Wine bottles and other topplesome groceries could stand vertically, thus saving space, thus reducing conveyance time, thus saving electricity, thus delaying humanity's demise.-- Texticle, May 15 2007 Possibly false economy. Often V-V-F and other, mechanical soft start mechanisms turn out to be, in a purely power-consumed aspect, less efficient.
Bun/Bone witheld pending your proposal including the method of softstart. Oh, and you'd want an emergency hard-stop option for safety, shirley?
Stand by for the next addition: emergency pull-wires for supermarket checkout conveyors. Including ISO rated pinch-point guarding, load-limiting, belt scrapers, belt-rip detection, tracking frames, the whole kit-and -kaboodle.-- Custardguts, May 15 2007 excellent idea. I'd like the ability as a shopper to slow the belt down and accelerate at will (perhaps with a foot pedal)-- po, May 15 2007 No, no, no, you need a sort of bicycle which the checkout operators (like me) sit on - forward-pedal for speeding it up, backward-pedalling to slow it down.-- froglet, May 15 2007 But the thing travels what, one foot? How much speed could it gain if it had to slowly accelerate and also decelerate? Poor cashiers.-- phundug, May 15 2007 [Custardguts], I was thinking of electronic soft starts/stops. Point taken re: emergency stops etc. Also a blanket ban on neck ties, long hair, and loose clothing should be imposed.
[phundug], I'm not suggesting a really long ramp up and ramp down - just enough to remove the jerks that tend to topple vertically-standing wine bottles. Poor cashiers? Hah. They've had it too good for too long.-- Texticle, May 15 2007 Clearly, we need speed bumps in checkout conveyor belts.-- jutta, May 15 2007 I carefully arrange our water and soda bottles domino style, so fishbone, sorry - I *want* the things to fall all over the place!-- DrCurry, May 15 2007 Fascinating. Why would you *want* your beverages to fall over into the smeared puddles of raw chicken juice?-- Texticle, May 15 2007 Oh, it's not the chicken puddles. I once got to watch (this is at one of the circular grocery-centrifuge types) a 2-liter of rootbeer go over the edge. It bounced to about knee-high and air-bursted. Spectacular effect. Particularly as it was only a foot and a half behind the cashier at the next register... poor girl.-- lurch, May 15 2007 [+] for the upbringing of [lurch]'s anno. I'm not particularly fond of the energy-reduction-solution for climate change, btw.-- sweet, May 16 2007 //I once got to watch (this is at one of the circular grocery-centrifuge types) a 2-liter of rootbeer go over the edge. It bounced to about knee-high and air-bursted.//
Hah. That once happened to me at my job (checkout chick) at the supermarket.
//smeared puddles of raw chicken juice// The policy about the whole chicken-juice thing is to 'mop it up when you have a moment'. The main problem with this is that at many supermarkets - particularly in urban hubs such as the plaza where I work, there is rarely a moment due to all the people that storm the place. Another thing that bothers me is that while you're meant to clean the conveyor belt, and you're marked upon it by the 'secret shoppers' who make sure that you're not rude to customers or try to hide behind the checkout counter when you think nobody is looking, just that there's never any time, and then they go and remove all the cleaning cloths, so even if you wanted to keep your lane clean, you can't. I seriously dislike this because people often put raw, unpackaged vegetables upon places where there has probably been meat at some point during the day. Then again, I wash my hands wherever I can because I hate the feeling of meat juice upon my hands, particularly when I see that there are veggies and fruits coming up. All halfbakers: Scrub your fruits and veggies *Thouroughly* before you eat it. I just pray that all my customers do (hey, I don't want to be the harbinger of some random raw-meat carried disease or something like that). </rant>-- froglet, May 16 2007 /energy-reduction-solution for climate change/
You said climate change, not me. But since it's been brought up, why are you not a fan of energy reduction?-- Texticle, May 16 2007 I don't think that toppling a vertically-placed wine cask box is beyond the abilities of my supermarket's conveyor. Consequential damage to adjacently placed bread would be extreme.-- Texticle, May 16 2007 Do they still sell wine in foil pouches or bags? Let's see you try and topple one of those over on any conveyor!
Besides, if you're that concerned over the safety of your wine why don't you just carry it separately, cradled in your loving arms, held close to your heart, which is pounding with anticipation of savouring the heavenly bouquet, the light fruity flavour, the mind-numbing buzz you get once you have slugged the whole thing back out behind the dumpster in the alley in back of the grocery store, wading knee-deep in your own remorse, dignity and self respect now a fading memory.
Sorry, I think that was a clip from a late-late-night movie I saw last week. As you were...
edit: (Thanks, po. Missing word has been inserted.)-- Canuck, May 17 2007 I'm keen as the next person on sucking fluid out of foil bladders, however I feel that said packaging would have a large footprint on the conveyor. Toppling is resolved, but humanity's demise is unaddressed.-- Texticle, May 17 2007 [Canuck], you think YOU were a clip...-- po, May 17 2007 //humanity's demise is unaddressed//Return to Sender?-- methinksnot, May 17 2007 random, halfbakery