[lbo-talk] Forbes on Google Wallet - the League of Morons

Fernando Cassia fcassia at gmail.com
Sun Dec 18 00:33:53 PST 2011


When I read this article I was instantly reminded of a funny line from the Cohen Brothers film "Burn after Reading" when one of the characters says "you´re worse than a moron, you´re part of a League of Morons".

http://www.forbes.com/sites/quickerbettertech/2011/09/26/google-launches-the-ultimate-jobs-killer/2/

Watch out for gloating about "killing unproductive jobs", and snide remarks on supermarket employees and, of course, government, who apparently can train people but "only so much" (ie there´s little point in training idiots, seems to be his angle).

btw: his entire reasoning is flawed, he can´t just scan barcodes and walk away with his merchandise, because who will check he paid for everything he bought?, guess he will have to unload everything again. ;)

The solution to his "Problems" (if one can call it that) are two:

1. Web sites and home delivery. I don´t know about the US of A but down here all major supermarket chains have web sites where you can order stuff and have it delivered, in some instances the same day, in others the next day, for really little cost. In two instances you pay on-line, in other the delivery cleak that arrives to your home carries a posnet card reader that works wirelessly (a card swiper connected via GSM/3G)

2. RFID tags built into every packing container of stuff you buy at the supermarket. That would really help the supermarket tally everything you´re walking away without the tedious unloading-reloading of stuff. But in this approach the cashier at the supermarket would keep his job (it has to, anyway, for people that would still pay cash).

3. In other words, payment is NOT the delay, so Google Wallet or no-wallet doesn´t make any difference with regards to the "tedious process" of groceries shopping that this guy complains about.

FC -- "The purpose of computing is insight, not numbers." Richard Hamming - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamming_code



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list