, I was similar. Now I'm more likely to try to go at 6 AM to avoid the masses.

[webny99]

(I'm not sure why the lot at this store is such a mess; it's the closest WinCo to Summerlin, so maybe it's people with an "I'm so rich I don't deserve to have to put my own cart away" mentality.)

Is WinCo the primary grocery store chain in Las Vegas? I just looked it up and was surprised to see only 4 locations. In the immediate Rochester area, which is less than half the size of Vegas, Wegmans has 16 locations, and Tops (Wegmans' main competitor) and Aldi have about a dozen locations each.

[JayhawkCO]

Is WinCo the primary grocery store chain in Las Vegas? I just looked it up and was surprised to see only 4 locations. In the immediate Rochester area, which is less than half the size of Vegas, Wegmans has 16 locations, and Tops (Wegmans' main competitor) and Aldi have about a dozen locations each.

I miss Aldi. I'm sad they don't have any out here.

[Scott5114]

(I'm not sure why the lot at this store is such a mess; it's the closest WinCo to Summerlin, so maybe it's people with an "I'm so rich I don't deserve to have to put my own cart away" mentality.)

Is WinCo the primary grocery store chain in Las Vegas? I just looked it up and was surprised to see only 4 locations. In the immediate Rochester area, which is less than half the size of Vegas, Wegmans has 16 locations, and Tops (Wegmans' main competitor) and Aldi have about a dozen locations each.

No, the Las Vegas grocery market is dominated by Albertsons/Vons, Smith's (the local Kroger manifestation), and Walmart. But WinCo is comparatively cheap, good, employee-owned, and 24 hours, and I'm lucky enough to live near one of their locations, so that's where I go. I tried Albertsons (a total rip-off on prices) and Walmart (it's Walmart) before choosing WinCo. I've never tried Smith's, but they don't have any locations near me (and I haven't really heard great things about their prices, so I'm not inclined to make the drive to find out).

Las Vegas also has a large selection of supermercados, and some people make one of those their primary grocery store. I've heard some of them have favorable pricing on meat, which of course you can use for other types of dishes besides Mexican food.

WinCo not having more locations in the valley is a common complaint.

[Plutonic Panda]

Does this ever to anyone else or am I crazy? I will walk to my car in a parking lot, someone will be piddling along in their next to me taking their sweet ass time, then when I get in my car and they notice they start moving faster so they can back out of their space faster than I can and now I have to wait for them to get out of the way. Then to top that off they move like a snail.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

Does this ever to anyone else or am I crazy? I will walk to my car in a parking lot, someone will be piddling along in their next to me taking their sweet ass time, then when I get in my car and they notice they start moving faster so they can back out of their space faster than I can and now I have to wait for them to get out of the way. Then to top that off they move like a snail.

My parking lot special ability is it seems like whoever owns a car in an adjacent space to mine is always arriving back at their car at the same time as me, no matter how busy the lot is or where I'm parked. Then I have to wait for them to load up, and of course they frequently have younger kids.

[ZLoth]

Streaming video is streaming video; it's not like it changes.  Doesn't help that I'm not used to it, since my desktop and laptop run Linux and therefore last however long the hardware does.

Actually, yes, the underlying codec which compresses the streaming audio/video and decompresses it at the client end (television, computer, mobile device) does change over time. Sometimes, it's for better quality, usually, it's for lower bandwidth consumption with the trade-off being higher CPU consumption. While that SmartTV from 2013 has more computing power than the computer that was used to land on the moon or an Apple II computer, the computer from 2013 is still better than that computing power from that 2013 SmartTV.

Just as an update, here is an article on video compression:

From SOURCE:

nside Netflix's bet on advanced video encoding
How cutting-edge codecs and obsessive tweaks have helped Netflix to stay ahead of the curve — until now.

Anne Aaron just can't help herself.

Aaron, Netflix's senior encoding technology director, was watching the company's livestream of the Screen Actors Guild Awards earlier this year. And while the rest of the world marveled at all those celebrities and their glitzy outfits sparkling in a sea of flashing cameras, Aaron's mind immediately started to analyze all the associated visual challenges Netflix's encoding tech would have to tackle. "Oh my gosh, this content is going to be so hard to encode," she recalled thinking when I recently interviewed her in Netflix's office in Los Gatos, California.

Aaron has spent the past 13 years optimizing the way Netflix encodes its movies and TV shows. The work she and her team have done allows the company to deliver better-looking streams over slower connections and has resulted in 50 percent bandwidth savings for 4K streams alone, according to Aaron. Netflix's encoding team has also contributed to industrywide efforts to improve streaming, including the development of the AV1 video codec and its eventual successor.

FULL ARTICLE HERE

[JayhawkCO]

Does this ever to anyone else or am I crazy? I will walk to my car in a parking lot, someone will be piddling along in their next to me taking their sweet ass time, then when I get in my car and they notice they start moving faster so they can back out of their space faster than I can and now I have to wait for them to get out of the way. Then to top that off they move like a snail.

My parking lot special ability is it seems like whoever owns a car in an adjacent space to mine is always arriving back at their car at the same time as me, no matter how busy the lot is or where I'm parked. Then I have to wait for them to load up, and of course they frequently have younger kids.

Mine is when I pick my son up from daycare, I make sure I'm next to an open spot to my right to make sure I can get him into his car seat easily. When I come back out, 175% of the time, someone has just parked to my right.

[hbelkins]

I try to shop exclusively online at Walmart these days. My local (to where my office is) Walmart is not a supercenter, so there's no fresh meat or produce items from which to select. I get my toiletries, cat food, canned goods, etc., all via online pickup. The primary reason is I can get cash back via Rakuten and here lately, cash back when I pay with PayPal.

For fresh-cut meat, fresh produce, and any other items of that nature, I go in at the local grocery store to shop.

[Plutonic Panda]

I absolutely love Walmart. I just do not understand the hate that it gets.

[Rothman]

I absolutely love Walmart. I just do not understand the hate that it gets.

Time theft will do that to a business.

[Scott5114]

I absolutely love Walmart. I just do not understand the hate that it gets.

Time theft will do that to a business.

That, and your average Walmart is just downright unpleasant to be in. Unfinished ceilings, loud interiors, narrow aisles, every time you turn around the product that you're looking for has been moved to a different aisle...

[Max Rockatansky]

Security theater at everywhere is enough to drive me away.  I'll gladly pay slightly more to not have forced interactions with people to unlock displays or hassling me for receipts.

But yeah, the typical atmosphere of the average Walmart is generally uninviting and ugly.  I'm not sure who the aesthetic is intended to appeal to, it isn't for me.

[Scott5114]

But yeah, the typical atmosphere of the average Walmart is generally uninviting and ugly.  I'm not sure who the aesthetic is intended to appeal to, it isn't for me.

My guess is it's intended to appeal to Walmart's accountants.

[Rothman]

Security theater at everywhere is enough to drive me away.  I'll gladly pay slightly more to not have forced interactions with people to unlock displays or hassling me for receipts.

But yeah, the typical atmosphere of the average Walmart is generally uninviting and ugly.  I'm not sure who the aesthetic is intended to appeal to, it isn't for me.

Walmarts vary widely in my area with security theater, but they follow an unfortunate pattern:  If your suburban Walmart is served by a bus line connecting to a urban core, you get the locks and glass.  No bus line?  Less security theater.

[mgk920]

Walmart is not intended to be fancy, just a place to economically get stuff that you might need.

My biggest complaint about them is their constantly moving and rearranging that stuff, making it harder and more time-consuming to find.  Their Appleton, WI area locations are relatively remote from where I live here in the downtown area, but that is generally not a factor in my above thoughts.

Mike

[tchafe1978]

Walmart is not intended to be fancy, just a place to economically get stuff that you might need.

My biggest complaint about them is their constantly moving and rearranging that stuff, making it harder and more time-consuming to find.  Their Appleton, WI area locations are relatively remote from where I live here in the downtown area, but that is generally not a factor in my above thoughts.

Mike

There are reasons items get moved around and rearranged all the time. First reason is any time there are new products coming in, aisles or departments get reset to make room for the new items. Second, is many items are seasonal, so every time a new season comes along, it's out with the old, in with the new. And probably not the least of the reasons is psychological. The longer you have to look for the items you need or want, the more you'll see you want or need and the more you'll buy. Walmart isn't the only store that rearranges the setup of items on the shelves.

[ZLoth]

That's also the reason why Sam's Club and Costco have things arranged in a "U" having you go to the back of the store and back to the front again.

[thenetwork]

One thing I give Wally World & Sam's Club credit for:

They have (in my area) "remodeled" their interiors and exteriors more times in the last 10 years than nearly every other discount or department store has -- if they remodeled at all.

That includes JCPenneys & Kohls... and the former Kmarts and Sears, who you were lucky to see a new coat of paint on the walls or carpeting once a generation!

[Max Rockatansky]

Right, that's part of what I don't get.  Walmart dumps more money into store remodels than anyone else and the aesthetic is still comes off as ugly. 

[SEWIGuy]

I absolutely love Walmart. I just do not understand the hate that it gets.

Time theft will do that to a business.

That, and your average Walmart is just downright unpleasant to be in. Unfinished ceilings, loud interiors, narrow aisles, every time you turn around the product that you're looking for has been moved to a different aisle...

And product quality in my experience is generally on the lower end.

I'll spend more money and go to Target and a grocery store any day.

[J N Winkler]

This recent strand of discussion on Walmart has been interesting.

Personally, I don't go there for the decor.  I don't think it's bad, as such, but the color scheme emphasizes whites (linoleum floor), gray (section dividers), and various shades of blue (accent features), so it comes across to me as chilly.  Except in the grocery section (for those stores that have one), lighting levels are also lower, in sharp contrast to Target, which almost feels overlit to me.

I also haven't had much experience with merchandise being rearranged since I rarely go there with a lengthy shopping list.  A fair percentage of my recent trips have been for motor oil for an oil change I intend to perform in the subsequent month.  Walmart is pretty much the only large discounter left that still has a reasonable selection of synthetic oil in gallon or five-quart jugs, and its pricing is far better than that of the auto-parts stores or even Amazon.  In a typical Walmart, car-repair supplies tend to be located near the service desk for the auto center and thus are effectively exempt from periodic reshuffling of goods within the store.

I do have to cope with such rearrangements at the Dillons supermarket I visit at least once every Saturday, and I hate them since they inevitably lead to lengthy witch hunts for infrequently purchased items like dry-cell batteries and lemon juice.

[JayhawkCO]

Target >>>> Walmart

[Scott5114]

Walmart is not intended to be fancy, just a place to economically get stuff that you might need.

My biggest complaint about them is their constantly moving and rearranging that stuff, making it harder and more time-consuming to find.  Their Appleton, WI area locations are relatively remote from where I live here in the downtown area, but that is generally not a factor in my above thoughts.

Mike

There are reasons items get moved around and rearranged all the time. First reason is any time there are new products coming in, aisles or departments get reset to make room for the new items. Second, is many items are seasonal, so every time a new season comes along, it's out with the old, in with the new. And probably not the least of the reasons is psychological. The longer you have to look for the items you need or want, the more you'll see you want or need and the more you'll buy. Walmart isn't the only store that rearranges the setup of items on the shelves.

Thing is, by them chasing $5 in extra profit out of me by playing stupid mind games, I am incentivized to take my $200/week in grocery money somewhere else so I don't have to deal with that nonsense. So how exactly is that an effective business strategy?

My grocery store in Oklahoma rearranged once over the six years or so that I was going there. And that was only because state law changed to where they could carry more alcohol, so they had to make room for that. They never had to rearrange for seasonal stuff because they had...a seasonal aisle. What a concept.

I probably spent something like $75,000 at that store over the years just because they made a conscious decision to not be obnoxious. They keep opening new stores so it's clearly working for them.

[Max Rockatansky]

The idea with changing Planograms is that it necessitates searching the store (whether you want to or not).  The theory is that by getting lost looking for something that you might pick up a couple extra items along the way.  Apparently it generally yields a net positive in items sold and tapers off gradually until the next Planogram change.